Explosive

by BETH KERY

  She nodded as he flipped the on button for the vibrator. A tremor went through her when she used one hand to hold the rubber cock head to her overly sensitive clit. When she moaned loudly at the sensation, Thomas leaned over her, his slick, stiff cock brushing an ass cheek, and turned down the power a notch. He kissed the side of her heaving ribs with a hot mouth before he knelt behind her again.

  “Jesus, you’re beautiful,” she heard him mutter under his breath from behind her. “You’re gonna kill me, Sophie.”

  She cried out shakily when he turned the base of the plug, withdrew it ever so slightly and pushed it back into her.

  “Hurt?” he muttered tightly.

  “No,” she gasped. Pain hadn’t been what made her cry out.

  She felt him move behind her, positioning himself. He spread his hand over her left hip and gently pried back her ass cheek. Sophie whimpered when he removed the plug.

  He cursed under his breath. Her vocal chords seem to vibrate in tandem with the sex toy when he arrowed the first several inches of his cock into her ass.

  “Ahhhhh,” she moaned. She felt every muscle—including the one that encircled Thomas’s cock—clamp tight.

  “I’m stopping,” he grated out behind her. “Are you okay?”

  Her head had fallen forward and her hair hung around her face. The minimal discomfort she had experienced at his penetration faded. Her entire awareness had zeroed down to the sensation of him inside her ass. She pressed the vibrator tighter to her clit and a ripple of excitement traveled all the way up her tailbone to her neck. She responded to Thomas’s inquiry with one word.

  “More.”

  He grabbed both of her ass cheeks and sunk into her another few inches. He hissed in pleasure.

  “Christ, you’re so hot. And so fucking tight.”

  Sophie pressed back with a hand on the mattress and mewled in pleasure as she slid his well-lubricated cock deeper. He grunted and spanked a buttock in gentle reprimand.

  “Don’t, Sophie,” he bit out. “If you had any idea what I wanted to do to you right now, you wouldn’t tease.”

  Sophie felt so full, so excited that she found she couldn’t respond. But she hadn’t been teasing. She had a good feeling she knew exactly what Thomas wanted to do, because she wanted it, too.

  It felt incredible. He seemed to throb directly into her flesh, feeling closer than she’d ever harbored a man in her body, more immediate . . . more incendiary.

  She held her breath in cresting excitement as the vibrator tickled her clit and Thomas began to pump gently, edging his cock farther and farther into her.

  “That’s right. Try to relax,” he murmured behind her as he fucked her ass carefully with the upper half of his cock, pressing slightly deeper into her with each stroke. Sophie uncrossed her eyes.

  Had he really just said that? Try to relax?

  She showed him just how unlikely that was when her entire body seemed to seize in orgasm.

  When the crashing waves of pleasure had receded and she came back to herself, the sound of her own soughing breath resounding loudly in her ears, Sophie realized that she’d dropped the vibrator to the mattress and Thomas’s hair-sprinkled thighs pressed directly against the lower curve of her buttocks. His balls nestled between her spread ass cheeks and the length of his cock throbbed deep inside her.

  “I can’t take it anymore, Sophie.”

  The palpable tension in his body and the strangled sound of his voice made her heart squeeze tight in her chest.

  “Then don’t, Tom.”

  He made a choked sound.

  “Brace yourself.”

  Sophie’s eyes went wide at the tautly uttered words. Her mouth hung open but her breath froze in her lungs when he withdrew his cock and plunged back into her again. He held her ass in his big hands and began fucking her with long, thorough strokes. His low, feral grunts of satisfaction and the staccato rhythm of his pelvis smacking against her buttocks filled her ears like a drumbeat of desire.

  Gone was his restraint. He had endured while she found pleasure, but now he seemed intent on taking his due.

  Sophie gloried in the storm of sensation and emotion that crashed all around her.

  His thrusts grew more rapid and forceful, making her groan roughly.

