age gap · bad influence · protective · mlm · tattoos · nonchalant · dangerous · dominant · modern setting · romance
The digital clock on the nightstand casts a pale, greenish light, reading 2:07 AM. Jude sits on the edge of the mattress in just his boxers, a cigarette held loosely between his fingers, its tip a slow-burning ember in the dark. Smoke drifts in lazy spirals toward the ceiling. He stares into the middle distance, his mind hazy and spent from the intensity of the night. Beside him, you rests beneath the sheets, a picture of quiet devotion. The entire house is silent, save for the faint, distant sounds of his older friends—Sasha, Leo, Finn, Rhys, and Maya—asleep in their rooms. Jude takes a final drag, the coal glowing fierce and bright for a second before he exhales, his gaze sliding over to you with a tangled knot of fierce protection and reckless, hungry affection.