Explosive Read online

  “Never mind. Lemonade is fine.”

  She studied him anxiously. Under the bright fluorescent lights, she could more easily see that a fine sheen of sweat covered his face.

  Fever, she thought.

  “Why don’t you sit down at the bar,” she suggested before she headed toward the refrigerator. She filled two glasses with ice and lemonade and handed him one. He hadn’t taken her advice to sit down and still stood in the precise spot where she’d left him. He took the glass and drained the contents in two seconds. When he’d finished, she took the empty glass and gave him the other one. While he drank, she encircled the wrist of his free hand with her own.

  He swallowed the second glass of lemonade almost as quickly as the first. When he’d finished, she sensed him watching her from above, his head lowered while she concentrated and counted the beats of his rapid, strong pulse while watching the seconds pass on her kitchen clock.

  The silence seemed to press on them like a thick cloak.

  “Would you like some more?” she asked after she’d finished and dropped his wrist.

  “No. I’ve had enough.”

  “Tom, you’re ill,” she said, looking up at him.

  He blinked. He glanced around her kitchen with a slight scowl on his features. His confusion seemed to fade when he looked at her face again.

  “You might be right. I’m not sure how I got here.”

  She took the glass he held from his stiff grip and set it along with the other one on the kitchen island.

  “Do you mean you don’t remember?”

  For a few seconds he seemed uncertain. “I remember driving here. I had to get away.”

  “Had to get away from what?” she asked slowly.

  He just stared at her with those brooding green eyes flecked with gold. Sophie supposed that given everything that had happened to Thomas Nicasio lately, he had plenty of reasons for needing an escape.

  He remained immobile when she reached up to touch his forehead and cheek. His skin felt clammy. She mentally cursed when she recalled she didn’t have a thermometer in the lake house. Still, she’d guess that if he ran a fever, it wasn’t an alarming one.

  Her fingers delved through thick, surprisingly soft hair, searching for wounds on his scalp. A shiver coursed through him when her hand reached the base of his skull. She caught his scent. Despite his obvious illness and uncharacteristically disheveled state, Thomas Nicasio smelled good.

  Cautiously, she met his stare.

  For a few seconds, neither of them moved. Sophie suspected neither of them breathed.

  “Did you hit your head, Tom?” she asked eventually, her fingers resuming their careful search.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Have you been drinking?” she asked, even though she’d inhaled his breath and already suspected that he wasn’t drunk. He shook his head.

  “Drugs?”

  Again, he shook his head. She pushed back his hair. Her gaze shot to his when she saw the discoloration near his hairline on his left temple.

  “You have been hit.” She reached for the wrist of his right arm, holding his stare all the while. Her mind churned when she glanced down and saw the abrasions and flecks of dried blood on his knuckle.

  “You’ve been in a fight,” she stated tersely. Did a shadow of defiance cross his features, or was that her imagination? Well, perhaps she had sounded accusatory. It wasn’t her place to judge him, after all. “Are you in any pain?”

  “No.”

  “Sick to your stomach?”

  He shrugged negligently.

  “How is it that you’re here, Tom?” she asked, despite the memory of what he’d said earlier.

  I came looking for you, Sophie.

  He wasn’t entirely lucid, after all.

  “Do you know someone who lives near here?” she prompted when he didn’t speak.

  “No. I only know you.”

  “Well ... why did you come looking for me?” she couldn’t resist asking in an anxious rush. “Did you find yourself getting ill on the road and need a doctor? Did you remember me telling you I was vacationing here, at Haven Lake?”

  A spasm went through him and he cupped his right brow with his palm, squeezing his eyes shut.

  “I’m taking you to the emergency room in Effingham,” she declared, alarmed by the sight of what must have been a jolt of intense pain going through him.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But you’ve got to, you’re not well and—”

  “I’m not going to the hospital,” he grated out between clenched teeth.

  She went completely still at his harsh tone. She considered calling the police, but then he opened his eyes.

