Kingston's Captive (Kingston Security 2), page 6
“Not Malachi?” he taunted.
She narrowed her gaze on him. “I’m really sorry about what happened to your car, but Malachi obviously isn’t happy about it and keeps looking at me as if I’ve committed a murder.”
“Because to him, you have,” Adam dismissed. “And don’t worry about the car. Casper already contacted the insurance company and they’ve agreed to settle.” Not quite what the Lamborghini had cost him to buy, but pretty close.
“I doubt any of your cousins, with the exception of Malachi because I’m going nowhere near him again this evening, will be pleased at being disturbed just to make you take your meds.” Cara’s grin was positively evil. “Which will probably make it all the more fun for them when one of them has to hold you down and the other shove the tablets down your ungrateful throat.”
Problem was, Adam could actually see his two of his cousins enjoying doing exactly that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Was that almost a smile I saw on your face?” Cara clutched a melodramatic hand to her throat. “No, surely it couldn’t have been. Could it?”
Adam raised his gaze toward the ceiling. “Smart arse.”
Cara tried not to laugh. “Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
“Not quite, but I can definitely do without your twisted brand of humor at two o’clock in the morning.”
“Then just take the damn tablets and stop being a pain in my arse,” she encouraged.
Adam’s pulse spiked at the sensual images her innocent statement evoked, his cock giving an interested throb too. But it was a physical intimacy Cara’s irritated expression told him she hadn’t meant in that way.
Pity, because now the image was there, he couldn’t seem to get it out of his head.
He stared at her for several long seconds, then nodded abruptly. “Fine.” He took the glass of water and the two tablets before swallowing the latter and washing them down with the former. “Satisfied?” he challenged once he’d handed her back the glass and she’d put it down on the bedside table.
“Right now? Not in any way, shape, or form,” she said dryly, it was impossible not to pick up on the fact she was talking about a completely different satisfaction than the one Adam had meant. “But I’m hoping that might change once you’re less…incapacitated.”
Adam’s pulse spiked as he eyed her warily. “Have you been drinking?”
“A single glass of wine with dinner.” She shrugged. “I needed something to get me through a couple of hours in the presence of all that testosterone.”
His scowl returned. “What do you mean?”
She chuckled. “I suppose you’re all so used to it, you don’t even notice it anymore,” she acknowledged. “But the Kingston men are all one hundred percent alpha males. Which must have made it interesting when you were growing up together.”
His mouth twisted. “That’s one word for it.”
Her gaze turned curious. “Rosie said you came here to live with your aunt, uncle, and cousins after your parents died when you were ten?”
Adam frowned. “Max had no right to tell Rosie a fucking thing about my private life let alone have her share that information with you.”
“Someone had to,” Cara bit out between clenched teeth as she climbed back onto the bed beside him. “And it clearly wasn’t going to be you.”
“Because there’s nothing to tell. My parents were killed in a car accident, my aunt and uncle brought me up with my six cousins. End of story.”
Cara gave an impatient sigh. “I know damn well that isn’t true. I lost my mother at a young age too, remember, and my father was worse than useless and was married again within a year of my mother’s death,” she dismissed scathingly. “I had Rosie, of course, but she was only a child, and I was expected to be the big sister. I know how much it hurts to feel that much alone, despite being surrounded by other people.”
Adam really didn’t want to talk about something that had happened in his life almost thirty years ago. Even if Cara was one hundred percent right and he had felt alone and disoriented for the first year or so of living with his aunt and uncle and cousins. The two families had always been close, so he’d spent a lot of time with his cousins anyway, but it wasn’t the same as living with them because his parents were no longer alive to love and care for him.
“You also forgot to mention going to university and getting a first-class degree,” she continued briskly before he could comment. “And the years you spent in the armed forces. Along with the successful security business you now run with your cousins.”
He scowled. “Obviously, I didn’t need to say any of those things when you already know about them.”
“I only know the latter because I read the brief profiles on all of you on the Kingston Security website. They’re facts, Adam, and nothing to do with the flesh-and-blood man lying in front of me.”
“Facts or not, that’s who I am,” he insisted stiffly.
“No, it really isn’t,” she dismissed. “Because it doesn’t reveal a single thing about your private life.”
“Such as?”
“Whether or not you have a girlfriend or a wife? Possibly children?”
“If I had the latter, they would be living with me, and I’m sure Rosie will have already told you I don’t have any of those things.”
“Why don’t you?”
“What?”
Cara’s gaze remained steady despite his obvious impatience. “I swear to God, you Kingston men have to be either blind when you look in the mirror or— Are you gay? Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. My closest friend at university is. I miss him,” she added wistfully. “He’s living his clothing-designer dream in Paris,” she explained when Adam raised a questioning brow. “So why, at the age of thirty-nine, doesn’t a powerfully attractive and wealthy man like you have a girlfriend, a wife, or children?”
Adam scowled at the way Cara kept shifting the conversation around so quickly that the slight fogging in his head made it difficult to keep up. But perhaps that was her intention?
