In Too Deep

10. Chapter Ten

~Kian~

When I went to sleep the night before, I never thought I’d have Cara in my bed before the sun was up.

A light sleeper by nature, in an unfamiliar place, it didn’t take much to wake me up. When Cara opened my door and crept in, my body immediately tense, my mind instantly on alert, suspecting it might be one of Marco’s men. The thought crossed my mind that he might have decided getting rid of me would be easier than keeping me quiet, but I had no intention of being another of his victims. As quietly as I could, I got the drop on the person, only realizing at the last second that the figure was far too short and slight to be one of Marco’s assailants. The brief glimpse I got of Cara in her nightgown when I flipped the lights on had my heart pounding for a whole other reason.

And when she made it clear why she’d come and what she wanted, I couldn’t say no. I simply couldn’t. I would make her feel good, at least. I got to bury my face in her, kissing her in a completely different way and giving her another brand-new experience.

When it came to my own needs, however, I didn’t plan to give in so easily, so when Cara reached down my body to run her fingers across my cock, I groaned and gently grabbed hold of her hand, pulling it back.

“Don’t worry about me. I wanted you to feel good, that’s all.”

“That felt amazing,” she assured me. “But I want you to feel good too.”

Circumventing my efforts, she reached down with her other hand instead, her right one, but no sooner had her fingers wrapped around the outline of my cock through my thin, cotton trousers, than she let out a hiss of pain.

“Cara? What’s wrong?” I immediately rolled back in case I had done something without meaning to, but she quickly made it clear that it had nothing to do with me.

“My stupid hand.” Her lips pressed together in frustration. “I can’t do anything with it. I can’t even touch you.”

“That’s okay,” I tried to reassure her. “You don’t need to. I told you, I’m happy with what we just did. I don’t need anything else.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not just that I can’t do it now; I’ll never be able to do it. I can’t play the piano, I can’t type, I can’t cook, and now, I can’t even have sex. I’m completely useless.”

It wasn’t a laughing matter, not at all, but I couldn’t help smiling anyway. “Last time I checked, hands weren’t a requirement for sex. You’ve done a pretty good job of getting me hard without touching me at all.” To prove my point, I rolled back over on top of her, pressing my erection against her thigh. “That’s because of you, Cara. The sight of you, the taste of you, the sound of you. I don’t care if you can use your hands on me or not. It’s not necessary. I care much more that you feel good and that you never, ever think of yourself as useless.”

The light in the room grew brighter with each passing minute, and I could see her brown eyes clearly as she looked up at me, her expression a mix of uncertainty, pain and desire.

The last one was the one that made me pull back again. It would be so easy to give in to what I wanted, and what she wanted too, but it didn’t feel right when there was so much she didn’t know. Giving her pleasure was one thing; taking my own would be another, and I didn’t want to cross that line.

Not yet.

“You told me last night that you were writing a new song but that you couldn’t share it with me. Since I’m here now, I’d love to hear it. Would you play it for me?”

Again, I could see almost every emotion as it played out on her face: the surprised pleasure that I remembered her song, her desire to share it with me but being torn at not wanting our time together in bed to come to an end.

Leaning down over her, I sweetened the deal. “I bet you’ve got an amazing shower in your room. When we’re finished with the song, we can shower together, if you want to.”

That would be another situation where I could focus on her, and Cara’s eyes lit up at the suggestion, all her hesitation disappearing. “Alright. Just be quiet in the hall. I don’t want to wake Marco up.”

I didn’t want that either. For the time being, I’d prefer to forget all about Marco Russo.

With the lights still off, Cara slowly opened the door to my room, peering down the hall to her left before running on her tiptoes across the hall to her own room. Somehow, she managed to look both adorable and sexy at the same time, her nightgown just barely covering her bare ass while I followed after her, walking considerably slower thanks to the tent in my trousers.

Back in her room, Cara closed the door and switched on a lamp near her bed, giving us a bit of extra light. The covers of her bed were still rumpled and pulled back, and my eyes lingered there a moment longer than necessary before I followed her to her computer, pulling up a second chair to sit next to her, doing my best to ignore the state of my cock.

“It’s not finished yet,” Cara warned me as she used voice commands to open up the program she wanted on her computer. It all seemed pretty top of the line to me, reinforcing that Marco truly did care about his sister if he went to the trouble of getting her all this equipment. Although, she wouldn’t have needed it in the first place if not for him, not to mention all the other things he’d done. Feeling any kind of gratitude towards him seemed both wrong and confusing.

