Explosive (16 page)

“He’s an excellent psychologist,” she sufficed to say.

He nodded again, his gaze intent on her face.

“I wonder ...” He began thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Maybe you were born with this proclivity for taking in strays, like I was born with the freak math gene.”

She froze in the action of lifting a crescent of orange to her mouth and met his stare. She’d heard the mocking tone, the slight self-disparagement.

“Everybody gets a little lost sometimes, Thomas.”

She couldn’t quite read the message in his shadowed eyes, but he no longer looked amused.

“You should take care, Sophie. You’re more like your friend Dr. Lancaster than you may think. A kind heart can be taken advantage of,” he said quietly.

She took a bite out of the orange and chewed. “Have you ever noticed that you have a habit of warning me to stay away from you?”

He grunted softly and glanced out at the lake.

“So how’s your newest patient doing?” he asked after a moment.

She exhaled slowly, recognizing she’d been rebuffed with the change of topic. “Guy is fine. He won’t let me anywhere near that injured paw, of course, but hopefully if I can keep him fed, it’ll heal on its own.”

They spent the large portion of the remainder of the morning on the dock, leisurely eating the breakfast Sophie had supplied, swimming when they got too warm, and talking about what Sophie would term more “safe” topics—the sports they enjoyed, favorite restaurants in the city, their careers.

They lolled in the sun, and Sophie was glad to see that Thomas drifted off for a few minutes. She’d guessed he hadn’t slept much last night. When he awoke, he mumbled something about dreaming he was a fish cooking in a frying pan. Sophie suggested a swim.

Later, she told him a story while they both treaded water about how she’d dared to ask a boy up to the lake house when she was eleven years old.

“I think he and his parents thought it was a bit strange, actually, for a girl my age to ask a boy to spend a weekend with her,” Sophie explained with a grin. “But all my girlfriends were busy, and I hated to come to the lake house without a companion. So I convinced Eric Summers to come here, right?”

Thomas nodded, listening.

“And I was mortified when we were swimming together and a fish bit me in the butt.
Hard
, too,” she added through Thomas’s unabashed male laughter. “I mean enough to break the skin, make me scream like a banshee, and rush up onto the dock bringing half the lake water with me, grabbing my butt like I thought my hand was the only thing holding it onto my body. Eric Summers never did come back with me to Lake Haven after that. Apparently I’d confirmed all his suspicions about going away for the weekend with an eleven-year-old girl. I hope I didn’t scar him for life in regard to romantic getaways.”

Thomas was still laughing when he swam closer. Their water-lubricated skin slid sensually next to one another’s and their treading legs tangled. He planted a quick, wet kiss on her mouth—grin to grin—and remained close, so that their lips caressed when he murmured, “If I had been that little boy, I’d have told you the fish around here have very good taste.”

Sophie’s eyes went wide when he slid his large hand beneath the panties of her bikini and gave a buttock a firm squeeze. His expression was distilled mischief, but Sophie recognized the appreciative male gleam in his eyes as well.

“I don’t know how I kept myself away from you for two years,” he said.

Sophie almost forgot to tread water she was so surprised by his sudden admission.

“I . . . I wish you hadn’t,” Sophie replied. “I’m still not sure why you made a point of it.”

“Instinct, maybe.” His slow grin took her by surprise yet again. He kissed her, quick and potent. “Self-preservation?”

“Do you honestly think I would cause you some sort of harm?” Sophie asked bemusedly, highly distracted by his nearness, not to mention his sensual stroking of her bare ass.

His knowing, amused look confused her.

“What?” Sophie asked.

He shook his head slowly. Sophie got the impression he considered her an innocent for not understanding his hesitancy in approaching her.

“It’s hard, breaking that barrier. I was interested. I was
really
interested, but ...”

“What, Thomas?”

He shrugged sheepishly, and Sophie understood by his manner he didn’t want to make a big deal out of what he was saying. He lowered his head until his lips were a fraction of an inch away from her own. Their treading limbs rubbed and caressed each other’s in the slippery water.

“You’re not like the other women I’ve dated. I wasn’t sure if you’d like me,” he said quietly.

Sophie blinked. Surely he couldn’t be serious. But he’d sounded so warm . . . so genuine.

“I
like
you Thomas,” she whispered.

His smile at such close range hit her brain like an electrical charge.

“Good,” he murmured.

She glanced up and saw him studying her through long, spiked wet eyelashes. “So . . . do I have to get bitten by a fish or have my hand caught in a trap—” He emphasized his words by sliding his fingers suggestively down the crack of her ass. “—in order to finish what we started earlier, Sophie?”

“You might be able to talk me into it without acquiring any major injuries,” she replied breathlessly. He pressed closer and she felt her belly brush against his taut abdomen and the delicious fullness of his cock beneath his swim trunks. She hated to be so single-minded, but she’d never seen a more beautifully shaped, succulent penis in her life. The heaviness of it when he grew erect excited her beyond measure.

“I should probably shower first. I’ve been bathing in sweat and lake water,” he mumbled, his eyes fixed on her mouth as the dense column of his cock whisked lightly against her hip, teasing and thrilling her.

