Explosive (39 page)

“Where’s your briefcase, Sophie?” Thomas asked.

“My . . . what?”

“Your briefcase,” Thomas repeated. “The one with all your journal articles inside it?”

“It’s right there, next to the chair,” Sophie said bemusedly, pointing to the supple brown leather bag that was nearly as stuffed as it had been that evening a month ago, when Thomas had helped her to retrieve her spilled papers.

Thomas released her hand and picked up the briefcase. He deposited it on the kitchen counter. Agent Fisk and she watched as Thomas searched amongst the pouches, finally extricating a journal—
The Lancet.
Sophie’s mouth opened in wonder when he opened the magazine, tapped it on the counter, and a tiny cassette fell out.

He picked it up and handed it to Agent Fisk, who looked nearly as surprised as Sophie.

“It . . . it’s been there? All along?” Sophie asked Thomas.

Thomas nodded. His gaze flickered over Agent Fisk before it settled on Sophie. He must have read the stunned question in her eyes, because he shrugged.

“I guess part of me trusted you with the truth all along, Sophie.”

Sophie broke out of the trance of Thomas’s eyes when Agent Fisk spoke.

“This is great, Thomas. Thanks. Like I said before, icing on the cake. I’ll take good care of it.”

Sophie continued to stare at Thomas as Fisk left, shutting the back door behind him.

She and Thomas stood alone for the first time in weeks. It seemed like an eternity.

“I was really out of it after Rick and Abel’s funeral,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t know what to think about what I’d heard on that tape . . . about Cokey’s allegation that Joseph Carlisle had given the order for my father to be executed.” He hesitated for a moment, seeming unsure of his words. “I know I told you on that night we met in your office lobby—the night you were leaving for Haven Lake—that I was looking for Andy Lancaster, but I was lying.”

Her eyebrows rose on her head in puzzlement. She took a step toward him.

“I was looking for you, Sophie.”

His deep, husky voice seemed to linger in the air around her after he’d spoken. She couldn’t help but think of that first night he’d come to Haven Lake, when he’d been so disoriented and traumatized . . . how he’d told her the same thing.

I came looking for you, Sophie.

“The amount of stress you were under was extraordinary, Thomas. I’m not blaming you for putting the tape in my briefcase. I just . . . I just don’t understand why you did it.”

“I don’t know,” he said, and she knew the incredulous query hadn’t faded from her expression. He sighed and threw up his hands in a helpless gesture.

“It’s okay, Thomas,” she whispered when she saw his bewilderment.

His gaze sharpened on her. “What’s okay?”

She swallowed thickly and tried to infuse her voice with a measure of firmness she was far from feeling.

“It’s okay. I’m . . . I’m glad I was here for you, when you needed it. I’m so thankful that you’re on the mend. Andy told me that you’d been seeing a friend of his, Dr. Cassetti?”

“Yeah,” he replied gruffly. “He’s a good guy.”

Sophie smiled tremulously. “I want you to know that I don’t regret it. Not any of it.”

His expression turned wary. “What do you mean by that—that you don’t regret it?” he asked slowly.

“I know that what happened between us was a . . . a sort of side effect of your trauma. You needed an outlet for all the volatile emotions you were experiencing, emotions you couldn’t put a name to. You found an outlet for your anguish by . . . by—”

“Fucking you like an animal, again and again?” he supplied quietly when she floundered.

She flushed with heat at his graphic language. His eyes looked hot as he studied her, but Sophie still couldn’t entirely comprehend where he was coming from.

Or what he was feeling.

“Sophie?”

“Yes?” she whispered when he stepped close. Close enough for the fabric of his dress shirt to just touch the fabric over her breasts. Close enough for her to sense the coiled strength of his muscles and the hardness at his groin.

“If your theory about why I wanted you so much before were true, then it wouldn’t make much sense for me to want you even more right this minute, would it?”

She stared up at him, her breath stuck in her lungs. She shook her head.

He joined her, shaking his head as well.

