Explosive (6 page)

“What’s
that
got to do with anything?”

“We know he’s one of Nicasio Investments’ clients. You’ve been handling his money for two years now.” Larue flipped back a few pages in his notebook. “Mannero runs a large, lucrative West Side vending machine business—manufactures, repairs, and distributes vending machines all over the city, downstate, Ohio, Wisconsin, and northern Indiana.”

“So?” Thomas prompted, bewildered by the turn of the questioning.

“Who referred Mannero to Nicasio Investments?” Larue asked.

Thomas narrowed his gaze on Larue.

“What are you digging at?”

This time, Larue didn’t respond, just fixed him with that stony, cocky G-man stare. Thomas’s fury escalated in the tense silence that followed, making his chest burn.

Agent Fisk suddenly leaned forward in his chair, speaking for the first time since the meeting had begun.

“Douglas Mannero was arrested earlier today as part of our ongoing investigation into organized crime in Chicago, Mr. Nicasio. Thanks to the cooperation of the IRS, we have good reason to believe that the vending machine company was being used to launder money that the Outfit made from illegal gambling operations.”

“Should I call my lawyer?” Thomas seethed. “Are you accusing me of being involved?”

“No. We have no evidence that would indicate you understood that the money was dirty when Mannero asked you to invest it,” Fisk said.

Larue gave his partner a surprised, irritated glance, which Fisk ignored. Fisk held Thomas’s stare. “We didn’t come here today to accuse you of anything, Mr. Nicasio. But as part of our investigation, we would like the name of the person who referred Mannero to Nicasio Investments.”

“I don’t recall,” Thomas replied.

Fisk nodded his head and studied Thomas narrowly. “We won’t take up any more of your time, then.”

Larue looked up at him, his widened eyes saying loud and clear that he was stunned by Fisk’s actions.

“You’re mistaken about Mannero,” Thomas said coldly. “I’ve seen the company’s books. I made a study of them, in fact. They’re clean. You’re even more wrong about your allegations against my father.”

“We have information from a very reliable inside informant that tells us otherwise,” Fisk said with a level stare before he hitched his chin at Larue, indicating to his partner that it was time to go.

Thomas curled his lip in disgust. “You guys are fucking hypocrites. You say you want justice, but you’re willing to take the word of some slimy little two-bit criminal over a respected businessman like my father?”

Fisk stopped dead in his tracks and spun around. “What slimy two-bit criminal are you referring to, Mr. Nicasio?”

Thomas rose slowly from his chair, glaring at Fisk. “The one you must be talking to who is feeding you all these lies about my father.”

For a few seconds, Fisk didn’t move.

“Our informant isn’t a criminal, Mr. Nicasio. Not in the slightest. Have a good evening, sir.”

Thomas had just stood there, watching the two agents march out of his office, boiling in a vat of bewilderment and rage. Even in the midst of his emotional turmoil, the image of Sophie Gable standing in the elevator leapt into his mind’s eye. It only added to his volatility that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, even under these circumstances. He didn’t want to think about
a woman
now, not when the FBI was hounding Joseph Carlisle, making preposterous claims about him being involved in organized crime, badgering Thomas about a client his father had referred to him a couple years back.

Despite his mental prohibitions on lusting after Sophie, he detailed the vision of her once again in his mind’s eye, fantasized about peeling off that crisp white blouse she wore and baring her succulent flesh for his hungry mouth.

His blood sizzled in his veins; his cock twitched.

What the hell was wrong with him?

After several minutes he rifled around in a desk drawer to retrieve some keys and called his administrative assistant, Erin, telling her she was free to go home. He’d go over to Doug Mannero’s office/warehouse and have a look at the books himself. He’d gone over them carefully when he took on Doug as a client. He’d recognize if there’d been any changes made . . . any cover-up. Thomas had a good head for numbers.

But when he got on the elevator, instead of hitting the button for the lobby, he hit the one for the twenty-third floor instead.

He knew he should stay away from Dr. Sophie Gable. She didn’t deserve to be the unsuspecting target of the cyclone of emotion that whipped and whirled around in his head.