  “I told you to stay away from me.”

  He firmed his hold on her ass and bent one long leg, resting his foot on the mattress, using the extra leverage to take her harder.

  “I . . . don’t . . . want . . . you . . . away,” Sophie muttered between clenched teeth, every word popping out of her mouth at the same moment he smacked against her ass and filled her to capacity with his straining desire.

  “Aww, Jesus . . . Sophie.”

  She used all of her strength to brace herself, barely keeping herself from pitching over, when he plunged into her and held her to him with a desperate grasp. Her eyes went wide when she felt his cock swell. His howl of release stood in direct opposition to last night, when he’d restrained himself so carefully.

  Sophie gasped raggedly while he came, her face tight with emotion. His cock was so swollen, so primed that it caused her some mild discomfort when he held her ass and thrust tightly, emptying himself into her. But it gave her more satisfaction than she’d ever experienced, knowing that he’d trusted himself once again to let go.

  Knowing that she’d pleased him.

  Feeling Thomas throbbing in climax in such an intimate place aroused her all over again. She remained still when he eventually withdrew and leaned over her, breathing heavily. But when he caught his breath and fell to the bed, pulling her down next to him and turning to face her, Sophie pressed her hand between her thighs and winced.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas muttered. He stretched out next to her on the bed and pressed his face to her neck. Sophie whimpered when his hand moved between her thighs, and he worked his magic. It took her all of thirty seconds before she shuddered once again in orgasm. He pressed kisses to her neck and shoulder while she came.

  When she’d quieted, he settled his mouth on hers.

  “Sophie,” he whispered against her lips a moment later as their stares held.

  She inhaled slowly, praying she wasn’t imagining the myriad of messages she read in his eyes.

  “My whole life,” he said quietly, “I never had anything that was just mine.”

  Her eyes burned. For some reason, she knew exactly what he meant. In a way, they were both orphans: both belonging, and yet knowing deep down that they didn’t belong, recognizing on some level they were extras to a family unit that had been intact and self-sufficient without their presence.

  She furrowed her fingers through the thick hair at his nape while her other hand cupped his jaw. She could feel his heart still beating erratically where his chest pressed against her ribs.

  She wanted to tell him that she understood . . . that her heart had never been truly owned any more than she’d ever owned another’s, but her throat was suddenly constricted with emotion.

  “Shhh,” he soothed softly before he pressed his fingertips and then his mouth against hers in order to still her trembling lips.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Let’s go take a shower,” Thomas murmured after she’d cried silently in his arms for a minute or two and then quieted. She was glad he didn’t ask her for the reason for her tears. Or at least she was grateful until she realized maybe he didn’t want to hear her answer.

  They showered together, talking only minimally, letting their caressing fingertips speak for them. Thomas gently washed the remnants of their lovemaking off her body. She turned away as he attempted to clean her cheeks, but he held her chin with his hand and continued, refusing to be rebuffed, and using a damp washcloth to wipe away the tracks of her tears.

  She felt like an idiot when more fell to take their place—why was her chest so full of emotion?—but he didn’t seem to mind, silently washing the fresh tears away with the washcloth and finally drinking them with his wet, warm
lips.

  They got back into bed after their shower and held each other while raindrops pattered on the windowpanes. Slowly, cautiously, she let it happen—allowed the spell of her growing love to settle and encompass her just as surely as Thomas’s embrace.

  They didn’t sleep, but continued to commune with touches and softly murmured conversations.

  After a while, however, her stomach felt hollow with hunger and Thomas began to move restlessly. Sophie sensed that he was too active of a man to spend long awake in a bed . . . if he wasn’t making love, anyway. He seemed increasingly eager to do just that. His lazy kisses on her breasts were becoming hungrier by the second. It amazed her that she found his fascination with her breasts endearing—and arousing—instead of annoying, and she was increasingly focused on the trail of his talented mouth. Before he could reach a peaking nipple though, her stomach growled loudly.

