Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(46)

“Thank you,” he said quietly and bit into it. “You shouldn’t be so sweet to me, you know.”

What? “Why not?” She held up a hand. “You weren’t serious about that masochism thing, were you? Because I’m not into that.”

He let out his breath. “I know. You’re just a human being caught in something you should never have been caught in and dealing with it the best way you can.” He proffered the other half of his date slice to her lips. Hers parted in surprise—only another chef usually tried to tempt her with flavors—and he slipped the sweet, fresh crunchiness into her mouth. “Don’t worry about me.” He dropped his hand to cover hers. “I can handle myself.”

Well, that was obvious. It was probably his life mantra. I handle myself. And anything else the world comes up with, too.

“I can handle myself, too,” she said, just as quietly, just as firmly. Violence might have been a shock to her world, but she was the head pastry chef of a two-star kitchen. She’d climbed her way to this point from a fifteen-year-old girl in banlieue who needed to work for a living. She could and did handle everything and ran her crew as tightly as any elite Navy team. She’d handle this violence, too. It might just take her a few days.

“I know,” Jake said. “I can see you doing it.”

Did handling herself mean she had to stay strong and not yield to that desire to just press her body into his and ask him to hold her until she could sleep again?

Probably. Sex sounded more…proactive than just asking for a big hug. More taking charge. Less helpless.

Although the way he did it, she was pretty helpless.

She looked down at the counter, at his hand on hers, and flicked a glance up through her lashes at him. “I wish…”

That I hadn’t been so panicked and grabby, when you started flirting with me. That I’d let things develop naturally. That she hadn’t gone straight past appetite and hunger to gorging herself on some cheap snack because she didn’t trust food—or anything—to be there later.

His fingers curled around her hand, turning it sideways so he could rub his thumb against her palm. “I’m granting wishes today. What do you wish?”

She wished they were back on her bed, that moment when he had started playing with her hand. She wished they were right here, with him stroking her palm, asking her what she wished.

“What do you want?” she asked softly. Why did he keep coming back if he hated it?

He shook his head, his expression impossibly neutral again.

Her head tilted. She searched his face. “You can’t say it?”

He wouldn’t have made as good a poker player as he thought. There was a flicker in his eyes, despite his neutral expression. Some kind of tell, but she wasn’t sure of what.

“There’s something you’re afraid of reaching for?” she said slowly, her fingers curling into his palm, holding on.

He tried to pull his hand away. But she’d been grabbing strong male wrists and directing them to get the damn technique right so that her desserts went out perfect since she’d first made second pastry chef at a three-star restaurant, at the age of twenty. The strength of her grip clearly surprised him. His eyebrows went up a little, and he looked down at their hands, with that subtly bemused expression he got sometimes, as if he had no idea what to think of her. Or of them.

“What would you be afra—” She stopped. One single act of insane violence had made her afraid to believe in a future.

He must have seen a lot more death than she had. Lives cut short. And no river that continued flowing on the other side after the jolt of it either. He must know lives that were ended.

“Do people get hurt a lot in your job?” she asked, which was a ridiculous question. She knew they must. But it was just a mishmash in her head of her own experience and Hollywood films. What was it like really?

His expression changed, a tangled attempt to cover incredulity and confusion with neutrality.

She lifted her hand to her lips. “They do, don’t they?” And he couldn’t understand how she, a civilian, could be so incredibly ignorant of what his normality was.

“Don’t worry,” he said. And, “Shit.” A quick, puzzled search of her eyes. “Are you worried about me?”

She was now. “Don’t do that,” she blurted absurdly. “Don’t get hurt.” Oh, what a stupid thing to say.

His expression softened at it, though. His hand rose and very gently tugged one of her curls and then stroked it back behind her ear. “Yes, ma’am.”

Tears stung her eyes for no good reason. This stupid, f*cking world. And up until a week ago, it had been a glorious world, a magical playground of the senses, and all she had to do to embrace it was be willing to work hard.

A big hand stroked her curl around to the back of her head and settled over her nape, massaging gently.

“Sometimes,” he said very slowly, gazing at her as if he wasn’t sure why these words were coming out of his mouth. “When a guy survives, but he’s messed up—he’s lost a limb or two, or he’s lost his handsome face and he has years of plastic surgery ahead of him—sometimes he comes home from war on a stretcher, and his wife comes in to his hospital room, their first meeting since he was wounded, and she drops the divorce papers on his table and runs out.”