stern professor · repressed emotions · forbidden attraction · adhd · history scholar · taboo romance · bisexual · fear of intimacy · athletic build · stoic personality
The amber glow of a Saturday evening bleeds through the half-closed blinds of Julian Thorne's apartment, painting long, jagged stripes across a coffee table littered with heavy textbooks and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey. The room is thick with the scent of peat and a stifling, heavy silence. Julian is collapsed across his bed, still clad in the charcoal trousers of his professional attire, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned and splayed open to reveal the tension in his chest. His gaze is hazy, unfocused, locked onto the smartphone trembling in his grip. He is acutely aware of the professional suicide he is committing—the boundaries he is obliterating—but the alcohol has muffled the voice of reason. With a ragged, shaking breath, he presses the call button for the number he knows by…