  He raised his head, looking adorable and sexy with his hair tousled on his forehead and an incredulous expression on his face.

  “I never ate breakfast,” she laughed.

  He hugged her tightly, rolling her across his body until she was at the edge of the bed near the door. “Go on,” he growled, swatting her ass playfully, the resulting crack making her jump out of bed. “Better get you fed before I make another meal out of you.”

  Thomas said that Daisy had made them a large breakfast in celebration of the six fish Sherm and he had brought back, so Sophie ate her meal of toast and fruit alone. Thomas sat with her at the breakfast bar, turned in the swivel stool so that he could see the steady rain falling onto the gray lake. He sipped his coffee, his mood becoming more and more somber with each passing second.

  A sense of helplessness pressed down on her when she once again recognized that he was emotionally withdrawing. She wondered if her earlier bout of crying following their lovemaking had ruined her chances of trying to have an honest conversation with him . . . of trying to reach him. He’d been so intent on trying to soothe her unrest that she hadn’t taken a chance—not just with seducing him, but with encouraging him to talk to her, by telling him the truth—like she’d promised herself she would.

  “Thomas,” she began impulsively, “there’s something I wanted to—”

  But he had begun talking at the same moment she did.

  “You seem like you’re in good shape. Do you want to go running with me?”

  Her mouth hung open. She glanced out the picture window.

  “It’s raining outside.”

  He stood.

  “Not hard. And I feel . . . restless.”

  Sophie studied his face, seeing the tension that had crept back into his muscles and pinched at his features. How could she deal with his inner demons, invisible as they were to not just her, but him as well?

  Well, at least he asked you to go with him this time, instead of taking off all worked up like he did last night, Sophie thought, trying to staunch her disappointment.

  She gave him a small smile and nodded. “Sure. Just let me change.”

  They returned forty-five minutes later, both of them soaked through with rain and a healthy salting of sweat. Thomas hadn’t said much during their run, once again seeming preoccupied. When they returned, Sophie said she wanted to open the boathouse door for Guy. She didn’t like to think of the little fox out there in the woods, drenched and injured. She’d told Thomas to go into the house without her, but he’d silently accompanied her to the boathouse and helped her arrange a little den of old blankets for the fox.

  They entered on the side porch afterwards so they could remove their wet tennis shoes and socks on the tile floor before entering the house. Sophie’s gaze was snagged by the image of Thomas whipping his T-shirt over his head and the flex and ripple of gleaming, supple muscle. It was on the edge of her tongue to suggest they shower again together—maybe this time she wouldn’t melt into a puddle of tears—but she stopped herself when he turned his back to her and headed toward the house.

  “I smell like the inside of a marching boot,” he muttered. “I’ll shower in the extra bedroom.”

  And Sophie was left standing alone on the screen porch, holding her soggy tennis shoe and knowing her attempt at cracking the barrier of his defenses had utterly failed.

  Seduction hadn’t worked, she thought grimly as she peeled off a wet footie. She might have broken down the walls she’d erected against honesty and intimacy, but apparently Thomas’s remained intact.

  She was going to have to take a risk. She was going to have to do it—just tell him.

  It was time to go, Thomas thought as he stared out the picture window morosely later that afternoon. He needed to get back to his work . . . back to his life. It was past time. It’d never been time to begin with, he thought with rising exasperation.

  He’d tell Sophie as soon as she finished her shower. What he’d said earlier about not being able to walk away from her was true, but he could see her in the city . . . it wasn’t like they lived on opposite sides of the country.

  A voice inside him kept shouting out that he should leave her for now, though.

  His life was too up in the air at the moment. He was too much of a downer . . . a heavy burden on what should have been a relaxing vacation for her.

  She walked into the living room a few minutes later wearing a pair of faded jeans, a long-sleeved, ivory button-down shirt that ghosted her full breasts and not a trace of makeup, her bare feet padding silently on the carpet.

