by Bethany-Kris
“He doesn’t have to, where responsibility is concerned!”
Cara’s fingers twitched to close the laptop screen. She didn’t want to end the conversation this way with her brother. She knew Tommas was only expressing his concerns in the one way he currently could, and clearly, he was not doing it well.
Then, her brother said quietly, “I only want you to be happy, Cara. Safe, happy, and loved. By a man who deserves to love you, and who can keep you safe while making you happy. I’m worried that you’re so accustomed to coming second in his life now, that you don’t even see that you do.”
“Tommas, I love you.”
Tommas nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“But you have no idea what you’re talking about. On this, you’re wrong. You’re so wrong, it’s sad. And sure, I know you don’t have much to go on, but let me make one thing perfectly clear here. Gian puts Marcus and I first much more than anyone realizes, and those who do realize it, don’t like it a whole lot. Because he shouldn’t do what he does with us—he shouldn’t be with us so much, or provide for us as much as he does. He shouldn’t love us in public, or give us presence in his family. We’re the secrets, Tommas, the dirty words in his life. His bastard son born to a goomah woman. He has every single reason to push us aside for his own respect and image, but he doesn’t. And he doesn’t care. We come first, even if it is to his detriment.”
Tommas frowned, but said nothing.
“Frankly, I don’t think even Gian realizes how often he puts us first to his own detriment. I don’t think he cares either way, because this is what is right for him. He’s a wonderful man, and I love him. So let’s be clear here, okay.”
“Okay.”
“He’s mine. I’m fine. I’m not leaving. Not him, this city, or this life. My son is healthy and happy, with his mother and father. I no longer give a shit who thinks what about me, Gian, our situation, or the rest. What I care about, is that I’m happy and my son is, too. That goes for you, too, so learn it fast. I love you but I don’t have to like you if you’re going to make it hard on me.”
For a long while, her brother said nothing.
Cara expected that. She had always been the quiet one. Steadfastly strong, sure, but silent all the same. She didn’t speak up unless necessary, and this had just been one of those things she left alone. Not anymore.
“I’m just worried about you,” Tommas finally said.
“Don’t be, Tommy. I am fine. I am going to keep being fine. It’s what I do.”
That was that.
Shortly after, Cara hung up the Skype call with her brother. Marcus was fed, fast asleep, and safe in his bed, she reminded herself. She had time to relax, and that was what she had intended to do. Instead, she had gotten into a verbal sparring match with her brother.
“He has a point, you know.”
Cara jerked straight in the office chair, glancing at the doorway to find Gian standing there. Solemn in his expression, with his suit jacket from earlier gone, his tie hanging loose over his chest, and his shirt sleeves rolled up, he looked … tired. Like his whole day had gone to hell in a handbasket, and he was just over it.
For the most part, Cara ignored the blood splatters dotting Gian’s dress shirt.
“Who has a point?” she asked.
“Your brother.”
Her brow furrowed. “You listened to my conversation?”
“Part of it,” he admitted. “I came up on the last of it, I didn’t mean to and I didn’t want to interrupt. You spy on my conversations—don’t pretend like you don’t.”
Fair point.
“And what was Tommas’ point that you agree with, exactly?”
“Quite a bit of it, actually. I could do more, be more. I could do better things, be better. A better man. You deserve the kind of man he described, and so does Marcus, and yet, you’re both very firmly stuck with me. Bit of a shame, oui? I’m sure there’s someone out there who could have, and likely would have, made you a much happier woman. How fucking selfish of me to have kept you like I did, to have stolen you like I did, when you could have been someone else’s everything, and you only get to be my something to the rest of the world. A fucking shame. I’m sorry for that, mon ange.”
Ouch.
That hurt.
“What did you just say?”
“Nothing,” Gian said, waving it off and turning to head out of the office. “Nothing that wasn’t true. I’m tired, Cara. I’ll see you in bed.”
Like fuck he would.
“Gian, don’t walk away right now.”
He kept going.
“Gian!”
Nothing.
Cara got up out of the chair, and headed after Gian, fuming and confused. She came up behind him as he shrugged off his dress shirt and tie in the hallway and tossed it into the laundry room without a care—bloodstains meant it would all need to be thrown out.
“Gian,” Cara said firmly, grabbing his arm and pulling as hard as she could to turn him around to face her. “Repeat what you just said to me.”
He stared at her with hard eyes and cold features.
His best defense.
Cara saw right through it.
“Your brother is right about the things he says. Maybe not in all the details, but in theory, he’s right.”
“And didn’t you hear what I said to him?”
“I heard you defending me when it’s the very last thing you should be doing. I have done very little to be worthy of your loyalty, Cara. It would not be such a stretch to think you would like to have more from me, or this—whatever we are.”
“We’re us, Gian. And I like us perfectly fine.”
“You like us. You like being my mistress and being seen as the dirty little secret in my life. You like being treated less than someone else, simply because you don’t have my last name. You like having your child be pushed aside because—”
“You’ve never done any of that, and certainly not to Marcus.”
