“You hungry?” he asked.
“A little bit,” she admitted with one of those sweet smiles of hers. “That was quite a workout.”
He loved the way color stung her cheeks when she was embarrassed.
He led the way into the kitchen and pulled out a bar stool for her. As she sat down, he topped off their wineglasses and lifted his in a toast.
“To us,” he said, “and a great weekend.”
She lifted her glass also but remained silent.
“What is it, Sophie? What’s the matter?” he asked.
He hadn’t been imagining it out by the pool. Something was definitely playing on her mind. Something he’d rather she shove out in the open now so they could deal with it and move on.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she denied, taking a sip of her wine and firing a smile at him that could have fooled a man who hadn’t made an art form over the past couple weeks out of watching her and finding out what made her tick.
He’d felt a pull of something toward Sophie when he’d started working with Alex but, as raw as he was after his son’s death and the finality of his divorce he hadn’t been ready to take a step in that direction. Now, though, was an entirely different matter. With the distance of time acting as a buffer, Sophie Beldon had brought so many aspects of him back to aching life.
“There’s something. You’ve been fine up until just a while ago. Is it something someone said tonight? Something I said, or did?”
“No! It’s not you. Seriously, it’s not you. You’re…well, you’re perfect,” she ended softly, her eyes downcast.
He snorted inelegantly. “I’m hardly perfect.”
“But you are. You’re successful, you have this amazing home. You can have just about anything money can buy and probably just about anything it can’t.”
He was puzzled. “And that’s a problem?”
“Why me, Zach? Out of all the women you could have taken out with you tonight, of all the women you could sleep with, why me?”
He stilled, forcing himself to take his time answering her. He moved across the kitchen, grabbing a half loaf of French bread and slicing it into medallions and then taking some sliced cold cuts, relish and fresh cheese from the refrigerator. He laid the food on a platter and put it on the granite island where she was sitting before taking the seat beside her.
“Why you?” he repeated, lifting a hand to smooth an errant strand of hair from her beautiful, worried face. “Because deep down I know you’re as lovely on the inside as you are on the outside. You forget, I’ve had over a year to get to know you, over a year feeling my way through my growing attraction to you. I’ll be honest. As short a time as only a few weeks ago, I thought it would mess things up in the office if I acted on my feelings—not to mention complicate things in my already complicated world. But when you made it clear to me the other night that you felt the same way, that you wanted me, I knew I couldn’t keep you at arm’s length any longer.”
He spread some ripe Brie onto a slice of bread and added a small dollop of relish before handing it to her. She remained silent, as if digesting what he’d said.
Zach continued. “And you talk about this place, my amazing home. It’s not a home. It’s where I live, sure, but it’s not a home. I know what it takes to make a home and that is usually a family. I was lucky, I had that growing up. I had the security of having two parents who loved me and who I knew would move heaven and earth to give me every opportunity in the world to excel. And I have. I have excelled because I’m determined to always be the best I can be. Sure, I’ve taken risks. Some have paid off. Some haven’t. I’ve learned to judge better what’s right and what’s wrong, and Sophie?” He reached out to cup her cheek, tracing the outline of her sensually full and wide lower lip with the edge of his thumb. “I mixed business with pleasure once before and it put me off ever wanting to do that again, but you, you’re a risk I’m definitely ready to take. I want to know you better.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, keeping it gentle, trying to imbue into his action what he suspected his words hadn’t quite gotten through to her yet. When he broke off their kiss, her eyes glistened in the overhead lighting.
“Thank you,” she said. “For being so honest.”
“No problem,” he answered with a quirk of his lip. “More to eat?”
“Yes, please. I’m suddenly starving.”
The quirk spread into a smile. If she had an appetite, it was a good thing he knew exactly how to appease it. After they’d eaten and finished the champagne, they went upstairs to his room.
Zach turned down the bed while Sophie freshened up in the en suite bathroom. He reached for her as she walked back into the bedroom, tugging at the sash of her robe.
“In a hurry, Mr. Lassiter?” she asked teasingly, stepping just out of his reach.
“For you? Always.”
And it was shockingly true. Since that first time they’d made love in his office, he’d been in a state of heightened awareness. A state of readiness that demanded to be assuaged. Not even last night’s hurried trip to meet with Dr. Philmore to discuss a potential treatment plan for Anna had taken the edge off his craving for Sophie.
She stepped into the circle of his arms, her hands going to the lapels of his robe and pushing them aside and stroking across his chest. Her hands were silky soft as they traced the definition of his pecs before tracking a line down the center of his chest and lower, to his waist. Her fingers made quick work of the knot on his robe and she let the garment hang loose as her hands continued their voyage of discovery down his body.
He hissed in a breath when she reached his erection and closed a fist around him.
“Ready for more, I see,” she observed.
“Always willing to please,” Zach replied, trying to keep his voice light but failing miserably as his awareness of her touch, of the gentle pressure of her fingers, increased by increments.
“This time I want to please you.”
“You always please me, Sophie.”
