“I need to say something to you,” he told me, his features tightening when I only stared back at him. Kiel stepped forward, taking one hand out of his jacket to rest his palm on the open door at my side. “Please.”
He wasn’t a man who liked to wait. Before, when we were together, he’d been gentler. Kinder. He’d been worried about my opinions, my thoughts, and he always wanted me happy. But Kiel had never liked waiting for anything. The things he wanted, he wanted instantly, and by the way he gripped the door and narrowed his black eyes, it told me that hadn’t changed much.
When he moved another step closer and Arturo followed him, I shot a glance between the two men, figuring it would be bad for business to have Kiel and my driver tussling outside the museum.
“Fine,” I said finally, nodding to the driver so he’d step back. “I have to go to the FH—”
“The FH?”
“Yes. The Finnegan Holden Gallery.” Kiel gave me a blank stare, reminding me of a kid trying to sort out a complicated geometry problem, and I shook my head, turning to slide into the car. “Follow or don’t. Either way, I need to be there.”
The interior was warm, but my fingers were still cold since I’d forgotten my gloves at my place. I took to rubbing my hands together, blowing hot air into my palms as Kiel climbed inside next to me.
He looked at my face, then down at my cupped hands before he sighed, stretching a gloved hand toward me to pull my fingers between his massive palms. “You always forget your gloves,” he said, rubbing our fingers together, trying to generate some heat.
“I was in a hurry.”
“Takes literally three minutes to tug them on and get out of your place.” His hot breath tickled my cold skin when he blew across my knuckles, his attention on me and whatever expression was trapped on my face. Kiel shook his head, keeping whatever he thought to himself. “You still keep your gloves in that entry table of your grandmother’s?” I nodded but didn’t speak. “You still run at least five minutes late every day?” Another nod and Kiel smiled, but the grin left his mouth almost as soon as it got there. “Keep your cell in the same table so you won’t forget.”
He finished his little doling out of Kiel wisdom, but he didn’t look away from me. Did he want more of the same treatment we’d given each other that night in his hotel, or was this visit meant to serve a specific purpose? When Kiel went on watching me, his hot breath moving over my cold fingers, I extracted them, returning his heavy stare.
“I’m good,” I told him, folding my arms over my chest. I didn’t want the temptation of touching him to be so accessible. “Now, what do you want?”
The warm smirk that had moved his lips left his mouth completely, and Kiel leaned back, resting his hands in his lap as he watched me again. He looked good today in a charcoal gray pea coat and thick black scarf with no frills or embellishments. He wasn’t a man who went in for glitz in his wardrobe. He always dressed well, but he dressed like a man with no intention of impressing anyone.
It annoyed me that he looked so damn good. Especially after he’d promised I was nothing to him.
“The other night…” he started, voice like liquid fire, as though just the reminder of it did something to his body that he tried and failed to control. “It was…”
“Insulting,” I offered, grinning to myself when Kiel’s nostrils flared.
“No,” he asserted, not holding back the smile now. “It was fierce, hot, and fucking incredible, but then, it always is when I’m inside you, Cara.”
“It…” I tried again, staring out the window as Arturo moved us through the city. “It was good. You, on the other hand, were insulting.”
“Hmm,” Kiel mused, resting against the seat, his focus on my face. I swore I could feel him watching me, like he wanted to soak up every ounce of my skin.
“Does any of that matter?” I asked, focusing on the traffic Arturo weaved through with ease as I unfolded my arms and tried to relax. The streets weren’t nearly as busy as I’d suspected they would be, and my driver took advantage.
“Any of what?”
His scent was thick, rich, some obscure cologne I couldn’t place. From the look and smell of him, Kiel had done a little shopping. No way that coat or the tailored suit I spotted underneath could have been stuffed in the duffle he’d had with him at the airport. My mouth watered, my senses overloaded in just the few minutes we’d been together in the car.
