Kingston's Captive (Kingston Security 2), page 8
She paused to take a few fortifying breaths after she’d struggled for several minutes to roll Adam onto his side so she could pull the jeans down at the back. Only to gasp and raise a hand to her mouth when she saw the large tattoo on his back. Tears burned her eyes when she guessed the reason for it.
The tattoo itself was of a prowling tiger, and it was designed to conceal the burned flesh that covered over half of Adam’s broad back.
Evenly spaced burns that looked as if they had been deliberately inflicted rather than being the result of his having been caught in a fire.
“The Taliban captured and held him for several days eleven years ago, before Max and his team were able to locate and rescue him.” Sinclair spoke quietly from the doorway. “That’s some of their handiwork.”
Cara gave him a brief glance and then turned back to look at Adam, her fist still pressed against her lips. The stripes of the tiger had been deliberately tattooed on the even ridges of raised skin. The fierceness of the tiger’s face was increased by the two deep holes in the flesh where the tiger’s eyes should have been.
“They stuck a thin, hot rod of metal into him to make those holes,” Sinclair supplied. “They didn’t heal properly and left permanent scars.”
Cara felt sick as images of Adam being tortured swam inside her head and refused to be denied. She could see him, like a disturbing scene from a movie, strung up and bare from the waist up, with his feet only just touching the ground as he was deliberately and systematically burned and then a hot rod was stabbed into his flesh, not just once, but several times. She couldn’t even comprehend the pain he must have suffered through.
“He didn’t tell them anything,” Sinclair assured.
She turned her head sharply to glare at him. “I didn’t need you to tell me that.” She knew Adam well enough to realize he would have remained silent, no matter what those men did to him.
“Maybe not, but someone needs to tell you that it’s because of the torture and the scars, inside and out, that Adam keeps his distance from you,” Sinclair added softly.
She rocked back on her heels. “He said something similar earlier.” He’d called himself a thug, something Cara definitely hadn’t liked. “I don’t see him that way.”
“I know you don’t, but the thing is, he does.”
“Then he needs to be convinced otherwise.”
“By you?”
“Yes, by me,” she came back fiercely.
“Look, let’s get Adam undressed and comfortable in bed.” Sinclair strode across the bedroom. “After we’ve done that, we can go down to the kitchen, I’ll make some coffee, and we can drink it while the two of us have a chat. Understand, it will be nothing about Adam that you wouldn’t be able to find out for yourself, given more time.”
Cara nodded. “Fair enough.”
“I’ll ask Malachi to come and sit with Adam. Don’t be misled by appearances,” Sinclair assured when Cara gave him a frowning glance. “Malachi is the one person we’re all more than happy to have at our side when the shit hits the fan. His family loyalty is beyond question.”
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
“You’re just worried about Adam.” Sinclair nodded in understanding and he took his cell phone from his jacket pocket, put it on speaker and made a call.
“Yo?”
“Could you come to Adam’s bedroom right away, please, Mal,” Sinclair requested.
“Be right there.” Malachi ended the conversation without asking why he was needed. It seemed to be enough that Sinclair was making the request.
Cara was reluctant to leave Adam’s side for any reason, as Sinclair had guessed might be the case, but she had a feeling, despite Sinclair’s warning, that anything the eldest Kingston brother had to tell her about Adam would give her a better understanding of him.
Before they went downstairs, Sinclair and Malachi made short work of stripping the rest of Adam’s clothes off. Cara turned away so as not to stare at Adam’s muscular and naked body when the two brothers lifted him so that his head rested on the pillows and then pulled up the duvet to cover him. Adam gave a couple of groans during his cousins’ manhandling of him as if it pained him, but he didn’t wake at all.
It would have taken Cara far longer to achieve that on her own. If she’d been successful in getting Adam undressed and into bed at all.
CHAPTER TEN
Adam felt completely disoriented for several long seconds after waking up from the deepest sleep he’d had in a very long time.
He wasn’t confused because he didn’t recognize his own bedroom at Kingston Manor or the heavy mahogany furniture and the bright paintings on the walls.
He also recognized the comfort of his own bed and the thousand-thread-count cotton sheets he was lying between.
No, the reason for Adam’s confusion was because of the female body he could feel curved against the opposite side of where he’d been shot, and the head resting lightly against his shoulder. They shouldn’t be there. And the reason they shouldn’t was because he never brought women to Kingston Manor.
He’d woken several times during the night, but thought he was dreaming the press of that warm female body nestled against his own. But he was without a doubt completely awake right now, and there was no mistaking the female body pressed against his own as being anything else.
The angle of the sun shining into his bedroom window told him it was about eight o’clock in the morning, and the woman lying in bed beside him, his arm about her shoulders and back as her head rested on his shoulder and the softness of her curves molded to his side, was very real.
He also had absolutely no doubt that woman was Cara.
He was careful not to disturb her as he glanced down and saw the silky auburn of her hair cascading across his chest. Her breath was a soft caress against his bare flesh. She’d rested one of her arms carefully across his lower abdomen. As if, even in sleep, she was being careful not to touch where he’d been shot and cause him more pain.
