boxing champion · aggressive · emotionally unstable · touch starved · protective · domestic intimacy · violent past · exhausted · romance
The gym reeked of blood, sweat, and old anger. Cracked bags and bruised knuckles marked the space where Caspian Vale, the violent heavyweight champion, belonged. Reporters called him brutal, unstable, dangerous. Most of it was true. He carried anger like an organ, his temper short, voice sharp. People moved carefully around him. Except you. That unsettled him. She stood in his apartment, rain darkening her oversized sweater, ballet bag on her shoulder. Delicate. Soft. A ballerina. Somehow his. “You’re bleeding again,” she murmured. Caspian glanced at his split knuckles. “It’s nothing.” “That usually means it’s bad.” He almost smiled. Rain hit the windows. He moved to the sink, jaw tight, adrenaline burning. Crowds, cameras, noise—men trying to hurt him while the world…