She hit play and the music began, not from the computer itself, but from a surround sound system throughout the room. The computerized sound was so good, I could almost believe we were listening to a real person playing. Cara closed her eyes so I followed suit, letting the sound wash over me.

The song started slowly, almost tentatively, one melody followed by another, different but complementary to each other, going back and forth until they both hit the same notes at the same time, and suddenly, a whole new movement began. The notes weaved around each other, chasing each other up and down the scale, pushing and pulling as the pace became more frantic, until it felt inevitable that they would fully collide. The tension built higher and higher until at last it broke into a joyous new melody that somehow combined the best parts of both but also managed to feel entirely new.

When the final notes vibrated through the air around us, echoing away until only silence remained, I realized I’d been holding my breath, and I let it out slowly as I opened my eyes. Cara had her arms wrapped around herself, her own eyes still closed, and before I could begin to put into words how incredible the song was, she spoke instead.

“Marco’s tangled up with some dangerous people, Kian. He does business with them, things that aren’t entirely legal, and someone’s upset enough at him that they want to hurt him. I’m afraid they’ll hurt you too if you get involved with me.”

Instantly, my heart beat faster. I hadn’t asked her a single thing about what Marco said to her but it seemed she felt ready to tell me on her own. What it had to do with the song she just played for me, I couldn’t guess, but I would take what I could get.

“I’m already involved,” I pointed out softly, my hand going to her thigh. She didn’t move away, but neither did she open her eyes. “What kind of business?”

“I’m not entirely sure. He called it ‘financial investments’ without asking any questions about where the money comes from. He said my parents were killed over a deal that went wrong. I didn’t know any of this until last night. I wouldn’t have exposed you to it if I did.”

“I believe you, Cara.” I had already come to that conclusion on my own, and her words only confirmed it. She seemed to be leaving a fair bit out, but I had to guess she didn’t know the rest. I believed she would have told me if she did. “So that’s why those men came after you last night? Another deal that went wrong?”

“I guess so. I don’t know all the details, but Marco says he’ll take care of it. Can you forgive me?”

“For what?”

Finally, her eyes opened and she looked over at me with both fear and regret. “For getting you mixed up in any of this, and for trying to seduce you without telling you the truth.”

The irony of her guilt wasn’t lost on me, especially as she’d only gone a matter of hours without telling me what she’d learned, while I’d been deceiving her for weeks and intended to go on doing it.

“There’s nothing to forgive. None of this is your fault. I know it might seem overwhelming right now, but we’ll find a way through it, okay? You’ve been through so much already and survived. I know you can get through this too. We can talk to Marco together later, if you want to, and until then, my offer of a shower still stands. What do you say?”

She looked at me with something close to wonder. “How can you be so calm and understanding? Do you ever lose your temper?”

“I do,” I assured her. “I’m not perfect, so please don’t go thinking I am. But to tell you the truth, you help to calm me. Around you, I can forget about all the background noise. All I hear is music.”

Her eyes filled with relief and happiness as she leaned forward to kiss me, but even as I kissed her back, all I could think about was what her reaction might be when the time came for me to ask for her forgiveness. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be anywhere near as understanding, and understandably so.

~Cara~

No one had ever said anything to me like the words that came out of Kian’s mouth. It was getting hard to keep track of all the firsts I experienced in the last twelve hours: besides the incredibly sweet things he just said, I’d also had my first kiss, my first oral sex, and the first time I’d almost been abducted. It had certainly been eventful.

Kian took my confession so well that I almost wondered if he didn’t fully understand what I told him. On the other hand, he had been right beside me the night before: he heard the gunshots, he hid in the bathroom with me, he saw Jussi bleeding in the back seat of the car. He knew just how much danger we’d been in, so he couldn”t be naive about what kind of danger might still await. If I understood it, he certainly would since he was so much more worldly than me in the first place.

Yet, it didn’t scare him off. He didn’t blame me for it or regret that we met. Instead, he said that I helped to calm him, and he showed me how his body reacted to me. He made me feel that any danger he faced because of me would be worth it.

And it didn’t have to stop there. Kian promised to shower with me, and I hoped that if things got soapy and steamy in the shower, I could convince him to take things even further. He wanted me; he’d made that perfectly clear when he pressed his erection against me. So why was he holding back? I had to be missing something, but hopefully, getting him naked and wet would wash away any remaining doubts he had, because from my side, I had none.