Speaking of which…
His side felt a bit sore, and he was obviously going to feel it even more when he tried to sit up or stand, but he’d been injured enough to know that the wound was healing and wasn’t infected. Having experienced both those things in the past, he knew the healing was definitely preferable to the discomfort of fighting off an infection on top of the original injury.
None of which answered the question of what Cara was doing in his bed with him.
He remembered the red alert the previous night, and he and his cousins and the dogs going outside to look for whoever or whatever had set off the alarm.
He also remembered Cara had been furious with him for his decision to go outside, and even angrier with him when he came back with his T-shirt soaked in blood for his trouble.
He couldn’t help smiling now as he remembered the names she’d called him.
He recalled his Aunt Jane reacting in the same angry way when he or one of his cousins was injured. He and Max had been best friends even then, and as teenagers, they were always daring each other to do daredevil things, just for the hell of it. During one of those dares, Adam had fallen from the very top of the huge oak tree in the garden when the branch he was standing on had snapped off. He’d broken both his wrists when he’d tried to stop the worst of the impact as he hit the ground.
That day, Aunt Jane had lectured Adam for a good half an hour on the recklessness of climbing so high in the oak tree the branches couldn’t take his weight. Followed by her bursting into inconsolable tears as she’d sat at his side and seen his pain as his wrists were pulled back into place and then put into casts.
Adam didn’t remember what Cara had done last night immediately after berating him.
Probably because he’d passed out.
So how was it he was naked and beneath the duvet? Because he was pretty sure he’d still been wearing his jeans when he passed out.
“I know you’re awake.” Cara spoke softly and without moving, her voice reverberating against his chest. “And if you’re wondering why you don’t have any clothes on, it’s because Sinclair and Malachi undressed you and put you to bed.”
Adam didn’t move either. A part of him was too comfortable to do so, and the rest of him didn’t want to do anything that would prevent Cara from answering his next question. “I’m more interested in knowing why you’re in my bed with me and why you don’t have any clothes on either?”
Ah.
Cara had come straight back to Adam’s bedroom after talking with Sinclair in the kitchen over a mug of coffee.
She found Malachi slouched but awake in a chair that he’d obviously carried through from the sitting area and placed beside the bed. He’d also turned off the overhead light and put the one on in the en suite bathroom, but pulled the door closed enough that only a slither of that light came through to the bedroom.
Malachi told her that Adam had woken up briefly, and he’d given him a drink of water, after which his cousin had drifted back off to sleep.
Malachi had offered to continue sitting with Adam for the rest of the night, but Cara wanted to be the one to do that, even if Adam remained asleep the whole time and was unaware of her presence.
She’d taken Malachi’s place in the armchair for a while, happy just to be able to watch Adam enjoying a trouble-free sleep. It was also a relief to see that the color had come back into his olive-skinned cheeks and his breathing was slow and steady. All signs that his wounds weren’t becoming infected.
But Adam had questioned just now how she came to be naked and in bed with him…
She could lie and say it was because it was the middle of the night, she was tired, and Adam’s bed had looked more comfortable than trying to sleep in the chair.
But the truth was she had just wanted to be physically close to him. To be able to touch him and know he was still alive and here with her. To know, just from the heat of him beside her, if his body was fighting off a fever.
Which was exactly what she now told Adam. “It was the most efficient way to ascertain whether or not you had a temperature.”
Adam’s chest reverberated slightly as he gave a low chuckle. “I believe touching a hand to my forehead would have told you the same thing, so do you want to try answering that again?”
She drew in a deep breath, careful to keep the duvet covering her breasts as she lifted up to lean on one of her elbows. “Sinclair and I had a chat in the kitchen last night after he and Malachi had helped undress you and put you to bed.” Calmly changing the subject was her only form of defense right now. “I didn’t look, by the way, when they stripped you naked.”
“That was very considerate of you,” Adam said dryly.
Her cheeks warmed. “Not that I think you have anything to be ashamed of, obviously.”
“Good of you to say so.”
She shot him an impatient glare for his underlying teasing. “Sinclair told me how you acquired that tattoo on your back.”
Adam immediately tensed. “How I acquired it?” he rasped. “What a quaint way of describing being tortured until everything inside of me cried out to tell them anything they wanted to know if only they would stop.”
Cara felt a cold shiver down the length of her spine. “But you didn’t do that, did you.” It was a statement, not a question, because she knew he hadn’t. “Don’t.” She placed her hand against his chest as he threw back the duvet and started to swing his legs to the side, obviously intending to get out of bed. “We need to talk.”
He pulled the duvet back over him as he fell back against the pillows to gaze up at the ceiling. “No conversation that starts with ‘we need to talk’ ever ends well.”
“This one will.”
He turned his dark and piercing gaze toward her. “Okay,” he prompted guardedly.
