My resistance was nearly nonexistent now. Cock hard. Head full of her scent. Her warm, fit body against me and that break in control only cracked wider when she tangled her fingers in my hair and pressed her lips to mine.
In that moment, I wasn’t thinking about how much I’d loved her. There was only the sensation of what she did to my body. How easy it was to remember that dance again and claim this woman’s body.
It wouldn’t last. How could it?
I’d buried the hurt I’d never totally forgotten. But I still remembered every bit of pain, betrayal, and regret I’d felt since the day I left New York, cursing the day I ever let myself get wrapped up with Cara.
One last time, I told myself as I swept a thumb across her nipple, putting into motion something I knew I couldn’t stop.
I wanted the end I didn’t get five years ago.
I wanted one last touch that would really be the last.
I wanted her to beg.
“Say you want me,” I growled as I kneaded her ass and my hard cock strained against my jeans, pleading to get lost in her one last time.
“I…I want you, Kiel.” Her voice was sweet and soft as she said my name, the sound like a weak purr that took effort to release. Cara blinked slowly, gaze shifting around my face, tits moving closer to my touch, then she released one last moan, a hum that sounded like want and need and fucking sex itself. “I… Shit, Kiel,” she said, eyes half lidded but still hungry. “Fuck me,” she moaned.
Any fight I had left died in that moment at those two moaned words.
Need overcame anger and hurt.
Hunger took betrayal.
The urge to touch her was overwhelming.
I found the bottom of her shirt, slowly gliding my fingers across her velvet skin as I lifted the top over her head, exposing her strapless black lace bra.
I leaned forward, dragging my tongue against the swell of her breasts. She tipped her head back, offering herself to me as she shoved her hands under my shirt. That touch seared me, those sharp nails against my ribs as she sank them into my skin, trembling against my arms. The pace was too slow, and it had been too long. Now need took precedence, and I slipped my fingers under her bra, pulling the fabric free and tossing it to the floor.
Cara went at me with the same desperate speed, fingers moving frantically, yanking at the button of my jeans and fumbling with my zipper as my mouth closed around one nipple while I pinched the other.
The tremble left her limbs as she slid her fingers into my waistband, forcing my pants down far enough for my cock to spring free. The warmth of her palm enveloped me, turning the dull ache into a deep, painful throb only she could soothe.
For a moment, I forgot I hated her.
In that split second, with my lips tightening around her nipple, her hand sliding against my cock, she owned me just like she had before she crushed my heart and tossed me out like a piece of trash.
This wasn’t about loving each other.
That moment had passed, and our fucking had never been tender or sweet.
It wouldn’t be now.
My cock was like solid rock in her expert hand as she stroked my shaft harder, faster, so tight and hot that I had to pull away.
I grabbed her shoulders, regretting the moment her hand slipped from my skin. I spun her around and bent her over the couch. She pushed her ass out, offering all she had, and I was more than happy to take everything I could.
I moved one hand from her cheek, using it to tug my shirt over my head and slid my free hand to her thighs, bunching her skirt near her waist before I rested my fingers between her legs. I wanted her warm flesh against me. I wanted everything she offered.
She gasped as my tongue caressed the curve of her ear and my fingers glided across her slick skin. “Always so wet for me, Cara.” She started to rise, but I pressed my front against her back, ending the last bit of fight she had as my fingers slipped to her opening. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
I gave her one final out. One way to stop what was about to happen, but I knew she wouldn’t.
We both wanted it.
We both craved the feel of the other’s touch from the moment our bodies came together.
No amount of time or pain changed that.
She peered over her shoulder, panting as I pushed my fingertips through her wetness, teasing her. “More… Give me…more, and don’t stop,” she rasped with her chin in my hand, holding her head back so I could see her eyes.
I smiled against her ear, more than happy to give her what she wanted, hating and loving her at the same time. “Always a greedy little cunt,” I told her as I pushed my fingers inside, filling her.
Cara thrust her ass backward, always eager, always taking without asking and having no remorse.
That was the thing about my wife I’d learned after my world fell apart. She felt no guilt. Felt no grief about her brother almost ending my life or sending the cops after me. Just as I felt no compassion or pity for the way I was about to fuck her, using her for pleasure and nothing more.
Rocking against her, I bit the delicate curve of her shoulder near her neck, plunging my fingers deeper. My cock glided across the soft skin of her ass, throbbing to be buried deep inside her. Cara’s pussy clamped down on my fingers like she loved the way I stroked her.
That shit hadn’t changed.
She was still so eager to show me how much she liked what I did to her body.
Cara’s pants and low moans echoed in my ear as I licked across her skin, soothing the teeth marks I no doubt left.
So hot.
So sweet, so ready to be fucked.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I tugged my hand backward, placing the tip of my cock where my fingers had just been. She shifted, rocking forward on her tiptoes as I plunged my dick into her, impaling her until there was no more to take.
I wrapped my hand around her waist, holding her in place as I pummeled into her. Those low, hungry moans were like a song. Something fast like heavy metal, a machine-gun blast of music and sound, and fuck, did I love every note.
