Explosive

by BETH KERY

  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?”

  She just looked up at him silently . . . searchingly.

  “Are you wondering if I purposefully made it so that I couldn’t call anyone, because I was worried about Joseph Carlisle tracing me?”

  She just nodded her head.

  “Not consciously, no,” he said as he once again reviewed the jumbled sequence of events. “That period of time was black for me in those days when I first came here with you after the warehouse explosion. I wouldn’t even let myself consider the missing time.” He shrugged. “It seems strange, but it’s true. Dr. Cassetti says the human mind can do amazing things in order to protect itself. But I’ve been talking things over in therapy, and Cassetti pointed out that I had a clear, returned memory of wanting to make sure at that gas station, after calling Fisk, that I wasn’t being followed or traced.”

  He glanced at Sophie. “So even though I wasn’t consciously making sure I didn’t provide an opportunity for a trace—”

  “Some part of you knew to protect yourself,” she finished for him.

  He caressed her jaw. “Some part of me wouldn’t have led those jackals to you.” He smiled grimly. “It’s like Dr. Cassetti said, I was traumatized, not stupid.”

  She put her hand on his jaw in a mirroring gesture. “I’m so glad to hear you say that,” she whispered.

  He leaned down and kissed her when he saw the expression on her face.

  “’Course, my unconscious mind’s plan didn’t work too well,” he muttered darkly.

  “Sherm would die if he knew that he’d inadvertently led Newt Garnier here by using your phone. I’m so glad you agree that we shouldn’t tell him,” Sophie said.

  He agreed one hundred percent, so he didn’t respond. He shifted his hips, stimulating his sated cock in her tight sheath. She must have sensed his slight puzzlement.

  “What?” she whispered through a smile as she pushed his bangs off his forehead and, as usual, they fell forward once again.

  “You know ...” he murmured thoughtfully, “I could never figure it out, why I wanted to fill you up with my come all the time. It’s kind of strange, huh?”

  “Is it?” Sophie asked. They both blinked when they heard a distant splash from the direction of the lake and then Sheila’s laughter.

  “For me it is. You know what I think?”

  “I think you’re wishing Andy and Sheila would go,” she replied, giving him an amused, quelling glance. “But, Tom, we can’t say anything, and you know it. And next weekend, remember that we invited Iris and Kelly to come and visit. A weekend here at Haven Lake will do them a world of good. I’m so glad you’re maintaining your relationship with your mother, despite it all. So please don’t pull anything like dragging me off to bed in the middle of lunch while she’s here—”

  “I think I’ve been trying—against all the odds,” Thomas continued as though she’d never spoken, “to put a baby in you.”

  She blinked at his matter-of-fact admission.

  He grinned broadly.

  He supposed he could understand Sophie’s surprise. He’d been thinking about it a lot lately—he’d even been talking about it with Dr. Cassetti—while this was all news to her.

  It’d been hell, dealing with all the loss. All the betrayal. But Sophie had entered his life, and she shone like a beacon in all the darkness.

  Her fingers froze in his hair. He grimaced in pleasure when he felt her vagina tighten around him.

  “I’m completely serious,” he said, when she glanced up at him searchingly, her eyes like dark, deep pools. He felt himself sinking into them. He loved Sophie’s smile, and he adored the end of her nose, and he worshipped her breasts . . . but her eyes were sacred to him. “It goes beyond wanting to mark you. I honestly ...”

  “What?” she asked when he shook his head and grinned even wider.

  “I’ve never even begun to feel this way about another woman,” he confessed quietly.

  After a moment, her fingers began running through his hair again.

  “If you’re really serious about that baby thing, you’ll have to marry me, Tom,” she murmured in such a flippant manner that he knew she wasn’t sure if she should take him seriously or not.

  He caught her chin and tilted it up, urging her to meet his gaze. Her body went entirely still. He leaned down.

  “Name the day, Sophie,” he said gruffly near her parted lips. “Name the day.”

 

 

&
nbsp;