CHAPTER 22
CARA
I jumped hard when I heard the front door opening. It was the early hours of the morning and I had assumed everyone was in bed. That’s where I had left Cal, fast asleep and laid out on his back in my bed.
I’d woken from a stomach churning nightmare that had almost had me losing the contents of my stomach and opted not to close my eyes again.
Things that day, well – the day before by then – with Arran, what we shared; it had been everything I never knew I wanted or needed.
It had left me feeling more positive about the possibilities for my future than anything had for a very long time.
I didn’t want to taint that with more of my nightmares.
So I had slipped from my bed and from my room and headed down to the ground floor. I’d grabbed a tub of ice cream from the freezer, a bottle of water, then set myself up in the living room, ready to watch re-runs of my favourite baking show.
I was about an hour in when someone entered the house and it instantly filled me with fear.
As I crept as silently as I could from the sofa, muting the television, I knew logically it was unlikely to be intruders.
Who would break into a place that noisily?
And how would they even get past all of the security I knew surrounded the house?
But still I found myself shutting off the lamp in the room as I passed it, then sneakily tiptoeing to the slightly ajar door, which led into the entrance hall.
I peered through the open gap towards the front door but I couldn’t see anyone in the darkened space.
My heart was racing overtime, my hands sweating and shaking as I held the door and opened it as carefully and quietly as I could.
I had to psych myself up to take a step out into the hall, and as soon as I did, I wanted to run.
It was too dark, shadows surrounding me, lit from the small windows at each side of the front door.
The silence made my ears ring and my mind worked overtime, telling me I was about to be killed like the idiots in horror films.
“Cara?” The voice scared me badly, then I saw a dark figure approaching from the kitchen and I screamed instinctively. I tried to turn and flee up the stairs. If I could just get to Cal or to Arran…
“It’s me! It’s Dio!” The words hit me as my feet tangled beneath me in my panic and I ended up in a pile on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Dio?” I gasped in fright, then he strode closer to me and I could see enough light against his face to make out his features. “Dio! What the hell were you doing?” I snapped, my overwhelming fear rushing out of me as a barb.
“Sorry, baby. I didn’t know you were up. I didn’t mean to scare you. Did you hurt yourself?” he asked as he crouched down beside me.
“Aside from almost giving myself a bloody heart attack you mean?” I panted. He lifted an eyebrow, awaiting the answer he wanted and I quickly caved. “I’m fine. Just landed on my butt.”
“What are you doing down here? You should be sleeping.”
“Watching television. I’ve had enough sleep tonight.”
“Doesn’t look like it to me,” he pointed out as he cradled my face in his right hand and ran his thumb under my eye. I knew I had dark smudges there. My lack of sleep was an on going issue that I just couldn’t seem to get a handle on.
“What are you doing up? Did you go out?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where to? Did something happen? Is Rafe okay?”
“Rafe’s fine. I just had some business to handle.”
I wouldn’t have pushed, but something was off in the way Dio avoided eye contact with me after answering that question.
“Tell me,” I ordered as I pushed up to my knees and faced him so he couldn’t look away from me so easily.
“I got a phone call from an associate earlier, a location on Mikhail Kozlov. Arran and I went to take care of it,” he told me reluctantly.
“And did you?”
“Yeah. The bastard’s dead,” he nodded, but he still wasn’t meeting my eyes, and I didn’t understand why he seemed almost upset that one of our enemies – the motherfucker who killed Gia – was finally gone.
“Were you or Arran hurt? Any of your men?” I pushed, thinking maybe there had been losses on our end.
“No. It was pretty easy. Too easy.”
“What does that mean? Surely dead is dead. The bastard is gone, isn’t he?”
“You’re right,” he agreed, but I heard in his flat tone that he didn’t truly agree. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room. Is Cal staying with you?”
“No, Dio,” I moved my hand before he could take it and stared hard at him. “Something’s wrong. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.”
“It’s just my own shit. You don’t need to worry about it,” he sighed as he reached for me again.
“Dio, we’re together, aren’t we? If something is worrying or stressing you, I want to know and I want to help you fix it. Would you let me walk off alone to deal with my bullshit when I’m upset?” I pressed.
He remained silent, his head lowered like he was defeated and I hated it. It wasn’t like him at all. He was usually so sure of himself, and almost cocky.
