The Redemption of Darius Sterne (13 page)

The sooner Darius ate then, hopefully, the sooner he would leave again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘N
OT
ONLY
BEAUTIFUL
,
but you also know how to cook!' Darius looked appreciatively across the table at Miranda once they had finished what had turned out to be a very enjoyable meal.

And not just because the food had been every bit as good as it smelt.

No, once they had got over that initial tension, and had begun to eat their meal, the conversation had actually flowed quite naturally between them, and whether Miranda realised it or not Darius now knew the answer to at least some of the things he had been curious about earlier. Miranda's favourite colour was red, her favourite food Italian, and she liked to read murder mysteries. And as that was Darius's preference too, they had then had quite a lively discussion on the merits of certain authors as opposed to others.

‘A multi-tasker—that's me,' Miranda lightly brushed off the compliment as she stood up with the obvious intention of clearing away the dishes.

Darius put a restraining hand on the bareness of her arm. ‘Sit and finish your wine, and I'll tidy these things away,' he instructed as he stood up.

‘Helpful as well as handsome?' she came back dryly.

Darius gave a slow smile. ‘Well, I'll settle for handsome certainly.'

Miranda frowned as she obviously realised her teasing had backfired on her. ‘Don't you usually have an army of minions to do this sort of thing for you?' she teased as she slowly sat down and watched him clear the table.

‘Now, now, Miranda, let's not spoil the day by arguing again,' Darius drawled, before slowly stilling as he looked down at her through narrowed lids. ‘Or maybe that was your intention?'

Was that what Andy was trying to do? Put the distance back between them, by deliberately challenging him?

Maybe she was being contentious. Because she was feeling so defensive, after the last few hours had passed more pleasurably than she could ever have imagined. Darius had relaxed in a way Andy hadn't believed he ever could, as they'd discussed books and theatre and art as they ate. No doubt the delicious red wine had also contributed to their becoming so relaxed in each other's company.

But it wasn't real, Andy reminded herself firmly.

Darius was...who he was. And she was who she was.

Outside this apartment, this moment in time, their lives were totally different.

Too
different for them to have any reason to see each other again after today.

Even if Darius suggested it. Which Andy had no reason to suppose that he would.

‘Obviously it was.' Darius sighed his frustration with her silence. ‘What have I done to make you distrust me so much—other than using blackmail to get you to go to the charity dinner with me?' He grimaced.

‘Isn't that enough?' Andy gazed up at him crossly. ‘Darius, normal people don't use blackmail to force someone into going out with them!' she added as he looked down at her questioningly.

His mouth thinned. ‘You were being intransigent.'

She gasped. ‘And that gives you the right to use my brother-in-law's job to blackmail me?'

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘It gives me the right to use whatever means are necessary.'

‘No, Darius.' Andy gave a slow shake of her head. ‘It really doesn't.'

Darius eyed her impatiently. Obviously, whatever truce had existed between them while they ate was now over. ‘Why don't you go and see if there's a film on television we can watch together, while I clear away here?'

Miranda's eyes widened. ‘You're staying?'

It hadn't been his original intention, no. The opposite, in fact. But somehow, this past couple of hours with Miranda had been more enjoyable, more real to him, than anything else had felt for a very long time. And Darius wasn't willing to give that up just yet.

He shrugged. ‘I thought watching a film was part of the Sunday family ritual.'

She blinked. ‘You aren't family.'

Darius gave an unconcerned grin. ‘We could always pretend that I am.'

‘No,' she drawled. ‘We really couldn't.'

He quirked a brow. ‘No?'

Andy's eyes narrowed; anyone less like a member of her very normal family she simply couldn't imagine. She was also a little thrown that Darius now intended staying on after lunch; she had felt sure that he wouldn't want to, that a couple of hours of normal would be more than enough for him. ‘What do you usually do on a Sunday afternoon?'

