by Bethany-Kris
“Sure.”
“Anything specific?”
Cara shrugged. “Anything unhealthy and greasy.”
Gian chuckled. “Junk food, then.”
“What else?”
It took an hour to grab food, and drive all the way to the bay. Gian pulled the car along the metal fence that kept vehicles from going too far ahead. He had only put the car into park before Cara leaned across the seats, grabbed his jaw in her hands, and pulled him in for a kiss. It was not a sweet, hello kind of kiss. It couldn’t be one of those, when her tongue invaded his mouth and she tried to get closer. It was more of an I want kind of kiss.
Gian was more than willing to give where Cara was concerned.
“So we’re doing this first, then?” he asked against her mouth while pulling his leather jacket off at the same time.
“Yes.”
So sure.
No hesitation.
“Whatever you want, Cara.”
Gian hooked an arm around Cara’s trim waist, and yanked her into the backseat of the Mercedes. He used the space between the front seats to get back there, but it sure as fuck wasn’t an easy fit, and Cara fell hard into his lap with a breathless laugh.
He moved so his back was to the door, bringing her along with him. Burying his hands into her hair, he held tight so he could get more of her pretty mouth against his while he had the damn chance. But that only made him want more of her to taste—her cheeks, jaw, and neck. All the spots that he hadn’t been able to kiss and bite and taste for weeks.
He had time to make up for.
Cara, apparently, had different plans. Her hot mouth started traveling down over his throat, her tongue lapping at his pulse point for a moment before moving on again. Gian decided all he could do was let her do her thing as she lowered even further.
“Jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket,” Cara said, working the button and zipper on Gian’s jeans. He lifted off the seat enough to let her pull the jeans and his boxer-briefs down, and pull his shoes off. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you without a suit.”
“You’ve seen me without one.”
“Being naked doesn’t count, Gian.”
“You’ve seen me in workout clothes.”
“Which is basically a pair of shorts,” she pointed out.
“I wasn’t planning on leaving the penthouse today,” he said in explanation.
Cara pulled his T-shirt up, and for the first time, Gian let go of the hold he had on her hair to allow her to slip the clothing off. “This is a good look, too. Relaxed. I liked the leather jacket.”
If she liked it …
“You can take it,” he said before pressing another hard kiss to her mouth. “Now, stop talking and start sucking my cock like you were working on doing two minutes ago.”
Cara’s eyes narrowed playfully. “How do you know that’s what I was going to do?”
“Well, if it wasn’t, it’s sure as fuck what you’re going to do now.”
She winked and started lowering down his body again. “Lucky for you, that was the plan.”
Of course it was.
Cara liked to say that it was him who had a gift with his mouth and tongue, but he didn’t think she was aware of her little talent. The second her lips encased his cock, and she took him deep into her throat without slowing once, Gian was in fucking heaven. She always knew how to suck him, hard on the swallow, and looser on the way up. Her tongue swirled at the head of his shaft, while her teeth teased along the pulsing vein that matched the beats of his heart.
And fuck, she didn’t give him a break. She didn’t slow.
She sucked and sucked, while her fingers dug into his thighs. She didn’t stop when his fingers weaved into her hair so that he could hold her down on his cock, and her throat flexed in the best way around his shaft when his hips bucked upward, wanting more still.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he mumbled in a hard groan. “Suck my fucking cock, Tesoro. Just like that.”
He called Cara a lot of things in bed.
His slut.
An angel.
Sexy. Beautiful. Filthy.
But treasure—that one probably fit her best.
Especially when she was sucking him off.
Only something precious and treasured could make him feel as crazy and high as she did when she was fucking him or sucking him dry.
Sex—for Gian—had become something of a nuisance in his life, to deal with when he got the chance. It slowly became a secondary need that took a back seat to his daily responsibilities and the duties that always had to come first.
Not with Cara.
With Cara, sex became a form of his affection. It was yet another way to communicate. It let him feel. He was always relaxed—never bothered or worried about outside issues—whether he was on his knees between her legs, or she was above him looking down. He focused in on her, nothing else, and it wasn’t such a fucking nuisance to be taken care of.
It was an urge that was constant. Unrelenting.
She was always on the back of his mind now, in one way or another. When he wasn’t with her, he was working out a way to be with her. In her effort to have space from him, all she had managed to do was make Gian even more fucking obsessed with her than he had been before. He controlled the urges well enough, but it was like constantly balancing on a very thin string, ready to break. He didn’t want her running scared from him again, he wanted her with him.
The sound that tore from his throat was almost inhuman, his words jumbling together as the pressure and heat in his spine suddenly grew to the point of no return. He managed to get something out, a mix of “fuck, I’m going to come” and “shit, don’t stop.” He wasn’t really sure what he said, he couldn’t hear it. His ears were ringing as his load emptied into Cara’s waiting mouth. She kept his cock tight to her lips and deep in her throat as his cum shot out with enough force to make him dizzy.