She writhed underneath me. Five thrusts in and she was already begging for more. Her fast, throbbing pulse beat against my fingers as I wrapped them around her neck, slipping my hand up to tangle her hair in my fist.
She screamed, “Oh God,” as I tightened my grip, tipping her head back and controlling her movement.
But God wasn’t going to save her or give her absolution.
Only me.
The man she’d wronged.
The one she claimed to love, but only when it was convenient.
I let out a growl, shoving my cock so deep even I lost my breath. The familiar tingle traveled up my spine as my muscles strained, chasing the orgasm I wanted more than air. My even strokes became stunted and unsteady as my balls grew heavy, slapping against her ass with each forward push. She rocked backward, sliding her hand between her legs to give herself the orgasm I wasn’t going to give her.
The first upsurge of pleasure crashed over me, sending shock waves through my system as I shuddered against her back. I gasped, trying to find air but unable to breathe as I picked up the pace, riding the last crest and spilling everything I had into my wife.
Cara moaned, stroking her clit faster as she followed me down the spiral. Panting, I released her hair, pressing my body against her back, and she shuddered underneath me.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“We did,” I told her, pushing away from her, wanting this over and done. There wouldn’t be any cuddling or spooning as we drifted off to sleep.
Vinnie had worried me, but not enough that I’d be making bullshit professions of love.
Cara turned, body glistening with sweat and her skirt still bunched around her waist. “Kiel,” she said, taking a step forward as I moved back.
I shook my head, not wanting to hear anything she had to say as I pulled up my pants. “Don’t start.”
She frowned, and I saw the swif
t flash of hurt that she tried to tamp down. It didn’t work, and I ignored the nagging voice in my head that called me out for being an asshole. She opened her mouth but didn’t speak, and I scrubbed my face, throwing a smirk on my mouth at the frown she gave me.
“It is what it is, sweetheart. Now it’s over. You’ve got protection. Those goons of yours will have your back. Go home.”
Her eyes flashed, a mix of anger and hurt crossing her face, and her hands balled into fists at her sides. “But we just…” She motioned between us, jerking a glare at me when I laughed.
She watched me as I tucked my cock away and zipped my pants. “I never wanted to be mixed up in your father’s business, but you pulled me in without giving two fucks about my life or what I wanted.”
Cara took a step. An excuse was ready on her tongue from the way she immediately opened her mouth, but I shook my head, stopping her bullshit before she could speak it. “You want a husband, and I want that newspaper gig. You need protection, fine. I’ll give it to you. But don’t expect much more than that from me.”
“But we…” she repeated, like she couldn’t believe I’d fuck her and not want more. “You just…” Moisture pooled in her eyes, and her lip trembled as I grabbed my shirt off the floor. Her voice was soft as she placed her hand over her mouth. “You can’t expect me to believe you feel nothing for me at all.”
“I never said I didn’t. If something happens to you, it would piss me off. Something bad happens to you, maybe I’d get shit square with whoever did that to you.” I pulled the shirt over my head, not caring that it was wrinkled and smelled like sex. “But that doesn’t mean I’m a gullible asshole willing to dive right back between your thighs anytime you want to fuck me.”
When Cara flinched, as though my words punched her in the gut, I tilted my head, honestly confused why she looked so damn hurt. “What?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I thought…”
“I took what I wanted just like you always do. I fucked you, nothing more.”
She lurched forward, hand in the air, ready to strike again, but I grabbed her arm, stopping her. “I hate you,” she said, her voice low, icy, and full of venom.
“That makes two of us.”
But I wasn’t talking about Cara.
God, I loved her.
Even now with her eyes shining, lips pulled tight, baring her teeth, I wanted her.
She deserved the panic, the unsettled feeling deep in her stomach, the pain of being abandoned.
For five years, I’d tried to convince myself I hated her. The person I hated the most in the world was myself.
I hated that I loved her.
I hated that I cared.
I hated that I wasn’t sure I could turn my back and walk away even if I wanted her to think I could.
10
Cara
There were never enough choices.
Money and power could bring you a few.
They did their part to open doors and keep those bastards from closing again, but that didn’t go very far.
It didn’t make someone love you.
Or, in my case, love you again.
My husband fucked me like a whore. Bent me over a sofa and took what he wanted.
Normally, I wouldn’t have complained; every way Kiel touched me shot fire and need through my veins. But he’d touched me two nights ago and promised it meant nothing.
I meant nothing.
The fuck did you expect?
I’d been a coward. I’d left him to my brother and the assholes that did my father’s bidding. Kiel wasn’t wrong. I’d treated him as a husband of convenience.
Like he was nobody.
I fucked you, nothing more.
That admission went deep.
It reminded me of what I’d done five years ago.
It reminded me of the pain I’d caused him.
Now Kiel was giving it all back to me.
Has your husband called yet?
I thought of not responding to my brother’s text. He’d been in on this plan from the beginning, from the second I’d told him the truth about Kiel and me. Now he was concerned, but that had nothing to do with my marriage and everything to do with how hurt my father had been.
No.
My thumb hovered over the phone as I hesitated with what I wanted to know. I was proud. I was stubborn, but I was still worried about my father.