He shook his head. “Because my life so far hasn’t had room for any of those things.”
She raised skeptical brows. “You’re celibate?”
“Of course not!”
“So?” She looked at him expectantly when he added nothing more.
He breathed a heavy sigh at her persistence, but knew he was literally a captive audience right now. “If I meet an attractive woman and the feeling is mutual, then we have sex,” he acknowledged with a grimace. “But I never stay the night with her, and I always ensure she knows there won’t be any more than that single encounter.”
“And I’m sure those women appreciate being told upfront ‘I want to fuck you, but don’t expect anything else from me.’” Her sarcastic tone implied the opposite. “So, what you’re basically saying is you have one-night stands?”
“The fuck— Yes. Okay. I have one-night stands,” he snapped. “And isn’t my being honest preferable to allowing a woman to think my interest is serious?”
“Has it ever been?”
“No.”
“Why hasn’t it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have anything to give to a relationship.”
“That’s bullshit, Adam, and you know it.”
“Is it?” he bit out. “Have you seen me? Really seen me? Because if you have, then you’ll know I look like a thug. That the ink on my body is only there to cover the scars beneath.” He looked down at the parts of his chest and arms that were visible and covered in dark ink. “These scars aren’t just on the outside,” he assured her. “I’ve seen too much, lived through too much death and destruction, to still possess any of the tenderness necessary for a relationship.”
“I, more than anyone, know that isn’t true,” she reproved. “Ten years ago, you held a heartbroken teenager in your arms for as long as I needed you to. Your silent comfort was all that I needed,” she added before he could comment. “You aren’t a thug. I know from personal experience you have compassion and tenderness inside you.”
If he did possess those things, then it was only toward this woman. But, even if that was true, it still didn’t mean he should actively pursue the attraction he felt toward her. Keep Cara safe, yes, but otherwise maintain his distance.
Cara was beautiful and accomplished. She also mixed in the sort of social circles that would draw back in horror if she ever appeared in public with a tattooed guy like him at her side. Didn’t matter that he had that degree she’d mentioned, had served his country, and was rich as hell. He meant it when he said he looked like a thug, and that was all any of Cara’s society friends would see. Her politician father would probably have a heart attack if she took him home on a “meet the parents” visit.
Not that he would particularly mind that outcome, Adam acknowledged. Richard Smythe was a selfish arsehole in his eyes, and he didn’t deserve to be the father of such beautiful women as Cara and Rosie.
Adam gave a shake of his head. “You can believe what you want, but I know better.”
“Really?” she challenged. “Perhaps it’s time we tested the truth of that theory.”
Adam tensed as Cara moved up on her knees beside him, so close to him now, he could feel her warmth through the duvet and breathe in her scent of citrus and female spice. A heady combination more likely to be a distraction to him than any pills he took for the pain. His rapidly engorging cock agreed.
“What are you doing?” He watched her warily when she moved so that her legs were now straddling his thighs. Something that clearly outlined his rock-hard cock beneath the press of the duvet.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
“What! Why?” Adam pushed his head back against the pillows, as far away from her as he could get under the circumstances. He kept his hands curled into fists at his sides because he was unsure if he would be able to remain in control if he once touched Cara.
“Maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome?” She placed her hands either side of his head and then leaned closer. Her breath was warm against his skin as she ran caressing lips along the side of his neck. “Maybe I think that if I’m nice to you, you might release me,” she added huskily.
Considering this woman had been kidnapped twice…
Admittedly, she’d only been fourteen at the time of the first kidnapping, but the second time she’d been twenty-four, and in a relationship with the man who kidnapped her.
“Oh, come on, Adam, it’s an I’ve-been-kidnapped-before joke!”
Adam watched her guardedly. “I hope you didn’t try that with Langley.” Amazing how violent he felt at the mere idea of Cara ever being put in such a situation of weakness.
Her laugh was harshly dismissive. “When you eventually take me to bed and the two of us have sex, you’re going to discover that I haven’t tried that on anyone.”
His gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”
She lifted her head, her beautiful blue-green eyes looking directly into his. “Do I really have to spell it out in words of one syllable?”
It sounded to Adam as if Cara was saying she hadn’t been in a physical relationship with Langley. That she hadn’t been in a physical relationship with anyone.
So yes, she really did have to make what she was saying clearer. “You’re a virgin?”
“I am.” Her beautiful eyes continued to meet his gaze unflinchingly.
“I… But… How?”
“The usual way of never having wanted a man’s cock inside me, I expect,” she dismissed. “Believe me, being kidnapped by three men at the age of fourteen doesn’t engender a whole lot of trust in the male species in general, or in having relationships with them. James proved how right I was to feel that way.”
No wonder she hadn’t realized the full implication of what she’d said to him a few minutes ago. Cara hadn’t had any kind of sex, let alone anything as intimate as the position her earlier words had evoked in Adam.
That they still evoked. The very thought of being her first in every intimacy possible made his pulse quicken and his cock throb.
