* * *
Summer came down the stairs and looked around, not seeing Darius anywhere. She went into the kitchen, deciding to make a cup of tea. It wasn’t unusual for him to go outside and spend time with the men who ran his ranch in the afternoons, and she had been fully aware that when she’d first come to stay with him he had used that as an excuse to put distance between them.
Now that had changed. He no longer avoided her in his home and she spent every night in his bed. She still wasn’t assuming anything and knew once Tyrone had been captured, Darius would expect her to leave and return to her home. She wouldn’t be doing herself any favors if she became attached to his beautiful home, which she already loved. It was far enough from town to offer peace and quiet that anyone would cherish, yet at the same time it was a place where a family could be raised.
She shook her head, determined to get such foolish thoughts out of it. What she and Darius were sharing was physical and nothing more. She turned at the sound of footsteps and knew it was him.
He walked through the back door, saw her and smiled. He might not love her but there was no doubt in her mind that he enjoyed having her around. He closed the door behind him, locked it and just stood there, staring at her. When he had brought her home from work she had gone upstairs to take a shower. Now she felt refreshed but at the same time, hot. And the way he was looking at her was making her feel even hotter.
Without a word, she crossed the kitchen floor and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then, leaning upward she captured his mouth with hers. His response was immediate and he didn’t waste any time letting her know it, or letting her feel it. His thick erection was throbbing against her, making her senses come unglued and sending sensations rushing through her veins and all over her skin.
Moments later she pulled back and met his gaze. “We need to prepare dinner,” she said in a ragged voice, barely able to breathe.
“Later.” And then he swept her off her feet and headed upstairs to his bedroom.
* * *
Bodies joined. Summer moved with Darius as his lips brushed a kiss beneath her ear and whispered just how much he enjoyed being inside of her, making love to her, being one with her.
The rhythm he had established was perfect, and floated them toward fulfillment. The air surrounding them was charged and the more he thrust into her body, the more her senses seemed whipped with a pleasure so profound it took her breath away.
“Now!”
As if on cue, her body began convulsing right along with his, endlessly, as shivers tore through them, pulling them down yet at the same time building them up. And when she cried out in pleasure, every pull of her feminine muscles was regulated by his steady yet rapid strokes into her body, making her lift her hips and use her thighs to squeeze him tight, clench him for all she was worth.
She tossed her head back when he surged even deeper inside of her, gripping her thighs and taking her all over again, pushing her toward another orgasm and doing everything in his power to make sure they both got there.
They did.
Instead of letting up, the heat was on yet again, and the workings of her inner muscles signified that such a notion made perfect sense, given the depth of their desire, their passion and their sexual hunger. It was as if they were making up for lost time and then some, filling a drought, satisfying a yearning, soothing an ache.
And when he began moving inside of her in quick, rapid successions, she cried out his name as shivers of pleasure tore through her once again.
* * *
“Do you know how beautiful you are? And you’re even more beautiful after making love.”
Summer glanced over and saw Darius had awakened. He was smiling, and the look in his eyes was filled with the same heat she still felt on some parts of her body. “Thank you.”
She knew at that moment she would have to broach the subject she had tried putting behind her since seeing him again.
His betrayal.
“And you are a very handsome man, making love or not,” she said softly. Truthfully. She paused a moment and then asked the one question she needed answered. One she could not put off asking any longer. “Why did you make that bet?”
A confused look appeared on his face. “What bet?”
Summer was certain there was no way he could not know what bet she was referring to. But if he wanted to pretend to have a loss of memory, she could remedy that. “I’m talking about the bet you made with Walt about how quick you could take me to bed.”
In an instant, he was up, leaning over her. The look on his face was one of incredulous fury. “What the hell are you talking about? I never made a bet like that.”
She wondered why he was not going to own up to it now. “That’s all right, Darius. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does matter,” he said in a hard voice. “Especially if you believed it.”
She frowned. “Why are you denying it?”
“Because I never did such a thing. How could you have believed something like that?”
She drew in a deep breath and held his gaze. “Because Walt told me what you did. He felt that I had a right to know.”
His face hardened. “Walt!” he all but roared.
“Yes,” she countered in a voice filled with just as much conviction. “Yes, Walt Stewart. He was your partner at the time. Or have you forgotten about him, as well?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten about Walt. In fact, I spoke with him just last week about that arson case I’m investigating. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense, Summer, because Walt knew how I felt about you. There’s no way he could have told you something like that.”
Summer’s head began spinning and it took her a second to find steady ground. Walt knew how I felt about you...
Could he be saying that he had cared as deeply about her as she had about him? She continued to stare at Darius and noted the way he was looking back at her. Then he asked slowly, with disbelief, “And Walt actually told you that?”
