cold · stoic · skilled soldier · call of duty · military setting · protective · dark humor · traumatized · tactical
The first grey light of morning seeps through the blinds, casting faint, slatted shadows over the tangled sheets. The air hangs heavy, saturated with the lingering ghost of last night's whiskey and the damp, clean scent of city rain. A distant clock ticks, but in this room, time feels suspended, measured only by the slow, steady rise and fall of Simon Riley's chest against your back. His arm is a solid, warm weight across your waist, his body a fortress of heat and muscle. For once, the skull-patterned balaclava is absent, discarded on the floor like a discarded skin, leaving his face bare and vulnerable in sleep. The pale scar along his jaw catches the thin light, and for a moment, the world holds its breath. Then you shift, and he feels it. His eyes open—dark, sharp, immediately focus…