“Dario,” I uttered as I moved, climbing into his lap and straddling his thighs. I looped my arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, like he so often did to me. “Talk to me, please.”
“I failed you tonight,” he eventually rasped, so quietly I only just heard it.
“How? You killed the man who killed my sister and ordered men to attack me. You killed one of my monsters.”
“It wasn’t vengeance, Cara. Things got out of control and Arran had to end the fucker to save my life. Kozlov died so fucking easily. He deserved pain and he didn’t get more than a few seconds of it.”
“You think I care about vengeance?” I asked, shocked.
“He deserved death for what he did, and he got it. That was what mattered. You coming home to me in one piece was what mattered. I don’t care how that sonofabitch was erased from the world.
I’m just relieved he’s gone, and that you and Arran are here, safe. ”
“Rafe…”
“Will be relieved there is one less psycho for this family to deal with,” I cut in. “Kozlov is gone. We should be basking in that right now.”
“Basking?” Finally he lifted his head up and met my eyes.
“Yes. Basking. It can take many forms, but I think tonight it should start with you wrapping your arms around me and kissing me. I’ve barely seen you all week.”
“It’s killed me,” he told me. “I’ve been in desperate need of some basking.”
He smiled devilishly as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer, then kissed me hard and fast.
Kisses with Dio were so different than with Cal, and even Arran. There was no doubt when Dio put his hands on me, that he was in control. It was the way he needed it to be, and I wasn’t complaining. I just held on and went with everything he gave me.
I moaned as his hands ran over my back, his touch intense through the thin cotton nightshirt I was wearing. When one of his hands found the hem and slipped under, trailing up the bare skin at my hip, I started to work the buttons of his shirt, wanting to feel more of him.
It seemed to take an age to get all of the buttons, especially since the hold he maintained on me with one hand, and the way he kept our kiss intense and non-stop, limited the movement I had, but finally I got it open enough to push it off of his shoulders, and it was so worth it as my hands ran over his tightly packed muscles.
He wasn’t stocky or built like Arran, but every inch of him was tight with muscle, and his biceps bulged under my touch.
His shoulders were wide and I could feel the tendons in his neck.
I was working on touch alone, since he would not relent on driving me wild with his frenzied kiss, but I loved running my hand over the hard plains of his chest and the rippling abs.
It was me who ripped away from the kiss first. I was desperate to see him, to see his tattoos that covered his arms and chest. I wanted to take in every inch of him, but just as I started to get my fill, his other hand slid under my night shirt and I became distracted.
“Tell me to stop, baby,” he rasped between kisses all over my neck and shoulders.
“Not a chance,” I returned breathily. I caught his shoulders and pulled him to me, crashing my lips over his this time, turning the tables as I kissed him with everything I had.
I reached down for the hem of my nightshirt and pulled it up over my head, breaking the kiss to get it off completely, then I tossed it aside, sitting there in his lap in nothing but my boy shorts underwear.
“Cara…” he hesitated.
“Don’t do that. Don’t doubt me,” I told him straight. “I’m ready for this with you, Dio. I know my own mind.”
“I know you do.” He smiled softly as he leaned in to cup my face between his hands. He kissed me just once, then pulled back enough to meet my eyes. “But you deserve more than this. You deserve special. The cold tile floor in the hallway is not special.”
“I don’t give a crap about special. I want you and I don’t care where that happens. It’s not about where, when, or any other bullshit. It’s about us, right here, right now.”
Things were frantic after that. Dario ripped the last buttons from his shirt to pull it off completely, all while I fumbled with the belt on his trousers. We were kissing throughout, so consumed by each other, he was all I could see, feel, and hear.
Our teeth crashed together in our fervour, the kiss a mash of tongues and lips, as Dio pushed my hands from his belt and made short work of shucking his last items of clothing. I rose up on my knees to pull down my underwear, then Dio lifted me enough for me to kick them aside.
“Tell me you have a condom,” I gasped as I settled back down over his lap, feeling the hardness of him below me.
“Shit. Yeah, but it’s in my trousers. Arran gave it to me earlier. I was confused at the time, but now I’m just fucking grateful,” he laughed.
“He said you guys would be prepared,” I explained as I reached to the side for his trousers and searched the pockets.