In Too Deep

9. Chapter Nine

~Cara~

Still dressed in my clothes for the pub, I lay on my bed, my head on the pillow and my eyes focused on the ceiling as I went over everything Marco told me.

From past experience, I already knew how life could dramatically change in just one day, but what happened that night changed not only my future but my past as well. Everything I thought I knew about my family and the life we led suddenly seemed fuzzy and uncertain, like I had been spending my whole life facing one direction and now, someone had just told me that I’d been looking the wrong way the entire time. Everything that mattered had been going on behind me.

My whole childhood suddenly made more sense. My parents refusing to send me to school and having tutors come to the house instead. How they encouraged any kind of activity that could be done within our own four walls. When they discovered I had an aptitude for music, they couldn’t have been happier, building me my own music room where teachers would come to me rather than me having to go out for lessons.

They must have seen danger lurking around every corner, not because of any kind of paranoia but because they knew it actually existed. They knew the kind of people they dealt with and the consequences of letting those people down, consequences that eventually led to their deaths.

And Marco picked right up where they left off, not only in the business but in keeping me in the dark about it. Was it really worth it? Not having to worry about money was nice, certainly, but did it make up for the security, the restrictions, and the danger?

Did it make up for our parents dying?

I didn’t want any part of it, but it didn’t seem I had a choice. Simply through association, I was already involved, and now, so was Kian, through his association with me. What were he and Marco talking about? I had no idea, but since I didn’t want to face Kian yet, I encouraged him to go with Marco instead.

Thinking back to the days after our parents died, I could remember how angry Marco seemed. We were both sad, and we shared that grief in all kinds of small ways, but he had been full of fury too. I thought it had been anger at the injustice of losing the people he cared about, but now, I finally understood it went deeper than that. He knew they’d been targeted. He knew someone had done it intentionally.

He ‘took care of it’, he told me. Whatever that meant. He hadn’t gone through the police, so had he tracked down the people behind it and repaid them in kind? Did he kill them?

Was my brother a murderer?

Nausea hit me and I rolled over onto my side, curling up into the fetal position as I tried to calm my churning stomach and my aching heart.

What if anyone ever found out about this? What if Marco went to jail? What if someone killed him in retaliation? Where did it end? How did he ever sleep at night?

It felt like nothing would ever seem safe again.

Tears began to fall as I realized just how naive I’d been. I’d spent all my time lost in my music, completely unaware of everything going on around me, and now, not only was my music gone but any chance of a normal life seemed to have vanished too. I couldn’t see any way that this led to a happy ending.

“Cara?”

The knock and the voice from the other side of the door were both soft, almost tentative, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether it actually happened or if I imagined it. I didn’t want to speak to anyone anyway, so even if someone was there, I ignored it, wrapping my arms around myself even tighter as my tears soaked into the pillow beneath my head.

When the door opened anyway, despite me giving no response, I assumed it had to be Marco. With my back to the door, I didn’t even bother to look. “I thought you had other things to do.”

He told me so at the end of our conversation: that he would be busy for the rest of the night but he’d talk to me again in the morning.

“Marco and I just finished talking.”

Kian’s voice made me jump, my hands immediately moving to my face to cover my tears. My makeup had surely streaked and I needed to blow my nose. I must have looked like a disaster. “I thought you were Marco. I’m sorry, Kian, I’m not ready to see anyone.”

I sniffled as I said the words, and Kian closed the door behind him, though I hadn’t invited him to come in. Without a word, he came over to the bed and lay down behind me, his strong arm circling around me.

“What… what are you doing?”

He never seemed to react the way I thought he would, but even so, this felt completely unexpected.

“You’ve had a rough night, Cara. You’re allowed to feel overwhelmed. You don’t need to hide it. I’m here to lean on, so just go ahead and feel whatever you need to feel.”

The selflessness of his words and the feel of his warm body behind me, wrapping me in safety, brought on another round of tears, and I couldn’t hold it back. Everything hit me all at once: the pain of my parents’ death, the stress of the attack, the things that Marco told me. Everything. It poured over me, pulling me down so that I couldn’t breathe, wave after wave wracking my body, until finally, like the tide going out, it began to let up.

