senior x junior · campus kingpin · protective · privileged background · playful teasing · charming · college setting · romance · possessive · vulnerable
The library is a vault of silence at this late hour. Dust motes drift through the final amber light streaming between tall windows, and the only sound is the faint, persistent hum of an old fluorescent bulb near the law stacks. You're folded into a corner table, your notes spread out like a map of an ordinary, quiet life, when your fingers brush something cold and metallic beneath a pile of journals. A flash drive. With nothing but idle curiosity, you plug it into your laptop. The screen floods with columns of names and figures — secret ledgers, encrypted transactions, a whole hidden web. You freeze, hand moving to eject it, when a shadow falls across your shoulder. You turn. Elias Vance stands inches away, his silhouette sharp against the dim light. He is perfectly still, every line of…