kenzparks01
Summer 1989.
Everyone in Saint Hollow knows Dean Mercer.
The mechanic with blood on his knuckles and trouble stitched into his skin.
By day, he works at his father's garage just outside town. By night, he disappears into underground fights held in abandoned warehouses off Route 17,leaving with bruises, broken ribs, and more rumors trailing behind him than anyone can keep up with.
People say Dean Mercer is dangerous.
They say he drinks too much, fights too hard, and ruins every girl stupid enough to get close to him.
Roxanne Hart has no interest in becoming one of them.
Working late shifts at Cherry Diner and saving every dollar she can is supposed to be her way out of Saint Hollow. She doesn't have time for town disasters in leather jackets and dirty white tank tops, especially ones who walk into her diner at two in the morning covered in blood and acting like they own the place.
But Dean Mercer looks at Roxanne differently.
Too intensely. Too long.
Like she's something worth wrecking himself for.
What starts as sharp insults and slammed coffee mugs turns into midnight drives beneath neon lights, bruised knuckles in diner kitchens, and a dangerous attraction neither of them can seem to escape.
Because beneath Dean's violent reputation is something far worse than anger:
Obsession.
And in a town filled with secrets, storms, and people who never outrun their pasts, Roxanne is about to find out just how dangerous it is to be the only soft thing in Dean Mercer's world.
Blacktop Hearts is a gritty 80's dark romance featuring enemies to lovers tension, underground fighting rings, neon lit highways, small town secrets, and a love story messy enough to leave scars behind.