Tony read the look of panic on my face and shook his head while Travis raised a brow at me. Neither of them had the decency to ask what was wrong before turning back to the TV. I silently freaked the fuck out.

I draw the line at trust, that’s a fucking hard no for me. But no matter how I tested myself, I came back to the same thing; I trust her. The panic reached my guts and twisted it in knots.

But she doesn’t trust me, in fact, as far as I can tell, she has no other feelings for me besides disdain and distrust. How the fuck does that work?

I actually growled in frustration, making the other two jump in their seats. “Damn bro, you’re pitiful.” Tony, the know it all, piped up before going back to the stupid show they were watching.

I looked in the direction of her room mad as hell. This shit is all kinds of fucked. I find myself in the unenviable position of loving a woman who

on the surface wanted nothing to do with me. Ain’t this all about a fucking bitch! Life sure likes to fuck with my ass.

That night the four of us went to dinner. Yes four, because Tony wanted ringside seats to the show. At least I think that’s what he whispered to me when we were heading out the door.

That’s because Ms. Thing had just noticed that her jacket was missing and went on a yelling spree. She even had me feeling guilty for getting rid of that ugly shit until I caught myself. If I’m not careful she’d take my damn balls and turn me into a mindless idiot.

I pulled the new coat I’d bought her from the bag she’d left it in and forced it around her shoulders. When she tried to hit me I ordered her to stop, and she did.

Once again I was shocked into silence at her acquiescence. I was able to fix the coat in place and zip it up without any hassle from her. “Starting from today, we’re going to think and act like rational human beings.” Her pout is too cute.

“This coat is warmer and more comfortable than the other one.” I refrained from calling it an eyesore again and that seemed to work in my favor. “Now let me see if I got the right size.” I held her away from me and looked down at the perfect fit of the coat on her.

“Now let’s go have dinner, you must be starving. Then we’ll come back here and you’ll go to bed early tonight because you’ve had a full week.” She had that confused look on her face again as I led her from the room. Good, you’re confused? Join the party.

At dinner I just sat and watched to get a feel for her. How could I have learned to trust her in such a short matter of time?

And why the hell can’t I get it out of my head that I can and must trust her? Whoever was driving this train had taken their damn foot off the brakes.

How can it be that I’m the one in trouble? That I’m the one putting in the work to win a woman over? Hasn’t it always been the other way around? And why her? Why not a more accommodating, even tempered female?

Even as I thought it, my heart did one of its twisting motions. Because it can’t be anyone else but her. I knew that now as well as I knew my own name.

It didn’t matter that the shit made no sense. I really didn’t have any control over any of it. It wasn’t so much that I had chosen her as it was that she’d been chosen for me and that made all the difference.

From the first moment I laid eyes on her, nothing has been up to me. I realized that now. The way I was drawn to her. The way she stayed on my mind even when we were miles apart. It all added up to one thing. She was mine before I even knew her.

So this is how it happens. How that stumbling block called love sneaks up on you. I looked at her through new eyes as I felt something inside me let go. I knew without having to be told that it was pointless to fight it.

As I ate and listened, I let my mind go back to the first time we met. I tried to remember everything about that day, because I know that’s when it happened. When I first started to fall.

When karma jumped up and bit me in the ass. What a warp minded bitch karma is! This one is going to run circles around my ass. She’s going to make me pay for every damn thing I ever did in the past where females are concerned. Fuck me!

She kicked the side of my foot with hers under the table bringing me out of my reverie. “What? What happened?” I asked her in an almost whisper.

“You’ve been staring at me for the past five minutes, cut it out.” She hissed before going back to her meal.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t realize.” Now she’s got me falling all over myself to apologize for some shit that doesn’t need an apology. Fuck this, I’m not going out like that. I’m not ready for what she’s trying to bring out in me.

Now the idea of her and mom in the same room gave me the shakes. I’d wanted mom to work on her, make my life easier. But if my mother ever figures out what’s going on with me, it will be me who gets worked on.

Suddenly my food had no taste and I became as twitchy as a crack head that lost his pipe. I became super aware of her, every little thing about her.

The way she babied her brother and bullied him into eating more of the vegetables on his plate. The vegetables she’d made him order.

The way she spoke to Tony as if they were long lost friends. But what I noticed most of all, was that when I removed my hand from her thigh beneath the table, she immediately looked at me as if displeased. Until I put it back and she went back to talking to the others.

That one small action made me feel ten feet tall. What an ass! Now holding her hand as we left the restaurant held more meaning, the fact that she didn’t pull away meant even more.

I decided to test her further and once in the car, instead of dragging her into my side like I usually do, I sat closer to the door leaving space between us.

I watched her through the glass of the car window and saw the way she looked at that space before looking over at my hand. I watched her pick her hand up from the seat where she’d left it in preparation for the usual struggle between us.

Then she put that hand in her lap with the other one and looked miserable. With my eyes still trained on her in the car window I reached back for her hand. I didn’t miss her sigh of relief, or the secret little smile that crossed her lips.

Just that easily my dick got hard. That’s another thing, not since high school have my body played this trick on me. These days I only get hard when I want to.