“Your scars don’t bother me, Adam.” She winced. “Sorry, I put that badly. What I meant is that each and every one of those injuries and scars happened because you were helping someone else. I could never be repulsed by them or the tattoos you’ve had done in an effort to hide the worst of them.”
“Some women—”
“I don’t want to hear how other women feel or felt about them,” she cut in firmly. “I don’t want to hear about the other women in your life at all. Your scars and tattoos are a part of who you are. Of the life you’ve lived, first in service of your country and to help those who weren’t able to do that for themselves, and now it’s for the civilians who, for one reason or another, also need to be rescued.”
“I look like a criminal.”
“You’ll never look less than a hero to me,” she stated huskily. “Sinclair told me that you and Max retired from the military shortly after you were involved in our rescue ten years ago,” she continued curiously when Adam remained silent.
His expression became fierce. “The intel we received was too fucking late and too little for us to be able to stop those bastards from killing your mother. Max and I weren’t willing to deal with that level of incompetence any longer.”
Cara had kept her hand on his chest, so she now felt the way his heartbeat increased. “Sinclair explained.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. “What else did Sinclair explain?”
She smiled. “Nothing too shocking, I assure you. He just wanted me to know that… He said you’re different now to how you were until a year ago.”
“Different?” he prompted.
Cara nodded. “He said that for quite a few years, you were emotionally closed off, but then something happened to change that. He didn’t know what, only that it had.” She paused, knowing that what she said next had the power to change their dynamic forever. She took a deep breath and said it anyway. “I wondered if it had anything to do with you coming to the gallery and seeing my paintings.” She glanced pointedly to where so many of those paintings hung on his bedroom walls.
“No.”
Cara’s heart sank at the brutal honesty of Adam’s reply. Well, she’d asked, and she should have been prepared for the fact Adam could say no as easily as he could say—
“It was seeing you again that brought about that change in me, not your paintings.”
Cara moistened her lips. “Seeing me?”
He lifted his hand to run his knuckles in a gentle caress down her cheek. “You’ve grown into an incredible woman, Cara. Not just beautiful, but so self-confident and talented too.” He shook his head. “You dazzled the fuck out of me that night, and I don’t think I’ve been able to see anything else but you since then.”
Cara could hear her own heart beating loudly and erratically. “If you felt that way, why didn’t you speak to me that night?”
He sighed. “Because all seeing or speaking to me again would have done was remind you of how you and your family were kidnapped and your mother was murdered.”
“Maybe to begin with,” she acknowledged. “But what you didn’t take into consideration that night was that for a very long time, I’ve wanted to thank the man who just held me that day and by doing so stopped me from disintegrating into a thousand pieces that could never be put back together again.” She met his gaze steadily. “So, thank you, Adam. For everything you did for me, for all of us, that day.”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “I wish it could have been more.”
“You did enough,” she assured.
“But—”
“The appropriate response is ‘You’re welcome, Cara.’”
He smiled. “You’re welcome, Cara.”
She gave a brisk nod. “That gratitude was for the man fourteen-year-old Cara met and felt forever grateful to for his compassion toward a wounded child when she most needed it. This is for the man that twenty-four-year-old Cara now knows and wants as a woman,” she added with determination before lowering her head and claiming his lips with her own.
Adam was too surprised to do anything other than part his lips and kiss Cara back, his arms moving instinctively about her as he pulled her closer still.
He had wanted this for so long, hungered for it, for her, that there was no possibility of him being able to resist her. Nor did he even attempt to do so. Instead, he relished the increasing fierceness of their kisses, lips devouring, tongues dueling.
Time lost all meaning, Adam aware of nothing but the woman he held in his arms. Cara was all there was. The oxygen he breathed. His only warmth. The blood pumping through his veins. Cara was everything.
As their kisses became increasingly hungry, Adam realized she always had been.
He could only stare at Cara mutely when she finally lifted her mouth from his to stare at him for several long seconds then lowered her head and kissed down the column of his throat, across his chest, before moving lower beneath the duvet.
“Cara?” His hands moved to grasp her shoulders as those lips moved closer and closer toward his engorged and throbbing cock.
She raised the duvet and looked at him. “Am I hurting you?”
“No. I just— I really don’t think that I can reciprocate right now,” he admitted heavily. Cara had assured him he hadn’t pulled out any stitches during the night, but his side was hurting like hell again this morning and would seriously incapacitate him if he tried moving too much.
Moves like throwing Cara onto her back and devouring every inch of her!
Which was what Adam really wanted to do, but knew he couldn’t right now.
Cara raised her hand and pressed her thumb against his bottom lip. “You don’t need to reciprocate. All you need to do is just lie back—”
“And think of England?” he drawled.
“Enjoy,” she corrected. “I’ve been thinking about doing this for the past year,” she assured gruffly.
He scowled. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m too fucking old and rough around the edges for a woman like you.”
“A woman like me?” she repeated.
“You’re wonderful, Cara. Refined, talented, and so beautiful. And fiery as hell,” he added with admiration.
“I’m also emotionally damaged and have zero trust.”
