5. Andres

CHAPTER 5

ANDRES

At first, when Carmen turned me down for dinner, the cocky asshole side of me thought she was playing hard to get. Making me work for it. But she’d flinched when I tried to tuck a stray hair behind her ear, and that had me pumping the breaks.

Not completely.

I didn’t stay away. I doubted I could if I wanted to.

I’d just been better at keeping my distance. Of watching her from afar, making sure I wasn’t being so obvious. Watching her when she didn’t know it. The lines of right and wrong had already blurred, but now I didn’t know where they were anymore. I was doing shit that if I ever heard a man did to a woman, I’d call the cops on him myself.

But there I was, breaking god only knew how many fucking laws because every basic primal instinct inside of me couldn’t stay away.

Sitting at the edge of our fence line on a nightly basis because I couldn’t bear being so damn close to her without straining to hear something, anything. Even her simple Catch, Stitch and Good boy compliments she gave her dog made my day better. Not to mention the sound of her giggles when the pooch did something to make her laugh.

I had no idea how the hell I had stopped myself from jumping the fence to make sure with my own two eyes that she was okay after I’d heard her soft little ouch . She had been close to the fence line, and a part of me wondered if she was curious about me. Or was she as obsessed about me as I was about her?

Fuck, the thought had my already hard cock throbbing.

Staying up and talking in the darkness fed the beast inside of me. I knew no matter how much turning and tossing I did, sleep wouldn’t be happening. Not when her voice and every little soft sigh or giggle bounced in my head on a fucking loop. It was a sweet torture. One I knew would slowly turn me insane.

When I couldn’t stay in bed any longer and my dick was raw from jerking off to the thought of her, I rolled out of bed and got ready. I was out of my house before the sun even rose. I hit up Stacked, the diner at the outskirts of town that was open twenty-four hours. The girl behind the register looked familiar, and I was almost sure she worked for Carmen at the library. I drove home, and from there, I walked around the block. My feet guided me right to her place.

Then I kept walking.

I probably looked like a fucking crazy ass! Walking around the block with a drink tray and a bag of food so damn early, doing laps because I wasn’t sure how to approach her place. By the time I’d gone around three times, I decided it was time. I was standing where I usually left her and just about to make my way up the walkway, when her door opened.

And my brain momentarily stuttered. Once again, Carmen surprised me with the clothes she wore. Where I was used to adults at the school wearing neutrals or the blue of the school colors, my girl picked and chose as many colors of the rainbow as she could manage, somehow making it work. This morning hadn’t been any different. She wore a sundress that stopped below her knee with a floral print that made you so damn glad summer was here.

I managed to ask if she was hungry, and the smile she gave me was genuine. Long gone were the guarded smiles. It felt like a gift. One I wasn’t sure she even knew she’d given me. One I sure as hell wasn’t going to take for granted.

Carmen didn’t invite me in, but I didn’t mind.

I enjoyed sitting on the chairs she kept out on the porch, looking out at the quiet street that was slowly waking up. When we were done, I walked her to the library and winked at her, taking in the pretty blush of her cheeks before making my way back to my office. An office I had been pacing with nervous energy, thinking about nothing but the next moment I could see her.

My home laptop pinged, and I rushed over to my desk after shutting the door. A tremor of excitement flowed through me when I saw who the message was from.

“Finally., I mumbled under my breath. The email I’d been waiting on from one of my old tech friends sat in my inbox. After logging the laptop off the school’s Wi-Fi and connecting it to the hotspot of my phone, I opened the message.

Jud: You didn’t get this from me.

The message read.

Jud was a man of few words.

I glanced at my door and then rolled my neck. I was taking stupid risks. I knew that as my mouse hovered over the link that was in the message from what I could assume would be an untraceable email address. Jud wasn’t just good, he was the best.

I knew it was wrong, yet I still clicked on the link.

My lungs seized as I waited for the longest second of my life for it to load what I had asked him to get. And just like that, the screen filled with the live security footage in the library. The smile on my face grew when I spotted her. Standing at the main information desk, talking to her student employees. That cute colorful dress made my mouth water .

Fuck, how is it she seems to be prettier every time I see her? And now I could watch her while she worked. Flitting and fluttering from one end of the building to the other. I could watch her the entire day. The thought filled me with relief and peace I’d never experienced. Not as a single man who knew the sister he had raised was finished with school and about to embark on a life with her partner. Not even before when my parents had been alive.

Never.

My eyes moved from screen to screen as I watched her work. I didn’t have a camera in her office, but I did have one outside of it. I sat back and relaxed. The only thing that could have been better would have been standing at her side.

And despite knowing it was wrong, so fucking wrong, I could breathe. If only there were a way to watch her when she was at home. Maybe that was what I would work on next?