Meaning, if I’m in bed with a hot chick, I’ll get hard. When I’m in the car heading back home, I don’t get fucking hard because there’s nothing to get hard for. Everything in its place.

But now every time I look at her, sex is never far from my mind. And not just the hot sweaty kind that usually last me a little more than a week before I get bored. It might be better if it was.

But no, this is the kind of soft sappy shit that I never had any uses for. The sweet hot cuddle after kind of sex. That’s what I wanted with her. For a lifetime. I squeezed her hand in mine until the hunger passed.

That night, it was even harder not to go to her. I don’t know how I did it, but I hung in there for the first few hours before it became too much. I stood in the doorway of her bedroom and just watched her under the covers.

I couldn’t really see her because there was no light on, just the outline of her body. I looked to make sure the windows were closed, not caring that we were more than six stories high and no one could get in.

I just wanted to make sure she was safe from any possibility of harm. I didn’t stay there long, but headed back to my own bed for another restless night. At least that is what I thought. But with my mind finally free of doubts and worries, I was able to fall off easily enough.

I laid there stiff as a board, my breath held as I felt his eyes on me from the doorway, only releasing my pent up breath when I heard him walk away again.

He’s doing all these unexpected things, things that I didn’t foresee someone like him doing, and it’s making me feel a bit off kilter.

I’d had him pegged as the bed ‘em and leave ‘em type from the first time we met. He was the hot topic among all the females at the club, most of whom seemed willing to do anything to get with him. But so far he hasn’t acted quite how I’d expected.

I refuse to let my guard down though. Refuse to believe that all he wants is to help me. He’d admitted to wanting to take me to his bed, but even that he made sound like something more than I knew it meant to him.

It’s true I didn’t know who he was when I first entered the doors of the club, but now that I do, it only makes things worst. He’s the last kind of man I’d ever get myself involved with.

And yet, there’s something about him that seems to pull at me even when I don’t want it to. That first evening after we met as I headed to work, my heart had started racing as soon as I saw the building coming up ahead.

I knew it was the thought of seeing him again, the enigmatic man who’d made my heart race with something more than fear for the first time in forever.

I’d felt his presence as soon as I walked through the door. I didn’t need to see him, just the fact that he was there had made me feel…different. And the more I felt the more distance I wanted between us. I can’t afford that kind of trust.

Then there was the bitter disappointment I felt the next day when he wasn’t there. I found myself missing him when he went away. There was a different feeling to the club, like it was missing its heart. How silly!

I knew I was in trouble when I walked in and saw his shadow sitting at the bar days later and my whole body went up in flames.

I hadn’t even seen him yet, but just the fact that he was back had made me happier than was warranted. I’d felt settled, less restless now that he was back.

Even more troubling was the night he spent at my place. The night I was finally able to fall asleep without staying up half the night worrying that someone was going to break in and kill me in my sleep.

His presence alone had made me feel safe, protected. Something I haven’t felt since the disintegration of my parents’ once solid union. But instead of giving me comfort, it only made the fear grow inside me even more.

From the first time he held my hand in his I felt something. It took me a while to figure out what that something was; attraction. It scared the hell out of me and I could only put up my defenses.

Because I’d spent my life focused on my first love of dance I never had time to form any lasting relationships, so I was like a little lost lamb that couldn’t find her footing.

I didn’t know what to do with the things he made me feel, still don’t. So I lashed out at him as a way to keep myself safe. I didn’t understand the feelings he’d awakened in me. I only knew that I had to protect myself.

Besides, I didn’t have the first clue as to what to do with someone like him. He was obviously out of my league that was easy to see. So those two things were enough to keep me well out of his reach. I’ve always been level headed after all and not given to flights of fancy.

So that’s why whenever we interacted with each other I hid the butterflies in my tummy beneath a gruff attitude, all the while trembling inside and hoping that he didn’t see beneath the brash attitude to the truth. That I was terrified.

I could only draw on my instinct since I had no real experience with the opposite sex, let alone someone as sophisticated as him.

While others my age were busy hooking up with their significant other, I was in my home studio perfecting my craft. Boys were the last thing on my mind.

Since the age of three dance has been my escape. It was the one place I could fall into the fairyland that lived inside my head.

When I’m dancing I can imagine that I’m like one of the princesses in the stories my mother read to me at night. As I grew older dancing became to me what comfort food is to others.

It wasn’t that I had much to worry about. Back then my life was as ideal as it could be. I had two loving parents and a little brother who, although sometimes beyond annoying, was my favorite person.

When I wasn’t dancing and he wasn’t running around with a football in his hands, the two of us could be found with our heads together plotting some scheme that was sure to turn our mother’s hair grey.

I had believed in that life, had enjoyed the luxury of being the daughter of such a family. The sun always shone for me even when it was raining, because I had the best of everything life had to offer; until it was all gone.

Maybe it was the shock and abruptness of it all that had impacted me so deeply. The way it had all come out of left field and side swiped everyone, except dad, who was the instigator.

For weeks I walked around in a bubble not quite knowing what to do with myself. My mother and brother were miserable and I had no way of helping since I was already away at school.

