by Snow, Lucy
Kara coughed. “You enjoyed that way too much,” she said.
“And what if I did?”
Her smile disappeared. “I’m sorry I’m getting in the way of your fun tonight. I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”
“You do that.” I waived in Sarah’s direction. “I’m not worried about it. She’ll keep as long as she needs to.”
“You have quite the way with women. I see that hasn’t changed.”
“Most of them.” I paused. “Not all.”
“Shall we go?” She closed the distance between us. I held the door open and motioned her to it. Soon we were down the hall, the walls pounding with the bass of the different songs we had going in each room. I pulled out my phone along the way and texted my driver, telling him to bring the car around the front. He responded in the affirmative a few seconds later, and I put my phone away.
The dance floor was just like we’d left it, the crowd happily getting more and more tipsy and trying to meet someone new or impress the one they were with. I loved the vibe of night clubs, the temporary nature of the high, but everything changed about them when you walked through one during the day.
I took hold of Kara’s hand again, guiding her toward the front entrance. We passed around the dance floor this time, stopping at the bar where I nodded at Sam. Chelsea made sure to bump into us as we left, and she winked at me after spending a long moment checking Kara out. Well, that was another girl’s approval, despite me not asking or caring.
The timing was perfect when we got out of the club. Just as the cold wind whipped around to catch us, my driver pulled up, jumped out and came around the front of the car, opening the back door for us. I guided Kara in and then got in myself, glad the car was already heated up.
“Where to, sir?” My driver asked, making eye contact in the rearview mirror. He’d been my driver for a couple years now and knew better than to ask more than the absolute minimum.
“Home, please.” I looked out the window at the line still snaking out from Pulse’s front door. Some of those people wouldn’t get inside till past midnight. They’d still wait. A night at Pulse had that much allure. They would wait.
Without another word the driver pulled out of the spot in front of Pulse and we headed back to my place. Ordinarily I’d either be looking out the window at my city as we drove past, or I’d be enjoying the amorous attentions of whichever girl I’d brought home that night, but tonight was a little different.
There was a girl, of course, and a smoking hot one. I just wasn’t able to touch her quite like I wanted to. Not like I’d wanted to for years.
Our parents had met when we were in high school. Kara’s father had passed away from an early onset illness a few years before that and her mother had fallen head over heels in love with my father without really bothering to learn what exactly he did for a living.
The resulting whirlwind romance shocked Kara and I into spending time together, and we hated it. We got in each other’s way, we cramped each other’s style. It was all bad from the start. But every now and then, I’d noticed, there were glimmers in the mist, faint echoes, traces of something like attraction that drew us together just as strongly as it pushed us apart under the weight of the situation our parents had thrust us into.
We didn’t act on them, of course. We finished up high school talking to each other as little as possible. Kara definitely didn’t approve of the revolving door figuratively attached to my room, that only admitted beautiful young women eager to spend some alone time with me.
Soon we both graduated from high school and went our separate ways, and a couple years after that her mother finally decided she didn’t approve of what little she knew about my father’s business and divorced him. He’d known it would happen eventually and had washed his hands of the entire situation, while making sure his ex-wife and her daughter had enough to live on, money-wise.
If I remembered correctly, Kara’s mother had moved out of state. I just knew Kara had stuck around town, but I hadn’t kept tabs on her or anything. It was a big city and we’d managed to never run into each other until tonight.
I guess I shouldn’t call tonight running into each other. Kara had come looking for me. That was a surprise in and of itself. But to ask for my help too?
She looked out the window like I usually did. Just watching her I felt myself getting hard. She was so utterly gorgeous, with curves that could make a man weep with joy. And here she was just a couple feet from me, and I couldn’t touch her, no matter how much I wanted to.
It was a cruel sense of fate that had made us ‘related,’ even for a short time. We’d never gotten to work out any of the attraction we felt for each other, and now we never would.
The rest of the car ride passed in more silence, and ten minutes later we arrived at my building. The driver pulled into the garage and stopped in front of the elevators, jumping out of the car and holding the door for Kara and myself. I thanked him and gave him instructions for picking me up in the morning before he drove off. Kara waited by the elevators - thankfully the garage was underground and away from the biting wind.
By the time I got to her she’d buzzed the elevator and its doors opened. We got in and I punched the secret code to take us to the penthouse. The ride up the 30 floors went quickly, the glass walls of the elevator giving us a beautiful view of the city at night as we rose.
Past a certain floor, when a condo takes up the entire floor of a building, the elevator opens its doors into the unit. The first time I’d seen a private elevator I’d been impressed; now it was just part of the place. Girls usually got a kick out of it.
Kara didn’t seen to notice that we stepped out of the doors into where I lived. Why wasn’t I surprised?
My condo was decked out as finely as my office was. Expensive and interesting art, all hand picked by me, adorned every surface, and starkly modern furniture, tastefully arranged by my decorator, all took residence on the floors. With a smile I remembered the first time I’d met my decorator. I’d told her I wanted good furniture to fuck on.