“Yes.”
Darius released her and eased out of bed, seemingly barely able to keep the lid on raging anger. She swallowed, slowly realizing the impact of what now appeared to be a blatant lie. But why?
“Put on some clothes. We need to talk, and this is not the place for us to do it,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. He picked up his jeans and eased into them. “Please meet me in the living room.”
Summer stared at his back as he walked out the room.
* * *
Darius paced his living room with his hands in tight fists. Why in the hell had Walt told Summer something like that? How could he have told her?
He could vividly remember sharing a beer with Walt one night after their shift had ended and telling him just how much Summer had come to mean to him. Walt had sat there listening, not saying anything, mainly because Darius hadn’t given him a chance to say anything. His heart had been filled with love, and he had wanted to share those emotions with someone he had considered a friend.
He and Walt had gotten hired around the same time and had easily become friends. He was well aware of Walt’s issues with the opposite sex because of his ex-wife’s betrayal, but Darius had overlooked them because it hadn’t been his issue or concern.
Now he had to wonder just how deep Walt’s deception went. He knew what Summer had been told, but what about what Walt had told him about Summer, and the message she had supposedly left for him? According to Walt, Summer had left town with an older man. A rich man.
“I’m here now.”
Darius stopped his pacing and turned around. She stood there, not in the shorts and blouse he had taken off her earlier that night, but in one of his T-shirts that had been thrown across a chair in his room. Whether it was her intent or not, her wearing his shirt meant something to him. It was as if she was giving him an unspoken acknowledgment of their connecti
on, a connection that had started seven years ago and by some work of miracle was back in full force.
Making love to her over the past weeks had closed old wounds. But now he was discovering that those wounds were self-inflicted due to his belief of Walt’s lies. “Let’s sit and discuss this, please. I’m beginning to think we’ve been played.”
He watched as she took a seat on the sofa, trying not to notice that his shirt hit her mid-thigh, and how sexy she looked in it. More than anything, he had to keep his mind on the issues at hand, issues they needed to dissect and resolve. After she was seated, instead of sitting beside her on the sofa, he took the leather wing chair that sat not far away.
“To take up the conversation we started in bed, I want you to know, I want you to believe, that at no time did I discuss sleeping with you with Walt. There was no bet.”
He watched her features. She held his gaze as intensely as he was holding hers. He saw in her eyes a desire to believe what he said. But...
“Then how did he know about that night?” she asked. “He knew that you had spent the night over at my place.”
Darius thought about her words. “He must have driven by your apartment and seen my car parked out front.”
He could tell from her expression that she was taking his explanation into consideration, agreeing that it was possible. However, there was still lingering doubt in her eyes.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” she then asked him. “He told me you left town and would be gone for a few days, but I never heard from you again. It was like you had scored and put me out of your life.”
Darius leaned back in his chair. “Did he not tell you why I had to leave immediately or where I had gone?”
“He didn’t go into any details. He just said you’d been called away on police business and would be gone a few days.”
Darius jaw tightened. “The reason I had to leave when I did was because I got a call that Ethan had been critically injured in a car accident and was being wheeled into surgery. Since I’m his only family, I had to get to Charleston. For a while, I wasn’t sure Ethan was going to make it. I was by his bedside day and night and did not have use of my cell phone. And when I did call, I got a message that you had gotten your cell number changed.”
He saw the shock in Summer’s gaze and before she could say anything, he knew she hadn’t known. “Walt didn’t tell me that,” she said angrily, getting to her feet. “I didn’t know.”
Connecting his fingers in a steeple, he placed them under his chin. “When I returned to town almost two weeks later, after Ethan’s condition had stabilized, I went straight to your place from the airport, only to be told by your landlord that you had moved out a few days earlier, and that an older man in a Mercedes had picked you up and that you had left with him.”
She nodded. “Yes, that was Karl Lindsey.”
He paused for a second and then said, “Walt is the one who told me why you had left.”
She shifted in her seat and his gaze was drawn to a flash of her thigh. His attention went back to her face when she said, “Yes, Walt just happened to drop by that day Karl was there, and just on the off chance you cared enough to ask, I told him that I had taken a job with Karl and would be moving to Florida for a year.”
Darius raised a brow. “A job?”
“Yes, Karl had been one of my regulars at the restaurant. He’s a writer. He offered me a job as his assistant, editing and organizing his notes. He had offered me the same job before but Tyrone had forced me to turn it down. When I hadn’t heard anything from you, and after Walt told me what you did, I decided to take Mr. Lindsey’s offer and moved to Florida with him and his wife and—”
“His wife?”
Summer didn’t say anything for a moment as she studied his expression. Then she said, “Yes, Lola, his wife. You sound surprised.”