Kian simply held me the whole time, not saying a word, not pulling back. He waited until my breathing had started to even out before he got up and grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom, coming back to sit on the side of the bed as he offered them to me.

“Any better?” he asked as I sat up to blow my nose and dry my eyes.

“Yes. And no.” My mini breakdown hadn’t accomplished anything other than making me look even more crazy in front of him than I probably already did. “Why are you still here, Kian? You must think I’m insane after all of this.”

“I’ve never had a night quite like this,” he admitted, flashing me his usual charming smile. “But I don’t think you’re crazy. I don’t think any of this is your fault.”

He sounded almost surprised as the words came out of his mouth.

“There’s going to be plenty to deal with tomorrow, and I know you’re still processing it all right now, so you can tell me to fuck right off if I’m out of line. But the reason I came to see you right now is that there’s something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since we got here.”

I blinked at him in surprise, trying to guess what he meant. Eventually, I gave up and asked him. “What is it?”

“How you said you’d never been kissed before.”

My surprise doubled. How could he be thinking about that with me looking the way I looked at that moment? But as he leaned closer, his friendly smile melted into something more heated and something pulled inside me in response. My heart sped up and my stomach fluttered, my body reacting purely out of instinct.

“I don’t want you to go one more night without it, not if it’s what you want.” His voice lowered almost to a whisper, his blue eyes very close to mine. “We shouldn’t take time for granted, right?”

“Right.” The word almost got stuck on the way out, my mouth felt so dry. “But I don’t want you to kiss me out of pity, Kian.”

His eyes widened as he let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Is that honestly what you think? What if I told you that I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since we had dinner in the park but I’ve been holding myself back? What if I said the only reason I hadn’t done it was because I didn’t want to cross a line?”

“What’s changed now, then?” I had to wonder.

“I guess I’m just seeing things more clearly now.”

With that, he pressed his lips to mine, softly, just like I had in his flat earlier. He left the decision to me whether to push him away or to keep going, and it only took a moment for me to make up my mind.

Leaning into him, I kissed him harder, and Kian murmured in appreciation as his hands slid around my neck, his thumbs on my cheeks, holding me gently but firmly as his mouth moved against mine. My heart began to beat even faster, a rhythmic throbbing that echoed through my whole body, and when his tongue slipped into my mouth, connecting with mine, it sent a shot of electricity through me, reminding me that while my life may have completely changed, it wasn’t over yet.

I was still alive and I could still decide things for myself.

Maybe I should start doing exactly that.

~Kian~

When I knocked on Cara’s door, kissing her honestly hadn’t been my intention. All I wanted to do was see how she felt before calling it a night.

I didn’t expect to walk in on her looking broken and helpless in a way that she couldn’t possibly have looked if she knew the nature of Marco’s business before that night. She didn’t know I would be coming to check on her. Fuck, she even thought I was Marco when I first walked in. There would have been no reason to fake the tears that had obviously been going on for a while based on the state of her swollen eyes and her red nose.

Maybe the woman existed who could fool me that way, who could anticipate my actions and stay a step ahead of me at all times, but Cara Russo wasn’t that woman. The more I got to know her, the more convinced I became that she was exactly who she seemed: a woman in over her head in a situation she hadn’t even been aware of until I showed up in her life. Now, she was starting to see the truth, and it genuinely devastated her.

She had always been just as innocent as she seemed.

So, when I saw her lying on her bed, curled up to try to stop the pain, I couldn’t help myself. She wasn’t to blame for what happened to Matt any more than I was, and she’d been through her own pain too. I’d always found her attractive, but in that moment, it felt stronger than that. It felt like fate had set me on this path not only to get justice for Matt, but to help Cara as well. Before I could second guess myself, I climbed onto the bed next to her and curled myself around her, trying to let her know that no matter what happened, I would be there for her.

Because while Cara might think the worst was over, I had a feeling a lot more heartache still lay ahead.