I told myself that it will all blow over. That there had to be a mistake. The steadfast, kindhearted man I knew and loved would never do such a thing to the family he loved and cherished. But as time went by I knew it wasn’t to be.

When the reality of what happened finally hit home I could do no more than withdraw into my protective shell. I threw myself even harder into dancing, until even that was threatened.

I’d never expected my own father to desert me in such a way, to rip away the one thing he knew meant the world to me. I’d found it hard enough to forgive him for what he did to my mom.

But when I had to give up my dream of studying dance at the most renowned school for the arts, the school I’d long dreamed of attending, because of his actions, that had been the last straw.

Any trust I once had in human kind was obliterated. If my own father, the first man I loved, could do such a horrible thing, could cast me aside so easily as if I were nothing, then there was no doubt that others would do the same.

And then mom had taken her life, had given up on everyone and everything else and just ended it all and that had sent new fear coursing through me. She was the last mainstay I had left. The last bastion of strength.

I was still reeling from my father’s betrayal then. Still trying to find my footing as this new person I’d been forced to become. And then her suicide pulled the rug out from under me completely.

Suddenly I was alone in the world, no parents; no safety net. And there was my brother. Only fifteen at the time and still a child in so many ways. I’d had to make some hard choices quick.

I couldn’t let him suffer because of the adults in our lives the way I was. I had to protect him no matter what. It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be to give up dance.

By then I’d locked off my emotions anyway. I no longer saw life through those rose tinted glasses. It was as if someone had ripped a veil from off my eyes and nothing was ever the same.

So by the time we met, I had already become too jaded to fall for his charm and good looks. But it seems no matter how I told myself that, he’d still found a way to chip away at my defenses.

What scares me most is that I want so badly to trust him, to believe him, but know that I can’t. How can I open up myself to someone, especially someone like him, with his past?

It would’ve been much easier if I didn’t feel anything. Maybe then I could’ve had a meaningless fling until we both got it out of our systems and went our separate ways. But I was beginning to think it may be too late for that.

All evening I’d been on tenterhooks around him. I could feel something growing inside me, it was strong and beyond my control; something I don’t understand and don’t know if I want.

Having only known him a few short weeks, things have been moving way too fast, that much I know. But somehow it’s starting to feel like we’ve known each other much longer. Like we’d known each other in some other time and place.

It’s too bad that I stopped believing in fairytale endings and beginnings. Not since the father I adored totally and brutally destroyed the strongest woman I knew.

I’d always looked up to my mother, always believed in her strength. Her life stories were always on point, and the fact that she encouraged both her children to be what they wanted to be in life, always made me see her as wise.

For me, there was no one like my mother and no love like the one my parents shared. Divorce was never something I gave a thought to. None of my friends were from broken homes.

Even as a teen my parents’ loving relationship was part of my solid foundation. Knowing that I had two such people in my corner, watching my back, had always been a source of pride and security for me.

It was also part of what made me so sure of myself. I thought that it would last for the rest of my lifetime. That even my own children would one day benefit from that love and strength.

Until it all ended so horribly. Now I no longer believe. I don’t trust anyone who claims to feel love in any of its forms, it’s not real. How can it be? Hadn’t I seen the end result of what supposed love can do?

It was only as I read the letter that my mother had left behind that I woke up and entered the real world and not the one I’d constructed in my head all those years.

I realized that my poor mother had based all her strength on the love she thought my father had for her. It was because she thought she was loved that she was able to hold her head up so high in the neighborhood among the other wives.

His love had been the reason she always wore a secret little smile on her face. Her belief in his love had made her shine. And when she realized that it was all a lie, that his love was nothing more than a fabrication, she’d chosen to end her life.

A life that was more precious than that love, but in the end, that lie had destroyed her. I won’t be a victim. I won’t let myself fall into that trap so easily.

The more I tell myself that, the sadder I feel. I’m caught between fear and sadness. Some moments I want to just go with it, to take something for myself even if it doesn’t last.

But then fear moves in and I dread what could happen to me if I get burned. He can have no idea how much I want to believe in his words. How tired I am of carrying this burden around with me, the burden of distrust.

I’ve lived in fear ever since the day I stood over my mother’s grave. Afraid for me, and my little brother. I know I’m strung too tight, can feel the pressure in my chest each morning when I wake up to face another day.

How lovely would it be to let someone else take the reins for a while? But what happens if I give in and things don’t work out? Can I pull myself back together again? Would I have the strength? I’m not sure. It was hard enough doing it the first time.

But he was wearing me down bit by bit and I have a feeling that if I don’t get away from him soon it might be too late. I’m tempted though, so tempted to give in just once.

To taste what being loved by someone like him would be like. To feel all that passion I see in his eyes when he looks at me. If only I could believe that someone like him could really want forever with someone like me.

If only I could believe in those looks he gives me, and the way my body reacts to his nearness, or the way his reacts to mine.

My face heated as I remembered what it felt like having his hardness pressed up against me. My heart thumped and my body reacted to my thoughts, until I had to squeeze my legs tight to ease the ache. I had a hard time going back to sleep after that.