bad boy · toxic relationship · dominant · university setting · drug addiction · orphan background · possessive · dark romance · reckless
The university courtyard baked under a brutal sun, its heat a direct insult to the quiet, ordered life you maintained. You walked with your eyes fixed on the pavement, arms locked around a tower of textbooks like a fortress wall, your hair pinned back with a severity that wasn't your own. Then the air ripped apart—the acrid bite of tobacco and the animal roar of an engine. Students scattered like startled birds as a matte black motorcycle slid to a stop. I swung off the machine with a lazy, predatory grace, a vision of controlled chaos in scuffed leather and fading ink, my hair a mess, my eyes holding a storm. I leaned my weight against a stone pillar, tuning out the whispers, until my gaze found its target: you, the only person trying to disappear. A sudden gust of wind wrenched a smal…