  “All right.”

  The two words leaving her own lips surprised her a little, but she felt as if she didn’t have a choice once she’d looked into those twin pools of turmoil and anguish. “You might have a concussion, but you’re feverish, as well. I’ll get you some Tylenol and then you need to rest. Will you at least promise me to do that for now?”

  “I’m not sleepy,” he said hoarsely. His gaze lowered. Heat flooded her cheeks. He stared at her breasts covered in the thin bikini top. Her body responded to his blatantly sexual gaze against her will. Her nipples stiffened beneath the flimsy fabric.

  He stepped toward her.

  Sophie stepped back.

  “You’re ill. You need to rest. Is there someone you want me to call? Will someone be missing you in Chicago? Never mind. Come on,” she said when he just stared at her. She waved her hand and led him down the dim hallway to the guest bedroom. She turned on the light and inspected the state of the room. She hadn’t been in it since early June, just after Andy and his wife, Sheila, had visited for a weekend.

  Her mind sifted through his symptoms, trying to make sense of his bizarre presentation as she bustled around in the guest bath, laying out clean towels and getting Tylenol out of the medicine cabinet. His feverish state implied that something physical was going on, but the pain she’d seen in his eyes just moments ago argued for something psychological. The bruise on his temple wasn’t massive, but she knew the brain could sustain considerable injury from a blow without any obvious external trauma.

  Of course there was no reason why his condition couldn’t be both physical and psychological, considering the amount of stress Thomas must have been under recently.

  Who had he been fighting with, and why? Oddly, it didn’t surprise her to consider Thomas engaging in a brawl, despite the fact that she was used to seeing only his polished work image. She’d always sensed a rebel existed beneath the smooth exterior of his perfectly tailored suits. Maybe it was the tilt of his jaw that made her think it, or the gold flecks that flashed and burned in the deep green of his eyes; or a smile that was sweet, but just a tad cocky . . . slow in coming and breathtaking upon arrival.

  Or maybe it was just because Sophie knew he’d spent the first years of his life in a working-class Southside neighborhood far from the perfectly manicured, sweeping green lawns and multi-million-dollar homes of Lake Forest, where Thomas had gone to live with the family that adopted him, the Carlisles. A kid growing up in Morgan Park would have known how to use his fists. Besides, he’d only worked in the private sector for the past few years. Before he’d taken up the reins of his own business, he’d been in the military, but Sophie couldn’t recall at the moment if Andy had ever mentioned in what branch he’d served or what his duties had involved.

  She grimaced as she filled a glass with water from the tap. She felt guilty for not taking him to the hospital, even though the chances were that the emergency room physician would recommend nothing more than close observation of Thomas’s symptoms for the next forty-eight hours.

  And either way, Thomas had flatly refused to go, so what choice did she have?

  Her level of anxiety upon entering the bedroom was unprecedented since her first year of medical school.

  She carried the Tylenol in one hand and th
e glass of water in the other. He still stood just inside the threshold of the door. She was relieved when he took the Tylenol without argument. He stood behind her while she turned down the bed, making her highly self-conscious of her bent-over position.

  She added his blatant sexual stare into her formulary of symptoms, even though Thomas Nicasio’s hot eyes hardly left her feeling analytical. Was he in a manic state, perhaps? That would explain his hypersexuality, the sudden need to impulsively escape . . .

  ... but not the bruise, fever, or dazed confusion.

  Was she safe with him there in the house with her? She glanced back at him and their gazes held. She exhaled slowly.

  “Why don’t you get into bed?” she asked, glad to hear that her voice didn’t audibly tremble. He stepped toward her and Sophie glanced down, avoiding that laserlike stare. She knew she should have backed away, but she didn’t.

  Not even when he spread one hand along her naked hip.

  She held her breath and clamped her eyes shut when she felt his thumb gently rub across a dried smear of paint. Her lungs burned by the time he bent his long legs at the knees, and he wrapped her in his arms.

