The girl I’ve spent the last decade searching for is now only a few yards ahead of me, walking through the misty darkness.
Even from this distance, I can see the way she moves.
She is careful, alert, and her gaze shifts constantly, taking in everything around her without lingering on anything for too long. Her awareness sharp for someone so sweet, and it’s interesting to me because I want to know what made her this way. Was it her parents’ murder? Was that the only event in her life that made her this hypervigilant?
I try to keep my mind from wandering because I need to focus on her. I can’t get distracted thinking about all the lives I’m going to ruin when I find out who has hurt her over the years.
Livingston has spent most of her life surviving things that would break other people. The world taught her early that danger doesn’t announce itself politely, it comes in swinging when you least expect it.
Still, even with all that careful attention, she never once glances in my direction.
She doesn’t see me.
The realization settles into my chest with a slow burn of anger.
Because if she can’t see me following her this easily, someone else could do the same thing.
Someone who has been fixated on her just like I have all these years. I’m going to find the fucker who’s looking for her. Then I’m going to start with his fingers and eyelids, ripping him apart for even thinking about my girl.
My jaw tightens at the thought.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone made the mistake of thinking Livingston doesn’t have someone willing to kill for her.
Since I’ve been on this campus, I’ve already dealt with three men who thought she was an easy target, but I can spot them from a fucking mile away. None of them ever got close enough to actually touch her, but the way they watched her was enough for me.
One of them thought it would be funny to trail her after one of her classes, keeping just close enough behind her that she could feel it. He was older, not a professor, but wore the St. Killian crest on his stupid little polo shirt.
He didn’t think it was funny when I found him later and beat the breath out of him. He begged me to kill him before I tossed him off the cliff, but that would have been too humane. I saw the way his eyes moved up her legs and over the curve of her ass. I know what he was thinking because I’m no better than him. Livingston’s body wrapped in that plaid skirt is a fucking wet dream that belongs only to me.
I don’t give a fuck. She’s mine.
Livingston will never know any of that happened, and she shouldn’t. I don’t want her to ever worry about anything. Money, protection, her happiness? That’s all my job, and I’m more than equipped to provide that for her. Even if my brother and I hadn’thad success with that silly little game built and sold, I’d find a way to provide for her. That’s what makes this life worth living in the first place. I want to give Livingston everything and anything she could ever want.
My girl would probably run in the opposite direction the second she realized what I’m capable of, but I have a sneaking suspicion she’ll warm up to the idea.
The rain begins to fall harder now, the soft mist turning into a steady drizzle and I’m annoyed that I can’t catch up to her and get her out of the rain. Livingston cups her hands over the top of her head in a futile effort to save her hair from getting soaked. It’s beginning to cling to her shoulders.
She looks smaller like this. Fragile in a way that makes something protective coil deep in my chest. My girl is close enough that if I wanted to, and fuck do I want to, I could reach her in a few strides and haul her into my arms.
But like a good little stalker, I keep my distance.
I can’t stop thinking about the look on her face when she realized I was standing in front of her outside the pub. It told me everything I needed to know.
Livingston Rhodes isn’t ready for me yet.
And if I’ve learned anything over the last decade, it’s that protecting her means knowing when to put my feelings second to hers.
Even if every instinct I have is telling me to walk up beside her and grab her, hold her to my chest and never let her go.
I have to admit that there are moments when watching her feels almost peaceful.
Not often.
But sometimes.
Like the quiet evenings when she walks Juniper’s dog through the narrow streets around campus, the leash looped loosely around her wrist as the old dog trots beside her. I’vewatched her do it more times than I can count now. She always takes the long way around the block, even when the weather is miserable, even when the wind coming off the sea is strong enough to whip her hair all around her face.
Livingston never rushes the dog.