He frowned his puzzlement. “But you and Langley had been dating for three months before he kidnapped you.”
She nodded. “And I made it clear I wasn’t up for a physical relationship, and he didn’t push for one either. The reason for which became obvious when, after those three months, he tied me up and drove the two of us to the Lake District. Besides,” she added, “I only dated him at all because I was hoping to make you jealous enough to make a move.”
“What?” Adam stared at her.
She chuckled softly. “Jealousy can be a strong incentive, and I was hoping that you might feel enough of it to want to at least speak to me, rather than just attend my art exhibitions and occasionally walk past my house.” Her expression became wistful. “Obviously, you didn’t, because those attempts failed utterly.”
If she only knew…
After seeing her again at the art gallery a year ago, Adam had accepted that those brief glimpses of her were all he would ever have. Even more so after she’d begun to date the suave art gallery owner James Langley.
That didn’t mean he hadn’t wanted to strangle Langley with his bare hands every time the other man visited Cara at her house or the two of them went out for dinner.
But Cara was now saying she’d only dated the other man at all because of him. Because she’d wanted to push him into not just looking at her, but doing something about it. All this time, he’d tried to keep his distance and the attraction between them had been mutual.
He gave a groan. “Cara…?”
Her gaze easily held Adam’s as she slowly lowered her head and pressed pillowy soft lips against his.
Cara took full advantage when Adam’s lips parted beneath hers to deepen the kiss. He tasted of mint and cinnamon, and he kissed her as if she was the first water he’d drunk in a very long time.
Or as if she was the first woman he’d kissed in a long time.
A year, perhaps?
Adam said he only had one-night stands, but was it possible that he hadn’t even had any of those since seeing her again a year ago?
God, she hoped so.
Because she wanted him to want her as badly as she wanted him and to the exclusion of everyone else.
She kissed him with every bit of hunger that had been building inside her for so long. Deeply, fiercely, intensely. When she’d finished devouring his lips, she kissed a hot trail down his throat and explored the hollows beneath. Then she went lower still, lips exploring and tasting the bronze discs of his nipples until Adam was groaning and writhing in pleasure.
Cara might not have had sex with anyone, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t spent hours deliberating over exactly what she would do to this man if the opportunity ever arose.
Just as she’d imagined, her lips and tongue mapped a path of discovery over every piece of ink she could reach. “I love this,” she murmured warmly against the tribal tattoo on his right pec.
“You do?” He sounded stunned.
“Of course.” Cara gave him a chiding glance. “These tattoos tell the story of the battles you’ve fought and won.”
“No one else has ever seen them in quite that way,” Adam said slowly.
“That’s because no one else lo— What on earth…?” Cara gasped when Adam’s bedroom door was suddenly thrown open with such force, she heard it hit the wall.
She turned to look at where Malachi stood in the now-open doorway. His dark hair was tousled, and he wore only a pair of faded jeans low down on his hips, his muscular chest and arms bare, as if he’d been asleep and completely naked just minutes ago.
“You were obviously otherwise occupied, but we have a Code Red.” He didn’t spare Cara so much as a glance as he looked up pointedly at the red light flashing overhead.
“Oh fuck!” Adam muttered.
Thor and Loki were both on their feet, hackles raised, a menacing growl emanating from their throats.
Whatever a Code Red was, Cara knew it couldn’t be anything good. But it had stopped her from telling Adam how she felt about him, which right now was guaranteed to send him running for the hills. There was time. She didn’t need to rush this. Adam wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was she.
“What are you doing?” she demanded as Adam threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You can’t get out of bed in your condition,” she protested. “Adam,” she added pleadingly when Adam ignored her and rose to his feet.
He didn’t exactly sway where he stood, but he wasn’t standing as tall as normal either. Instead, he was slightly hunched over, no doubt so that he didn’t pull on the stitches the doctor had put in his side and back earlier.
“The dogs are needed outside, and I’m going with them.” His tone warned her not to argue.
Cara glared at him. “You’re a stubborn fool is what you are.”
“You need to join Rosie.” Malachi finally acknowledged her presence. “She’s waiting downstairs so the two of you can go to the safe room together.”
A Code Red definitely wasn’t a good thing if she and Rosie were being told to take themselves to a safe room!
What sort of enemies had the Kingston men made over the years that they would even have a secure room like that in the house?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Something or someone tried to infiltrate the perimeter fence three minutes ago,” Rosie explained as soon as Cara joined her in the hallway downstairs.
Her sister looked as if she’d dressed hastily in the jeans and a T-shirt similar to the ones Cara was wearing. But unlike Malachi, Rosie didn’t look as if she’d been woken, and her long hair looked tousled from something other than sleep too. No doubt she and Max had been otherwise occupied.
Cara couldn’t have been more pleased for her sister. She had never seen Rosie happier and so completely in love as she was right now with Max. Not that Rosie had ever been in love until now, harboring the same distrust of men and relationships as Cara, and for the same reason.