Like the good girl she was to him, she swallowed every last fucking bit of it down, too. Then she cleaned his cock with her tongue, and kissed her way back up his body until she was sitting sweetly in his lap, straddling him. The pleased curve of her lips told him that she liked sucking him off, if only because it gave her some control between them.
She didn’t know it, but she had all the control now.
Gian pulled Cara in for a bruising kiss, her lips warm and swollen against his. Despite having just emptied his fucking balls, his cock was still painfully hard, because he wasn’t done. It wasn’t that simple when it came to Cara.
“Thank you for wearing a dress tonight,” he said.
Cara lifted a single brow high. “Why?”
“It makes this easier, and faster.”
He’d needed to get undressed entirely, she only needed her skirt lifted up and her panties pushed aside. Then, he could finally get back to the heaven and home that came with fucking Cara Rossi.
Gian lifted Cara’s skirt and turned her in his lap so that her back pressed to his chest. His hand flew between her thighs to feel what belonged to him there. He buried his face into her sweet-smelling curls as he yanked her panties aside, and brought her down on his length without giving her time to prepare for it. He didn’t want to wait, he was so fucking tired of waiting after weeks of it.
But shit … it was worth it. Every hot, slick, tight inch of her sucked him in and held him in place like she wasn’t going to let him go. Seated deep in her cunt, Gian could breathe again for the moment.
“Oh, fuck,” Cara breathed as she squirmed on his cock in the best way.
“Christ, you’re wet. How hot do you get sucking me off?”
“It’s not normal.”
Her words were a mumble. A hot, airless mumble.
“It is,” he said with a chuckle, his fingers tangling into her hair. “Now, you got what you fucking wanted—you made me come. Give me what I want, Cara. Give me what’s mine, mon ange.”
Her pussy. Her orgasms. Her sounds. All of that belonged to
him when they were like this.
Every bit of it.
“Just give me a sec—”
Gian tugged firmly on her hair, quieting whatever she was going to say. “Fuck me, Cara. Now.”
She didn’t need to be told again, lifting enough to ride him while he pulled on her hair and kept a hand between her thighs at the same time. He liked the feeling of his cock and her cunt against his fingertips. He could feel everything, from the way she stretched open every time she lowered on to his cock, to the rhythmic pulse of his heart beating in his shaft. All her juices slicked them up, and he wanted to see her clean his fingers off when they were done.
Gian’s fingers pressed tighter to her cunt, not quite grabbing it as she fucked him, but firm enough for her to feel it. She grinded her clit into his palm at the same time. “All mine, Cara.”
“Yours.”
Of course, it was.
He hadn’t realized how unhurriedly such a thing could build inside him—such a vindictive, needy, greedy, beautiful thing like love. He’d never been in love before, and when he finally understood that he had been slowly falling in love with Cara, he’d been too stupid and too selfish to stop it. He liked the way it felt, after all, even when it hurt.
So yes, all of her belonged to him.
And he wanted her to know it.
Cara dug through the bag of fast food, pulling out a cheeseburger and fries, and setting her bare feet up on the dashboard. After cleaning up, she’d opted to kick her flats off on the floor of the car.
“Busy couple of weeks?” Gian asked.
She handed him over the bag. “Nothing unusual. Mostly boring.”
“That could be considered a good thing.”
“It could.”
“But?” he pressed.
Cara smiled a bit. “But I missed you, too, so that kind of sucked.”
Gian didn’t even bother to hide his grin. “Eat, love.”
She did, pulling out fries to chew on. Once they were gone, she said, “My mom killed herself, or that’s what my brother said.”
“Oh.”
That felt stupid to say.
Gian didn’t know what would be appropriate. An apology felt wrong, considering Cara’s feelings regarding her mother. She didn’t look entirely sad about it, but she didn’t appear to be happy, either.
“Are you going back for the funeral?” he asked.
Cara shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Her death is enough closure for me,” Cara admitted under her breath. “I don’t need to watch her be buried, too.”
“You could have called me.”
Gian heard the slight bitterness in his tone, though he wished he could have hidden it better. He didn’t want to be angry with Cara for asking that he give her space and time alone. It also wasn’t that easy. The longer it had stretched on between them with no word from her, the harder it had become for him to deal with it.
“There was nothing to say,” Cara said dryly. “Not about Serena Rossi, anyhow.”
“You could have called for—”
Cara glanced over at him, her knowing eyes quieting him instantly. “I wanted to call. Every day. Multiple times a day. Every chance I got. Whenever I looked at my phone. It didn’t get easier not to pick it up, but neither did watching the news, seeing shootings and hearing all the problems piling up all over the city. I had choices to make, Gian.”
“Like what?”
“Like if I wanted to keep doing this with you. Whether or not I was okay with what that might mean.”
He cleared his throat. “And?”
Cara unwrapped her burger. “I’m here, aren’t I? I called, didn’t I?”
She was.
And she had.
“The only thing that would make this food better is beer,” Cara said.