Is Papa still angry?
The small dots on the message flitted across the screen, and I was sure Johnny was writing a paragraph. Maybe I hoped he was, but when he stopped typing and the text came through, I guessed my brother had written, erased, and rewritten the truth repeatedly. Each one would likely sting less than the one before.
He’s at least stopped calling you THAT GIRL.
I lowered my shoulders, dropping into my desk chair with my phone between my fingers as I typed.
Nice. That gives me so much hope. Thanks.
Johnny returned a quick What did you expect? followed by a quicker It’ll all work out before I threw my phone onto the desk, reclining a little in my padded leather office chair.
“Ms. Carelli?” my assistant, Sarah, called through the phone, her voice clipped but professional.
“Yes?” I answered.
“You wanted me to remind you of the new inventory at the FH. You said you’d take a look during your lunch, and it’s almost one.”
“Thanks, Sarah. I’ll be a couple of hours.”
It would take me at least fifteen minutes with lunch hour traffic. I wasn’t in a hurry to get to the gallery or see the obnoxious snob who ran the place.
Carelli money was old.
It was vast, but to some of New York’s elite, like Mitsi Wallace-Carmichael, Finnegan Holden’s curator, it was still not worthy.
We were thugs, plain and simple. It didn’t matter that we hosted multimillion-dollar fund raisers and charitable galas. Didn’t matter one lick to her that we’d discovered three MacArthur Fellows. To her, to the people like her, we were criminals throwing money around to win respectability.
We were.
That was the whole damn point of my job at the museum. Legitimacy. And I did my best to earn it.
For the most part, we had. But there were still people like Mitsi who never saw beyond the gossip that swirled around our name.
I pulled on my coat, buttoning it as I left my office, intent on wearing it and the bullshit gossip I knew was thick in the air like a cape.
Let them talk.
Page Six, I was sure, had a lot to say about Vinnie and me. We were seen together once, a month or so ago, and we’d been followed ever since. Even more aggressively because Vinnie hadn’t hidden his long-term girlfriend from the paparazzi. If the news broke that whatever was happening between us was off because I was already married, the attention we’d get would be relentless. Especially if they put two and two together and linked Kiel with his famous brother and the cable show he co-hosted with his equally famous girlfriend, Kit Carlyle.
Arturo, my driver, waited at the front of the museum, ready to hold open the door for me as I moved toward the lobby. At least it was him and not the other guards my father insisted I hire. With Arturo there waiting for me and my father’s anger still thick and raging, I’d figured Dante and Giovanni wouldn’t be necessary. They’d just scare patrons from coming inside the museum.
Arturo, though, was a professional, less intimidating than my guards, and it was his plain, dispassionate face I focused on as I walked toward him. He had to be pushing fifty and looked like some exaggerated cartoon version of what a mafia goon would look like—no neck, too-wide shoulders, jaw cut into lines and sharp edges. The thought made my top lip quirk, but I pressed my mouth tight and focused on the rich smell of cinnamon wafting through the rooms as Beth, the front desk receptionist, sipped on the white hot chocolate she seemed to think she successfully hid from me behind her desk.
Kiel had loved cinnamon in his hot chocolate, and I’d never been a
ble to fight back the memory of him sprinkling the spice into his cup as we huddled together waiting for a cab that would take us from NYU and back to my apartment on the Upper West Side.
He’d wrap his massive arm around me, pulling me against his chest as we shared the cocoa, and that sweet spice would move into my sinuses. “This is good, right? Making our own heat?” he’d joked, kissing my forehead when I’d nodded a reply.
We made our own heat, always.
We had two nights ago in his hotel room.
“Signora,” Arturo greeted, opening the door for me, and I hurried through it, trying to push away the memory of that frigid winter afternoon and Kiel’s warm body. I didn’t need to be reminded of what he felt like when he took me. Not then, not two nights ago either. It was pointless. Especially now that I’d been relegated to a body he’d used.
I took what I wanted just like you always do.
The car was parked twenty feet from the front of the museum, and I cleared my throat, wishing the knot in it would vanish. It hadn’t left me since I’d hightailed it away from Kiel’s hotel. My body aching, my heart a shredded mess as I sank down in the back seat of my car, letting the tears collect on my lashes before I wiped them away.
Damn Kiel for making me feel this guilt.
Damn him for reminding me I was nothing to him and wouldn’t ever be again.
Hand on the open car door, I tossed in my bag and was about to slide inside when I heard my name being called in a deep and kind tone behind me. I exhaled, eyes squinted tight, wanting half a second to rein in my anger and embarrassment before I turned to face him.
“If you’re curious about the job,” I started, figuring the position I’d promised him was the only reason Kiel would bother to track me down. “I told you, Raquel is still interested.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Kiel said, glancing at Arturo when the driver stepped in front of me.
“It’s fine,” I told my guard before I tapped his arm to move him back. “Kiel’s wounds are always inflicted in private.”
Kiel jerked his gaze from Arturo’s face to mine at my small dig. I repressed the instant urge to roll my eyes at him when he gritted his teeth, jaw moving like he needed to remind himself not to yell. If he was insulted, he kept it to himself.
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