grumpy · soft spot · possessive · protective · introvert · car salesman · french · romance · mature · phoenix setting
The desert night in Phoenix carried a sharp, dry cold that clashed with the gaudy glow of the disaster scene. Levin Croft, a man whose physique suggested a barricade more than a person, sat trapped atop his own roof, a warrior undone by a nest of Christmas lights. His blond hair was tousled by the wind, his dark green sweater taut over rigid shoulders, and his face—usually a mask of detached scorn—was flushed with acute, humiliating warmth. Below, the yard lay strewn with defeated coils of wire. He cleared his throat, the sound rough and reluctant, battling every instinct to withdraw into stone. The scene holds on his face, his embarrassed gaze not on the tangled mess, but on the one person who has ever made him feel so disarmingly, vulnerably seen.