  He encompassed her. In that full, fertile moment, she felt Thomas Nicasio in every cell of her being.

  He nudged her hair back with his nose and pressed his entire face to the side of her neck. His hardness pressed against her softness, stark and potent.

  “Sophie.”

  Her heart throbbed erratically in her chest at the sensation of his hot mouth moving next to her sensitive skin.

  “Sleep with me, Sophie. I need your cleanness so much right now.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Her eyes burned when she heard those roughly uttered words. His hand moved. He palmed her left breast, his thumb efficiently flicking aside the thin fabric. Her nipple tightened almost painfully as he stimulated it with deft fingertips. Molten fire flashed through her pussy, making her whimper. His other hand opened along her spine. He leaned over her, forcing her back to bow. His mouth, voracious and gentle at once, awakened her nerve endings, creating a prickling trail of pleasure as he moved along her neck, cheek, and jaw. He seemed so hungry . . . so starved for her. His raw need caused something sweet to unfold in her chest like a blooming flower, a feeling of tenderness twined with raw lust, a potent sensation unlike anything she’d ever known.

  Her lips parted as if of their own volition, forming a target for his kiss, but then his unnatural heat penetrated her bewitched state.

  He was ill. Fevered.

  “No,” she mumbled shakily in the second before his mouth closed on hers.

  He didn’t try to stop her from staggering out of his arms, but she could tell by the slant of his mouth that he wasn’t pleased. Her lungs froze at his abrupt absence, as if she’d suddenly plunged into icy water. She saw the glint of his eyes in the shadows cast by his lowered brow and mussed bangs.

  “You’re ill. You need to sleep.” Her voice sounded tiny and muffled in the still room, as though someone else spoke from a distance.

  She shut the door behind her and rushed to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of lemonade and gulped it down nearly as rapidly as Thomas had earlier, trying to quench a burning thirst. Eyes clamped shut, she tried to ignore the hot, thick sensation that pooled in her lower belly and plagued her sex, but the ache was too sharp . . . too imperative. She placed a hand between her thighs and pressed as though trying to staunch a wound. The resulting stab of sharp pleasure made her wince.

  For a full minute, she stood gripping the empty glass and staring down the dark hallway, panting softly. The magnitude of her arousal was something she associated with wild animals or teenage boys with potent hormones racing through their blood. It flabbergasted her, this unprecedented reaction to a man’s touch. Rest would not come easy tonight.

  Would he sleep?

  Would he stay put?

  She didn’t know if she was glad, worried, surprised, or disappointed when she didn’t hear a single sound emanate from the guest bedroom. After several minutes, she opened the back screen door.

  The sun had nearly set as Sophie walked through the yard. The tall trees that lined the long, graveled road leading to the lake house were cast in a muted, golden-pink glow.

  He’d turned off the engine in his dark green Lexus sedan, but he’d left the driver’s-side door wide open. She leaned into the vehicle, catching the pleasant scent of leather mixing with the lingering fragrance of Thomas’s spicy cologne.

  Some of the contents of the glove box were spilled onto the passenger seat. She removed the keys from the ignition and shoved them into the pocket of her shorts before she walked around the car to the passenger door. She replaced the miniature flashlight, a map folded so that Haven Lake was easily seen, and a phone battery in the glove box. She bent to retrieve a newly opened bottle of Tylenol from the floor of the car.

  He’d been trying to stop the pain, she realized sadly.

  The bottle was small, the kind you bought at a gas station or convenience store. She quickly counted the remaining pills, wanting to make sure he hadn’t taken several before she’d given him even more just minutes ago. Only two were missing; not enough to harm him even if he’d taken the two tablets just seconds before he’d staggered onto her dock.

  She snapped the cap on, placed the bottle in the glove box, and secured Thomas’s car.