“Because I do. I want you even more than before. I’m going to take you back to your bedroom in a second and show you firsthand just how much. So the thing of it is,” he muttered, his rough tone highly at odds with the deliberate gentleness with which he caressed her jaw and cheek, “there must have been some other reason that even when I was losing it, I trusted you with that tape; why later, I trusted you with
all of me
while I was falling apart. There must be some other reason that I sought you out, some other cause for why I can’t get enough of you or why I’ve gone nearly as nuts for the past three weeks, being away from you,” he murmured through lips that tilted with amusement.

Sophie blinked the tears out of her eyes, determined that he not see her vulnerable. “You were in the midst of a trauma reaction, Thomas. Don’t feel like you have to say these things.”

He paused in caressing her. His mouth settled into a grim line.

“I don’t feel like I
have
to say anything.” He suddenly pulled her tightly against him, making her hyperaware of his hard, masculine length. “Don’t even try to do it, Sophie.”

“What?” she asked, confused by his hard tone.

“I have all of my memories back. I remember everything. Well, almost all of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mea—”

“I remember you specifically telling me that you were falling for me. Are you going to deny it?” he interrupted, green eyes flashing. Sophie cried out in surprise when he suddenly lifted her into his arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him as he headed down the hallway.

“I’ll make you tell me again. I have my methods,” he said determinedly.

She laughed even though tears wet her cheek—tears of joy, at knowing he didn’t regret seeking her out in the midst of his anguish and pain.

“As if I could ever deny a force of nature like you,” she said against his neck.

He paused next to her bed and urged her head back so that he could look into her eyes. When she saw his expression, her smile faded.

“What, Tom?”

“I remembered all the crap about Joseph Carlisle—all the shit that had become my life for one reason. Do you know what it was?” he murmured.

“Why?” she mouthed, overcome by emotion.

“Because I couldn’t sacrifice you to the darkness that was taking over my mind. You were this one exquisite, shining, beautiful thing set amongst all those awful realities. I couldn’t have gone on forgetting you, forgetting the first night I ever touched you . . . forgetting the first night I felt you shake in my arms ...”

“Thomas,” she whispered. She pressed a finger to his lower lip, and then kissed his mouth softly.

“Why didn’t you remind me of that night, Sophie?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I was afraid if I pushed you it would dislodge other memories of what had happened in that same time period. It had become all tied together in your unconsciousness. I didn’t want to worsen your condition.”

“How did you know, though? What made you realize that I didn’t remember being here with you, on that first night?”

She traced one of his eyebrows and cast herself back into her own memories.

“I knew when we made love in my office. Afterwards ...” She swallowed thickly. “You apologized for making love to me so forcefully for the first time.”

She met his gaze. He winced.

“Jesus, Sophie. I’m so sorry. When I look back on it, it seems so strange. I remember what it was like
not
remembering, but it’s like I was someone else. No . . . more like the pieces of my life were removed and replaced, but out of sequence. I remember almost everything now . . . although I can’t really recall how I got back to Chicago after coming here on that first night, or what I was thinking in returning to work as though nothing had ever happened.”

“I didn’t understand what was happening to you at first, either,” Sophie admitted. “I thought you were just amnesic—possibly because of your head injury, possibly because of grief . . . maybe both. It wasn’t until I’d been with you for a while and spoken with Andy that I realized your amnesia for that period of time was just one of the many symptoms that come from a trauma reaction. You returned to work that next morning as if nothing had ever happened because part of you
wanted
that, needed it . . . to forget what had happened when you confronted your father, to erase the horror of what he’d done to you.”

“Another part of me wanted to remember that period of time,” he said gruffly. “I wanted to remember you.”

“I know,” she replied. “I could see it in your eyes at times when we made love. I knew the memories would come back when you were ready. All I could do was wait . . . and pray for you.”

He dried a tear on her cheek with a blunt-tipped fingertip. “You called me Tom on that night.”

“You told me to,” she whispered.

“It was what my parents and friends called me, when I was young,” he said huskily. “I became Thomas with the Carlisles. For some reason, I wanted to hear my old name—my real name—on your lips on that night.”