  The voice demanding that he flee faded to background noise. Sophie had a way of taking center stage in his awareness.

  Even though she looked all soft and touchable after her shower, there was a determined cast to her features.

  “Thomas, we have to talk.”

  “You want me to go, don’t you?” he asked grimly. He may have just been contemplating leaving, but the idea of Sophie not wanting him there anymore felt like a kick to the gut with a steel-toed boot.

  “No. That’s not it. No, of course not.” She opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say more, but she stopped herself. She walked toward him, glancing distractedly out at the lake and the heavy downpour. “Jeez, it’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

  “What do you want to talk to me about?”

  “Sit down,” she said, nodding at the couch in front of the picture window.

  She didn’t speak once they’d sat, but just looked down at her hands folded on her thighs. A strange expression overcame her face. She shifted her right hip up and reached between the sofa cushion, extracting his BlackBerry. He barely acknowledged it when she handed it to him.

  “Sophie, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s not that anything is wrong, necessarily—maybe you’ll think differently—but . . . well, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Thomas. Something about your brother.”

  “What about him?”

  “You know how I’m friends with Andy Lancaster? Well, sometimes Andy would consult with me about his cases. He wouldn’t give me any names,” she added quickly, her big eyes glued to his face. “But . . . well, I was there in the offices. You remember? . . . We used to see each other . . . on . . . on the nights when ...”

  “When my brother Rick was there for his sessions,” Thomas finished woodenly when she faded off.

  She nodded.

  He studied her narrowly. “Isn’t that sort of unethical for Dr. Lancaster? To blab about his patients to someone else?”

  “No . . . it’s really not, Thomas,” she exclaimed in a rush. “I used to work as a clinical social worker years ago. There’s no other psychologists in our practice, so I was the only one with any degree of expertise that Andy could talk to. It’s common for psychologists to consult—to try to get distance on their cases, to gain some objectivity. And like I said, Andy never says names. He maintains confidentiality. I just sort of . . . put two and two together on my own.”

  He felt as if ice water rushed down his spine and was slowly seeping to his extremities. “You know
? You know about what Rick’s source told him? About his investigations into the mob?”

  He didn’t even realize he was standing until Sophie stood, too. Gone was the vibrant, apricot tint of her skin. Her face looked washed out of color. Her throat convulsed, as though she were having trouble swallowing. His heartbeat began to pound out a warning in his ears when he read the compassion and anxiety in her dark eyes.

  “Rick’s source lied, Sophie. He lied.”

  “How . . . how do you know?” she asked shakily.

  “Because it’s ludicrous, that’s how I know,” he bellowed. “Do you think I wouldn’t know if the man I’d lived with for eight years of my life, the man who I’ve called Father for twenty-six years, was a fucking sociopath?” He started to walk away from her, but then jerked around, making her start back. “Is that why you keep asking me about my dad? Because you suspect he’s guilty? What the hell did Rick tell Lancaster? It’s not like Rick believed the crap his source was feeding him!” He grabbed her shoulders. “Did he, Sophie? Are you trying to tell me Rick told his psychologist that he actually believed that his own father was a criminal?”

  “No. Andy told me that he was confused and upset by the information his source gave him about your father’s long-term involvement in illegal activities.”

  “Alleged involvement. Rick was a highly respected investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, as you probably already know—since you probably know every other damn thing about my life,” Thomas added bitterly. “Rick used a pseudonym for his articles and books. He believed that the two-bit criminal he’d cultivated as a source—a weasel by the name of Bernard Cokey—didn’t know Rick’s real name. But the son of a bitch obviously did know he was feeding his lies to the son of Joseph Carlisle. He probably planned on extorting money from Rick for not going to some other journalist or cop with the information. He just never got the chance to do it before Rick was killed.”

  He felt like throwing something when he saw the expression in her eyes.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” he seethed in a low voice.