Explosive (10 page)

“I . . . I had heard that your parents were killed.”

His hand covered hers. “That was a long time ago. I was lucky enough to be blessed with two sets of parents. Iris and Joseph Carlisle have loved me like their own son.”

She glanced down. “I must sound ungrateful to you. Complaining about my parents.”

He lifted her chin. “I didn’t hear you complaining. We were having a conversation. You were just telling it like it is.”

For a full few seconds, their gazes clung. Sophie was distantly aware that the storm had swelled to its full fury. Rain lashed at the windows and thunder rumbled all around them. She blinked when she realized she’d been staring fixedly at Thomas’s mouth. His hands settled on her waist and his head came nearer.

“I should put another bandage on your neck,” she warned.

“Later,” he muttered before his mouth brushed hers in a questing kiss. His lips felt warm and firm. She opened her mouth, sandwiching his lower lip between her own, caressing him and biting softly.

He groaned and pulled her tighter against his body.

“What am I doing here, Sophie?” he asked in a gruff whisper, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch above hers. His fingers delved with a gentle possessiveness into the flesh of her hip.

“You need time, Thomas. To heal.”

He lifted his head, looking a little stunned, perhaps at the sound of her authoritative tone. He abruptly slid to the edge of the chair and pressed her into his body.

“And you think you can heal me, Sophie?” he rasped, a sardonic smile tilting his lips. His hands opened over her buttocks. She whimpered at the feeling of his cock hardening against her belly. Her hands rose to his waist where her fingers relished the feeling of thick, smooth skin. She found she couldn’t get enough of the sensation. She’d learned last night that Thomas possessed a proclivity for restraining her during sex. The moments when he’d allowed her to touch him, to get her full fill of him, had been too few and far between.

“I . . . don’t know,” she responded, distracted by the feeling of his body beneath her fingertips. “Time is what you need. But . . . I want to be here. With you,” she added, holding his stare.

She felt the tension rise in his muscles. He shook his head slowly. “I feel like someone else has come and taken over my body. You have no idea the things I want to do to you. If you knew, you’d run. Take your chance now, Sophie. Tell me to go.”

She felt her pulse throbbing madly at her throat when she saw the feral gleam in dark green eyes.

Maybe she should heed his advice? She
knew
that it would be the smart thing to stay away from him. But for some reason, Sophie didn’t want to be careful and rational. Not in the case of Thomas Nicasio.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she whispered.

His mouth slanted into a snarl before he seized her mouth with his own and flexed his long fingers into her ass. Sophie moaned into his hot, consuming mouth as desire swelled in her breast and lust tore through her veins. She would have thought such a ravenous kiss would bank their fires but by the time he raised his head both of them panted with need. One look into Thomas’s blazing eyes and she knew what was coming.

“I should shower first,” she said, thinking of their former heated lovemaking, of lying on the gravel beneath Thomas while glass and singed fragments flew through the air, and then the long car ride that followed.

He stood from the chair, sliding his body against her. His height and presence—the sheer impact of him—struck her as if for the first time.

“You’ll shower later. Much later,” he mumbled. “Personally, I want my scent all over you, Sophie.”

Her mouth hung open as she stared at his retreating back. He paused and looked back at her, his manner perplexed and a little impatient. He grabbed her hand.

Wild anticipation swelled in her as he led her down the hallway.

CHAPTER
SIX

When they got back to her dark bedroom, Thomas flipped on the lights.

“I want to see you naked. Take off your clothes, Sophie.”

Her heartbeat escalated in her rib cage when she heard his gruff request. Request? More accurate to call it a command, Sophie admitted as she swallowed heavily. It occurred to her that he likely could see her pulse throbbing frantically at her throat.

She wished he’d left the lights off. She wished he’d resume his consuming kiss, making her forget everything else but the need to quench her desire for him. Instead, his stare made her skin prickle in anxious excitement.