I held her until she stopped crying, marvelling at the simple but profound trust she placed in me, and when she asked me why I was still there, I blurted out the truth, at least when it came to her. There might be other reasons I was in her house that night, but the reason I came to her room had been pure. I simply wanted to check on her, but when she looked up at me with those big, trusting brown eyes, I went a step further. I told her I’d been thinking about kissing her, which I had, even though I shouldn’t have been. When she told me back in my flat that she’d never kissed anyone before, I could hardly believe it, and yet, I knew she wasn’t lying. Who would lie about that at her age? Claiming to be a virgin when they weren’t, maybe I could see that, but saying they’d never even been kissed before? It seemed unlikely.It seemed far more likely that the combination of Marco’s protectiveness and her self-imposed isolation through her music held her back from experiencing the things she already should have. It made me feel worse about pushing her away before, and it made me want to give her at least one good memory of this night. If she still wanted to kiss me, I wanted that too.

And when I put the decision in her hands, she made her choice clear.

Her body melted into mine, her hands tentatively moving to my arms while I took her face gently in my hands. Her kiss felt soft and sweet and eager, and it stirred not only desire in me, though that was a given, but possessiveness and protectiveness too. Cara hadn’t asked for the life she had, and even if it was just this once, I wanted to show her that she deserved more. She deserved to feel appreciated for the woman she was, not just for her name.

Was it selfish when she still didn’t know the real reason I came into her life?

Maybe.

Probably.

But right then, I wasn’t thinking about Matt or Marco or anything else. The woman in front of me had full possession of my head and my heart, her and whatever she wanted and needed.

Whatever she asked of me, I would give it to her. It felt like the very least I could do.

“How was that?” I murmured as I brushed my lips against hers. “Do you feel like you’ve been kissed now?”

“I think so.” Her brown eyes looked up into mine, looking so much brighter than they had a moment again. “I think we could do it again just to be sure, though.”

“Oh, really?” I liked this cheeky side of her. I’d had glimpses of it a few times, when she forgot about being scared or unsure, and I had a feeling it would come out a lot more often if she felt more secure. The fact that it came out after the night we just had filled me with warmth at the idea that she felt safe with me. “Like this?”

That time, I went in more forcefully, prising her lips apart with my tongue as one hand moved to the back of her neck. My other hand slid down to her waist, finding the bottom of her shirt and slipping beneath it so I could press my hand against the small of her back, pulling her even closer to me.

Cara inhaled sharply through her nose, her mouth still fused to mine as her breasts pressed against my chest. With every movement of her body, my longing for her grew stronger. The adrenaline from early in the night had worn off but the after effects were still present, that feeling of heightened awareness that came from a brush with death, and it added to the relief I felt over finding out Cara played no part in Marco’s business, and the purely physical sensations that flowed through my body from her touch. I couldn’t be much more turned on than I already was.

Still, I didn’t want to rush things, so after a few more minutes of kissing, my hand getting a little bolder as it brushed over the bra strap on her back, her hands exploring my shoulders, my neck, and threading up into my hair, I pulled back again, just enough that I could speak to her, but staying close enough that I could still feel her breath.

“Better?”

I could feel her smile more than I could see it. “Much better. But not as good as this.”

She leaned into me again before pulling me down with her, all the way down until her back hit the mattress. My hand went beneath her shirt in the front that time, skimming over her stomach as she let out a soft, sweet sigh against my lips that made my cock twitch. The shift in position made it clear just how hard I’d already gotten, and once more, I took a step back.

As good as this felt and as much as I wanted her, I didn’t want to take advantage of her either.

“Cara, I would love to make you feel good right now, but you’ve been through a hell of a lot tonight. You should get some rest and I should go back to my room.”

“Your room?”

Confusion and disappointment clouded her expression, and I realized she must not know that Marco asked me to stay.

“I’m just across the hall. Marco thought it might not be safe for me to go home tonight. I’m not going anywhere, just like I said, but I think you should probably sleep on this, on everything that’s happened tonight, before we do anything you regret later.”

“I don’t regret this,” she insisted, and though I hoped that was true, I would be more inclined to believe it in the cold light of day.

“In which case, we can pick up right where we left off tomorrow,” I promised. “But for now, you should sleep.”

Kissing her once more to let her feel my own reluctance to leave, I got back to my feet and headed to the door. When I reached it, I turned back to her one more time. Her eyes were no longer red but her cheeks were, and she looked even more beautiful than before. As far as I was concerned, I was a goddamn saint for walking away. Not every man would have been able to resist her.

“You’re not at all what I expected, Cara Russo, but I’m glad I met you anyway. Good night.”