“But others do. And if they haven’t yet, they will in the future. Because that’s inevitable, love. Don’t you understand? He won’t always be little, but I will always be married to someone else. As he gets older, as he becomes more present and not just a cute baby in the corner, he will become more of the awkward conversation people need to have, rather than what he is now. You don’t deserve that, and neither does he, no matter what you’ve told yourself to believe otherwise.”
“I haven’t told myself anything.”
“Clearly you have, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“You clearly know nothing about what goes on inside my head, Gian.”
“Cara, I don’t want to fight tonight. You asked what I felt was right regarding what your brother said, and I told you. There’s no need for you to agree or disagree, or talk for hours on end about it. It’s just an opinion.”
“It’s also the wrong one.”
“Cara—”
“It’s the wrong one!”
Gian scrubbed his hand down his face, sighing. “Just … let’s have this conversation tomorrow. Okay?”
“No. Not okay.”
“Well, I’m done for tonight.”
With that, Gian turned on his heel and headed down the hallway again. Cara didn’t even think before going after him once more. This time, she didn’t bother to grab him in an attempt to stop him, but rather, scooted around his side and came up in front of him. She slammed a single palm into his chest with enough force to make her hand sting and make him come to a full stop with narrowed eyes.
“We’re not done,” Cara said calmly, “not until I say we are, Gian.”
“Come on, mon ange.”
“I’m so fucking sorry that you have had to tell yourself some kind of shit to justify why you think I’m still here. I’m sorry you must have thought I was going to run at some point, because maybe that’s just what you think I do. I’m sorry you don’t think I’m a strong enough woman, or good enough, to do this with you, but I a
m. I have always been, Gian. And do you want to know the one thing I have never needed to know I was that woman?”
“Try me.”
“For you to tell me. I don’t need you to tell me anything. Not that you love me, or our son. Not that you’ll be there, even when being here only digs your holes deeper elsewhere. I don’t need you to tell me how you struggle, or that you worry about me, or that your biggest fear is that in thirty years, we’re going to be just like your grandfather and his mistress. Locked away in a high-rise penthouse, hiding from the rest of the world on weekends, because we’re so wrong and bad and isn’t that just a fucking shame. Isn’t it a fucking shame that you’ve got a mistress, so nobody talks about it, because I’ll be your secret that’s not really a secret?”
“I will never be that woman,” Cara continued, “because you’ll never be that man, Gian. I am not the one between us who needs to figure that out. What do you want to do? What do you need me to make you do so that you feel justified in what you think you’ve done to me? Do you want me to put you on your knees, Gian? Crawl across the floor to me, with your head low and your eyes down because you don’t even deserve to look at me. Is that it? Do you want me to make you beg every time you come near me, or apologize again when I let you in close enough to touch me? Do you need to be forgiven, is that it?”
Gian’s lips flattened into a grim line, but he stayed quiet.
Cara didn’t really need him to talk.
“If that is what you’re waiting for, Gian, you’re going to wait a long damn time,” Cara said, never once looking away from his gaze. There, she’d always found his heart and soul. He couldn’t hide it staring back at her. “The things I needed to forgive you for, I already did. It’s not my responsibility to forgive you for things you manifest all on your own, nor is it my job to tell you I already forgave you for the things you did do. I didn’t do that for you, I did it for me. Because I love you. I have always loved you. I always will.”
She poked him hard in the middle of his naked chest.
“And that is the end of the discussion, Gian, because I said so, not you.”
“Well,” Gian said gruffly, his hand coming up to enclose Cara’s finger still poking his chest, “it’s certainly the end of this discussion. I’m starting to think we need to have an entirely different one altogether, considering your mood.”
“And what is that? Because there’s nothing else for us to say about it.”
He lowered her hand in his own. “There’s lots to say, Cara. But you’re right, and I’m sorry.”
“I’m right?”
“About everything. All of it. Every single word you said is true. It’s simply not a discussion I wanted to have because I felt a certain way about it all. Seems you didn’t feel the way I thought you would, anyway. Much like with everything else about you and me, but that’s fine, too. You’re right, Cara. You don’t owe me a thing, except what you want to give me.”
She nodded. “Okay. And this other discussion?”
“Well … that’s entirely about us, too, amore.”
“What is it?”
He stepped closer, taking her cheeks in his warm palms and making her look up at him. “Sometimes I do forget how incredible you are, Cara. Not because you’re not showing it—you always show it. I just get used to not needing to do everything for you, because you’ve got it handled. Or not telling you the same things over and over, because you don’t need to hear me say them. I forget sometimes how strong, resilient, and amazing you are. And that is a shame.”
“Oh?”
“But I don’t forget for one fucking second that you’re mine, mon ange. I will never, ever forget that.”
“You shouldn’t,” she said, barely above a breath. “I’ve always been yours, Gian.”
“Maybe, but it is one of those things we sometimes need to be reminded about. Kind of like now.”
Cara was going to ask what Gian meant, but found she didn’t have to as his hands pulled her forward, and his mouth crashed down on hers. Her lips melded with his in a familiar battle—one she hadn’t realized she had been missing. His tongue teased the seam of her mouth before she allowed him in to war with her own. There was nothing sweet or innocent about the kiss. Each stroke of his lips flamed a fire that had been dormant in Cara for a long while.