She’d taken that directive to heart, and after she was done selecting whatever she thought was appropriate, we’d tested it out over a weekend of near-nonstop sex.
The art, though, that was all mine. I’d always been drawn to art, and now that I had the means to get my hands on it, I took every advantage of those opportunities.
As nice as this place was, and as much as I’d spent making it the way I wanted it, I didn’t spend nearly enough time here. Turns out being the primary guy for a large and prosperous crime family and being groomed to take over the big chair someday didn’t leave much time to sit and stair at the walls, no matter how sexy the art on them was. Who knew?
For now, just knowing I had all this stuff was enough. I’d find the time to enjoy it eventually. “Can I get you a drink?”
Kara had stopped in front of the first piece of art she saw. “Y-yes,” she said, her eyes fixed on the piece. I chuckled, knowing the effect was common. I poured her a drink and she took it, taking a quick sip, still glued to the wall.
I grabbed myself a water and sat down on the black leather sofa. Despite all the sex I’d had on it over the last couple years, it still felt like new. A tribute to my cleaning service.
I needed to know why Kara was here, why I wasn’t at Pulse, and most importantly, what this was all about. “Sit down, Kara, and tell me what’s going on.”
Chapter 04 - Kara
Ronan’s place was ridiculous. I knew he’d done well for himself in the ‘family’ business, but this was on another level. He lived here?! I was almost too scared to step anywhere for fear that I’d break something worth more than all the money I’d ever made or ever would make.
I didn’t understand how a human being could live here. OK, put that way, I could see how this could be Ronan’s house.
It looked perfect - from the furniture, to the arrangement, all the accents, everything. So perfect that it looked un-lived in. Like it
wasn’t house, much less a home, but more of a museum, an art gallery.
The art, though, that was the only part that spoke to me. Spoke was the wrong word. The art on the walls and on the tables screamed, shouted, and sang. The room was silent but at the same time it was deafening.
Each piece said “I was chosen to be here. I belong here.” The effect was magical. I knew immediately Ronan had picked out the art and nothing else. I could feel him speaking from the walls. Pleading.
“Sit down, Kara, and tell me what’s going on.” Ronan’s words shocked me back to reality so fast I almost got dizzy. I could have spend hours, days even, going through each piece in this place and trying to figure out what it spoke about my enigmatic stepbrother. I’d probably never get the chance, but I couldn’t help but want to.
I gripped my drink and went over to the couch where Ronan sat. I sat down, closer to him than I’d have liked to earlier, but feeling compelled to by something I couldn’t describe.
“First, Ronan, please, let me say thanks for giving me a place to stay. I really hope I won’t be in your way, and I’ll try to get out of here as soon as I can.” Ronan nodded, sipping his water.
I started and stopped speaking several times, tripping over my words and trying to figure out where to start, and not being successful. Ronan just watched me, those dark eyes of his twinkling in the low night of the palatial room, leaning against the back of the couch, a small smile on his face in between sips.
He was so gorgeous, I almost couldn’t be around him. In the car on the way here he must have thought he could hide his erection, but you couldn’t hide a cock like that in a suit; I was both flattered and trying not to think the naughty thoughts that jogged around my head.
This was absolutely the wrong time to indulge in my many-times-repeated fantasy of my badass stepbrother.
And yet? I couldn’t help myself.
I used to hate it when he looked at me like that. I’d never told him why, but it had always bothered me. Like he was both waiting for me to say something and mentally undressing me. I didn’t mind that last part; I couldn’t even count how many times I’d fantasized about him and hated myself for doing so afterward, but the combination of the expectation that I would speak and that gorgeous look on his beautiful face just made me mad.
Now, though, it wasn’t so bad. I could get used to it. Of course, since I was leaving soon, I better not. Finally, I stopped trying to speak and just stared back at him, falling against the couch and drinking my drink. We sat like that, each watching the other, neither saying a word.
“Do you remember Greg?”
“Should I?”
“Oh, I guess not, of course not. Greg is, uh, was, my ex-boyfriend.” The smile on Ronan’s face wavered for a moment but stayed fixed.
“What happened to him?”
“Wait, let me back up for a moment. Greg and I dated pretty seriously for a couple years. We almost decided to move into together, but we broke up more than a year ago.”
“Go on.”
“A couple weeks ago, Greg called me up, saying he needed some help. That he needed a place to stay for a few days.”
“And you helped him out.”
“How could I say no? We’d kept in touch, and it’s not like he was a stranger. We almost-“
“You almost moved in together. I got that part. Go on.” Ronan’s voice was ice cold. Clearly he didn’t like me talking about any guy I’d dated in the past, even if we were no longer together.
“So last week he came to stay with me.”
“Did he say why he needed a place?”
“No, he didn’t,” I frowned, “and I didn’t really push the point too hard.” I felt my cheeks burning. Only Ronan could make me feel ashamed for helping someone out in need.
“We got along a lot better as… Roommates, then we had in the last few months of our relationship. We even hung out a little bit the last few days. Nothing romantic, Between us. Not anymore.” I emphasize that last part. Ronan did not respond.
