Closing the first aid kit and placing it on top of her car to open the tin box. I squint at the items, confused, since they don’t seem to have any relation to one another. There’s two razor blades with the covers still on them, thumbnails used to hang papers to a corkboard, sewing needles, and a lighter. Out of the corner of my eye, Olivia flicks her thumbnail along the inside of her forefinger.
When I realize what these items are, I look up at her in horror and snap the lid shut. She hurts herself. The truth is evident in her eyes. I place the box in my pocket, step closer to her, and slowly lift my hands to cup her face, then rub my thumbs over her cheeks before placing my forehead against hers.
“Dolce ragazza,” I whisper over and over.
She squeezes her eyes shut, her breath tickling my beard. “I know what that means. I looked it up,” she murmurs.
I smirk.Of course she did.“Do you want me to stop saying it?”
“No. You have a knack for turning things that make me cringe around. Now it sounds beautiful.” She lifts her hand and rubs her palm along my jaw. “Thank you.” I close my eyes and lean into her touch, loving the way it feels. “I like the way your beard feels against my skin.”
I swallow as my blood rushes downward. She has no idea how dirty that sounded in my head. “I like when you touch me.”
Since Josie, I haven’t been intimate with a woman. After what happened with her, I’ve had a hard time trusting anyone, but especially myself and my judgment. I’m not sure what’s different with Olivia, but with her, it’s like she’s the missing part of my soul.
I take a step back and drop my hands, reluctantly stepping away. “Let’s go into the house and talk.”
Olivia nods as I grab the first aid kit, intertwine our fingers, and lead her into the house. Placing the box on the foyer table, we walk through the foyer to the living room and out to the backporch. When she was here last time, she didn’t get to see the view.
It was dark and she wouldn’t have been able to see everything. The small gasp from her lips at the sight makes me smile. I turn to look at her and enjoy the expression on her face.
“This place is breathtaking,” she says as she steps further out onto the porch and gazes around the property.
I point. “To the left are the horses and the barn. I just bought a cow and was thinking about getting a bull. There’s enough land to get more cows, but I would need to hire a foreman to take care of everything.” I point to the right. “That’s the boathouse. There’s a speedboat, a pontoon, and two jet skis. The lake house is down that hill. Leo lives there.”
“Who’s Leo?” she asks as she takes in everything.
“He’s the head of my security. You’ll get to meet him later. As well as Arden and Lane.” She squints up at me. “More security,” I explain. “Leo trains my bouncers at the nightclubs Arden and I own and the security on my construction sites. Lane and Arden have certain skill sets that Leo doesn’t have and help out when needed.”
“Why am I meeting them?”
“First, let’s talk about why you sent me a text, then we’ll talk about that.”
Olivia doesn’t show any signs of resistance to talking about that, but her lips pinch together as her eyes dart around. She’s nervous. Pulling her over to the porch swing, I motion for her to sit next to me. Maybe if she’s not looking directly at me it will help, but when we sit, she turns to face me. She pulls her legs up and crosses them in front of her. Mimicking her, I turn to face her, putting my arm on the back of the swing.
“I went to breakfast then shopping with my friends,” she starts, not waiting for me to prod her to begin. “The place we went made me nervous because the tables are outside.” I nod,knowing which place she’s talking about. You order inside, but all of their tables are outside. “We’ve been there once before and it didn’t bother me, not like today. Lately…” She closes her eyes and tilts her head down.
Running my hands through her hair, I try to comfort and support her. It takes her a few seconds to begin again.
“I can feel him watching me. Today it wasn’t me that just felt it, Bec felt it too. He was there, and I started panicking. Bec noticed, so she knocked over her coffee to distract Caroline and Bailey. It also distracted me and gave me a chance to pull myself together. But for the rest of the day it felt like someone was watching me. That’s why I came here instead of going home.”
She pauses and finally looks up at me. “I act like everything is fine. Play the sweet, quiet, shy friend, and encourage everyone else while falling apart on the inside. So, I brought you my box instead of going home and using what was inside of it.”
Her eyes become glossy and red, but she isn’t going to cry. She slowly reaches out her hand and runs her finger over the seam of my jeans on my thigh. “When it becomes too much, the only thing that helps is pain.” She begins to draw shapes on my thigh to avoid looking at me. I mentally beat myself up. I should have been there and stopped it. He’s going to pay. If it’s the last thing I do, he’s going to get what’s coming to him.
“I normally do it on the inside of my thighs with the razorblade, but he saw it once and completely lost it.” She points to the scar on her collarbone. “That’s how I got this. He told me if anyone was going to give me scars, it was going to be him. He took his pocket knife and cut me on my collarbone while he did other things to me.” I clench the hand on my thigh into a fist. “He told me if I ever needed to feel pain, he would be the one that would give it to me. He wanted to be everything I needed.”
She brings the palm of her hands up to her eyes and holds them there for a few seconds. “But he was the reason I neededthe pain and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give him that part of myself too. As demented as that sounds, he wasn’t going to take that away from me.”
I grip her wrists lightly, then pull them away from her face and turn her wrists to look at them. She huffs. “I never did it there,” she murmurs. “On the inside of my thighs, under my fingernails or along the tips of my fingers, and on my feet.” She extends the palm of her hand and points out the crease between her thumb and forefinger. I pull her hand closer and notice the scar from the lighter.
I bite my tongue until the taste of copper fills my mouth, then lean down and kiss the scar softly. “I want to see all of your scars. When you’re ready to show me.”
She sucks in a shaky breath. “Why?”
My eyes connect with hers. “Because I want to see how many times you needed me and I wasn’t there.”
She swallows and her lips tremble slightly. “See… Ummm… The release I get from cutting myself only lasts for a moment.” She looks out toward the lake. “But when I’m with you? When you talk to me in that voice. It’s like everything goes quiet in my brain and the knot in my stomach disappears.”
