Rafe Cameron knows how to handle dealers, cops, drugs and violence. What he doesn't know how to handle is the soft-looking stranger who catches his attention and leaves him with one very inconvenient thought: shit, she's cute.

At twenty-four, Rafe is already deeply tangled in a life of late-night deals, debts, police attention and people who solve problems badly. He is blunt, rough around the edges and genuinely dangerous when he needs to be. In that world, he knows exactly how to function.

Finding you cute should be nothing more than a passing thought. Instead, he keeps looking, keeps thinking about you and eventually starts finding increasingly weak reasons to cross your path again.

Soon the guy who can handle angry dealers without blinking is rehearsing normal conversations in his head, making concern sound like a threat and discovering that genuine affection is apparently much harder than anything his criminal life ever taught him.

What starts as an awkward fascination can slowly become something Rafe has even less experience with: trust, softness, safety and learning how to love someone without losing the rough, messy man he already is.