“I could have brought some or picked up a six-pack.” Gian set his burger and fries up in his lap. “We couldn’t have come out here, though.”
Cara shrugged one shoulder. “We’ll grab some on the way back to my place.”
“Is that the plan?”
“Yep. That’s the plan.”
“So, we’re going to act like everything is good and you didn’t run off scared?” he asked.
“We will if you stop bringing it up.”
“We are going to talk about it, mon ange. And other things, too.”
She sighed, rolling her pretty blue eyes upward at the same time. “Fine, but we’re eating first. Maybe fucking again, too.”
“I do love the way you think, Cara.”
Her smile was sinful. “I know you do.”
“And you.”
Cara glanced over at him, her eyes knowing and the silence stretching on. Now or never, he thought to himself. If he could feel it, he should be able to verbalize it. How else was she going to know the craziness he constantly felt whenever she was near?
“I love you,” he added, quieter.
“I thought we were eating first before all of that.”
They would.
Gian nodded at her food. “Eat, but it changes nothing. I said what I said.”
She wasn’t running this time.
“What do you want, red or white?” Gian asked, holding up two bottles of wine for Cara to choose between.
“I thought we were grabbing beer?”
“We are, but you like wine more. Which one?”
Cara eyed the two bottles and said, “Which one do you think I’d prefer?”
“The red for tonight. White for a meal.”
“Lucky guess.”
“Or I pay attention,” Gian replied just as fast, slipping the bottle of white wine back on the shelf. “Red wine is good for rich dishes, too, you know.”
Cara crossed her arms as she rounded the corner of the aisle, plucking the red wine from Gian’s outstretched grasp. “How can you say you love someone when the only thing you’ve ever done with them is fuck?”
Gian cleared his throat, glancing at a customer in the next aisle who looked their way. A simple glare from him sent the patron heading in another direction, fast. Then, his gaze was back on hers, the intensity pinning her in place.
“You know that’s not true,” Gian muttered.
“What—that all we do is fuck? It’s very true.”
“Wrong. We do a hell of a lot more than that. I can’t help that all of the things we do happen to get mixed up in the fact we like to fuck a lot, Cara.”
“Well—”
“So I’ll never read to you in bed again, or in the bath, or anywhere else. We won’t stay in bed, talking and talking and fucking talking, about everything and anything that comes to your mind. I’ll act like you don’t enjoy being quiet, and that you smile even when you’re sleeping. You don’t need to tell me shit about your mother and father, or your brother, and never mind even thinking about saying something when it comes to your dead sister. I’ll pretend like I don’t know shit about what you like, the things you do, or who you want to be when you graduate in a year. And—”
“I get it,” Cara interjected softly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Be more specific.”
“I’m being difficult, Gian.”
“Clearly,” he responded dryly.
“Say it to me again.”
“Say what?”
“What you told me in the car earlier.”
“That I love you?”
“Yes, that,” Cara said.
Gian didn’t hesitate. “I love you, Cara.”
His inflection didn’t change a bit. Neither did his expression. He said those three little words so easily, as though it should be obvious to her, him, and the world that he felt for her in that way. He felt so deeply, so intensely, that he could tell her he loved her privately in a Mercedes, where no one could hear or in a liquor store, where a cashier waited for them to pay and customers milled around.
He said it.
He said it like he meant it.
He said wor
ds Cara didn’t understand.
Oh, she got the love bit—that she understood well. Too well, probably. She understood that he did love her, because she felt that way, too. She felt alone when he wasn’t there, she heard his voice in her dreams, and she felt him all around her when he was gone. She missed him constantly, she worried where he was when he wasn’t with her, and her best moments had been spent in comfortable silence and sweet whispers with this man.
Of course, she loved him.
It was all the hows that made her pause.
It was the how did this happen that stopped her from saying it back.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Gian asked.
“Why don’t you ask me to say it back?”
“I don’t need you to.”
Cara glanced away from the honesty in his gaze. “But you want me to.”
“That’s not what you asked. You asked why. I don’t need to hear you say something that I already know, Cara. And do you know how I know?”
“I’m listening.”
“I know you love me because I can count on one hand the times you’ve asked me for something, or needed something from me, or wanted just me until tonight. I can count on one hand, but I’d only need one finger to do it. Just tonight—that’s the only time you’ve ever taken something from me that you wanted. You called, you wanted me with you, and that says more than anything else you ever say possibly could.”
“And why is that?”
She didn’t mean to be so goddamn defensive, but it was hard. Her walls were her go-to defense for anything that seemed like it might reach too far inside her emotions or cut her too deeply, when it was all said and done.
Gian was definitely one of those things for Cara.
On both accounts.
“Because you don’t need me,” Gian said, his tone lowering an octave with the frankness his words took on. “Not in the grand scheme of your life, you really don’t. It might fuck you up for a while to send me on my way, but you would come out fine in the end. That’s what women like you do, right? You get hurt, brush yourself off, and get on with it—with life. Everybody fails you in one way or another, that’s what you’ve been taught.”