I wanted him to be my first in every way. I was more than ready.

“The shower’s this way,” I murmured against his lips before getting back to my feet. I hadn’t given him a chance to say anything about my song yet, but that was by design. Rather than feeling like he had to praise it or analyze it, I simply wanted him to enjoy it, and he had. I could tell that by the look in his eyes. No words were necessary, not when we could share our feelings another way instead.

Inside my bathroom, the large walk-in shower was all controlled by a touch screen so that I didn’t have to turn any knobs or dials with my hands. I turned the water on and to the temperature I liked before turning back to Kian and, taking a deep breath, I pulled my chemise up and over my head, tossing it to the ground as I stood naked in front of him.

Although he’d already made me come, he hadn’t seen me naked yet and he let out a heavy breath of his own.

“Fuck, Cara. You’re stunning.”

From the state of his trousers, I could tell those weren’t idle words. He truly thought so, and I couldn’t wait to see him too. “Are you planning on joining me?”

His usually warm gaze turned heated as he pulled his trousers down, giving me my first proper look at him. Though I had nothing to compare him to, I found the sight pretty impressive anyway. His cock looked thick and strong, and my fingers itched to wrap around it to see if they would touch, even though after what happened earlier, I knew I couldn’t. I’d just have to measure it in other ways, I supposed.

“Let’s go in,” Kian suggested, his voice sounding rougher than usual as he gestured to the shower. “Let me take care of you, Cara.”

Given the circumstances, I thought he meant that in a sexual way, but once we’d stepped inside, the water running down my skin, over my peaked nipples and dripping between my legs, Kian picked up my shampoo bottle instead.

“Now, I don’t want to brag, but my mam was a hairdresser. She did it out of our kitchen so she could work from home and keep an eye on us at the same time. When she’d get busy, she’d recruit me to help her wash the old ladies’ hair. I got pretty good at it.”

“Are you comparing me to an old Irish woman?” I teased, and Kian’s gaze dipped down my body again.

“You couldn’t be further from the women I remember,” he assured me. “Close your eyes.”

I did as he said, and as his hands ran through my hair, his fingers beginning to massage my scalp, I almost groaned in pleasure. That was yet another thing I couldn’t do myself. I had to rub the shampoo in with the palms of my hands since flexing my fingers in that way simply wasn’t possible, at least not if I wanted to enjoy it. Kian had no such issues. His fingers dug into my skin with the perfect amount of pressure, scratching an itch I hadn’t even known I had, and making the rest of my body even more anxious for his touch.

“This is why you smell so good,” he murmured as he continued to rub my head. “I couldn’t place it, but this is definitely your scent.”

The idea that he’d noticed the way I smelled made me blush, despite the fact that we were standing together naked in my shower. I had noticed his smell too, but I spent time with so few people. I hadn’t known if I would make the same impression on him.

Even after rinsing my hair, he hadn’t finished yet. He took my body gel next and rubbed it into his hands, running them along my slippery body as my heart pounded in anticipation. The gentle way he cupped my breasts before running his fingers lightly over my nipples had me biting my lip, and when he got between my legs, it didn’t take long before his fingers were inside me again.

“What… about… you?” I gasped between thrusts, holding onto his shoulders to keep my balance as my legs began to tremble.

“I’m enjoying myself very much. Trust me.”

Any further protests I might have had disappeared as he began to rub my clit at the same time, both of his hands working in tandem. He pressed me back against the wall of the shower, kissing me as his hands continued to work their magic. The feel of his tongue and his hands, the cool tile of the shower against my back and the warm water still raining down on us from above completely overloaded my senses and I came again, whimpering into his mouth as my body contracted around his fingers that were still inside me.

Kian gave me one last, lingering kiss as he pulled his hand out of me. As I tried to catch my breath, he quickly washed his hands and the rest of himself too. His eyes closed briefly as he ran his hand down the length of his stiff cock, but he made no move to do anything about his erection that hadn’t fully subsided ever since we were in his bed earlier.

I wanted to offer to wash him as he’d done for me, but I knew it would be mediocre at best. My hands weren’t going to help me in this situation, but that didn’t mean I had no other options.

As he washed his own hair, his eyes closed, and I lowered myself down to my knees at his feet. From this angle, his cock looked even bigger than it had from above, and I wondered not only if I could get my fingers around it, but if it would even fit in my mouth. As far as I could see, there was only one way to find out.

