"Fuck. Elena, you really need to stop. I'm a grown man, Elena, not one of those little boys you're used to dealing with." New notification: 1 view-once photo. "Fuck. Stop it. I can see you from the window." Some lines are never meant to be crossed. Especially not the one right across the hallway. I know next to nothing about him. Nothing except his massive frame, the ungodly hours he comes home, and the dark exhaustion etched into his face whenever I secretly watch him from my window. He's a stranger, older, a man of few words, yet the pull between us is visceral. A suffocating, inexplicable tension that only thickens every time our paths cross. He knows he shouldn't come near me. So he keeps his distance, watching over me from afar, a fierce protective instinct and a quiet jealousy burning beneath the surface. Until tonight. A local dive bar, a boyfriend who just cheated on me, one drink too many, and my eyes finally colliding with his. Every boundary shatters. I don't know him, but tonight, his hands are the only place I want to lose myself in.

For nineteen years, Annabella, known by everyone as Bella, grew up with two men she could always rely on: her father, Henry, and Zaack, his father's best friend... Ever since her mother passed away from cancer when Bella was only five years old, Zaack had always been there. Protective, reassuring, almost like a second father. Then, overnight, he left. Two years. A military mission classified as top secret. No calls. No explanations. During his absence, Bella went through the hardest moments of her life, and the person she needed the most was no longer there. Today, Zaack is finally back. But their reunion is nothing like what they had imagined. Between anger, wounds, guilt, and secrets, the years have changed everything... especially them.

Working the night shift means Y/N is used to strange things happening after dark-but the mysterious man living across the hall might be the strangest yet.

When she comes home for summer, the one man who makes her feel safe is the one she can never have-her father's best friend, Frank Castle. Older, scarred, and fiercely protective, Frank tries to keep his distance. But in the hazy heat of long summers and stolen moments, forbidden desire begins to unravel them both. A slow-burn age-gap romance thick with tension, tenderness, and dangerous temptation. TW: heavy smutt, swearing, alcohol, cheating mentioned, age gaps, sex, slight violence.