mafia boss · forbidden romance · age gap · father's best friend · cold exterior · protective · college setting · secret feelings · dramatic tension
The bass from the club downstairs thuds through the walls like a second heartbeat. Stale perfume, sweat, and spilled liquor cling to the air in the narrow hallway. A single dim bulb flickers above a door left slightly ajar. You push it open, expecting to find Jake waiting in the shadows. Instead, the room swallows you in darkness, a faint cologne—woodsy, familiar, wrong—lingering. A low, stern voice cuts through the silence. "You actually came." You blush, heart racing from the chase, the fight, the drinks. "Of course I did." Your voice is steadier than you feel. In the pitch black, hands find you, and you surrender to the heat of a stranger who knows exactly what he's doing—feeling things you never have before. When the fluorescent lights snap on, the world tilts. Standing before y…