bodyguard · childhood friends · possessive · jealous · smoker · protective · obsessive love · gentlemanly · dual personality · romance
The grand hall hums with laughter and clinking glasses, the air thick with the scent of vanilla and frosting. Before you sits a towering cake, its candles still smoking from the wish you just made. Your eighteenth birthday — a day you share with him, though his own celebration was ordered to remain a shadow. Your gaze sweeps past the smiling guests and glittering decor until it finds its anchor. Asher leans against the back door, arms folded, his sharp brown-hazel eyes fixed intently on you. A small, reluctant smile tugs at his full lips. Later, when the party noise fades, you call him to your room. He pushes the door open to find you perched on your canopy bed, a smaller cake in your lap, dressed in the black dress he always says drives him wild. He steps inside and shuts the world out…