Darius, p.15
Darius, page 15
Or wait, had her trip to the ER technically been their first date?
Who was keeping track, anyway.
Boy, Darius was tough, though. He refused all pain medication and just gritted his teeth through what was clearly agony.
And now… the “healer” was packing up his supplies, and speaking to Darius, not that Anne could understand what was being said—
She frowned and looked back and forth between them. It was that language again… that Darius had spoken with the doctor at the ER, that he’d mumbled when he’d stared up at her on the bed.
Shifting her position into a sit once again, she continued to hold Darius’s hand, and tried to take in the words to see if there was anything in them she could understand—and it was then that she realized the doctor had refused to acknowledge her presence in any way.
Physicians had crap bedside manners, didn’t they.
Fortunately, the man departed shortly thereafter. In the aftermath, everybody who was left just stared at Darius.
“With all those bandages, you look like someone quilted you,” the bodyguard with the icy eyes announced as he lit up yet another cigarette.
He had gone through quite a number of them, which suggested that, gruff exterior aside, he had not been unaffected by Darius’s suffering. The good news, she supposed, was that the smoking had given the butler a job, something that the older gentleman had seemed grateful for. Fritz had literally stood at the man’s elbow with an ashtray in his palms, becoming nothing more than a stand for the thing. It had worked for the both of them, however, the soldier and the butler, side by side, as if they’d known each other for a century.
“Thanks, Laura Ashley,” Darius muttered to his friend. “Now give us a help up, so that I can get her to her feet.”
The gloved hand was extended and Darius was pulled off the floor.
And that was when Anne noticed properly that he didn’t have his shirt or his jacket on.
Good… Lord. His body was packed with the kind of muscle that Olympic athletes cultivated, everything from his powerful shoulders to his pecs to his ribbed abdomen a display of male beauty and strength.
“Anne?” Darius murmured as he offered his palm to her.
She looked away. Looked back.
Then she clasped what he’d put out and got gently drawn up off the kitchen floor. He asked her something, maybe like “Are you okay?” and she murmured a yes, even though she hadn’t quite tracked the question. Then he was turning to the man in leather.
Darius said something in that dialect, and then there was a pause. For a moment, it looked like the two men were going to embrace, but then they seemed to move past that to shake instead.
“Take care of him,” the other bodyguard said as he inclined his head to her.
Then that was that. He just walked out the door. But what did she expect? A farewell cruise goodbye—à la Love Boat where they all stood on the back stoop and waved hankies at the departure?
“I’d really like to go to bed,” Darius said with exhaustion as he propped himself against the counter.
“Then let’s get you upstairs,” she offered. “Before I go home.”
There was a hesitation. And then he nodded. “All right.”
Abruptly, the butler seemed flustered, but Darius just shook his head. “I think that would be great.” He extended his arm. “Come here so I can lean on you.”
Holy… smokes.
As she fitted herself against him and they started walking, their bodies somehow puzzle-piece’d even though he was so much taller and broader. And wow. His cologne. While they went along, she could smell nothing of the horrible stench from before. Maybe the aftershave was more of an herbal wash that the doctor had used?
Whatever it was, she felt like she was getting drunk off it.
“Boy, he really didn’t like me,” she murmured as they passed through the dining room.
“Who?”
“The doctor.”
Darius looked down at her. “Don’t worry about him. He’s a knob.”
“I take it that is not a compliment.”
“Nope, not in the slightest.”
As they arrived at the foyer and turned to the stairs, her steps faltered, and he stopped along with her. Turning her head, she stared into the parlor—and the hairs on the back of her neck came to attention.
“Are you okay?” he said. “I know this has been a lot.”
Tell him what happened, she thought.
“No, it’s not that. It’s that I…”
Except it was so strange. As she focused on the space in front of the fireplace, she wasn’t sure exactly what she’d seen there. Her recollection of some kind of mysterious figure in black was a distillation that was murky and unclear, and things became foggier and foggier as she tried to remember with greater clarity.
To the point where it was as if her memories were disintegrating.
“Anne?”
She opened her mouth, but wasn’t sure what to say. Wasn’t sure whether she’d seen anything at all. Maybe it had been a dream that had been spliced into reality… and she’d just lost track of time?
“Ah… it’s nothing,” she said as she reached up and touched the Band-Aid at her temple.
It was probably a good idea to remind herself that she’d had a head injury recently.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” she said.
As they hit the carpeted steps, Darius’s bare torso became a serious distraction—and so was the fact that for some reason, he seemed to get stronger with every extension of his legs… to the point that, by the time they got to the second-story hallway, he was barely relying on her at all. Except no one could heal that fast. No one.
“Where do we go?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just pick any guest suite.”
“So is your room somewhere else?”
“Yes, but here is good.”
He opened the first door they came to, and as the corridor’s light pierced into the darkness, she was not surprised at the glimpse of formal decor—and then he hit a switch just inside the room, and she got another eyeful of antiques and silk wallpaper and window dressings that were like ball gowns.
