Page 55 of Trapped With You

My parents were of Irish roots. Mom thought it was important for me to learn a bit of our language at the very least. Before she died, she’d spent an hour every weekend giving me lessons.

“Say it again.”

“Mo chuisle.”

“Again.”

“Mo chuisle.”

“I love it,querido.”

Hearing her sayqueridoandlovetogether stirred something deep in the depths of my heart.

My tongue felt heavy with one monumental sentence. It was three words, eight letters, and demanded to be voiced out loud. She needed to know just how much she meant to me.

I was enamoured with Ella Ximena Cordova.

We were cut from the same cloth, halves of the same whole, flames from the same fire.

She was created for me.

My very own destiny.

Taking advantage of my speechlessness, Ella climbed into my lap, sitting on top of me like a queen on her throne.

God, she was so damn pretty.

I wondered what she’d look like ten years, twenty years, fuck, even fifty years from now—stunning, no doubt—and how I wanted to be around to see her gracefully age. Laugh lines. Crow’s feet. Grey hair. And those radiant blue-brown eyes, still incomparable as ever.

“Cade?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Let me look at your arm, please.”

I extended my left arm for her to inspect. The pads of her fingertips glided up the jagged lines. With a single touch, Ella breathed an exuberant amount of healing into me. I shivered, my skin sensitive under her caresses.

Since the incident, it was the first time I was letting anyone this close to my scars. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and open for judgement was a scary feat. Though I stayed at ease knowing Ella wouldn’t pity me.

She’d heard the worse and was still here.

“You’re not a freak,” she stated once she finished touchingmy arm. “Your scars tell a story, but they don’t define you. This does—Your heart.” Her hand pressed over to my left pec for emphasis. “You’re a survivor, Cade, and that’s incredibly beautiful to me.”

I was astounded by her.

No force in the universe could have stopped me from echoing the next confession.

“I love you, Ella,” I rasped and gently cupped her face. “I think I fell for you when I saw you standing in the rain, gazing at me like I was the best thing you’d ever seen. Every moment since, I’ve kept falling deeper. I don’t know how to stop. You’ve bewitched me. I love you so much that I cannot think beyond that sentiment. During the day, my mind is filled with thoughts of you. And at night, I dream of you incessantly. My world revolves around you,mo chuisle.”

Ella vined her arms around my neck and stamped her mouth to mine with an eagerness that made me gasp. My hands chased down her back and grabbed her waist, clutching her small body to my bigger one like she was unbreakable under my strength.

We kissed with desperation and yearning. I tasted the saltiness of her tears and the sweetness of her tongue. She tasted the bite of my teeth on her lips and the very essence of my admission.

“I love you too, Cade,” she confessed, raw and truthfully. “You’ve been mine and I’ve been yours from the moment we met.” She laid an abundance of kisses all over my face. “There’s no stopping this,querido. You’ve got me addicted, hooked, obsessed. You’re trapped with me and I’m keeping you. Forever.”

Don’t let me go, Ella.“Promise?”

“Promise.” She smiled beautifully. “From here on out, it’ll always be you and me.”