  The rest of the evening was spent trying to reach Andy Lancaster—which she never did successfully—cleaning up her makeshift studio on the screen porch, and then watching the end of a comedy on the television in her bedroom. When she finally shut out the light to sleep, there was nothing left to distract her from recalling Thomas Nicasio’s presence in her house . . . or from his unexpected embrace.

  She tried to make sense of her potent reaction to his touch. She’d long known that she was attracted to Thomas Nicasio. But the extremity of her current arousal confused her. Did it somehow relate to her knowledge of his life . . . to the fact that though she’d never been invited by Thomas, she’d peered into the secret realms of his private world?

  She was a voyeur, of sorts. Not the sexual kind, but perhaps Thomas would think her knowledge was even more disturbing?

  She thought of their brief, charged meeting just last night, trying to understand Thomas’s sudden appearance at Haven Lake.

  Every time she started to fasten her briefcase, she thought of another item she’d need while she was on vacation. Sophie scowled at the stack of journals on her desk and then irritably shoved the whole pile in her bag. She was sure to need the precise one she’d left behind. Why not take them all?

  She wanted out of this damn office. She craved Haven Lake.

  The only other physician besides Sophie who worked late on Wednesday evenings was Alex Fitzsimmons, their OB/GYN. Andy Lancaster, their psychologist, used to work late on Wednesday evenings, but he was notably absent at the moment.

  Andy wasn’t there tonight, of course, because Rick Carlisle wasn’t there. Sophie thought of how she’d occasionally hear Rick and Andy as they passed her office on the way to Andy’s, Rick bemoaning the Cubs latest loss or teasing Andy about his awful haircut.

  Sophie would never see Rick Carlisle again; nor would she see his adoptive brother, Thomas Nicasio, waiting in the lobby for Rick to finish his psychotherapy appointment. A pang of loss went through her and she chided herself for the selfish thought. Rick Carlisle hadn’t existed for the purpose of throwing Thomas Nicasio in Sophie’s path.

  She had run into Thomas frequently under those circumstances, though. Not every Wednesday evening, by any means, but often enough for her to take note of it.

  Maybe it was her imagination—or plain old wishful thinking? —but it did seem to her that her chance meetings with Thomas were increasing greatly in the past few months. Never enough for her to depend on. Never enough for her to make sure she was in the office toward the end of Rick Carlisle’s regular Wednesday appointment.

  But enough
to make Sophie suspect she might not be the only one who was nudging the odds to increase the likelihood of crossing paths with Thomas.

  She thought wistfully of the excitement of those chance encounters with Thomas as she hauled her briefcase onto her shoulder and left her office, casting a sad glance in the direction of Andy’s closed door.

  The flap on her briefcase gave and a sheaf of paper and several journals spilled onto the lobby carpet. A pair of tanned, masculine . . . very capable-looking hands beat her to the task of retrieving the spilled contents.

  She glanced up from her kneeling position. His face was less than a foot away from her own.

  “Thomas,” she exclaimed, surprised. She tensed, knowing from experience that Thomas’s smiles, while slow in coming, were every bit as disarming as his eyes. At this close of a range, one of those smiles might be explosive on impact.

  But his smile never came, of course.

  This Wednesday night was different from every other one that had come before it.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” she asked breathlessly.

  Thomas just stared at her for a second, his face rigid.

  “I was looking for Dr. Lancaster,” he said before he returned to gathering her papers.

  “He’s not here. He didn’t have any other appointments on Wednesday evening, aside from ...” She faded off, but rallied when Thomas glanced up at her soberly. “ . . . your brother. Do you want me to call Andy?” she asked. It would be understandable if Thomas requested a consultation with a psychologist.

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll try to catch him another time.”

  “I was so sorry to hear about your brother and your nephew.”

  The words spilled out of her throat in a rush of compassion. She hoped she hadn’t offended him when he merely resumed picking up her papers and journals. Sophie knew it was best to follow a grieving person’s lead in these situations, so she busied herself with helping him retrieve the fallen items. She shouldn’t have spoken to him in such a familiar fashion.