The Redemption of Darius Sterne

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Logic.’ Darius gently removed her now unresisting hands before he continued to fully unzip, and then peel her jeans down to her thighs and further down her legs. ‘Your injuries in the accident were extensive.’

  ‘It wasn’t...’ Andy stopped her protest as she realised she had once again been about to claim that her fall four years ago hadn’t been an accident at all; no one had believed her then, and the last thing she needed right now was for Darius to think she was a bitter and twisted hysteric.

  ‘They would also have required several operations, painful ones,’ Darius guessed grimly. ‘Coupled with Tia Bellamy’s comments last night, about the ankle length of your gown, it isn’t difficult to guess that you have scars.’

  He had managed to pull her jeans down the rest of the way as they talked, and he now discarded them completely, his breath catching in his throat as he turned back and saw that Miranda wore only cream silk and lace bikini briefs beneath. Her golden curls were visible against the dampened silk.

  And the scars were visible high up on her right thigh—a delicate tracery of surgical incisions that had faded to silver during the past four years, but were still visible nonetheless.

  They were scars Miranda now attempted to hide with her hand. ‘They’re hideous.’

  ‘They’re a part of who you are,’ Darius corrected gruffly. ‘Like war wounds,’ he added softly as he lowered his head and placed his lips gently on each and every one of those scars.

  Andy made a choking noise in her throat. ‘Darius!’

  He continued to kiss her scarred thigh as he murmured, ‘We all carry scars, Miranda. Some are visible, others not, but never doubt that we all bear scars from our past.’

  Andy heard the bleakness underlying Darius’s tone, and wondered what scars he carried around inside him. Recalling the conversation between the two brothers the evening before, it wasn’t difficult to realise that it probably somehow involved the father Xander had described as a bastard. It was—

  She gave a gasp, all other thoughts leaving her head, as Darius now hooked his thumbs into her lacy briefs and slowly, purposefully, slid them downwards, until he had her completely naked. Her breath caught and held, the heated warmth colouring her cheeks, as he nudged her legs apart before moving to kneel between her thighs, spreading her legs even further apart as he gazed his fill.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Darius finally breathed huskily before looking up at her. ‘You’re beautiful, Miranda. All of you.’

  Miranda squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I’m feeling a little underdressed.’

  Darius clearly heard the embarrassment beneath Miranda’s husky tone. ‘I believe I’m the one who’s a lot overdressed,’ he corrected as he reached for the bottom of his T-shirt and drew it up and over his head before throwing it onto the pile of her clothes already gathered on the floor. ‘Better?’

  Andy totally forgot her embarrassment as she looked at Darius’s bared and lightly tanned torso. She drank in his wide and muscled shoulders and chest, defined abs, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere, testament to the fact that he didn’t spend all of his time behind a desk. There was a dusting of dark hair covering the middle of his chest and tapering down beneath the waistband of his jeans. He was the one who was beautiful, mouth-wateringly so.

  ‘I’m going to taste you now, Miranda,’ he growled hungrily in warning even as he slid down the couch until he was settled between her thighs, the width of his shoulders forcing her legs even further apart.

  ‘I— Oh, dear Lord...!’ Andy groaned as she felt Darius’s tongue sweep slowly over her, gasping as he hummed his pleasure.

  She couldn’t resist looking down at him, so dark and primal against her fairness, his lids closed, dark lashes fanning the sharp planes of his cheeks.

  Andy’s fingers curled into the darkness of his hair as she thought she might die from the pleasure of his lips and tongue.

  ‘I need you to touch me too, Miranda,’ he encouraged as he moved up onto his knees, unfastening the button and zip of his jeans and pulling them down.

  Andy was thrilled to see his excitement and to know that she was the cause of his arousal. She hesitated only briefly before her fingers closed about his length, amazed at how soft the skin was that encased the steel hardness beneath. Instinctively she moved her hand up and over, mimicking the rhythm he had resumed as he continued to caress her with his tongue.

  ‘Harder, Miranda,’ he paused to groan achingly. ‘Faster.’

  She drew her breath in sharply, her fingers tightening about him, squeezing harder, as Darius’s mouth closed completely about her and he suckled deeply, at the same time as he slid first one and then a second finger deep inside her.

  Her pleasure rose higher still, threatening to consume her as it rose to a crescendo. Higher, and then higher still, until Andy felt that wave hold, crest, before exploding in a kaleidoscope of sensations, emotions and colours that left her gasping.

  Beneath her hand she felt Darius harden before he joined her in his own shuddering climax.

  Darius was breathing heavily as he lay against Miranda’s thighs, too physically satiated to want to move. Instead he simply enjoyed the pleasure of having her fingers moving caressingly through his hair as she lay just as relaxed beneath him.

  It had never been like this for him before. So intense. So immediate. To the degree that Darius hadn’t been able to control or stem his own pleasure, and he’d experienced the deepest and most intense climax of his life.

  Damn it, the two of them had made out on Miranda’s sofa like a couple of teenagers!

