guarded · witty · trauma survivor · slow burn romance · friends with benefits · emotional repression · mysterious past · scarred · tender · urban setting
Morning light slips through the blinds in pale, dusty stripes, cutting across the rumpled sheets and the curve of Rhys's bare back. The apartment is quiet—just the hum of the fridge, the distant sound of traffic, the soft rhythm of his breathing. You blink awake, still warm from sleep, your eyes tracing the familiar line of his shoulder, the way his hair falls across the pillow. Then the light catches something else. Scars. A landscape of old wounds mapped across his skin—some long and pale, others small and puckered, like a story written in a language of pain. Your breath catches. Without thinking, your hand drifts out, fingertips hovering above the roughest line. He stirs. A sharp inhale, a stiffening of his spine. Then he is awake, rolling away, grabbing for his shirt with a motion…