Kian jumped in surprise as my lips connected with him, looking around for a second before looking down to find me below him. “What are you doing, Cara?”

His voice sounded tight, and the question ridiculous. “What does it look like?”

Opening my mouth wider, I took just the head of his cock into my mouth, running my tongue around it as water continued to drip down. It didn’t taste like anything, really, but it felt good just because I knew it was him, and I could see what it did to him in the way his lips parted. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Do you have any idea how amazing that looks?”

With that encouragement, I took him in deeper, getting used to the feel of him filling my mouth and breathing through my nose. My hands rested flat against his thighs to help keep my balance as I began to bob forward and back, hoping I was doing it right.

Kian didn’t rush me. He let me take my time to figure out what got a good reaction from him and what didn’t work so well. With my left hand, I was able to run my hand across his balls, which he seemed to like. I tried to pay attention to everything.

Only when he got close did he give me some direction. “Faster, Cara. Just a bit faster, and don’t stop.”

Taking a deep breath, I took him in as deep and fast as I could, my tongue flicking along the underside of his shaft with each thrust. With my hand still on his balls, I could tell when he began to tighten, his breathing growing short.

“Fuck, that’s it. Shit, Cara.”

The warmth of his cum as he let go into my mouth surprised me and I ended up coughing as it hit my throat. Kian immediately pulled back, dropping to his knees too as I tried to catch my breath again.

“You okay there?” His blue eyes were full of affection, satisfaction, and just a touch of amusement.

I swallowed what was left in my mouth as my cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I’m fine. I’m sorry if I ruined it.”

He chuckled warmly. “You couldn’t ruin anything if you tried.”

“I guess you could tell that was my first time doing that, huh?”

“I had a hunch,” he admitted. “And I’m honoured to be the man you chose to do it with. But while we’re both satisfied, I think this is a good place to pause for now.”

“You don’t want to have sex with me?” On my knees in the shower, I couldn’t feel much more vulnerable. I might as well let all my insecurities out at once.

“It’s got nothing to do with what I want,” Kian assured me in an almost fierce tone. “It’s about you, Cara, and what you deserve. And right now, I think what you deserve is to get a bit more sleep. What do you say we go lay down in your bed together and rest for a while?”

Actually, as the adrenaline from what we’d just done drained away, relaxing with him sounded amazing. As soon as I nodded, Kian helped me to my feet, switched off the shower and dried me off before carrying me to the bed, over my protests. After drying himself off, he put his pajama bottoms back on and joined me, holding me in his arms just like he’d done the night before.

Feeling warm and safe and protected, my eyes closed almost before I knew it and I fell into a far deeper sleep than I had the whole night before.

~Kian~

I didn’t intend to fall back to sleep but after the warm shower and my unexpected orgasm, followed by lying down in Cara’s warm, comfortable bed and how natural she felt lying next to me, I found myself opening my eyes as someone knocked on her door. Cara raised her head at the same time, blinking blearily as she also woke up.

“Cara?” Marco’s voice called out from the other side of the door. “Is Kian in there with you?”

She looked back at me with wide, startled eyes. “What should I say?”

Her guilelessness made me smile. “Tell him the truth, Cara. You’re a grown woman who can do what she wants, and he wouldn’t have let me spend the night across the hall from you if he were all that worried about it. We’re all adults.”

She nodded slowly, taking a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. This is new territory, I get it, but you’re capable of making your own decisions and he needs to know that. Make it clear that you made a choice, stick to it, and he’ll have to respect that.”

That was my gut instinct about Marco, at least when it came to Cara. He wanted her to be safe but he also wanted her to be happy. As long as the two things didn’t conflict with each other, he wouldn’t get in the way of her having a good time.

If I didn’t know the things I knew about him, I’d almost be tempted to like the guy.

With a look of determination, Cara darted from the bed to the bathroom where she grabbed a bathrobe from the door and put it on before going to the door.

Opening the door, she gave her brother a smile. “Good morning, Marco. I’m sorry, we must have fallen asleep again. Do you need to speak to Kian?”

From my vantage point in the bed, I couldn’t see his reaction, but I had to assume he would be impressed by her confidence. I certainly felt proud as I watched her.

When he replied, he sounded almost amused. “I do need to speak to him, but you can get dressed first. I’ll be having lunch in the kitchen.”

Lunch? Had we really slept that long? I could barely believe it, but Cara’s clock said 12:17 when I glanced over at it. Apparently, the previous night took more out of me than I’d realized.