  Darius might have laughed at himself for that adolescent eagerness if he weren’t so bemused by it.

  Not just bemused, utterly confused.

  He’d been sexually active since he was in his teens and had always enjoyed sex as a recreation, a release of tension, but this—this time with Miranda had been unlike anything he had ever known before.

  He’d felt a connection, the emotions so intense, he had been unable to stop himself from climaxing in her hand like that overeager teenager. And he hadn’t even been inside her yet!

  A fact his body was only too well aware of, if the stirring of renewed arousal was any indication.

  What did it mean?

  What did he want it to mean?

  He liked Miranda. Admired her even. But was it more than that? Could it be more than that?

  How was he supposed to think, about anything, when Miranda still lay naked beneath him, and with the smell of her feminine musk invading, capturing, all of his senses?

  Distance.

  He needed distance.

  Between himself and Miranda.

  Except he couldn’t think of any way, any graceful way that was, to extricate himself from between her naked thighs, let alone from her apartment!

  For goodness’ sake, he was Darius Sterne, billionaire businessman, well known for keeping his emotional distance from all but his twin Xander—to the point that several of the women he had been physically involved with in the past had accused him of being cold and ruthless.

  But he freely admitted that he had no idea right now how to escape this situation without hurting Miranda. And he didn’t want to hurt her; he just needed to get away from her for long enough to be able to think straight. To be able to bring some perspective to the situation. To see if there was any perspective to be found!

  The question was how?

  This was also something which had certainly never bothered him in the past.

  He didn’t believe himself to be a deliberately cruel man when it came to the women he had been involved with, he had just never been interested in them outside the bedroom.

  He already knew that Miranda wasn’t anything like the women he usually slept with. She was nothing like the models and actresses he usually took to bed. They
were women who were only too willing to sleep with him, even if for nothing more than the boost the publicity of just being seen out with one of the Sterne brothers could and would give to her career.

  Had he always chosen women who were deliberately no threat to his closed-off heart?

  Maybe.

  But Miranda was different.

  He’d had to blackmail Miranda into going out with him at all!

  He sensed that she was extremely vulnerable, emotionally as well as physically, and his own emotional scars from the past, and the estrangement between his mother and himself, made him the very last man she should ever become involved with.

  Which was why Darius needed to leave.

  Now!

  He pulled away from her, deliberately not looking at her nakedness as he rose to his feet, knowing that if he did his resolve would weaken, and he would simply end up making love with her again.

  ‘Bathroom?’ he prompted gruffly as he refastened his jeans before pulling his T-shirt back on.

  * * *

  Darius’s thought were an enigma to Andy, but the fact that he couldn’t even look at her as he dressed didn’t bode well for what he might have been planning in his head for these past few moments.

  Which was fine, because Andy couldn’t look at him either, now that the euphoria and pleasure had faded and the stark reality of the fact that she had just made love with Darius on her own sofa became all too embarrassingly apparent.

  She had never had a man caress her so intimately before. It made her blush just to think of what she and Darius had just enjoyed together!

  At the same time as she couldn’t forget the ecstasy he’d brought her. It was a pleasure such as Andy had never dreamed possible, let alone ever imagined sharing with Darius Sterne.

  He might be physically and emotionally distant now, but he hadn’t been at all the cold lover she had feared he would be. No, he had been so considerate of her, so caring of her physical shyness. He had even kissed the scars she had hidden away these past four years!

  Which, Andy admitted, had been her complete undoing.

  How could she have resisted a man who saw those scars as battle wounds rather than the unsightly imperfection Andy had always considered them to be?

  She couldn’t. She hadn’t wanted to.

  And Darius had made her first physical encounter so beautiful.

  Enough so that she could feel herself falling in love with him?

  Whatever her own feelings on the matter, Darius’s distant behaviour told her that the closeness was over.

  ‘Up the stairs and on the right,’ she answered him huskily, frowning as Darius turned abruptly on his heel and strode off in the direction of the bathroom without so much as glancing back.

  It gave Andy time to quickly gather up her scattered clothes, so that she could dress before Darius came back. Except, she realised as soon as she sat up, that there was no way she could put her clothes back on when her thighs and abdomen still bore the evidence of Darius’s climax.

  How embarrassing was that!

  Maybe if she made a quick run for the kitchen, grabbed a towel, and—

  Before she could so much as move Darius had come back out of the bathroom and run lightly down the half a dozen steps onto the main floor space. He was carrying one of her fluffy gold bath towels in his hand, his eyes unreadable as he strode purposefully towards her.

  Suddenly acutely aware of her nakedness she instinctively crossed one knee over the other before she leant forward with her elbow on her knee, effectively shielding at least part of her nakedness from him.

  ‘Here.’

  The expression in his eyes was hidden behind hooded lids as he handed her the towel before turning away again, shoulders hunched as he thrust his hands into the pockets of jeans. With his back to her he gave Andy the privacy she needed to use the towel before pulling her clothes back on.

  ‘Do we need to talk about this?’