She offered me a smile of acceptance, if not complete happiness. “Good night, Kian.”

The disappointment in her eyes left me feeling guilty as I walked away, but deep down, I truly believed I’d made the right call. Hopefully, by the morning, she’d agree.

~Cara~

Frustration accompanied me to bed that night and it still lingered inside me as I awoke early the next morning. My bedside clock showed just after six, but I knew as soon as I opened my eyes that I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep. All of the thoughts that had been running around my head when I went to bed were still there, ready to resume the race, and the one that stood out above them all was the memory of Kian’s kiss.

Although me kissing him in his flat had technically been our first kiss, the way he kissed me there in my room would be the one I truly remembered. It had been everything I imagined it would be. While his lips were on me, my mind went quiet, every part of me focused entirely on the sensations he set off throughout my body. I didn’t feel the pain in my hands. I didn’t feel the aching in my heart over all the things I’d learned. I only felt desire and desired, his kiss telling me just how much he wanted it too even if he kept pulling back.

It reminded me of the way I used to lose myself in my music, and in that way, it felt almost familiar even though I had never done it before.

Kian said he didn’t want me to regret it and he said that if I still wanted him in the morning, we could pick up right where we left off. Well, the morning had come, and just the thought of Kian being there in the house, so close to me, already had my stomach fluttering in anticipation. Marco wouldn’t be up for hours yet, especially since I had no idea how late he had stayed up after I went to bed, so there was nowhere else we needed to be and nothing else we needed to do.

The time had come to take matters into my own hands.

After brushing my teeth and my hair and washing my face, I headed to the door. Dressed only in the silky chemise I’d worn to bed, I stuck my head out first, checking for any other sign of life, but the house seemed quiet and dark. The light in the kitchen was on, as it always was, but otherwise, the whole place still seemed to be asleep.

With my heart beating more heavily by the second, I crept across the hall to the room Kian told me he’d be in. Not wanting to get caught, I didn’t bother to knock before letting myself in.

Like all the bedrooms in our house, the guest room had no window. Marco said windows were too dangerous, and now, I finally understood why he felt that way. An LED screen took the place on the wall where the window should be, and it had started to brighten naturally, its light synced to the sun outside to provide the illusion of normality.

That seemed to be an apt metaphor for my entire life, now that I thought about it. On the surface, it looked normal enough, maybe even ideal, but if you looked closer, none of it was actually real.

Even with the light of the ‘window’, I could only just make out the shape of the bed, and I’d only taken a couple of tentative steps towards it when a shadow moved towards me in the darkness. A hand clamped over my mouth and nose, cutting off my air, and the overhead lights flashed on, making me wince against the brightness.

“Cara?” Kian’s voice sounded rougher than usual and full of surprise. “What are you doing? I thought you were… someone else.”

He released me instantly, flipping the light back off as I blinked into the darkness, circles of light still dancing in front of my eyes.

“Who else would I be?” I managed to ask, gasping as I tried to catch my breath again. How had he even heard me?

“I don’t know,” Kian admitted as his hand reached out to my shoulder. “After last night, I didn’t want to take any chances. What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

Damn it, I really hadn’t thought that through. Of course he would be on edge after the previous night, and someone sneaking into his room wouldn’t have helped. Even so, his quick reflexes impressed me, just as I’d been surprised by the way he took control of the situation the night before. He seemed unflappable under pressure, as if nothing seemed to phase him.

If the tables were turned, someone probably could have crawled right into bed with me before I realized anything was wrong.

“Everything’s fine. I just wanted to see you, and I didn’t want anyone to see me coming to see you. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

As my eyes adjusted again to the dim light, Kian came to stand closer in front of me. Belatedly, I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The soft light illuminated the broad planes of his chest and the dips between his muscles melted into shadow. For a musician, he was in incredible shape. I hadn’t met any men at the Royal College of Music who looked like him.

“What did you want to see me for?”

He probably didn’t mean the words to sound as sensual as they did, whispered into the dim light. His hand moved from my shoulder down my bare arm, slowly, his fingertips skimming across my skin as I shivered beneath his touch.

I didn’t see the point of beating around the bush. I went there for a singular purpose and I might as well tell him what I wanted.

“Last night, you said that if I didn’t regret what happened, we could pick up where we left off. So, here I am.”