Where was his room? Maybe he didn’t want to take her there… but why?
“Can you tell me what happened tonight?” she asked as they stepped inside, one after the other.
There was a pause. “It’s a long story.”
“I understand if you can’t.” No, she didn’t. “Was anybody else hurt?”
“No.” His expression grew remote. “No one else was.”
Taking a deep breath, she found herself tensing up, as if she were about to be knocked off her feet—and not in a good way. “I’m not going to read about whatever it was in the newspaper tomorrow, am I.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I need to know…” Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked away and saw nothing of the bedroom. “Is it illegal, what you all are involved in? I don’t mind you keeping your privacy, but if it’s drugs, or something like that, I can’t—”
“It’s not that, I promise.” He put his hand over his heart. “We violate no laws, and we don’t hurt anybody unless they’re an imminent threat to our lives or the life of our… boss. And I know this sounds… ridiculous… but I’m going to have to use a movie line on you.”
“Which one? And it better not be from The Godfather. I really don’t want to hear anything about guns or cannoli right now.”
“We’re not the Mob.” He shook his head. “And the line is… the less you know, the safer you are. Seriously, Anne, this has nothing to do with the civilian side of things.”
Her brows lifted. “So you’re with the government? Exactly who is your boss?”
“I can’t tell you, I’m sorry. You’re just… going to have to trust me.”
Covert ops in Caldwell? she thought as she eyed him up and down.
“All you really need to know,” he said softly, “is that I will never hurt you. Ever.”
Anne thought about what his burns looked like. “Are you safe?”
“No, but I’m well-armed and well-trained, and I don’t take stupid chances.”
Abruptly overcome, she put her hand up to her mouth and blinked away tears. “You know what? In the next life, I’m coming back as an inanimate object. This human thing is just way too intense for me.”
“Anne—”
“No, I don’t want… to talk about anything like that anymore. I feel like my life has been spotlit for drama for way too long.”
Clearing her throat, she glanced down at the intricate, jewel-toned rug with a desperation that she couldn’t hide—and then she did what she could to wrench herself out of the tailspin. Walking around helped a little, and she decided that on that theory, she needed to go run a marathon.
Stopping in front of a dresser that had an inlaid design of flowers on every drawer, she reached out and traced the outline at the top level. “At least your boss has terrific taste in decor,” she said roughly. “Everything around here is like a stage set for an old Katharine Hepburn movie.”
“Yes, he does have a nice house.”
Aimlessly, she went over to check out the bathroom—okay, wow. The last time she had seen that much marble had been… well, never, actually.
Turning to face him, the yearning in his eyes was undisguised, and she teetered on the edge of an abyss. Then she realized he must be in pain, standing there with his back in the shape it was.
“You probably wish you could have a shower, don’t you,” she murmured, eyeing the dirt and the sweat and the smoke smudges that covered his chest.
He whispered something under his breath, something that sounded like, “It’s not the shower I want.”
But then, more loudly, he said, “Yeah, I wish I could get clean.”
“I’m sure it’s not allowed with your bandages, but how about I wash you on the bed? You know, with a hand towel? It won’t be as good, but—”
She lost track of what she was saying as she looked up into his face again.
Stark hunger—and not for hot water or food or drink—drew features that were now familiar to her in strange and exciting lines. And this triggered something for her, something in the back of her mind… that was just out of reach.
As Anne frowned, he rubbed his face like he wanted to scrub off his own nose. “Sorry. And you don’t have to do that for me if it’s too much.”
Shaking her head, she went to speak—and promptly forgot what had been on her mind. Something had happened downstairs when he’d been gone, something significant and shocking… and as that fog came back to her, she watched from what seemed like a vast distance as her hands went to her lower abdomen—like they were cradling something precious.
“Anne?”
Opening her mouth to respond, she fought against the amnesia, knowing she had to tell him about what she’d seen, what had been said. Reaching down deep into her memory, she tried to pull whatever it was to the forefront—and it was almost there, nearly within grasp. It had been in the parlor, when she’d been alone in the house. Someone had come, and had…
“Are you okay, Anne?”
She shook her head. Then corrected herself. “I mean, yes, I’m fine. Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Darius cursed. “If you want to go, I don’t blame you.”
No, she thought. She didn’t want to leave. Even though Bruce should have taught her a lesson about trusting strangers… she had to stay with this man who stood before her. In fact, being here with him now was… important.
And besides, Darius had almost died tonight, and she had almost died two nights ago. Life was so very fragile, and that made a person not want to waste time.
“Let’s get you over to the bed,” she countered in a husky voice. “I’ll take care of everything.”
* * *
Funny how his back didn’t bother him much anymore. And not because it had completely healed up already.
It turned out all he needed as a painkiller was the prospect of Anne’s hands on his bare skin.
