Page 74 of Café Diablo

It’s too easy to fall into a trap.

Olivia looks at me so genuinely, like it surprises her to not be trusted, especially as she sits with her body naked and vulnerable and curled perfectly against mine. Her knees cup my hips, our fronts are flush, she drapes her limbs around me like she was meant to fit right here in my lap.

She’s fucking perfect.

Perfect in the midst of all my crap.

I lean forward as much as I can, stretching my arms in their sockets and kissing her—timidly, reluctant, not sure how to give her all that she wants.

“I need—” I whisper indecisively, yet knowing I have to wade through this somehow. I nudge her nose with my own. “Put your hands on my chest. Where my heart is.”

Her eyes narrow inquisitively, but she pulls back from how we’re folded and places both of her palms on the left side of my body.

“You feel that?” I ask.

My heart is racing—still—like the panic inside a child.

My heart is racing and she nods, pressing her palms into my skin like the heat and warmth of them might heal what’s inside it. She looks down at me like she wants to reach into my chest and wrap my heart in sunshine and a hundred other things she knows how to cover it with.

But I feel like that child—am acting like a child—who’s panicking and alone and doesn’t have a clue how to deal with himself.

My blood races, streaming with uncertainty and dread, and I know a piece of that rage is the panic of the handcuffs: the loss of control, being blindsided by them, and then finding myself backed into a corner. But another, bigger part of that fear, is deeper than that. It isn’t two centimeters of metal that keeps me trapped. It’s what’s raging under the convergence of anger and pain from what my father has pulled on me today. My father hasn’t just stolen my business—my career, my livelihood—out from under my feet. It’s the reason he did it that breaks my heart.

I’m not good enough for him.

I don’t deserve to be loved.

Olivia’s hands tighten over my chest, and maybe my heart just went into overdrive, or she can read my mind, or she can feel how that one thought just shattered all my confidence. Her brown eyes are soft and full of compassion, gazing down at me like she’ll sit here all night with her hand over my heart—as long as I need her to.

And then there’s her—Olivia—the third piece causing my heart to pound like a buzzard. There’s the very real and alarming fact that I am completely undone by this woman, and I’m scared to death to trust her. It would be easier to tell myself that everything between us is just sex and be done with it, but that would be the lie of the century.

“You terrify me,” I say, swallowing hard and trying to find the words. “Do you feel my heart?” Her hands rub over my chest like she wants to calm all that’s beneath it. “It’s going crazy because I was told in no uncertain terms by my father that I’m not worthy of my family’s love.”

My breath thins.

Saying that out loud—giving it breath—wrings out every last ounce of air in my lungs. There’s no breath where the truth hangs.

“And then here you are,” I say, pushing through the tightness and discomfort. “And you’re incredible, Olivia, you truly are. And Iwantto trust you. I swear to God I do, but—” My throat tightens, all the knots and fears twisting through my skin. “Maybe after hearing about what my father just did, you can see why trusting you is not a small task.”

I breathe hard, rocks and emotion in my throat. My chest palpitates and I feel the prickle of a full-fledged panic attack coming on. But then, Olivia’s fingers start to swirl, dancing across my skin above where my heart is beating mercilessly. It fills my chest with something warm and burgeoning—something every instinct in my body wants to distrust.

“Olivia, I want everything with you,” I force out. “Including handcuffs I can’t remove, I—I just—”

“Don’t believe I’ll love you back,” she says softly, her fingers spreading out over my chest like fans, encompassing every nerve in my skin.

A fist lodges in my throat and I look out toward the city through the window—the lights soft and dark and unsettling.

Is that it?

Is that truly what I’m afraid of?

Hell, I hardly know whatIfeel about her, much less am I able to expect her to—

“I don’t know,” I whisper, cutting off my brain’s ruthless clamor, her comment nested with a hundred things I’m not ready to face.

“Hey…” Olivia turns my chin back to her, her forehead knit together in concern and empathy.

God, she’s still the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

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