He lay her down on the bed and sank down over her. She closed her eyes briefly, cherishing the sensation of his long, hard body pressing her down into the mattress.

“I want to hear it again. I want to hear you scream it, Sophie.”

He leaned down and seized her mouth in an explosive kiss, making speech, let alone a feeble thought, an utter impossibility.

EPILOGUE

FIVE WEEKS LATER

Thomas didn’t have anything against Andy Lancaster and his wife, Sheila, per se. He’d just never wished two people would vanish so much as he did this easygoing, amiable couple.

He watched Sophie climb up on the ladder attached to the dock with a narrow-lidded gaze, took in every nuance of her shifting body weight, the slight sway of her breasts in the bikini top, the erotic manner in which rivulets of water ran across her golden, apricot-hued skin.

It was the first weekend in September, and it was a hot one. Just days ago, the FBI had finally,
finally
said that Thomas no longer required constant surveillance for his safety. Thomas had insisted he didn’t need a bodyguard practically since day one. He had become even more vociferous about it since Joseph Carlisle had passed away and Newt Garnier had provided testimony that led to the arrests of every high-ranking lieutenant in the Outfit that the FBI had ever hoped to put behind bars.

He’d finally gotten rid of the omnipresent bodyguards only to have Sophie announce that Andy Lancaster and his wife would be coming for a weekend visit at Haven Lake.

Andy stopped in mid-sentence when Thomas abruptly lurched up from his reclining position on the dock. He had no idea what Lancaster had even been saying.

Thomas would apologize to Andy later.

“Sophie? Can I talk to you for a minute? Up at the house?” he clarified when Sophie just stared at him blankly for a second, a towel pressed to her cheek.

“Oh, sure,” she replied levelly enough, although Thomas saw the reprimand in her laughing eyes.

He pulled her up the porch stairs behind him and into their bedroom. He snapped the door shut and locked it before he turned to her with a grim expression on his face.

“I should turn you over my knee, do you know that?”

Her eyebrows arched in amusement. “For what?”

“For running around in that bikini and driving me nuts.” He grimaced when he cupped his aching balls and then his erection. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice this. What are you, some kind of a sadist?”

Sophie just smiled, all sweetness and sex. She was going to fucking kill him, he swore it.

Daily.

“Take off that top,” he snarled as he shoved down his trunks and stepped out of them.

His cock bobbed in the air when she did so. Her nipples were still tight and beaded from her swim. He growled and reached for her bikini bottoms when she ran her fingertips over them.

A few seconds later—Thomas was in no mood for seductions—he had her on her back on the mattress, his cock skewering her.

“Aw, God, yes,” he muttered gratefully through clenched teeth at the divine sensation of Sophie’s pussy sucking and squeezing at him. He began to pump. He glanced up and noticed Sophie’s smile as he slammed into the heaven of her.

“How can you grin like that at a time like this?” he asked.

“I remember a time when I was worried that your need for me might diminish once you started to feel better,” she murmured.

He pushed his cock all the way into her and rotated his hips slightly, grinding down on her clit. When she shut her eyes and her lips formed a little “O” of pleasure, he knew he was stimulating her sweet spot.

“You feel that? I feel fucking great at the moment. Does that feel like my need for you is diminishing?”

He made sure he gave her a climax before he raced for the finish line, fucking her with rapid, short strokes that had the bed rattling against the wall and both of them gasping wildly for air.

Later, after they’d both quieted, he heard Sophie call out to him softly. He lifted his head from her breast and met her stare.

“There’s . . . something I’ve been meaning to ask you. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. But I know that in your therapy, you’ve been trying to put all your memories of what happened back then into sequence and perspective ...”

“It’s okay, Sophie. Go ahead and ask,” he said, sensing her uncertainty.

“I was wondering . . . about your cell phone? I noticed it, you know. That first night that you came here, when you were so disoriented? I noticed that you’d removed your battery. It didn’t occur to me until later that you’d likely done it so that your phone couldn’t send out a signal.”

He just stared at her for a moment before he exhaled and shook his head. “You don’t miss much, do you?”