It wasn’t Gian’s fault on that end. The last time they had been intimate was shortly before Marcus’s birth, and after that, it just hadn’t been possible. She had passed her six-week waiting period to heal, and her doctor had given the okay to resume those activities, but Cara just … hadn’t thought about it.
Gian didn’t give her a reason to. She was tired sometimes, and had other things to focus on. He never pushed, never asked or demanded anything unless she brought it up.
And good God, she was suddenly reminded why it was better when Gian demanded anything from her at all. It was better because he only had to speak, or touch her, and her whole body lit up like a fucking firework.
“Yep,” Cara mumbled as her back hit the hallway wall. “Definitely missed this.”
Gian’s hot mouth traveled down over her throat, his hands skimming up under the silk nightie she wore to find her panties and pull them down roughly. “Get these off right now, Cara.”
“Jesus, you’re impatient.”
“You will find out exactly why in less than thirty seconds, I guarantee it.”
Oh, she already knew.
Cara could feel just how impatient he was, considering the hard length of his erection was digging into her thigh as he pinned her harder to the wall. “The bedroom is like two doors down, Gian.”
“So?”
Up went her silk nightie.
She didn’t see where it fell.
“Gian.”
His response to her warning was the rattle of his belt buckle before his pants fell down to the floor, and his boxer-briefs followed. He stepped out of the items without even missing a beat or taking his hands off her body.
“The baby is sleeping almost right across the—”
His hot breath pulsed against the skin of her throat, wicked and promising. “You can, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You want this, don’t you?” he grunted into her neck, his fingers sliding between her thighs to tease her sex. “You’re so wet already.”
Cara let out a breathless laugh. “Yes.”
“Then shut up and let me fuck you, Cara.”
That was that.
Gian’s hands found the backs of her thighs, and his fingers dug in deliciously deep, holding her tight. He lifted her legs first, forcing Cara to find a very careful balance between his hard body and the wall at her back. His sinful mouth found hers for that first hard, deep thrust. It took her fucking breath away.
She’d forgotten how her body stretched for him. She’d forgotten the heat that tangled through her blood as she adjusted to his size and how full she always felt with him inside of her pussy. She certainly hadn’t expected it to be damn near the same as it had been before, but it was, and Jesus, Cara was spun.
He was not easy with her, each flex of his hips coming harder than the last until the pace between them was simply brutal. She was sure his fingerprints were going to be permanently embedded into the back of her thighs, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.
“You can do better than that, Tesoro,” he taunted when she didn’t beg loud enough. And then he turned right around and uttered, “Fucking take it, Cara,” through clenched teeth, while his hand found its favorite spot. Her throat.
Well, her favorite spot, too.
Cara thought, if it were possible, her body simply didn’t have limits where Gian was concerned. She needed his rough hands, his dirty mouth, and the way he choked her to a sweet, blissful finish. She needed it every single time, however she could get it.
Like a damn drug.
Her fingernails raked lines over the backs of his shoulders when that beautiful release finally came flooding th
rough her, hot and heavy. She felt him shudder—from the pain or his own orgasm, she wasn’t sure.
But she heard his breath catch against her throat, and his fingers loosened on her throat as they trembled, and she knew then, anyway. His final two thrusts came harder, before his whole body tensed and she felt his release pulse inside her body.
Sweaty, breathless, and content, Cara hummed a pleased, happy sound as tremors worked their way up her spine and the orgasm faded. Gian took a slight bit longer to catch his breath, but that could have just been because he took his time dotting Cara’s neck, cheek, and mouth with soft, sweet kisses all over again.
“Careful,” he murmured as he pulled from her body and let her down to the floor. “Easy, Cara.”
She laughed quietly. “Easy would have been the bed.”
“That’s no fun.”
“It is, too.”
Gian kissed her again, firmer that time. “I will give you whatever you want in bed in the morning, I promise.”
Cara rubbed her thighs together, acutely aware of the sticky fluids there. “You made a mess.”
“We did.”
“Same difference.”
“I should have grabbed a condom,” he admitted.
Cara ran her fingers through his hair. “It’s all right. I started the pill again, anyway. Though, it won’t be effective for another two weeks.”
Gian rolled his eyes upward, then glanced down the hall at the baby’s closed bedroom door. “Right, the pill. The thing that didn’t stop Marcus from making his way into being at all.”
She patted his cheek with a wink. “There’s other ways, Gian. Besides, Marcus is wonderful, and I don’t regret him for a minute.”
“I said nothing about regret and I didn’t say I wanted to prevent anything, Cara. I am a Catholic, remember? Even if I’m not a very fucking good one in almost every other aspect.”
Cara’s gaze shot up to Gian’s, only to find his amusement lighting up his handsome features. “Is that so?”
“We never talked kids, love.”
“We just had one.”
“Exactly.” Gian scooped Cara up into a bridal embrace, walking them toward the bedroom as she snuggled in closer to his warmth and familiar scent. “I want a whole army of kids.”