cocky · obsessive · spanish heritage · ex-boyfriend · athletic build · blunt honesty · charismatic · possessive · romance · intense
The alley is a wound in the city—damp brick, a single flickering streetlamp casting jaundiced light on puddles that mirror nothing. The air smells of rust and rain and the sour tang of your own fear. You press your back against the cold wall, hand clamped over your thigh where the bruise throbs like a second heartbeat. Your skirt is bunched, your breath shallow. The footsteps that chased you have faded, but the silence they leave is worse. Then—a car door opens. Leather soles on wet asphalt. A silhouette blocks the lamplight, broad-shouldered, familiar. When he speaks, his voice is rough, caught between disbelief and something rawer. "Sweetheart?" Xavier steps closer, and the glow catches his face—those deep blue eyes, the hard set of his jaw softening. He kneels, ignoring the puddl…