As Darius stretched out faceup on the king-sized bed, it was a damn miracle. He couldn’t feel anything of the agony that had nearly left him passing out down on the kitchen floor—and this was even after he allowed the full weight of his torso to sink into the mattress.
But was she sure she wanted to do this?
Tilting to the side, he looked through the open door into the bathroom. The female he was so desperate for was at the sink, running water until it grew warm, getting towels and soap, finding a bowl somehow. From time to time, the mirror caught her reflection, and what he saw in her face made him want to kick his own ass. She seemed way too tired to do anything other than curl up in her own bed and sleep for twelve hours straight. She was determined, however, and maybe it didn’t reflect well on his character, but the idea that she was actually going to touch him?
Well, he was seriously disinclined to argue with her agenda.
And on that note—even though nothing seriously sexual was going to happen, not at all, not when she was running a hot hand towel down his naked chest, nope, nope, nope—he shut the door out into the hall with his mind. Then he willed the overhead light off and flared up the lamp on the inlaid bureau across the way. If the night had been a couple of degrees colder, he would have lit the fireplace on a mental cue as well.
Except he’d kind of had it with flames this evening, and even more… he hated what he was keeping from Anne. He really did.
Running a hand down his face again, he thought back to Vishous’s vision. The brother was positively eerie with the prognostication stuff, but fortunately, at least when it came to tonight, he’d been wrong. Darius hadn’t died. Almost, but ultimately, no.
They’d both most certainly seen the sun, though. That second floor set of fireworks had been an explosion and a half.
So Vishous had been wrong. Sure it hadn’t been raining, but… maybe the vision had served its purpose. Thanks to what the brother had seen, V had been primed to do the saving thing, catching Darius and carrying him after he’d gotten his boot stuck in that hole—which was kind of ironic, all things considered, given that Darius had gone out there in the first place to make sure the other fighter made it out alive.
Then again, he supposed that was the interconnected nature of fate, everyone’s individual choices, and if-this-then-that’s, colliding in a way that only felt random to the participants in their separate timelines. Destiny, if you believed in the Creator’s master plan, provided that the sum of events wasn’t chaotic at all. On the contrary, everyone’s billiard balls were set up precisely in a triangle, and the stroke of the cue was done by a world-class player who knew which pockets would receive which rolls.
Everything was inevitable. Even free will—
“So I found a porcelain bowl in there.” Anne came out of the bathroom. “It was full of wax fruit—I hope Fritz doesn’t mind that I emptied it out? And God, do you smell this soap? It’s like a garden—there was French writing on the wrapper. It’s all so fancy in this house.”
Anne was talking fast while she came across to the bed, and he couldn’t decide whether she was nervous or just truly fascinated by everything she was discovering under his roof.
His boss’s roof.
Fuck.
As she put the basin down on the bedside table, he took a deep breath and wished that Fritz stocked the house with unscented soap: Even though he was glad she liked the perfume, in order to catch her scent, he had to sort through the flowers of it all.
“You’re on your back,” she said with disapproval.
“I’m feeling a lot better.”
“That doctor is a miracle worker.”
When she sat down on the mattress, her eyes went to his bare chest, and as they lingered on his pecs, he thought… yup, he was suddenly feeling much, much better.
“Your boss has nice towels.” She took a small one and dipped it in the warm water, then wrung the thing out. “These are so soft.”
When she put the washcloth on his upper arm, he closed his eyes and tried to keep the erotic shudder to himself—
“Sorry, am I hurting you?”
He captured her wrist as she went to remove the cloth.
“No, please. Don’t stop.”
As the words came out of his mouth, something told him he was going to be saying them a lot. If she’d let him.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Anne was impossibly gentle as she went back and forth to the bowl, the little towel warm as she stroked it over his biceps, his skin cooling when she returned to the soapy water to rinse things out. As she moved up to the base of his throat, he found himself arching back and offering her his vein—and her lack of response to the instinctual movement was a reminder of the reality that he refused to dwell on.
By the time she started with his pecs, his lungs really were burning, and speaking of s’mores, he had totally forgotten all about his back. Then again, he was obsessed with her face. He focused on her eyes, her lips, her neck, partially because in the soft light, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen… mostly because the sight of her hand upon his flesh would have sent him right over the edge—and he was already in a debate with his dumb handle.
He didn’t want her to know how aroused he was, but things below the waist were getting harder to hide. The good news? As the essential thickening at the center of his hips intensified, at least she seemed too absorbed in not dripping water on the bed’s coverings or the floor to notice.
Or maybe her preoccupation was deliberate. He couldn’t tell.
With a quick jerk of the hand, he pulled the drop of the duvet over his pelvis, just as Anne stretched across to his other arm—and yes, he could have moved toward her to help her reach that biceps, that forearm… but then he would have missed the sensation of her leaning on his chest—
Without any conscious thought, he captured her wrist again.
It was not to stop her.
On the contrary, it was to…