But he couldn’t seem to stop himself from seeking her out. It puzzled the hell out of him, this sudden fixation he had on the doctor. Sure, he’d been strongly attracted to her ever since the first time he’d laid eyes on her. And he wasn’t a fool. Thomas liked women, and they typically liked him. He was experienced enough to know that Sophie Gable was very aware of him, as well; knew instinctively she returned his interest.

But he’d always shied away from her, wary of her clean scent, girl-next-door glow . . . an appeal like body-warmed, sex-mussed sheets on a sunny bed. He was too complicated for Sophie Gable. Too dark. He’d get her dirty; mess her up. It amazed him to know he’d actually avoided her to protect her as much as himself.

Despite his self-imposed prohibition against Sophie Gable, something about her called out to him; always had from the moment he’d first set eyes on her.

And God help her, in the midst of his turmoil and grief, he suddenly found he didn’t want to spare her any longer. No longer
could
spare himself. He would quench his fires in Sophie Gable tonight. His cock craved her, but his mind did as well.

After the storm was spent, Thomas knew—somehow—that peace would come, even if it was temporary.

The door to her office was unlocked. The lights were still on in the empty lobby. He headed down the hallway, a sense of sharp anticipation building in him. He knocked on her door and opened it when he heard her low voice bidding him to enter.

She stood by her desk, looking like a graceful gazelle caught in headlights. His gaze trailed down over her elegant throat and the front of the simple, white cotton blouse she wore. Sophie could try to disguise her assets by putting on a professional appearance all she wanted, but Thomas was a connoisseur who instinctively recognized quality when he saw it. He didn’t care if she wore a nun’s habit, nothing was going to hide the fact that Sophie Gable was built like a brick house.

Nothing could hide it from him, anyway.

“Thomas,” she whispered. “Are you all right?”

“No,” he replied, mesmerized by the movement of her lips. His fingers itched to delve through her soft, wavy hair, to ruin the knot that restrained it at the back of her head. He pushed the lock on her door, examining her reaction to his boldness.

Would it frighten her?

When he saw her furtive gaze drop down over his abdomen and crotch, and then the convulsion of her elegant throat, he got his answer. Whatever the magic—whatever the insanity—that was brewing between them was affecting her as much as him.

The realization made his cock stiffen and throb next to his left thigh. He stepped toward her.

“I’m not going to be all right until I bury myself in you,” he said truthfully.

“Tom—”

He bent down and covered the lush confection of her lips with his mouth. The sensation of her firm flesh amplified his hunger exponentially. He ate up her sexy, tiny whimpers and parted her lips with his tongue.

He groaned as her taste registered in his brain.

Christ, this was gonna be good.

He lost himself in her, welcoming pure sensation, intoxicated by the feeling of her hips curving into his palms, made drunk by her sweet mouth and her fresh, floral woman-scent filling his nose. She slid her tongue against his eagerly, turning her head and pressing closer, the evidence of her returned ardor making lust roar like a torrential current through his veins. Sophie didn’t kiss like the innocent girl next door. No, she tangled her tongue with his wildly, shaped his mouth and created a suction his cock responded to wholeheartedly.

His hands opened over her round ass. He pushed her against his erection and rubbed her softness against his hardness, uncaring about the lewdness of his actions . . . just feeling. Every nerve in his body screamed with need, just like they had as he dreamed last night. Kissing Sophie was like dipping his tongue into sex-sweet honey.

He lifted his head after a moment, molding her lips with his own, nipping at her hungrily.

“I have to have you. Now.”

“Yes,” she whispered. The feeling of her hands moving anxiously over his back and around to the front of him, stroking his ribs, drove him crazy. He hissed when she drove her fingers through an opening in his shirt and touched him, skin to skin.

He stared into her wide, liquid brown eyes as he began to unbutton her blouse. As he brushed his knuckles against the fullness of her breasts his cock lurched with longing. She might have felt it, because she murmured his name shakily and craned up to kiss him again.

“No. Let me look at you,” he ordered tensely.

She remained unmoving as he finished unbuttoning her blouse and parted the fabric, making his fantasy reality. Her skin had been sun-kissed light gold with just a hint of apricots. The simple, modest white bra she wore turned him on more than the raciest, skimpiest lingerie he’d ever seen. She shivered when he slid his hands along the satiny skin at the sides of her torso and reached for the clasp.