“I don’t think you fully understand me,” she sighed with a wicked twinkle in her eyes, “but you will.”
Before he could do anything to stop her, she’d sunk to her knees. Strands of her fine blond hair caught on the smattering of hair of his upper thighs, making him all too aware of what she’d planned. His muscles tautened, bracing themselves for what was to come. It didn’t stop the groan of sheer delight from escaping his throat when her warm lips closed around the swollen head of his penis. Or when her tongue stroked the underside of the tip, where his skin was most sensitive. Sophie began to move her head, to take him deeper into the warm, wet cavern of her mouth, her lips and tongue continuing to cause flame after flame of heat to lick through him.
She made a sound deep in the back of her throat, a sound that sent a vibration rippling through him. It was his undoing. He’d planned to hold on, to maintain control, to take, but only so much—but with that one action she dominated him fully and his climax hit hard, unexpectedly, rocking him to the very center of his being.
As pulse after pulse pounded through him, she slowed her actions, the slick softness of her tongue now almost unbearable against his hypersensitized flesh. Almost, but not quite, he admitted as another jolt of completion made his hips jerk involuntarily. She let him go, stroking him once with her hand before rising to her feet.
Zach’s heart was still pounding in his chest but he reached for her, closing her in the circle of his arms and holding her, his chin resting on the top of her golden head. She felt so perfect in his arms. How could he have continued to deny himself this?
Eventually he loosened his hold and sat on the bed, pulling Sophie down with him. They lay down together, facing one another.
“What did I do to deserve you?” he asked.
She smiled in return. “I’ve been asking myself that question all night.”
Zach traced the edge of the lapel of her robe, delighting in the fine trail of goose bumps that followed the
path of his fingertip. He moved in closer, flicking out his tongue to follow that same path down the V of her robe and then back up the other side.
“I think this should go, don’t you?” he murmured, undoing her sash and tugging it loose.
Slowly he traced the outside edge of her robe with his tongue once more, then blew cool air from his mouth over her moistened skin. She gave a small shiver, one that had little to do with temperature, judging by the blush that now spread across her chest. Her breasts lifted on each breath she took and he followed their shape with his tongue, again blowing that cool air over her skin. Sophie’s nipples grew tight and extended, their pink tips thrusting out. He kept up his gentle assault, touching her lightly each time, then blowing once again until she squirmed against the sheets.
“More, Zach. I need more,” she implored him.
“In a hurry? You’ll have to be patient. Now, where was I?”
It tormented him no less that he went back to the very beginning, commencing anew his tantalizing touches—each one awakening his body even as he knew it stoked hers to scorching life. Eventually, though, he could resist no longer. He had to feel her beneath his hands and he eased the robe off her shoulders, spreading the fabric wide on either side of her, exposing her nakedness for his eyes to feast on.
She moaned and pressed into his hands as he cupped her breasts, kneading them gently, his mouth alternating from one distended tip to the other. Beneath him he felt her legs move restlessly and he settled between them, one knee drawing up to her core. She was hot and wet against him, and it took every ounce of his considerable control not to simply take her there and then.
Zach began a journey down her body, forcing himself to take his time, to make sure that every caress, every touch brought her new waves of enjoyment. By the time he reached the delicate hollow at the top of her thighs, that enticing arrowed apex, he could smell her sweet, musky scent. It made everything in his body clench tight.
“You’re torturing me, Zach,” she said breathlessly. Her hands reaching for him, her fingers knotting in his hair.
“That’s the plan,” he said with a smile and lowered his lips to her heat.
She all but lifted off the bed as he closed his mouth around her, as his tongue unerringly found the pearl of nerve endings that he knew would drive her crazy, mad, over the edge. He wasn’t wrong. His touch was like a match set to paper; she was a skyrocket waiting to be set free. Her body bowed, her hips lifting off the bed, her legs clamped tight around his shoulders as he swirled his tongue around that tiny bud of flesh, as his lips tugged and pulled, until with a scream of abandon she hurtled over the edge and into orgasm.
She was still a supple mass of limbs and torso when he pushed himself up over her, when he guided his length within her swollen, still-contracting center. Zach laced his fingers through hers, lifted her hands up, holding them beside her head. It was as if a line drew all the way down his spine to where they connected. Down his spine and then back up hers again, as if they were always meant to be this perfect together. Sophie’s eyes flew wide open.
“Oh, my Lord. Again?”
Her climax chased the surprise from her eyes and she shuddered against him, her fingers now so tight around his own he’d begun to lose feeling in them. Her powerful, rhythmic contractions were enough to tip him completely over the edge, his climax drawing from the soles of his feet and reverberating through his body until he collapsed on top of her, breathless, stunned, pleasured beyond his imagination.
*
Sophie woke several hours later. It was still dark outside. She reached for Zach but she was alone, his side of the bed warm but very definitely empty. There was no light from the bathroom, either. She started a little as the bedroom door opened. Zach slid, naked, into the bed.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“Better than I’ve ever been,” he said, feeling for her hand and lifting it to his lips to kiss it.