A sense of self-consciousness came over her, an awkwardness she couldn’t recall feeling so acutely since she was a teenager with breasts and hips that were suddenly bursting out of her school uniform. When it came to appearances, Sophie had been much more comfortable being an awkward pre-adolescent than a teenager. She’d hated having to think about herself as a sexual being that attracted other people’s gazes. She’d rather meld into the background while her beautiful parents dazzled the eyes of onlookers.

Her father had teased her mercilessly about her blooming body, sending hot spikes of shame through her, making her wish she could just fade into the sleek Corian and chrome kitchen counters of their Los Angeles home. She could still hear him teasing her while her mother looked on, a typical distant, vaguely amused expression on her breathtaking face.

“You’re going to be built like your mom—not a straight line on you except for those teeth we’re paying a fortune for. Meg—we should take her down to audition for that new teenager show. You know which one I mean? It’s being directed by that snot-nose kid that turned me down for that sitcom last year. We’d have him begging if he had one look at our Sophie.”

Her mother had rolled her eyes. “Sophie’s thirteen years old, Bastian.”

“If we’d started that young, who knows where we’d be?”

Sophie could still hear the trace of resentment in her father’s tone. If they’d started young . . . if they hadn’t unexpectedly been burdened by an infant girl . . .

“Sophie?”

She started at the sound of Thomas’s voice and began unbuttoning her blouse. It wasn’t like she hadn’t slept with plenty of men between the time she was eighteen and thirty-three. She’d had her share and become accustomed to taking her clothes off in front of men.

But there was something about Thomas’s incising stare here in the lit room that made her feel vulnerable for some reason, more
naked
than usual. It had little to do with whether her clothes were on her or not.

When she’d removed her blouse and let it drop to the carpet, she started to unfasten her bra.

“No. Take off the skirt next,” Thomas muttered. Sophie paused with her hands behind her back. He sat on the edge of the bed, his manner intent, his attention entirely focused on her. She swallowed thickly and unfastened her skirt. When it fell down her legs and bunched around her feet, she stepped out of it. She picked up both garments and neatly folded them across the back of an upholstered chair.

When she turned around, she saw amusement had joined the heat in his forest green eyes.

“Are you always so neat?”

She shivered at the impact of his gruff query.

“I’m only asking, because I tend to have a dirty mouth when it comes to fooling around,” he added wryly. He placed his hands behind him and leaned back on the bed, regarding her soberly. Sophie’s gaze flickered down over the expanse of his naked chest, fixing on his groin. Tingling heat swept through her pussy, making her clit tingle deliciously when she saw the shape of his cock outlined against the fabric of his trousers. “Do you think that’s going to bother you, Sophie?”

She glanced into his face. His voice had changed into a low purr, and she knew he’d noticed where she’d been staring. She shook her head.

“Good. Now take off your panties.”

Her mouth went dry as she stepped out of her white underwear. Her discomfort at undressing in front of him mixed with a rising sense of excitement at following his instructions. She couldn’t say for sure what turned her on more: doing what Thomas asked or seeing the growing tension in his muscles when she did.

“Give them to me,” he said when she turned and started to lay her underwear on the pile of clothing. She twisted around in surprise, pausing when she saw his stare glued to her ass. He put out his hand. She licked her lower lip anxiously.

The crotch of the panties were actually quite wet—a remnant of their heated lovemaking earlier in addition to touching and kissing Thomas just minutes ago. His outstretched hand didn’t waver, though, and neither did his demanding stare.

She stepped toward him and placed the panties in his hand.

He smiled, slow and potent, when he saw what must have been wariness on her face. His eyelids lowered. He lifted the panties to his nose. Sophie pressed her thighs and whimpered, shocked by the sharp pang of arousal that stabbed at her genitals.

“Hmmm, white cotton and sex,” he growled. His hand went to his crotch and he rearranged his erection, pausing to tug lightly at the thick head. She saw him grimace and wondered dazedly if he’d experienced the same surge of lust that shot through her body. He inhaled once more before his eyelids opened slowly. He stared at the juncture of her thighs and her body answered in kind. Her vagina tightened as another pang of desire went through her.

He tossed aside her panties. His gaze trailed up her belly and ribs.

