She smiled. “My upbringing would be considered ‘privileged’ by most,” she said as she began to clean up the items on the counter. “I’m far from being the only person on earth who had self-involved parents. I was lucky to have my mother and father in the household at all.”
Her smile faded when she saw his mouth flatten. She didn’t tell herself to move, but suddenly she’d stepped deeper into the harbor between his spread knees. She cupped his jaw with her palm.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Why?”
Awkwardness crashed through her at his taut inquiry.
“I . . . I had heard that your parents were killed.”
His hand covered hers. “That was a long time ago. I was lucky enough to be blessed with two sets of parents. Iris and Joseph Carlisle have loved me like their own son.”
She glanced down. “I must sound ungrateful to you. Complaining about my parents.”
He lifted her chin. “I didn’t hear you complaining. We were having a conversation. You were just telling it like it is.”
For a full few seconds, their gazes clung. Sophie was distantly aware that the storm had swelled to its full fury. Rain lashed at the windows and thunder rumbled all around them. She blinked when she realized she’d been staring fixedly at Thomas’s mouth. His hands settled on her waist and his head came nearer.
“I should put another bandage on your neck,” she warned.
“Later,” he muttered before his mouth brushed hers in a questing kiss. His lips felt warm and firm. She opened her mouth, sandwiching his lower lip between her own, caressing him and biting softly.
He groaned and pulled her tighter against his body.
“What am I doing here, Sophie?” he asked in a gruff whisper, his mouth hovering a fraction of an inch above hers. His fingers delved with a gentle possessiveness into the flesh of her hip.
“You need time, Thomas. To heal.”
He lifted his head, looking a little stunned, perhaps at the sound of her authoritative tone. He abruptly slid to the edge of the chair and pressed her into his body.
“And you think you can heal me, Sophie?” he rasped, a sardonic smile tilting his lips. His hands opened over her buttocks. She whimpered at the feeling of his cock hardening against her belly. Her hands rose to his waist where her fingers relished the feeling of thick, smooth skin. She found she couldn’t get enough of the sensation. She’d learned last night that Thomas possessed a proclivity for restraining her during sex. The moments
when he’d allowed her to touch him, to get her full fill of him, had been too few and far between.
“I . . . don’t know,” she responded, distracted by the feeling of his body beneath her fingertips. “Time is what you need. But . . . I want to be here. With you,” she added, holding his stare.
She felt the tension rise in his muscles. He shook his head slowly. “I feel like someone else has come and taken over my body. You have no idea the things I want to do to you. If you knew, you’d run. Take your chance now, Sophie. Tell me to go.”
She felt her pulse throbbing madly at her throat when she saw the feral gleam in dark green eyes.
Maybe she should heed his advice? She knew that it would be the smart thing to stay away from him. But for some reason, Sophie didn’t want to be careful and rational. Not in the case of Thomas Nicasio.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she whispered.
His mouth slanted into a snarl before he seized her mouth with his own and flexed his long fingers into her ass. Sophie moaned into his hot, consuming mouth as desire swelled in her breast and lust tore through her veins. She would have thought such a ravenous kiss would bank their fires but by the time he raised his head both of them panted with need. One look into Thomas’s blazing eyes and she knew what was coming.
“I should shower first,” she said, thinking of their former heated lovemaking, of lying on the gravel beneath Thomas while glass and singed fragments flew through the air, and then the long car ride that followed.
He stood from the chair, sliding his body against her. His height and presence—the sheer impact of him—struck her as if for the first time.
“You’ll shower later. Much later,” he mumbled. “Personally, I want my scent all over you, Sophie.”
Her mouth hung open as she stared at his retreating back. He paused and looked back at her, his manner perplexed and a little impatient. He grabbed her hand.
Wild anticipation swelled in her as he led her down the hallway.
CHAPTER SIX