“Oh, Sophie,” he mumbled in awe when he’d bared her pale, full breasts. Her nipples were delicate, pink and tight. Lust lanced through him when he held her firm, warm flesh in his hands and lightly ran his thumbs over the succulent tips, making them bead and stiffen even more. He glanced up at her.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Thomas,” she whispered. She placed her hand on the back of his head and brought him down to her. He nuzzled the silky curve of a breast, inhaling her scent, before he slipped a nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue. His eyes burned with emotion that he couldn’t comprehend as he suckled her first softly and then, as his desire built to almost unbearable levels, ravenously.

The pain of her gripping his hair as she held him down to her brought him back to himself—that and the sharp ache of his near-to-bursting cock. He raised his head, searching for a trace of sanity in Sophie’s eyes.

Instead, he saw the glaze of a fevered lust shining in their depths and knew she suffered as much as he did. He would have hurried things for himself, but what he saw in the depths of Sophie’s eyes made him frantic.

Or at least that’s what he told himself later when he was trying to justify his actions.

He held her gaze as he placed his hands on her skirt and began to slide the fabric up her hips. They both panted into the thick silence. When his palms ran over the tops of smooth stockings and onto the warm silk of her upper thighs, a low growl vibrated in his throat.

An explosion seemed to detonate in his brain. He turned her in his arms and pressed his cock against her ass. She didn’t balk when he pushed her upper body down, forcing her to bend at the waist. Her hands went out to brace their weight on the desk.

“I’ll go slow next time, Sophie. Right now, I’m going to go crazy if I can’t get inside you.”

She didn’t speak, but she turned and met his gaze as he lowered her panties. The sight of her damp parted lips and wide, glazed eyes caused his cock to jerk viciously in his boxer briefs. His face pinched in an agony of lust when he glanced down at her bared ass.

God, he should stop this. It
was
madness. The things he wanted to do to her . . . lovely, kind Dr. Gable with the face of an angel and a smile that could warm a man on the coldest, bitterest days of his life.

He wanted to fuck her like an animal.

“Spread your thighs some, Sophie.”

She followed his gruff order, her panties stretched tight where he’d lowered them to just above her knees. He unbuckled his belt rapidly, his eyes glued to the erotic image of Sophie bent at the waist, her skirt bunched around her hips, her white ass and the tantalizing glimpse of her pink flower between her spread thighs. He’d fantasized about how she looked under those prim, nondescript skirts, salivated at the visions his mind conjured.

His fantasies paled. Nothing compared to the rich, carnal feast spread before him.

He’d never wanted to put on a condom less, but he was careful to do so, mindful of her cleanness, of not wanting to dirty her with his bitterness and rage. His loneliness.

And yet . . . he experienced a simultaneous need to take her like a savage, to desecrate her with his essence and scent . . . to mark her.

His strange, mixed feelings created an unbearable friction in him; one that would only diminish once he’d exploded in her depths. He glanced up. She’d been watching him roll the condom onto his painfully sensitive erection. When he took his cock into his hand, her tongue slicked her lower lip anxiously.

He palmed a round ass cheek, lifting her flesh, parting her slit. They both gasped when he pressed the tip of his cock into her.

He groaned, deep and savage, when he slid several inches into her tight, sultry heat. He pumped his hips, trying to be as gentle as his fevered, pounding blood would allow, silently praying for admittance to heaven. She was gratifyingly wet. He heard himself moving in her juices as he moved his cock into her snug channel.

His blood boiled in his veins. He
required
release. “Let me in, Sophie. Let me in.”

He slapped her bottom.

She gasped. Heat rushed around his cock. He slid into her to the hilt, grunting in sublime pleasure. Her pussy clutched at him like a hot, silken fist. He grabbed her hips and began to pump without pause, starved to feel every nuance of her tight embrace. His shirt kept getting in the way, causing him to curse. He spread a hand on Sophie’s buttock, his cock fully submerged, and ripped at the buttons of his shirt. When he’d shoved aside the cloth, baring his chest and abdomen, he noticed Sophie had once again turned her chin.