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She nodded, and I lowered my big frame onto the small bench. I took up most of the space, so she scooted over to make a little more room for me.
“My name is Thatcher.” I smiled warmly, and she hesitantly returned the gesture. She looked nervous, but there was no fear in her eyes. Was she as comfortable with me as I was with her? Did she feel what was between us? She had to. There was no fucking way this was one-sided.
“Imogene,” she responded. I kept the fact that I already knew her name to myself.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” Even in the dim lighting, I was able to see the sprinkling of pink on her cheeks as she blushed.
I forced myself to tear my eyes away from her for a few minutes. My feelings for her were so intense that I wanted to ease her in, make her fall for me before she discovered the true depths of my obsession with her. That’s when I noticed the portfolio propped on the seat next to her. I gestured to it and asked, “Will you show me some of your work? I’ve seen your displays, but I’ve never studied them up close. From what I can tell, you’re incredibly talented.”
Imogene’s expression turned shy even as she beamed at me, lighting up the night more than the moon or stars ever could. She set her notebook on the bench between us and twisted to pick up her big, black folder.
A soft breeze blew in off the bay and fluttered the flimsy cover of the sketch pad. Imogene was just straightening up with a few papers in her hands when another, stronger wind blew the notebook open completely. She gasped, and my eyes locked on the detailed pencil drawing on the paper. It was me.
Imogene dropped the other pieces of art, and they slid to the ground as she scrambled to grab the sketch pad. I snatched it up before she could get to it and quickly thumbed through the pages. They were filled with drawings in pencil, charcoal, or oil pastels. There were also oil paintings and watercolors. There had to have been over sixty pictures, and they all had one thing in common. Me.
The realization that she couldn’t stop thinking of me, to the point where she’d drawn my likeness dozens and dozens of times, had my heart throwing a fucking party in my chest. My dick was also eager to join the celebration, and I had to hold the pad over my lap while adjusting myself.
“Please give that back, Thatcher,” she pleaded. I lifted my gaze and was startled by the distress on her face. Her whiskey eyes were churning with anxiety and fear. “I’m sorry. You just have such a beautiful face.” Her hands moved wildly, gesturing as she rambled. “I swear, I’m not a crazy stalker.” I almost burst into laughter at that but succeeded in muffling it and disguising it with a cough. She had no idea what a crazy stalker looked like.
That thought was like a splash of cold water, and the reality of where we were and what time it was suddenly sunk in. “Are you out of your mind?” I barked. Imogene reared back in shock, and I immediately regretted my tone. But all of the worst-case scenarios of a young woman in a park at night were playing out in my head, and the fear of what could have happened to her was manifesting itself in a ball of rage.
Imogene quickly seized the notebook from my hands and shoved it in her portfolio. Her feet brushed the fallen papers when she leaned over, and I bent down to pick them up for her. That’s when I spotted the beat-up duffle bag tucked in underneath the bench.
I closed my eyes and tried to breathe steadily. That couldn’t be what I thought it was, right? No way had I missed this. I opened my eyes again and stared at the bag. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it was true. All that anger did a one-eighty and was fully unleashed on myself.
I’d spent the last two months preparing the perfect home for Imogene, and during all that time she’d been living out of a duffle bag on the New York City streets.
“Fuck!” I growled harshly. I was going to fucking kill the PI I’d hired to dig into her. It never occurred to the asshole that she didn’t have an address because she was fucking homeless? I cursed again as I grabbed the bag and shot to my feet, then quickly shoved the rest of the papers into her folder before taking that in the same hand as her bag. I used my unoccupied hand to take hers in a firm grip. Not hard enough to cause her pain but one I knew she couldn’t escape from without a lot of effort. “Let’s go,” I gritted out as I stomped across the grass and bike path until I reached the street.