“You and me and whatever fierce ‘fucking incredible’ thing that happened.” My hand was on the seat between us, and I curled my fingers into a ball when Kiel brushed my palm. “I…mean nothing,” I told him, gradually turning to watch the slow, careful way he brushed the skin of my wrist.
“That’s what brought me here.” His admission came out slowly. Like a whisper he wanted only me to hear. I frowned, watching him move closer. When I didn’t respond, gave him only a look, my eyes narrowed and nothing more, Kiel sighed, the bottom lid of his right eye twitching. “What, Cara?”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Two nights ago, I was treated like a whore.” My voice was loud, biting. I spotted the swift movement of Kiel’s gaze to Arturo and back again to my face. Was he embarrassed that I spoke so freely? “You bent me over your sofa and fucked me hard while I fingered my clit. It was hot. Fierce, like you said, and not two minutes after you fucked me, you told me I was nothing. So, yeah. You’re full of shit.” I turned, head tilted as I watched him, curious why he looked so uneasy.
Then something occurred to me.
Something that seemed so familiar because it was motivation I used myself. Kiel wasn’t smiling. He didn’t do anything but watch how I twisted on the seat, hands back in my lap as I shot my eyebrows up, taken aback that he’d stoop to my very obvious level. “Uh-huh, full of shit or you want something.”
Kiel controlled his features, keeping his expression even. Not daring to give away even the smallest emotion for nearly an entire minute. The look was stern, a little infuriated, but I didn’t back down. I only blinked twice, less than he had, and kept my composure as well. Finally, with his mouth twitching and that lower lid still pulsing, Kiel leaned back, elbow on the door, finger at his temple as he shook his head.
“My brother doesn’t like you,” he told me.
“Ah. Okay. That makes everything so clear, stronzo.”
He held up a hand, keeping me silent as he continued. “I went back to Seattle busted and bruised, a fact that I’ve repeated several times since I’ve been in the city, I know. No need for the eye roll.” He released a breathy grunt when I made a face, then he dismissed my attitude with a slipup.
“And that has what to do with your brother not…” I frowned then, realizing at least some of what he meant. Of course, Kane Kaino didn’t like me. It was my fault his kid brother had landed back home injured and hurt. I looked down, fiddling with the hem of my skirt while he waited for me to continue. “Fine. He hates me.”
“I never said he hates you. I said he doesn’t like you.”
“There’s a difference?”
The small noise he released must have been a laugh. It at least came with a grin. A dangerous-looking smirk I couldn’t decide whether should turn me on or make me worry. Then Kiel’s smile deepened, just one dimple denting his right cheek.
“You’d know if a Kaino really hated you. Trust me.” His features relaxed. The sharp edge of his jaw didn’t make him seem fierce or intimidating when he smiled like that. For just a second, no more than a half-held breath that lodged in my chest, Kiel looked like that easygoing, sweet kid I’d fallen for five years ago.
“He didn’t want me coming here because he figured you weren’t done with me. He’s rarely wrong.” His large shoulder moved with his shrug, and Kiel glanced out the window as though he didn’t want to see my reaction when he admitted what had changed his attitude. “So last night when he called, I filled him in.”
“Let me guess, he still doesn’
t like me?”
“Couldn’t say.” He moved his head toward me, shifting one glance at my face before his attention went back to the street and the slow journey we made toward Fifth Avenue. “Kane is so wrapped up in his feelings for Kit, there isn’t much drama that can get under his skin.” One last scan of the sidewalk then Kiel gave me his attention again. “He gave me the usual advice. ‘Watch your back. Don’t trust anyone.’ Shit I knew, but then he asked if I’d fucked you.” Kiel’s mouth twitched when I shot my eyebrows up. “I admitted I had, and he gave me the heavy, disappointed sigh. But when I told him you meant nothing, that I’d told you as much, that sigh got kinda growly, and my brother yelled at me for twenty minutes.”
The door handle bit into my back when I shifted against it, looking up into the bemused expression that shifted the tension from Kiel’s face. “Because you insulted a woman he doesn’t like?”
