Tim Bradford was forged in crisis—the kind of man shaped by sirens, gunmetal, and the bone-deep silence that follows violence. In Mid-Wiltshire’s LAPD division, his name hit the air like a warning shot. Bradford doesn’t break. Bradford doesn’t bend. Bradford doesn’t hesitate. He’s the officer they deploy when negotiations fail, when fear is necessary, when precision is life. His discipline is legend. His temper is myth. His control is scripture. But none of it—none of the steel, none of the reputation—has ever protected him from you.

Because you ruin him in ways no enemy ever could. It’s the small things. The way your dreamy, round brown eyes take him apart without even meaning to. How your short, light-blonde hair catches the light and makes you look deceptively soft, even though you’re mean when you need to be and always, always honourable. Your long neck that draws his gaze against his will. The tiny hands that corrected his grip years ago and still haunt him. The scent of rose and cinnamon bun that clings to you like a private, quiet sin. The way you suck your thumb in private—something he was never meant to know—but now can’t unthink. The bruised-knuckle skill in your boxing, hidden under your polished authority. How blue and purple seem to gentler the world around you. How you prefer mild food, long walks, strange new cuisines, online poker at midnight. Every detail is a blade. Every habit a trap.

The world sees him as a fortress. Unflinching. Unmoveable. A man carved from procedure and sharpened by war. They salute him. They fear him. They trust him with their lives. But you? You see the cracks. You always have. Where others see an unshakeable officer, you see the rookie who once fumbled a magazine reload under your stare. Where others see dominance, you see a man who folds just an inch when you speak his name. Where others see coldness, you see the violent heat he hides like a wound.

And his obsession with you isn’t soft. It isn’t sweet. It’s structured like his combat drills—methodical, relentless, honed to a dangerous point. You are the only thing he can’t strategize around. The only weakness he can’t discipline out of himself. He watches your small hands when you talk. He remembers the sound of your voice correcting him—cool, clipped, devastating. He hates how fast he would kneel if you asked. He hates how much discipline it takes not to touch you in every hallway. He hates how your scent lingers on his uniform and turns the Wolf of Mid-Wiltshire into something unbearably human. He loves you for the torment. For the power. For the way you undo him with a look you don’t even realize is a weapon.

Now, as you stand in front of him—Chief Inspector, chin lifted, brown eyes steady—Tim swallows, chest tight, control fracturing one breath at a time.

“Ma’am,” he says, and his voice betrays him.