The Rebel's Redemption

by Kira Sinclair

But she couldn’t do it. Even angry, she was still so relieved to finally see him.

  Instead, the momentum she’d gathered drove her straight into him. Her arms wrapped around his broad frame, plastering her body against him. Warmth and happiness and a churning regret settled deep in her belly.

  Piper’s eyes closed as a wave of yearning crashed over her.

  It was so damn good to hold him.

  And then she realized he hadn’t moved. Stone’s fists were still heavy balls tucked into the pockets of his pants. And his tall frame was as solid and unmoving as the wall behind them.

  Embarrassment mixed with the anger that had initially propelled her forward.

  She hadn’t come here to throw herself at him.

  Pushing away, she tried to find some space. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I just watched two dozen people that don’t really give a damn fawn all over you like you’re the second coming of Christ, all while silently condemning them for being hypocritical and phony.”

  For a flash of a second a twinkle sparkled deep in his warm, tawny eyes. But it only lasted a breath before it was snuffed out. “That makes two of us.”

  “And I basically just did the same thing.”

  “Hardly.”

  Piper shook her head. “But it was either hug you or slap the hell out of you.”

  Stone’s lush lips pulled down at the corners. “You’re mad at me.”

  “Of course I’m mad at you, you nitwit.” Great, now she was calling him names. She was breaking all the rules tonight. Why wouldn’t she? She was dealing with Anderson Stone after all, the man known for thinking the rule book was nothing more than a suggestion.

  “There’s no reason.”

  Was he serious? “No reason? Stone, you refused to see or speak to me for ten years. And after killing my stepbrother in order to protect me.”

  Sure, their relationship had been complicated back then, but they’d still been close. Best friends. And then he was just...gone.

  When she’d needed him most.

  But that wasn’t what she was still angry about. She’d come to terms with what had happened. She’d spent years in therapy, getting the help she needed to work through her own anger and guilt. What she hadn’t been able to let go of was the way he’d simply shut her out, refusing to let her protect him the way he’d always protected her.

  “You didn’t give me a chance, Stone. To admit that Blaine had been intimidating and harassing me for years before things escalated.” Saying the words made the remnants of her own fury and regret spike. “You sacrificed everything, and then refused to talk to me.”

  Piper was so wrapped up in her own irritation that she didn’t register the change in Stone’s posture and expression until his hands wrapped around her upper arms, pulling her onto the tips of her toes so she could look him eye to eye.

  “Harassing you for years?” The words were deadly, right along with the murderous expression just inches from her face. Unease skittered down Piper’s spine and had her swallowing loudly in a useless attempt to get a grasp on the sudden turn of emotions.

  Stone’s words were measured and deliberate. “That wasn’t the first time he’d hurt you?”

  Slowly, Piper shook her head. “No. I mean, yes.”

  A low rumble rolled up through his chest, reminding her of a caged beast. One about ready to break free. “Which is it?”

  “No, he hadn’t sexually assaulted me before that night. But he’d hit me. Pinched me. Scared me. Once he cut me with a pair of scissors. But he pretended it was an accident and I couldn’t prove it wasn’t.”

  That history with Blaine was part of the reason she’d kept silent when she should have spoken up. Not only had everything happened so quickly that she hadn’t really had time. But once she’d realized what Stone had done...she was afraid no one would believe her if she told the truth. Any evidence she’d had to support her claim against Blaine had been gone. She was afraid, hurt and lost. And uncertain that anything she had to say would make a difference.

  Stone’s fingers flexed around her biceps. He carefully lowered her until her feet were back flat on the ground. With deliberate care, his fingers unwrapped from her body, one by one. His hands brushed down her arms sending a cascade of tingles racing across her skin.

  The softness of his touch was in such stark contrast to the harsh expression on his face. Piper wanted to touch him again. Instead, it was her turn to ball her hands into fists.

  Scooting her to the side, Stone strode away from her. Bewildered, Piper spun after him. “Where are you going?” They were far from done with this conversation.

  Hands pressing into the ornate carvings on the door, Stone growled, “I want to dig up that asshole so I can pound his skull in again.”

  Piper’s knees buckled. They just...failed her. One minute she was standing and the next she was a pile of arms and legs on the floor. Crap. Not exactly the picture of a powerful, successful woman she’d wanted to project.

  She’d planned to show him she was strong now. Prove to herself, and him, that she was fine without him. Apparently, not true.

  Stone’s beautiful golden eyes went wide. His powerful body eating up ground, so she barely had time to pull a deep breath into her lungs before she was moving through the air, the world wobbling around her. But it righted again when she stopped, cradled against Stone’s hard body.

  The heady scent of him swirled around her. His warmth seeped into her skin, melting through her and making her already unsteady legs feel like jelly. Piper stared up at him, dazed and unsettled.

  The harsh line of his mouth, pulled down at the corners, was so close. Right there. What was wrong with her that she wanted to close the miniscule gap between them and taste him?

