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?