“Me, too,” she sighed in satisfaction. “But how come you’re awake? Can’t sleep?”
Zach settled onto his back and she snuggled up against his chest.
“No, I can’t stop thinking about Alex. Wondering where the hell he is and what might have happened to him.”
“I know. It’s never far from anyone’s thoughts these days. So many people were discussing it at the club tonight. I hope he’s going to be okay.”
“Gil told me that the sheriff has brought in a state investigator from Dallas. She believes that Alex Santiago isn’t even his real name.”
Sophie stiffened. “Seriously?” Her mind raced. “You don’t think he could be a fraud, do you? I’d find it hard to believe. It just doesn’t jell with the guy we know and have worked with.”
“I know. He’s my friend and I’m worried now that maybe I didn’t know him after all. But what worries me most is that, for one reason or another, someone’s hurt him, badly. Otherwise I know he’d have done everything in his power to come back to us here in Royal. He has too much here to simply walk away from it.
“For a while there this evening I got angry, and started to consider it might be true, that he is a fraud. But I’ve been playing it over in my mind and it just doesn’t fit.”
Sophie lay quietly, listening to the confusion and frustration in Zach’s voice and wishing she could do more to alleviate his concern. He certainly didn’t sound like the kind of guy who could be involved in his friend’s disappearance. If he was, he was a very good actor. She eschewed that idea the instant it came to her mind—the one that made her so anal about dotting every i and crossing every t—just wouldn’t let it go.
That devil demanded one hundred percent certainty and it made Sophie nothing if not persistent, a trait her mother had frequently complained of while Sophie had been growing up. But it had gotten her where she was in life today; it had helped her growing up more times than she could remember, especially after Susannah had gone. And now as an adult, it had stood her in good stead as she fought to find her sister.
“What if you’re wrong, Zach? What if he is a fraud, a very good one? People fool other people all the time.”
As he could be fooling her right now.
“Yeah, I can’t discount that. To be on the safe side I’ve just been online to change the password sequence for the bank accounts. With the Manson project going live soon, there is going to be a lot of money transferring through those accounts starting Monday. I can’t risk anything happening to our investors’ funds.”
“Oh, Lord. I didn’t even think about that.”
Zach held her close. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it would never come to anything.”
They lay together, quiet in the darkness. After a while, Sophie realized that Zach had drifted off to sleep. She wasn’t as lucky, as their short conversation kept playing around in her head, keeping her awake. So Alex might not have been who he said he was, but who was Zach Lassiter, exactly? He hadn’t grown up here in Royal. No one really knew his background, a background that he kept very close to his chest.
It was still within the realm of possibility that he might have had something to do with Alex’s disappearance, for all that he’d sounded genuinely concerned only moments ago. Maybe he’d even locked up Alex at that clinic he’d been in contact with so often. And now he’d changed the banking passwords. Sure, it made sense if he was genuinely concerned about Alex accessing funds illegally, but who was to say that it wasn’t Zach who planned to do the exact same thing?
Sophie’s stomach churned and she eased herself away from his sleeping form. All joking aside, had she just begun to sleep with the enemy?
Eleven
Logic warred with instinct. Instinct told her, over and over, that Zach couldn’t be involved—that he was genuinely concerned for his friend. Logic told to her to make sure.
But how? All she’d managed to find out so far was he had been calling a private clinic frequently and very recently. He could have an investment client there for all she knew. She discarded the tho
ught as soon as it popped into her head. Zach had a standard procedure for new clients, one that had always involved her creating a personal file for the client in their computer system. If his calls had been work related, she would have known. Besides, hadn’t he told her only yesterday to mark those calls to his personal expense when she queried them on the call log?
He was up to something. Everything inside her said so. But what was it? His laptop! He carried it with him everywhere. If she could access his computer, she was sure she could find out just what was going on.
Sophie slipped from the bed and grabbed one of the robes off the bedroom floor. She stilled in her actions as Zach muttered something in his sleep and rolled over. In seconds he was breathing deeply again. She walked carefully across the thickly carpeted floor and let herself out of the room.
Where would be the most logical place to look for his computer, she wondered. She hadn’t seen it in the kitchen when they’d been in there, but just off the kitchen was a high-tech den that had looked well used. Since every other area of the house appeared to be in show-home condition, she kept her fingers crossed that when Zach was home he used his den as more of a family room or office.
A trickle of unease ran through her as she made her way down the curved staircase to the ground floor and walked across the tiles toward the back of the house. She was going out on a very shaky limb doing this. Chances were she’d find nothing incriminating at all. At least she fervently hoped not.
Thankful that the outdoor lighting cast enough light through the floor-to-ceiling downstairs windows that she didn’t need to turn on any lights, Sophie made her way through to the den. Long plush sofas faced one another across a large marble coffee table and two deep armchairs were positioned at one end, facing the large-screen television mounted on the wall above the fireplace. It was a cozy room, even in the semidark but, she reminded herself, she wasn’t there to admire the decor.
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