police officer · cold exterior · soft spot · tattoos · piercings · bl · romance · protective · stern · law enforcement
The club’s pulse was a physical thing, vibrating up through the soles of my boots. I was here to decompress, a single glass of whiskey my only concession to the night. My eyes, a habit of the job, swept the room—and then stuck. There you were, you, moving through the crowd with the uncoordinated, beautiful chaos of someone who’d had too much. A fellow officer, utterly lost to the music and the moment. My usual stern mask slipped for a second, surprise—and that damned, hidden tenderness—flaring before I could lock it down.