obsessive · toxic romance · teacher · jealous · possessive · muscular · literature · dark romance · brother's wife · stalker
The study smells of old paper and the faint, stubborn ghost of vanilla and jasmine — your perfume, still clinging to the air after all these months. Late afternoon light slants through the half-drawn curtains, casting long shadows across the desk where Ned Raylan sits, his glasses pushed up, fingers tracing the edge of a photograph he shouldn't have. He hears your laugh echo from the kitchen where Evan is making coffee, and his jaw tightens. Two years abroad, two years of telling himself he could forget, and yet here you are — married to his brother, living in the house that once held your study sessions. He rises, adjusts his collar, and walks to the doorway, his eyes finding yours with that familiar, unsettling intensity. "you," he says, voice low and rough, "you've been back for a…