24. Victor

Chapter twenty-four

Victor

O livia pulls in and stops in front of the gate, waving at me. Returning her wave, I push the button on the app to open the gate, and motion for her to enter. The moment the gate closes and her car has cleared the entry, I walk around to her door and open it.

She’s already put the car in park and unbuckled her seat belt. Holding out my hand to help her out of the car. Once she’s got both feet on the ground, I pull her into my arms and breathe in her lavender scent.

“I’ve missed you,” I murmur into her hair. She wraps her hands around my waist, tentatively at first, but the longer she’s in my arms, the tighter her grip becomes.

“I missed you too.”

She inhales deeply. I’ve noticed she does that a lot around me. Unsure what to make of it, I’m sure I’ll figure out why over time. It sounds like she’s coming up for a deep breath after being submerged under water. When her grip loosens a little, I pull back slightly, but keep my arms around her.

“How are you?” I ask, never wanting to let her go.

Olivia pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and looks away before shrugging one shoulder. “I feel better now that I’m here.” Unable to resist the silkiness of her hair, I run my fingers through the ends. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back. “I don’t normally like people touching me, but it’s different with you,” she admits.

My heart expands and begins to beat harder as I continue to run my fingers through her hair until she opens her eyes again, and pierces me with those lovely ocean blue eyes.

“Let’s go to the house and we can talk. Okay?”

She nods, and I lean down to kiss her forehead. She sits back down in her car and glances up at me with a small smile. The clouds that were in her eyes when she first got her seem to have cleared slightly. I love that I calm her.

Getting on my bike to lead her down the long driveway. I open the garage and she follows me in. There’s enough room for her to park next to my bike. Tilting my head, I purse my lips as she gets out of her car without waiting for me to open her door, and she falters. Like she senses my displeasure, her eyes find mine and her tongue darts out to wet her lips, clutching the box she got out of the car with.

“From now on, I’ll open your door. Okay?” I’m using my Dominant tone with her again and stepping over the line, but even if she decides this isn’t for her, I want to show her this is how a man is supposed to treat a woman.

“Okay,” she whispers.

I smile at her. “Thank you.” My eyes fall to the box. “What’s that?” It’s white with a red cross on it.

“A first aid kit,” she replies.

Squinting my eyes, concern begins to take root in my gut like a boulder was just dropped there. “Why do you need a first aid kit?” I ask, taking a step closer to her.

She hugs the kit close to her chest like she’s trying to protect herself. She takes a deep breath, pushes her shoulders back, and lifts her chin. Then offers it to me. I look from it, to her, then back to it before hesitantly taking it from her. Whatever this is, I’m going to hate it. The boulder in my gut gets larger.

“Open it.”

Her voice is so low I take a step closer to her, wanting to provide a semblance of comfort. For what, I’m not sure. Staring at her for a moment, and taking in her red eyes, I wonder if she’s going to cry. She offers me a timid smile confirming the answer to that is no. Olivia’s learned to hide that side of herself. She’s tucked it away. How am I going to help reach that part of herself again?

When I don’t open the box immediately, her shoulders fall slightly like she’s regretting doing this already. I keep my eyes on hers as she slowly shuts down. It’s a defense mechanism she has created and perfected over the years. She disassociates. I finally look back at the box, not wanting her to tuck herself away completely. I grip the latch on the lid and tug on it. It clicks softly as it opens.

Olivia takes another deep breath as I stare at the contents, trying to figure out what it is. There’s a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, small and large bandaids, some ankle socks, and a small tin box that reminds me of the box that Altoids come in.

While it could pass as a normal first aid kit, there’s something more to this one. I grab the tin box. Olivia moves closer like she might be debating on snatching it away from me, but now that she’s shown me, I have to see what’s in the box. Whatever it is, it’s going to unravel another piece of her.

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 back porch. 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 needed the 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.”

She snaps her fingers. “Just like that.” She finally looks back at me and holds my gaze. “I want to be your submissive.”

Leaning back, that was the last thing I expected her to say. Her mouth opens, and she blinks rapidly. She thinks I’m rejecting her. “Okay,” I whisper.

She pushes her hair behind her ear. “If you’ve decided that’s not something you want, I understand.”

Grabbing her hand, I lean forward. “No, no. This conversation took a sharp left turn. You caught me by surprise is all.”

She inhales deeply. “Oh, sorry. I’ve rehearsed this conversation the entire way over here. I knew if I didn’t say everything all at once, I’d lose my nerve.” Olivia sighs and places her head on the back of the swing.

“We need to have a conversation about this, but first I want to talk to you about you hurting yourself.”

The crease between her eyebrows becomes pronounced. “Why?”

“Because I need to know more details before we enter that kind of relationship to avoid anything that could be triggering.” I pause. “And there are things I could do that might help you.”

Her head perks up at that. “What do you mean?”

Placing my hand on her knee and rubbing my thumb along her knee cap. “We’ll get to that. For now, I don’t want you to hurt yourself again. The next time you feel that way, come to me like you did today and I’ll help you however you need me to.”

“How will you help me?”

Her voice sounds small. I lean my head down until she looks at me.

“However you need me to.”