“Because I used you. Because…I lied to you.” Kiel dropped his voice and scooted closer, elbows on his knees, his careful cool slipping a fraction. “Kane doesn’t like liars. He especially doesn’t like liars who use those lies to get what they want.”
“And you wanted…?”
It was three long seconds before he spoke. Three thousand milliseconds of Kiel watching me, looking like he wasn’t sure how much of an apology I deserved. Then he pressed his palms into his eyes, and the twitching lid stopped. “I wanted you. I’m not such a bastard that I won’t admit that.”
“But—”
He interrupted me with a slow headshake, and he stretched his hand out to mine. “No buts. No howevers. No caveats. My brother reminded me that I’m not a liar. We aren’t wired that way. When I say something, I generally meant it. Kane does too, but that night in my room, I was so pissed off about the entire situation—your father, Vinnie’s threats, and being thrown in the mix again that I…” He inhaled, threading our fingers together as though he needed my touch to give him strength. “I just wanted to be away from it all. I was pissed that I couldn’t be. More than that, I was pissed I couldn’t stop wanting you.”
“Wanting someone who means…”
“I told you,” he started, tightening his grip against my fingers. “I lied. I don’t want this life. The violence. The mafia bullshit. Not any of it. But I can’t lie to you anymore, Cara. I hate what you did to me. I hate how badly you hurt me. I hate that you manipulated me to get me back into your life.” He turned, tugging on my hand until it rested against his thigh. “But I don’t hate you.”
“You took me even when you didn’t—”
“I’ll never stop wanting you. No matter what you do. There will always be something between us.” Kiel lifted my knuckles to his chest, holding my hand there as he rubbed his thumb over my skin. “Call it heat. Call it need. I don’t care, but I want you. That won’t stop. I may not like it, but there’s the truth of it all.” Jaw tightening as he watched me, Kiel lowered my hand, replacing it on his knee but not holding it anymore. “I want to hate you, but I don’t. I want to not want you, but I can’t. Fucking pathetic, but that’s my truth.”
It took a lot for Kiel to admit the truth.
I had hurt him.
I had betrayed him worse than anyone else in his life.
He wasn’t a man who took his licks in stride.
He always wanted retribution.
He wanted his enemies to know he never forgot.
In a lot of ways, he was like me.
Like my family.
Once a wrong had been done to us, it was kept locked tight in a vault of thick memory, never to be dismissed. Never to be pardoned.
Maybe that’s what had drawn Kiel to me.
Maybe it was the same need for justice I saw in him that set us in each other’s orbits.
But Kiel also had a heart. He understood.
If you wounded him, he wanted to know why.
Then he’d get his justice if you deserved it.
I did.
I knew I did.
This reversal of his feelings from two nights ago made my chest tighten.
It gave me hope that one day he could forgive me.
Still, not for nothing, I was a Carelli and, technically, also a Kaino. I’d let him pretend with the peace he offered, but I wasn’t going to forget.
I knew he wouldn’t either.
“So,” I started, head to the side, eyes downcast to watch how close he’d put my hand to his thigh. “What do we do about this?”
Kiel smiled, a small glimmer of pleasure glinting in his eyes as he watched me. “Well, I’m not gonna kick you out of my bed if the opportunity comes around again, but I’m also not going to treat you like a whore.” He stretched an arm along the back of the seat and fingered my hair absently. “Not unless you ask.”
“I won’t.”
The stroking of my hair stopped. Kiel pushed an exaggerated grimace onto his face as though he were disappointed and surprised by my reaction. “No whore treatment?”
“No sex.” The grimace got real then, but I ignored it. “With us. Not again.”
Kiel scratched his ear, pulling on it as though he needed a distraction to organize his thoughts. It was less than two seconds before that cool calm resurfaced, right along with a smooth grin and a flippant shrug. “That’s disappointing, but I understand. I’m sorry I said you meant nothing. You might be manipulative and greedy for my attention, but you aren’t meaningless to me. You never have been.”