“My clothes are in the other room,” I reminded Cara, getting out of bed while she closed the door again. “It’ll only take me a couple of minutes to get ready though. Do you want me to wait for you?”

I assumed it would take her a little longer, considering how put-together she always looked.

“Go ahead if you’d like to,” she told me. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

In no more than two minutes, I had pulled on the clothes left for me in my room, run a comb through my hair, and made my way to the kitchen where Marco sat at the table, eating a bowl of cereal. The sight struck me as so ordinary and unlikely at the same time that I couldn’t help smiling as I took a seat across from him. “Hey.”

His eyes darted to the door to make sure Cara hadn’t followed me before he leaned forward, no trace of humour in his expression. “I assume it goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway: you hurt her, you deal with me. Trust me, you don’t want to get on my bad side.”

“Yeah. I’ve figured that out already.” He would have to do a lot more than vaguely threaten me to scare me off, but I also knew that coming from him, the threat wasn’t an idle one. I didn’t want to talk to him about Cara anyway; I wanted to know what he’d done after I left him the night before. “Did you get the information you wanted last night? What are the chances I can go home today and not have my flat broken into?”

Marco accepted the change of subject, leaning back and taking another spoonful of his late breakfast. “My chat with our ‘friend’ we brought back with us last night turned out to be productive. I’ve got a good lead on where to find his employer tonight. Hopefully, it’ll all be settled then and you won’t have to worry.”

That sounded significant, but I needed more details before I could do anything with it. “And you’re sure that’ll be the end of it?”

“If I do it right.” His expression darkened as he dug into his bowl more aggressively. “This fucker’s been causing me trouble for way too long. I’m going to end it once and for all.”

He was still watching his words, speaking vaguely when I needed specifics. “You’re going to kill him?”

Marco’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth as he raised an eyebrow at me. “I never said that.”

“No, you didn’t, but that’s what it sounds like anyway. I want to make sure I know exactly what I’m getting into here, Marco. I like Cara, I like her a fucking lot, but I’d have to be an idiot not to know there’s more going on that what she knows about. I’ve been around some gangs growing up; that’s why my brother gave me the gun in the first place. I saw the kinds of things he did, and I see the similarities. Delivering the money to that guy for you the other day? The bodyguards and the guns and the security here at your house? This isn’t run-of-the-mill stuff. How deep in this shit are you?”

His eyes moved back to the doorway before he leaned in again. “I’m a businessman. I only get involved in ‘this shit’, as you call it, when someone else makes it personal.”

“So, you only kill people when you’re provoked?”

I wanted him to get to the point and admit exactly what he was planning, but he replied to my question with one of his own. “Are you telling me if someone threatened the people close to you, you wouldn’t fight back?”

He held my gaze steadily, and I answered him as honestly as I could, given the circumstances. “I’d want revenge, sure, but there are other ways to go about it. Legal ways. Have you ever thought about going to the police if you’re being threatened?”

He scoffed as he drained the last of his bowl. “The police and I aren’t exactly on good terms. Despite that, I actually did try it once. It didn’t end well. In fact, it made things a hell of a lot worse.”

He had? That was news to me; nothing in any of the information I’d read had ever mentioned Marco making contact with the police. Unfortunately, Cara appeared in the door at that exact moment before I had a chance to ask any follow-up questions and Marco immediately leaned back again, giving her as close to a smile as I’d seen from him. “You slept well?”

Cara glanced over at me, her cheeks turning slightly pink before she turned back to her brother. “I’m feeling better, but I still have questions about last night.”

“I know you do. Both of you.” Marco glanced over at me again. “Just let me get through tonight, and if all goes well, I can tell you the whole story.”

“What’s tonight?” Cara asked curiously as she came to take a seat at the table between me and her brother.

“I’ve got an appointment,” Marco replied vaguely. “Kian, I’d appreciate if you could stay here and keep Cara company.”

It seemed I wouldn’t be getting any further information about exactly where he was going or when, but I had a pretty good idea anyway: he must be going to confront David Park personally. Now, I just had to find a way to get that information to Thomas without Marco knowing. Even without a location, if a team could follow Marco, they might be able to monitor their meeting and hopefully catch one or both men in the middle of some kind of illegal activity. It seemed likely that things would get violent if the two managed to meet, and that might be enough to be able to hold them long enough to get access to more information.

Stopping Marco was still my priority, I had to remember, even if the thought of having to explain to Cara why her brother didn’t come home that night didn’t appeal to me in the least.