He shrugged. ‘Work. Being wealthy isn't all parties and holidays on private yachts, Miranda,' he added as her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Of course it has its benefits, but Midas Enterprises owns and runs multinational companies all over the world, and we employ thousands of people. With all of that comes responsibility, to both those companies and their employees.'

‘Poor little rich boy?'

He grimaced at her derision. ‘Hard as it might be to believe...sometimes, yes.'

Actually, it wasn't all that hard for Andy to believe at all; she had already realised that with great privilege came even greater responsibility. That no matter how nice it must be to be as rich as Darius and Xander Sterne so obviously were, to be able to buy what they wanted, and do whatever they wanted, that they couldn't necessarily do it
when
they wanted. That they might be seen to play hard, but they also had to work hard, in order to run those companies they owned all over the world, and in turn continue to provide thousands of other people with their own livelihoods.

She stood up. ‘Then I suggest we leave clearing away the rest of this for now, and instead go to the park over the road and walk off lunch. We can choose a film to watch together when we get back. Does that sound a good plan to you?'

‘A walk in the park?'

Andy grinned as she heard the doubt in his voice. ‘I'm sure you've heard of it, Darius. You place one foot in front of the other and—'

‘I know what walking is, Miranda. I can just think of a more enjoyable form of exercise!' He eyed her expectantly.

‘And breathe in the fresh air,' Andy continued with determination even as her cheeks warmed as the gleam in his eyes told her exactly what form of exercise Darius would prefer! ‘Admire the flowers, watch the ducks in the pond, the people walking their dogs, and the kids playing on the swings and slides. It's what us less privileged people do for fun after lunch on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.'

‘Very funny.'

She chuckled as she reached up a hand and pulled the confining band from her hair, allowing its silky straightness to fall about her shoulders. ‘Stop grumbling and let's go!' She slipped her bare feet into a pair of ballet pumps near the door.

‘You're awfully bossy today.'

She quirked a blonde brow. ‘You really shouldn't complain when I've just cooked you lunch.'

‘I'm not complaining. Surprisingly, I think I like it.' Darius stepped close enough for Andy to be able to feel the heat of his body. ‘Are you this forceful in bed too?'

Andy felt a quiver of awareness run the length of her spine as the huskiness of his voice caressed all the way to her core. Her breasts tingled with sensitivity, the nipples hardening and pressing against the soft material of her bra, and an aching warmth spread between her thighs. ‘I...' She cleared her throat as her voice came out as a croak. ‘Could we just go for that walk now?' she snapped impatiently.

Darius was still chuckling about her reaction as they left the apartment before crossing over the road to enter the park.

Andy's complete awareness of Darius wasn't helped by the fact that he insisted on holding her hand, his fingers laced intimately with hers, as they strolled through the park together.

* * *

‘
Now
do we get to enjoy my form of exercise?' Darius murmured an hour or so later, as he turned to take Miranda in his arms the moment the two of them had re-entered her apartment.

‘Darius...'

‘I've been suffering the torments of hell for hours as I watched the way your jeans hug the tautness of your bottom and imagined your breasts beneath that over-large T-shirt,' he groaned.

‘I don't think that's appropriate, Darius.'

‘Has anyone ever told you that you think far too much?' He raised his hand to cup one side of her now heated face, the soft pad of his thumb moving lightly across the fullness of her bottom lip.

‘Has anyone told you that
you
don't think enough?' she countered. ‘Today, our lunch, the walk in the park, was as far as this goes for us, Darius, so let's not do anything that might complicate things, hmm?' she continued with determination. ‘We both know there's absolutely no reason we need ever meet each other again after today.'

His eyes narrowed, his jaw tensed. ‘I don't like that idea.'

‘Tough.' She grimaced.

Darius looked down at her searchingly. Her windswept hair framed the delicate beauty of her face: those sparkling and long-lashed green eyes, the flush to her cheeks, those oh-so-kissable lips so soft beneath his caressing thumb. Her neck was gracefully slender, deep hollows visible at the base of her throat. Her nipples were erect and visibly aroused as they pressed against her T-shirt.