  The fact that he needed to ask, and the way in which he asked, told Andy that what Darius was actually saying was that he didn’t want to talk about it.

  That he regretted what had happened.

  Andy wasn’t sure how she felt about what their lovemaking had revealed to her. But no doubt she would have days and weeks in which to agonise over her feelings.

  When she would never hear from Darius again.

  Which, Andy realised, saddened her more than she liked to admit.

  She had tried from the first to resist her attraction to Darius, knew from their first meeting, when she had been so instantly aware of him that it was a foolish attraction at best, and a dangerous one at worst. An attraction she had guessed would only bring her heartache.

  She now knew for certain that it would.

  Because her reaction to Darius today, and their lovemaking just now, told her that she had allowed her heart to become involved. She had no idea if that tumult of emotions was actually love, but she definitely had strong feelings for Darius, much stronger feelings than she had ever felt for any other man. Strong enough that she had allowed him to see her scars. That she had then given herself to him willingly.

  She hadn’t really needed to read all that stuff online about Darius, regarding the history of his brief physical relationships with beautiful models and actresses, to know that he wasn’t the type of man who did emotional relationships.

  Any more than Andy was a woman who did purely physical ones.

  Although Darius certainly couldn’t be blamed for thinking that she was, after the way she had behaved with him just now.

  The best that she could hope for now was to try to salvage at least some of her pride.

  She stood up. ‘So...’ She frowned at the sound of a mobile phone ringing. It wasn’t hers.

  Darius muttered under his breath as he drew his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans, a frown between his eyes as he checked the number on the screen. ‘I’m sorry but I have to take this.’

  Andy nodded abruptly as she turned away to finish tidying up the kitchen, leaving Darius the privacy to take his call. Or at least it started out that way.

  ‘What the—? When?’ he demanded of the caller harshly. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell Xander... Never mind, I’ll tell him myself when I get there.’ He ended the call abruptly. ‘I have to leave immediately, Miranda.’ He sounded distracted.

  Andy had already guessed that much from Darius’s half of the conversation. ‘Is everything okay? Well, obviously it isn’t.’ She grimaced. ‘What’s happened to Xander?’ She watched Darius closely, easily noting the pallor of his cheeks, and the shadows in his eyes.

  He frowned grimly. ‘He was involved in a car accident during the early hours of this morning, but the hospital had no idea who to contact until he regained consciousness a short time ago and could tell them my mobile number.’

  Andy took a step towards him, only to come to an abrupt halt as she recognised that at some time over the past thirty seconds he had placed an invisible wall about himself, and one which she couldn’t penetrate. ‘Is he going to be okay?’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Darius intended to find out the details of Xander’s injuries for himself later; for the moment it was enough to take in that his twin was injured and in the hospital. ‘I really do have to go to him, Miranda.’

  ‘Well, of course you do,’ she accepted briskly.

  Earlier Darius had wanted—needed—to put some distance between them, if only so that he could clear his head enough to try and work out what the hell had happened here today. But he certainly hadn’t wanted to leave under these circumstances.

  The sooner Darius could get to the hospital, and see his twin for himself, the better he would like it.

  ‘Would you like me to drive you to the hospital?’

  Darius looke
d up sharply. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I asked if you would like me to drive you to the hospital,’ Andy repeated softly.

  ‘Why?’ He looked totally bewildered by the offer.

  ‘It’s what friends do for each other, Darius.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. Besides—’ she avoided meeting his piercing gaze ‘—you’re obviously upset, and probably shouldn’t be driving at the moment.’

  He continued to frown as he gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I’m going to need my car later...’

  ‘Then I’ll drive you there in your car and get a taxi back. Look, I’m not asking any longer, Darius, I’m telling you I’m driving you to the hospital,’ she added briskly. An uncertain Darius was definitely out of character. ‘What happens after that will be completely up to you.’

  Although she already had a feeling that she wouldn’t be seeing Darius again after today.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DARIUS KNEW HE’D had every reason to feel concerned about his twin as he looked down at Xander lying asleep in the hospital bed. His brother’s face was deathly pale apart from a colourful bruise on his brow from where his head had struck the windscreen. The doctor had taken Darius aside in the corridor and informed him that they were currently monitoring Xander for concussion, that his ribs were badly bruised, and his left leg had been badly broken, and required surgery.

  Xander’s lashes flickered several times before his lids were slowly raised and he looked up at Darius with dark and pain-filled eyes.

  ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ Darius’s voice sounded harsh in the otherwise silence of the room, his hands clenched at his sides. ‘I realise you’ve been acting more recklessly than usual this past few months but not to the point of nearly killing yourself.’

  ‘Darius,’ Andy remonstrated gently, knowing it was worry for his twin that motivated his anger, and that he would probably regret this outburst later if it wasn’t stopped now.

  Darius had been tensely silent on the drive over to the hospital, offering no objection when Andy got out of the car with the intention of accompanying him inside. Not, she had realised, because he had actually wanted her with him, but because he was so distracted and worried about his brother that he had simply forgotten she was there.