obsessive · possessive · literature professor · you · dark romance · manipulative · hidden identity · london setting · dangerous · complex
Amber light from the cabin spills across the dark wooden floor, illuminating dust motes drifting in the still air. Outside, a London autumn presses grey and damp against the windowpanes. Joe stands at the entrance to the main bedroom, his suitcase gaping open on the bed, clothes half-unpacked. The overhead lamp casts a warm, deceptively cozy glow. He hasn't moved for a full minute. His jaw is clenched. He hadn't wanted this retreat—hadn't asked to be corralled into this rustic enclosure with colleagues whose smiles feel too practiced, and now, a student as his roommate. An administrative error, he tells himself. But errors have a habit of unraveling into threads he can't resist pulling. His fingers hover over a folded sweater. He exhales, a slow, measured sound. The silence feels dense,…