The warmth of his gaze returned to her flushed face. ‘I'm going to kiss you now, Miranda. And you're going to let me,' he added firmly as she seemed about to protest.

Letting Darius kiss her wasn't what worried Andy—well, it worried her, but only because she had no idea where it would end. Or if it would end at all...

He continued to hold her gaze, his eyes seductively slumberous and warm and holding Andy captive as his head lowered towards hers.

Her lips parted, her breath leaving her in the softness of a sigh at the first touch of Darius's mouth against hers; her body melted instinctively into his even as her arms moved about his muscled waist to feel the flexing of the muscles in his back as her hands moved beneath his T-shirt, and she touched the warmth of the bare flesh beneath.

‘Oh, yes, Miranda, I want your hands on me,' he encouraged gruffly, his breath warm as his lips now travelled across the smoothness of Andy's cheek and down the arched column of her throat, sipping, tasting, gently biting, followed by the moist rasp of his tongue against that sensitised flesh. ‘I've longed to do this since the moment I first met you.' His mouth captured hers once again, more fiercely this time. ‘And I've
ached
to finish what we started last night.'

Andy's half-hearted protest died in her throat as Darius's hands cupped the cheeks of her bottom and he lifted her up so that her feet no longer touched the ground. She knew that everything that had gone before had all been leading up to this. To this moment.

Andy entwined her legs about his waist and the thickness of his arousal now pressed long and hot against her heated core, before his hips moved in slow and sensual arousal against her as he carried her over to the sofa before sitting down.

Her legs were draped either side of him as the kiss deepened, grew hungrier still as they took from each other, her knees resting on the sofa cushions as she straddled his thighs, pressing that lengthy hardness deeper against and into her, as her arms moved up over his shoulders and her fingers became entangled in the heavy thickness of the dark hair at his nape.

She groaned as Darius's tongue licked across her parted lips, tasting, sensitising, before invading the heat beneath in a claiming sweep, his tongue a sensual caress as it stroked against hers, slowly at first, and then more demandingly as his hands moved beneath her T-shirt to unfasten her bra and cup her bared breasts.

Her back arched instinctively at the feel of Darius's hands on her sensitive skin; she broke the kiss to give a pleasurable gasp as he captured her nipples between fingers and thumbs, her arousal increasing as he rolled and then lightly pinched those engorged tips.

‘This has to come off!' Darius pulled her T-shirt up and then tugged it over Miranda's head to remove it completely before throwing it and her unfastened bra aside, his eyes feeling hot and heavy as he gazed down at her bared breasts.

A lifetime of exercise meant her breasts were small, but perfectly formed, and he cupped a hand beneath each perfect up-tilting mound, enjoying the touch of her silky soft skin as he caressed and squeezed her before slowly lowering his head to capture a nipple into the heat of his mouth.

It took every effort of will on his part not to suckle greedily. He wanted to take this slowly, to savour and enjoy every single moment of making love with Miranda.

To show her that there was
every
reason why the two of them should—and would—meet again.

He sucked gently on her nipple, taking the time to taste her thoroughly, even as his tongue lathed and rasped across it. He was instantly rewarded by Miranda's soft mewls of pleasure as her fingers clung to his shoulders and she arched into him, wanting more,
demanding
more.

Darius gave it to her as he captured her swollen breast in his hand before turning the attention of his tongue and teeth to its twin. He suckled hard as he drew as much of that breast into the heat of his mouth as he could, even as he rolled the length of his arousal up and into the heat between her thighs.

He groaned low in his throat, suckling deeper, harder, as he felt his own pleasure intensify, knowing he too wanted more, that he needed more.

Andy was completely lost to the pleasure of Darius's hands and mouth on her breasts, and the hardness of his arousal pressing remorselessly against her. The pleasure built higher and higher as Darius continued to suckle and caress her, her body aching to be fulfilled.

‘Darius, I need—more.' She moved restlessly against him, desperately seeking, needing him to press harder against that aching throb between her thighs. ‘Darius, please, I
need
...!'