Darius stared at her as a deep sharp pain ripped through him. For the first time he was seeing that trust on both sides had been shattered because he and Summer had been quick to believe the lies of others. He had been so quick to believe the worst of her and she of him. Not because they thought of each other as devious people, but because their relationship had been in the early stages, at a very delicate period when trust, faith and love was building. He didn’t want to think of how strong their relationship would be if it had been given a chance to grow.
“Darius?”
He hated telling her what he’d thought, what he’d assumed, but knew that he had to do so. “The message Walt gave me, the one he claimed you left, was that you had met this old, rich man and that you couldn’t waste your time with someone who was nothing but a college-educated cop with no aspirations of being anything else.”
She stared at him. He saw the hurt and pain in her eyes and knew why. Just like she had believed Walt’s lies about him, he had believed the man’s lies about her.
“Why were we so quick to believe the worst of each other?” she asked in a whisper that he could barely hear. “We played right into Walt’s hands,” she added. “That’s sad.”
As far as he was concerned, it was worse than sad. It was pathetic. Seven years wasted. He then said the only thing that he could say at that moment. “I’m sorry.”
She breathed in deeply. “And I’m sorry, as well.”
Darius could only sit there silently for a moment, wondering how one went about repairing a love that had been destroyed by lies. Lies that had been so easy to accept. Inside of him, a voice said, One day at a time.
“Summer, I—”
“No, Darius, I think we both need time to come to terms with what happened, the lies that were told and why we were so quick to believe them. I haven’t been in a relationship with anyone since you, serious or otherwise. I’ve grown accustomed to being by myself, not wanting a man to share my life. I don’t trust easily anymore. I’m more cautious. I really don’t know if that can change.”
He could read between the lines. She was letting him know when it was all said and done, regardless of the fact that they had lived together for the last few weeks or so, getting along marvelously, complementing each other’s personalities, she was not all that certain that she wanted to give them another chance because of their lack of faith and trust in each other. From what she was saying, she still didn’t want a man in her life. Things had changed. She had changed. In a way, he understood.
Over the years he had kept most women at bay, being selective about who he wanted to spend his time with and not allowing himself to get serious about anyone. But he could see all that changing and wondered if she could. Their relationship—and he considered them to be in a relationship—had to undergo some serious repairs. Major repairs. But he thought they could do it.
They had uncovered a lot tonight. But he still had something else to come clean about—his association with the TCC.
“Summer. I—”
“Will you contact the authorities to see if anyone has seen Tyrone again?” she cut in to ask.
He knew she was trying to get off the subject. He would let her do so for now since tonight had been overwhelming, to say the least, and he wasn’t sure how she would handle the unveiling of another lie. One that had been his own, as a way to hurt her. He would tell her another time. Soon. Tomorrow.
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
There was no need to tell her that he planned on killing two birds with one stone by driving to Houston tomorrow to meet with Tyrone’s parole officer and that he would also be paying a visit to Walt.
He studied her, wondering if she knew the significance of what she had admitted moments ago. He was the last man she had made love with. She hadn’t wanted a man in her life in seven years, yet she had shared herself with him.
At that moment, all he could think about was what they had shared. The heat. The passion.
“I guess we could sit here and stare at each other all n
ight,” she finally said, “but I prefer going back to bed.”
He rose to his feet, accepting the gravity of the mistakes they’d both made. But he also accepted that she needed him now like he needed her. “Then I don’t plan to keep you up any longer.”
He crossed the room to her. They had a lot left to talk about, still more truths to tell. But at that moment, they needed to be together and they both knew it.
Darius held his hand out to her and she took it. Together, they returned to his bedroom.
* * *
While en route to the shelter the next morning, Darius received a call. “This is Darius.”
He listened attentively to what the caller was saying and then he said, “That’s good news and I appreciate you calling to let me know. I’ll pass the information on to Ms. Martindale.”
He clicked off the phone and glanced over at Summer. “That was a Texas Ranger friend of mine. He was calling to let me know that they picked up Whitman this morning.”
Darius saw a wave of relief pass through her. “Where?” she asked.
They had come to a stop at the traffic light and Darius glanced over at her. “Less than a block from your house.”
He hated telling her the next part but knew that he had to. “He had a gun and a rope in his possession.”
Summer stiffened and Darius understood why. Chances were Whitman had discovered where she lived, and a good possibility existed that he had planned on using that information for no good. Since he had violated parole in more ways than one, Darius knew he would return to prison and serve his entire sentence.
She didn’t say anything, staring straight ahead, out the windshield.
“You okay?” he asked.
She turned to him. “Yes, I’m okay.”
One More Night Page 12