“In fact, tonight we were supposed to go out together, you know, just as friends.” I looked down at my dress, realizing for the first time just how, uhh, voluptuous it made me look.
“But something happened? You came in alone.”
“Yeah, a few hours ago, Greg said he had something to do before we went out. He’s been acting a little suspicious for the last couple days.”
Ronan leaned forward, his interest clearly piqued. “Suspicious? How?” Now I really had his attention.
“He’s just had a lot on his mind. He’s been stressed out, wandering around the apartment, talking to himself. It’s almost like he’s been arguing with himself. Looking out the window, staring off into space. Weird stuff, even for him.”
“Did you ask him what was wrong?”
“I tried, a couple times, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Alright. What next?”
I looked down, ashamed at what I was about to say next. “So, tonight, when he said that had something he had to do before we went out, I, uhh…”
Ronan leaned back. “You followed him, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I followed him.” I couldn’t tell what he thought about that, so I kept talking, almost to fill the silence. “I just wanted to make sure he was OK! And that he wasn’t involved in anything shady!”
“Did you have any reason to suspect he was involved in shady shit?”
Hearing Ronan curse sounded strange, which also sounded strange, because when our parents were married he cursed like a sailor all the time. I waved it off, though, needing to get to the rest of the story. “He’s,” I faltered at first, “done a little drug dealing in the past.”
Ronan’s eyes clouded over. “You know how to pick ‘em, Kara.”
That hurt. It’s not like I knowingly fell for a drug dealer or anything. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, even though I shouldn’t feel the need to apologize to you of all people. I was younger and dumber and I made some bad decisions. But,” I finished, “as I mentioned, things were over between us. And there was no chance he and I would ever get back together.”
“Where did you follow him to?” Ronan’s tone was cool and even, back to icy normal for him.
“The industrial district. An abandoned warehouse.”
Ronan’s eyes gleamed. “I might have known. So he definitely was up to some shady shit.”
I nodded. “I don’t think he knew I was there. I snuck in after him and I watched what happened next.” And here was where I broke down, suddenly overcome by the weight of all that I had seen. I had heard stories, of course, and seen violent TV shows and movies before, but nothing quite prepares you for being in the room, even if it is a large room, when someone else is killed.
It’s even worse when the person being murdered someone you used to love. The tears welled up in my eyes and I started sobbing uncontrollably. Before I knew what was happening next, Ronan had pulled me forward and wrapped me up in his giant arms. My eyes were closed with tears, but I still felt his strong chest against my face and smelled his manly scent all around me as his arms enveloped me.
I lay against him like that for a few minutes, just letting it all out, all the pain and frustration and sadness that I felt of the last few hours that I’d been able to keep in out of a sense of self-preservation. Now that I felt momentarily safe with Ronan in his huge apartment, I didn’t have to keep those walls as high, and I was free to wallow, even if just for a few minutes.
Finally the tears stopped running and I wiped my eyes, noticing that I’d cried all over Ronan’s perfect suit. He didn’t seem to mind as I sat back up, realizing I must look hideous with clubbing mascara running all down my face. I grinned through it, a scary raccoon in a body hugging dress.
“What did you see? What happened?”
“He was there to do a drug deal, I assumed. The guys he was meeting weren’t from around here. They talked, well, not so much talked, as argued, and things got out of hand.
”
“Did Greg come prepared?”
I knew what Ronan meant by that. “You’re asking if he had gun? Yes, he pulled out a gun. I didn’t know he had one until I saw it there. If I had known I never would have let him stay with me,” I hastily added, then whispered, “I don’t like guns.”
“I remember that.” Ronan’s views on guns was…different. ‘More nuanced,’ he would call it. ‘Barbarous,’ I would call it. We were unlikely to see eye to eye on this one, ever. “What happened next?”
“They argued some more, and I didn’t want to watch anymore, I’d heard enough. So I started making my exit.”
“They didn’t notice, you, did they?” He knew the answer to that. If they’d noticed me following Greg I wouldn’t be sitting on Ronan’s couch right now spilling the entire sordid story. I’d be dead in an alley somewhere.
“No, they didn’t. The other guys all had guns too, and Greg started trying to argue with them. From where I could see, he looked and sounded really scared. And then the shooting started.”
“They shot him?”
I nodded, my eyes closed, still reliving the moment. “Yeah, they shot him a few times. He might have hit one of them by the time he went down, but by then I was running away as fast as I could.”
“I’m glad you got away. What did you do next?”
“You and me both. I didn’t want to go home. With the way Greg had been acting, looking out the windows like someone was spying on him, I didn’t want to take that chance, that they knew where he was staying. I thought…”
“You thought they might come after you.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t know what to do.”
“So you came to find me.”
“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done that, I just didn’t know who else to turn to.”
Ronan stood up and walked to the window, showing a beautiful view of the city, his city, down below. In my rush to feel safe and then to explain why I was here I hadn’t even taken a moment to appreciate the view. Ronan leaned against the window, and cocked his head back at me. “You came to me because you know what I do. You thought I could help you out of this.”
