I'm aprotector.
Chapter Four
Two years later…
Ashland
I am hopelesslyin love with a woman I’ve never touched, who doesn’t even know I exist.
I’ve watched her grow from an eighteen-year-old into a woman, and I… there’s no other word for it… I love her.
I haven’t touched a woman since that night I saved her in the alley. Not one fucking time.
My cousin Declan started calling meThe Priestuntil I gave the lad such a thorough beating that he laid off. The subject of my celibacy is none of his fucking business.
Still, they mock me.
“Uptight as fuck. When’s the last time you got laid, Ash?”
“Come with us to the club.”
“Half of Ballyhock would drop their knickers for you.”
And once, out of nothing but concern, my cousin Seamus, the head of the McCarthy clan, came to me to assure me that it was alright if I were of a different persuasion, that it’s not the Dark Ages anymore, and if I was into lads, I was into lads.
I cleared that up right quick.
It’s just that… the thought of touching anyone else makes me physically ill. I don’t even let myself imagine being with her because it feels too wrong, too fucked up. She’swaytoo young for me, and when I met her…
But one look at her innocent, beautiful curves, and I lose my fucking mind. I didn’tmeanto see her undress, but one night—fuck it—she ran into her room, late for a party, and tore off her clothes before she even shut the window. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t expect it. And the next thing I knew, she was damn near naked, her full breasts spilling out of her too-small bra, her knickers barely covering her curves.
Andfuck,does she have curves… full-figured and absolutely fuckingstunning.
Christ.
I had a camera set up by her house to make sure everything was safe and that no one would harm her, because it seemed the most efficient way to keep tabs on the lass. I didn’t mean to… see her… without clothes on.
I’ve kept everything involving Bianca to myself, and even I have to admit that at this point, my obsession has become… fuck it, I don’t know. Something… darker?
Yeah. Darker.
Got a fucking shrine now. At least that’s what I call it in my head.
A little napkin she wiped her lips with at the cafe where she works. Found it crumpled in the corner when I pretended to use the restroom and snagged it. Pressed it to my lips more often than I’d care to admit.
The library book she returned that I checked out immediately after and never returned.
A pale pink ribbon that fell from her hair.
A ballpoint pen I nicked from her bag that I keep on me. When I’m nervous or stressed or angry, I click it in my pocket, and it calms me down.
And pictures. So many fucking pictures. I got a little tired of seeing them just digitally and had some printed. At first, it felt risky, but now it just feels… natural.
I love them. I fucking love them.
Tonight, she has a date. A fuckingdate.
Little does she know she also has achaperone.
