I reach for my phone on instinct, checking the notifications again. Bianca’s at the bookstore.
Okay, good. I can do this. I have to go to the bookstore anyway because my mother's birthday is coming up, and I want to buy her a book. This will make things easier.
Pragmatic or something.
I park the car a good distance from the entrance, making sure I'm nowhere near Bianca's little blue hatchback. She's probably at the back, with her?—
And then Bianca'sright therein front of me, her eyes wide when she accidentally steps into my space. Her perfume hits me before I can brace for it, roses and something warm underneath, something that short-circuits every rational thought I have.
I’m dizzy with the knowledge that she'shere… infrontof me.
My heart slams against my ribs. I feel as tongue-tied as alad as I shake my head and gesture for her to go ahead of me. My hands are shaking. Ineverfuckin'shake.
Roses.
I can see the individual dark lashes framing those eyes, the way her lips part slightly in surprise, the delicate pulse at her throat.
Christ, I want to put my mouth there.
“Oh! I'm so sorry. Excuse me.”
She has the voice of an angel.
I swallow hard, my throat tight. “Oh, nothing at all. Go on, then,” I manage, the words coming out rougher than I intended. I gesture stiffly for her to go ahead of me, my hand trembling slightly before I shove it into my pocket.
Fuck, I sound like aneejit.
She grins at me. Actuallygrins.
And my heart—my fuckingheart—comes to a standstill for a fraction of a second. Long enough that I forget how to breathe, forget my own name, forget everything except the way her smile transforms her entire face. It's the real smile, the one I've cataloged and memorized. The one that makes her eyes crinkle at the corners and shows the tiny gap between her front teeth.
“Thanks,” she says, her voice soft and warm. Christ, I've heard that voice through cameras and from a distance, but never directed atme. Never this close.
She slips past me, close enough that her shoulder brushes my arm, and I have to lock my knees to keep from reaching for her. From touching her. From doing something completely fucking absurd, like pulling her against me just to see if she fits as perfectly as I've imagined.
The spot where we touched burns like a brand.
I stand there like a useless gobshite, watching her walk toward the history section—ofcourseshe's going to the history section—her dark hair swaying with each step. She's wearing a cream-colored jumper that's too big for her, slipping off one shoulder, and those goddamn jeans that hug her curves in a way that makes my mouth go dry.
Get a fucking grip.
I force myself to move, to head toward a completely different section, putting distance between us before I do something I can't take back. Before she notices the way I'm looking at her.
Before she realizes I'm not some random stranger in a bookstore, but the man who's been… watching her… for nine months.
My hands are still shaking.
I clench them into fists, feeling the familiar ache in my scarred knuckles, and try to remember why I came here in the first place.
Right. Abook for Mam.
But all I can think about is the way Bianca smiled at me.
This is wrong. So fucking wrong.
She doesn't know me at all, yet I could recite every intricate line and detail of her life to her.
But I'm not astalker.
