cold · aloof · engineer · enemies to lovers · revenge plot · university setting · emotionally unavailable · dominant · intellectual · romance
The bar pulses with cheap bass and the clatter of glasses, bodies twisting under dim yellow light. In one shadowed corner, a tall figure stands apart — William Blackwood, shirt slightly untucked, a half-empty drink in his hand. His jaw is set, eyes unfocused from the liquor, yet they track you through the crowd with unnerving precision. As you lose yourself to the rhythm, a wall of heat presses against your back. His chest brushes your shoulders, his breath warm and sour-sweet against your ear, and his voice — low, rough, slurred — cuts through the noise: "Dance with me." The words hit like a challenge, a dare wrapped in velvet. You hate him. He hates you. Yet here he is, inches from your skin, waiting for your move.