Kian gave a huff, half surprised and half amused. “You’ve barely had time to sleep on it.”

“I’ve had enough time. I’ve made up my mind.”

Even in the darkness, I could see his jaw clench. “You’re not making it easy for me to be the good guy here, Cara.”

Who said I wanted him to be a good guy? That was the last thing on my mind, and I tried again to use his own words against him. “You said you’d make me feel good,” I reminded him. “Don’t good guys keep their promises?”

As he groaned deep in his throat, Kian’s hands found my face again, cradling it just as he had in my room the night before, his blue eyes looking much darker than usual. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

I had never been surer of anything. “Yes. That’s why I’m here. I want you, Kian.”

Those seemed to be the magic words, and a moment later, his lips were on mine again, just as hungrily as they had been the night before.

Even hungrier, maybe, because now, he had no reason to stop. This wasn’t about comforting me or dealing with what happened on our date. Now, we were simply two people alone together in a bedroom, wearing very little, who were both attracted to each other and had no reason on earth why we couldn’t do what we wanted about it.

As he pulled me closer to him, my hands went to his chest, feeling the hard planes I had been admiring the sight of just a moment earlier. He felt even better than he looked, his skin warm and his muscles firm beneath my fingers. His hands slipped around my waist again, searching for the bottom of my chemise, and when his fingers brushed against my bare skin as he pulled it up, Kian groaned into my mouth.

“Fuck, Cara, did you come in here with no pants on?”

“I already told you why I came in here. Why are you surprised?”

His chuckle of approval sent a shot of arousal through me, the sound almost as good as what his hands were doing, at least until he began to rub my ass, his hands cradling those cheeks just as he’d caressed my face a moment ago. When he gripped me tight and pulled my hips towards him, I could feel his own arousal firm against my stomach, and the throbbing in my body got even stronger.

This was actually going to happen. I could hardly believe it, and yet it felt like everything since that moment I heard him play at the Underground station had been leading to this moment.

Our lips still pressed together, he stepped forward, pushing me backwards towards the bed until the back of my legs hit the mattress and he quickly lifted me and placed me down in the middle of it, so smoothly that I almost missed it. Almost before I knew it, I was staring up at the ceiling while his hands gently spread my knees apart, exposing my bare pussy to him as my heart pounded. No one had ever looked at me like this before, but Kian made it feel almost natural as he kissed his way up my thigh, starting at the knee until I could feel his breath right at the very heart of me.

“This is all about making you feel good,” he promised, his voice heavy with the same need that flowed through every inch of my body. “If you don’t like something, tell me and I’ll stop, okay?”

“O-okay.” The word stuttered on the way out, getting stuck as Kian’s tongue swept across my lower lips, the sensation completely foreign yet instantly recognizable. Desire coursed through me as he kissed and licked his way along me, pausing to run his tongue across my clit, making me nearly jump off the bed.

It never felt like that when I used the showerhead on it.

Instinctively, my hips began to move, grinding my pussy against his face as he coaxed and teased me. When his tongue pressed inside me and he hummed in satisfaction, a shiver of pure lust ran through me.

“Fuck, you taste good,” he murmured. “Dangerously good, Cara. I’m going to be craving you after this.”

His words drove my need even higher, and when his finger began to push inside me, farther and deeper than his tongue had gone, my hips bucked towards him. “Oh, fuck, yes.”

“You like that?” he asked, his voice coming out as a rumble from between my legs. “How about this?”

He stretched me wider, adding another finger, and I moaned shamelessly, my hips rocking against him. “Yes. Like that, yes.”

With firm, sure strokes, he pumped his fingers inside me as his mouth returned to my clit. That time, there were no light touches. He flicked his tongue against it hard, sucking and teasing me while his fingers fucked me and the aching need in me grew stronger and stronger until, all at once, it peaked. My body clenched as the pleasure hit and melted away in the most exquisite pleasure.

Kian’s movements slowed as the waves of my orgasm ebbed, but he took his time in pulling out of me entirely. Only when my whole body relaxed did he move up the bed to kiss my lips, much more softly than before.

“I don’t know if I’m a good guy, Cara,” he whispered as his hand stroked my cheek. “But I know for sure that I’m a fucking lucky one.”