“Because you care if something bad happens to me?” I asked, remembering the only decent thing he’d said to me two nights ago.
“Because, Cara, against my wishes, you’re my wife for however much longer that needs to be our reality. I might not like you most days, but God help me, you’re still family.” The smile vanished from his features. Kiel leaned close just as the car slowed next to the sidewalk in front of the gallery. There was something I recognized in his eyes—a steely glint that reminded me of the promises Kiel had made once. They’d been solid and real, and he’d meant every word. He reached for my face, brushing away a strand from my cheek like it was his right. Like five years hadn’t separated him from the last time he’d touched me with such sweetness.
“Kainos protect family. Even when they don’t deserve it.”
I held his hand next to my face when he started to pull away, keeping that large palm against my skin. “Think I’ll ever deserve it again?”
He bit at the inside of his lip, cautious, wary, before he answered. “Maybe. Think you’ll ever forgive me for treating you like a whore?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, missing his hand when he dropped it into his lap. My cheek still felt warm. “But it might take something monumental to earn my forgiveness,” I joked, laughing under my breath.
“Noted.”
Arturo stood at Kiel’s door, ready for the tap on the window telling him to let us out. I nodded toward the man, eager to get Kiel’s attention on something other than our proximity or the heat currently humming between us as my driver stood outside in the crisp fall weather.
Kiel returned my nod, grinned back, and tapped a knuckle against the glass, easing out of the car and offering a hand to me once he stood. It was easy taking it, getting back into the ebb and flow of our actions—him opening doors for me or guiding me through a room with his large hand at the small of my back.
He was a gentleman, no matter what had happened between us. It seemed that hadn’t changed about him. He went as far as shutting the door behind us, tucking my hand into the crook of his elbow as we walked a good forty feet from the car. He threw me a glance and a half smile, before his body went rigid and he and Arturo both stood perfectly still.
The sidewalks were almost empty. There were custodians from the gallery near the front garden, trimming away dead weeds and collecting small bits of trash. The guards around the entrance weren’t paying attention to us, and two beat cops strolled west toward Sixth Avenue.
It seemed quiet, sure, but not unusual. Not with the weather tur
ning cooler and the lunch hour crowd dwindling, but Kiel and Arturo shared a look I’d seen before when my father’s guards were on edge.
A look that said there was a threat looming, and their senses and instincts had them on high alert. Kiel had never been anything more than a journalist, but if your beat put you in a world were violence and danger were commonplace, then you learned to listen to your gut. You learned to keep your defenses up and do battle when the shit gets thick.
By the look on Kiel’s face, shit was thickening quickly.
“On the left,” Arturo said, his accent heavy and laced with fear.
“At my back,” Kiel said, voice no louder than a growl.
Then the world twisted.
Spun on its axis.
Sped up and slowed down all at the same time.
So much of what happened became a blur; something I tried to remember later but failed at organizing the details into anything other than flashes.
Kiel’s growl had just left his mouth when one of the garden workers stood up straight, whistled a quick, sharp chirp of sound, then ran toward us.
Arturo grabbed his gun, drawing it with a speed that should not have been possible for someone with such a low center of gravity. Kiel pulled me against his chest, his thick arms over my shoulders and his large hand over my head as he half carried, half pulled me toward the car.
“Fuck!” he said when Arturo dropped next to the car after a shower of pops and bangs I recognized as gunfire.
There could have been dozens of goons coming for us. There could have been two. I couldn’t see past Kiel’s huge body and the cold sidewalk against my chest when he shoved me to the ground.
“Fuck!” he screamed again, lying on top of me while he tugged on Arturo’s collar, pulling the driver toward us.
Blood flowed in a thick stream as the man struggled toward us. He was conscious, but he looked weak, barely able to do more than pass his gun to Kiel just as the gardener came close.
“Oddio!” the driver said, holding up his hands, curses heavy, angry as the attacker approached.
Nailed Down: The Complete Series Page 24