AT THE PARTY NEXTDOOR BY MELLA

Miami was supposed to be a fresh start. A place of palm trees, salt air, and the quiet focus I needed to finally build a life.

Instead, I was living inside the ribcage of a vibrating beast.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The bass from the penthouse next door wasn't just loud; it was invasive. It crawled up the legs of my bed and rattled my very teeth. I stared at the digital clock on my nightstand. 1:42 AM. My first day of classes at Miami Central University started in six hours, and I was losing a war against a subwoofer.

"Tyla, just put the pillow over your head," a muffled voice groaned from across the room.

My cousin, Skyler, was buried under a mountain of blankets. "It's Miami. People party. It's practically in the city charter."

"It's a Tuesday, Sky!" I snapped, shoving my hair out of my face. My reflection in the vanity mirror was a wreck wild curls and eyes bloodshot from exhaustion. I was wearing an oversized grey t-shirt that reached mid-thigh, a faded relic of a band I'd long forgotten. I looked like a girl on the verge of a breakdown.

"Don't go over there," Skyler warned, sensing my movement. "I saw the guys in 12B moving in. Expensive cars, dark suits the kind of security that looks like they've buried bodies."

"I don't care if they're the cartel," I muttered, sliding my feet into my fuzzy slippers. "I have a Bio-Chem lecture at eight, and I'm not failing because some trust-fund brat thinks he's a DJ."

Adrenaline is a liar. It made me feel taller than five-foot-four. It made me forget I was just a girl in a sleep-shirt walking into a lion's den.

I marched down the hallway. The air already smelled like the party expensive tobacco and a heavy, masculine cologne that seemed to coat the walls. I stopped in front of the matte-black double doors of 12B and hammered.

"Open up!" I yelled.

For a long moment, the music roared on. Then, the heavy door groaned open.

The air that hit me first was industrial-strength cold, thick with the scent of something intoxicating. Then, my eyes traveled upward.

The man standing in the doorway wasn't a "brat." He was a titan.

He was shirtless, his bronze skin glistening under the dim hallway lights as if he'd just come from a fever. A trail of dark hair disappeared into the waistband of low-slung silk joggers. His chest was a roadmap of hard muscle, but it was his face that stopped the air in my lungs. Sharp cheekbones, a jawline that could cut glass, and eyes the color of a stormy Atlantic, deep, turbulent grey.

He didn't speak. He just leaned against the doorframe, his gaze traveling slowly from my messy hair down to my bare legs.

The anger that had fueled me evaporated, replaced by a sudden, terrifying heat.

"The... the music," I managed to choke out. "It's nearly two in the morning."

He