“Now take off your bra,” he ordered thickly.

Sophie removed it fleetly, the majority of her self-consciousness gone now. All she could think of was stilling the mounting tension in her pussy. She let her bra fall to the floor, heedless of where it went, and stood before Thomas wearing only her thigh-highs and the low-heeled pumps she favored for work. Her nipples prickled and tautened under his hot stare. He reached out and put his hands on her hips.

Sophie held her breath as he opened his long legs and pulled her between them. He leaned down and placed his hot, open mouth on her abdomen. Her chest tightened with emotion and she exhaled raggedly.

“Thomas,” she hissed as her fingers delved into his thick hair.

He turned his face, his lips caressing her skin. She saw his ribs expand as he inhaled.

“I can smell you, Sophie, and you’re sweet.” His voice sounded hushed in the still room. “Do you need to come, beautiful?”

Her response was unintelligible, but Thomas must have recognized it as a wholehearted assent. He glanced up at her, his chin still pressed against her stomach.

“Hold up your breasts for me.”

Sophie swept her palms beneath her breasts, all too eager to comply. His eyelids narrowed as he studied her for a few breathless seconds. His nostrils flared. “So lovely.” He met her stare. “When I tell you to hold up your breasts, I want you to hold them from below just like you are, but I also want you to pinch the flesh about an inch below the nipples. Not hard,” he murmured as he watched her try to follow his instructions, “I just want you to present your nipples to me. That’s right,” he added in approval.

Sophie looked down at him, her entire body in the clench of desire, as he sighed and leaned forward, slipping a nipple into his warm mouth. She cried out at the sharp, delicious jolt of pleasure that shot through her flesh. He treated the nipple to a gentle form of torture, laving it sensually with his tongue, drawing on it until Sophie cried out again plaintively.

He worshipped; he coaxed.

He demanded.

When he switched to the other nipple, he became more stringent in his ministrations. His cheeks hollowed out as he suckled her firmly. She resisted an almost overwhelming need to press her hand to her clit. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she pressed him to her breast. She closed her eyes and chanted his name mindlessly.

When the word
please
fell past her lips, he put his hand to her pussy. She moaned in wild gratitude. The ridge of a long finger pressed between her creamy labia. He vibrated her burning clit while he continued to suck on her nipple.

This time, her cry sounded surprised. Orgasm shuddered through her, harsh and sweet at once.

“That’s right,” she heard him say as if from a distance. “Come for me, Sophie.”

She choked on her desire when he thrust a finger into her slit while she was still in the midst of climaxing. He opened his hand over her outer sex while he pressed a long finger deep, moving his hand in an erotic, tight circular motion that caused a shout to erupt from her throat. Her hands dropped to his shoulders. She held on for dear life. He continued to stimulate her while she came, drawing out her pleasure to lengths she’d never before experienced.

Distantly, she was aware of him speaking to her, his low, raspy voice adding spice to an already potent release.

I can feel you coming. Give me more, Sophie. Give me more of that sweet honey.

She fell forward, bracing herself on his shoulders, gasping for air. He corkscrewed his finger in her and grunted in satisfaction as he withdrew.

“You’re pulling on me,” he murmured as he transferred both hands to her hips. He rubbed her softly. Sophie leaned back, panting. He smiled when he saw her look at him. “You were pulling on me like you wanted me back inside you. Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” she whispered as she brushed her hand over his jaw. The fingers of her other hand dropped over his chest, exploring the feeling of thick skin stretched over dense muscle and bone. Her fingertips trailed down his abdomen, seeking out his heat. He stopped her when she began to unfasten his belt. He held her wrist captive.

“That’s what you want inside you?” he asked, never interrupting his exploration of the curve leading from her waist to her right hip.

She gave him a wry glance and noticed his small smile. “What do you think?”

“I think I’d like to hear you say it, Sophie.” The grin on his lips faded when she just stared at him. “Go on. Say it. What do you want?”

Her mouth opened, but the words wouldn’t come. She wasn’t accustomed to putting her desires into words.