  It wasn’t the first time she’d had the urge, but it had been a long time. So much for thinking she had complete control of herself.

  Settling her onto the nearest sofa, a big leather monstrosity that was a heck of a lot more comfortable than it looked, Stone crouched in front of her. He stared at her for several seconds, his face so familiar and yet so foreign. Before she would have known exactly what he was thinking. Not only because they’d been so close she could practically finish his sentences, but because his expression had been so open she could read his emotions like one of the books on the shelves behind him.

  Now there was nothing. No hint of what he thought or felt.

  And for the first time since she’d planned this confrontation she stopped long enough to really wonder how their reunion made him feel.

  No, that wasn’t true. She’d thought about it and pushed away the only logical explanation she could come up with. He’d been so angry at her for what happened, for ruining his life—or so disgusted by what he’d seen that night—that he couldn’t stomach the sight of her.

  What she didn’t understand was why he’d sacrificed his freedom and future for her if that was true?

  Piper shook her head, unable to reconcile Stone’s actions any more now than she had then, or over the last ten years.

  Stone was the first to break contact, settling his gaze on her shoulder. The sleeveless couture gown she was wearing had a high collar that wrapped around her throat and a subtly sexy keyhole that left a large part of her spine naked. His gaze followed the line of her arm that was draped across the curve of her hip.

  The deep pink flat of his tongue slipped across his mouth as his gaze traveled down her body. His fingers followed, rough and warm when they ghosted over her shoulder and down the line of her arm. Barely there, the touch was a whisper and shouldn’t have been enough to ignite a flame deep inside.

  But then her body had never responded right when Stone was around. At least, not since she was fifteen.

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  Piper shrugged. “What cou
ld I say? You know Blaine was a brat from the day I moved in.”

  Stone’s face went hard again, shutting off in a way that made her fingers jerk with the need to touch him. Soothe him. But that wasn’t her right.

  “There’s a huge difference between being a prick and physically harming you, Piper.” Stone’s voice dripped with irritation.

  “I’m well aware of that, Stone,” she snapped. “It’s not like it was constant. Things would be okay, as okay as they ever could be with Blaine, and then out of the blue he’d just pass me in the hallway and punch me hard enough to leave a bruise. But never where anyone else would see.”

  “You should have said something.”

  She shrugged. “So you could do what? If I’d ever thought he’d go so far... I would have. But I was almost free. A couple more months and I would have been out of the house and away from him.”

  She’d often wondered if that was what had set him off—changed things—that night. It was a question she’d never get the answer to.

  Piper waved her hand, brushing the topic away. “There’s no point in rehashing any of that.” She’d spent years in therapy and had come to a sense of peace where Blaine was concerned.

  What she needed now was closure with Stone. To move past the craving she’d spent years trying to convince herself didn’t exist.

  She’d walked into this room angry with him—and herself—but underneath all of that had always lived a bubbling well of yearning and bewilderment. Now, staring into his golden eyes, she had the overwhelming urge to find some way to finally purge it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, the words out of her mouth before she even realized she wanted to say them.

  “For what?”

  For what? How could he not know? “For ruining your life.”

  Two

  Piper’s soft words slammed into him like a fist to the chest. But she kept talking, completely unaware of the impact.

  “I’ve worked hard to move past what Blaine did to me. He doesn’t have any power over me anymore.”

  Thank God. Stone’s hands, now balled into fists on his thighs, flexed against the need to touch her again. But he couldn’t allow himself that luxury. Didn’t deserve it.

  “What I can’t get past is what you did to me.”

  And that, right there, was why he couldn’t touch her.

  Because he didn’t blame her for hating him. He hated himself for the way things went down. Not that he would have changed a damn thing.

  Not if it meant Piper was safe.

  Only years of practice at keeping a tight lid on everything inside allowed Stone to regain his blank expression. But her words pierced his flesh just the same. Hurting worse than the stab wound he’d gotten his first year behind bars. Before he’d figured out how to amass power, fear and respect.

  Out of nowhere, her palms landed flat on his chest as she shoved at him. Under normal circumstances he could have stayed balanced on the balls of his feet, but this entire situation was far from normal. Rocking backward, Stone found himself sprawled on his ass, staring up at Piper.

  The complete absurdity of the entire situation hit him all at once. Laughter rolled through him, the sound rusty even to his own ears. If Finn and Gray could see him right now they’d be laughing their asses off, too. Closing his eyes, he stopped fighting it all and just collapsed, sprawling haphazardly across the soft rug beneath him.

  God, even that felt amazing.

  “Stop it.” Piper’s incredulous voice called him back to reality. Reluctantly, Stone opened his eyes, staring into her disbelieving expression. “Nothing about this is funny.”

  “Oh, you’re wrong.” On so many levels. “Very wrong.” Everything about the situation was funny.

  Rolling, Stone pushed up from the ground. Another bubble of amusement tickled the back of his throat as Piper’s expression morphed from irritation to wariness. He’d always said she was a smart woman.

  Putting several feet between them, Stone moved to the other side of the room again, shoving his fists back into his pockets. Maybe then they’d stop itching to touch her again.

  “Plenty of men bigger and stronger than you have tried to put me on my ass. You don’t find it funny that a woman who barely tops one-twenty managed to do what they couldn’t? Because I do.”

  Her mouth flattened, drawing his attention in a way he had no doubt she was oblivious to. “I’ve had plenty of hand-to-hand combat training.”

  That sobered him up quickly. Because there was no mistaking what had prompted her to get that training.

  “So have I.” His, however, had been learned the hard way.

  When he’d first agreed to the plea bargain, his attorney had assured him that he’d be taken to a minimum-security prison. The kind of place they kept white-collar criminals. But white-collar criminals were still criminals. And none of them particularly cared to have a murderer among them. Especially a notorious one they felt had bought his way into a lesser sentence.

  It didn’t help that the story of Blaine’s death and his own speedy conviction had hit all the major networks. His tight-lipped refusal to speak to anyone about what happened added fuel to the fire. Sensationalizing the story in a way that everyone, including his lawyers, PR people and even his parents, had pleaded with him to do something to defuse. But he’d refused to speak to anyone about the truth, letting his lawyer say only that it had been accidental. It had taken months for the reporters to stop pestering him.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  A harsh sound scraped through Stone’s throat. He knew exactly what she was asking, but chose to feign misunderstanding.

  “Kill him? I should think that was obvious. Actually, I didn’t intend to kill him, which is what saved me from a murder charge.”

  He should have known Piper wasn’t going to let him get away with the subterfuge though. She always had been quick to call him on his bullshit.

  “You know that’s not what I meant. Why’d you take the plea? Why didn’t you let me tell the police the truth? They didn’t even question me. What did you tell them? Why did you refuse to see me, talk to me?”

  With each word, Piper’s voice escalated until it was bouncing off the lined shelves surrounding them. If she didn’t watch it, everyone downstairs would hear her and all those years he’d spent locked away would be for nothing.

  As he stalked toward her, intending to simply tell her to hush, the flash of fear she immediately banked didn’t go unnoticed. He stopped a few inches away. Still close enough to feel her warmth coming off that luscious body in caressing waves that made his blood simmer.

  “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  “That’s bull,” she hissed. “It could have changed everything. You were defending me.”

  “I killed him.” He’d taken another life, plain and simple. “There was no reason for you to recount the horror that he’d inflicted on you, in front of his father and your mother, because it didn’t matter.”

  “It mattered to me.”

  Not enough for her to go—

  Nope, he wasn’t going to finish that thought. He hadn’t wanted her to come forward. Hadn’t wanted her to endure any more pain.

  “And then you just...cut me off. You were my best friend, Stone. My person. The one I told everything to.”

  “Not everything,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

  Piper flinched, her nostrils flaring on a heavy breath.

  “Why wouldn’t you let me visit you? Be there for you, the way you were for me.”

  There was no comparison. And no way he would have allowed Piper to see him the way he’d been those first few months, bruised and halfway to broken. He’d also refused to see his mother, although he didn’t expect Piper knew that. The only person he’d allowed to visit was his father, and only because he’d extracted a promise that he wouldn�
�t tell anyone about the state Stone was in. Reluctantly, his father had agreed, realizing it was something he couldn’t fix for his son and that Stone was going to have to figure out how to deal with the situation himself.

  It was the first time his father had treated him like a man instead of a boy. Maybe it was the first time he’d actually been a man instead of a boy.

  “Look, Piper. You had no business anywhere near that place.”

  “Neither did you,” she gritted out, her entire face pinched with unhappiness and sorrow.

  Stone shrugged. “It’s over. History. No reason to dissect what happened.”

  She shook her head, a small gust of laughter that held not an inch of humor dripping from her lips. “Dissecting the past is what I do for a living as a psychologist, or weren’t you aware of that?”

  He knew exactly what she’d been doing with her life. His father had given him monthly updates on everyone who mattered.

  “Fine, even if I give you that one, which for the record I don’t agree with your reasoning, what about the letters I wrote that you returned? What about them, hmm?”

  Stone tried not to notice the way her crossed arms beneath her breasts thrust them higher against the tight material of her gown. Or the way the shiny, slithery fabric clung to the curve of the hip she’d popped out in exasperation. The half-hard erection that sprung up was highly inconvenient.

  And if he was a weaker man, he might try to convince himself that his physical reaction to Piper had more to do with the length of time he’d been without the soft curves of a woman’s body. But that would be a lie and he tried very hard never to lie, especially to himself.

  His reaction had everything to do with the woman in front of him, because he’d been fighting it since she was around sixteen. It had been just as troubling then since doing anything about it would have not only been inappropriate, but would have jeopardized the friendship that had meant so much to him. And after...he hadn’t deserved her. Still didn’t.

  Shifting his feet, Stone tried to find a couple extra inches in the tailored tux pants, but the damn things felt like they were strangling him no matter how he moved.