“We’ll shower afterwards,” Sophie said, repeating what he’d told her last night.

His eyes flashed as he met her gaze. He placed his hand at the back of her head and gave her a quick, blistering kiss that made her toes curl in the cool water. He spoke near her lips.

“You were lonely when you were young. Weren’t you, Sophie?”

Sophie’s mouth fell open in surprise. The man made a habit of turning topics on a dime. He’d just been laughing and teasing her. Where had this sudden intensity come from?

“I guess I was,” she said shakily after a moment, recognizing fully for the first time that what she said was true. Coming to the lake house without a companion had been the height of misery for her because she felt like a tag-along, a third wheel to her parents’ passionate involvement with each other. When her parents weren’t totally into the presence of each other, they were mostly focused on themselves . . . on their careers.

Thomas nodded his head slowly as his hands coasted over her hips and ass in a light caress that made her shiver.

“Lonely adults are sad,” he murmured. “But a lonely child . . . It’s worse.”

She met his stare and nodded, her throat suddenly too thick with emotion to speak. His smile was apologetic, as though he regretted his maudlin change of topic. He caught her hand and urged her toward the dock.

“Let’s go inside.” His hoarse whisper and hot eyes made her hasten. She swam rapidly as anticipation built in her. When they’d clambered up onto the dock, however, something drew her attention away from the sight of Thomas’s tanned, muscular body streaming with water, the shape and size of his erection made obvious by clinging, wet fabric.

Thomas noticed her glance toward the house. His chin swung over his shoulder. Before she could call out a flustered greeting to their visitor, however, Thomas’s expression became cold and hard. He turned his back to her, as if blocking the sight of her from the male walking down the yard.

“Stay here,” he instructed firmly before he strode off the dock.

“Thomas?” she muttered in rising confusion when she took in his aggressive demeanor and clenched fists.

“What do you want?” Thomas shouted as he ate up the distance between himself and the approaching man on long legs.

Sophie saw the man stop in his tracks halfway down the yard as he watched Thomas rush him.

“Sophie?” the man called out.

“I asked you, what the hell do you
want
?”

Sophie ran up the dock when she heard the fury in Thomas’s voice.

“Stop. Thomas, stop it!”
What was wrong with him?
Her heart swelled in her chest, making breathing difficult, as she watched Thomas practically plow down the alarmed and increasingly angry-looking visitor. He stopped when he was toe-to-toe, just short of pushing over the tall, wiry, gray-haired man wearing his typical khaki shorts and golf shirt.

“Thomas, stop! He’s my
neighbor
, Sherman Dolan,” Sophie yelled as she ran up on the pair.

Sherman’s eyes rolled slightly in the sockets as if he started to glance over at Sophie but thought better of it and remained pinned to the threatening man in front of him.

“Are you all right, Sophie? I spoke to Daisy. She said she’d stopped by earlier and she was worried that something might be wrong over here. Who
is
this man?”

She’d never seen her jocular, easygoing neighbor look so anxious. Sherman’s nose pinched tight and he glared with a mixture of outrage and fear up at a very formidable-looking Thomas. What was it that Thomas did in the military? Sophie tried to recall dazedly. He looked absolutely deadly in that moment.

“Thomas,” she said softly. “
Please
.”

He blinked. She took a cautious inhale of relief when she saw the tension leave his coiled muscles and he took a step back.

“This is Thomas Nicasio, Sherman. He’s my guest. I’m sorry about—”

“You should be careful about sneaking around a person’s property like that,” Thomas told Sherman bluntly.

“Thomas, he’s my
neighbor.
He comes over here all the time,” Sophie snapped. She was worried about his overreaction, his hypervigilance toward what he considered to be a threat, but that didn’t give him an excuse to be rude.

When he glanced at her slantwise, she saw the wildness in his eyes, the look of a creature cornered. His pupils were constricted into pinpoints. He was panting again, shallow and fast, like he had been the evening she saw him on her dock. Her breath froze in her lungs as she recognized the acuteness of his anxiety, the evidence of a fight or flight response storming through his blood.

“Thomas—” she began, but he cut her off.

“Excuse me,” he muttered thickly before he stalked off toward the house, his posture stiff.

Sophie found herself staring at a pale Sherman Dolan. His mouth gaped open in amazement at Thomas’s bizarre behavior.

“Sophie? Should I call the police? Who
is
that man?” Sherman demanded.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Sophie shook her head, feeling guilty upon hearing the tremor in Sherman’s voice. It was strange, to see someone she knew so well suddenly seem so vulnerable. Sherman was a fit man in his early sixties, but he looked somehow shrunken at that moment, shaken. There was little doubt that coming into abrupt contact with the cyclone of emotion that spun at Thomas’s core could subtract a few years from one’s life. It had obviously frightened Sherman as much as it had her. Her eyes burned and she realized they were filled with tears. It had pained her to see that trapped look on Thomas’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Sherm. I appreciate you coming to check on me. I’m perfectly safe. Thomas is a friend.”

She understood Sherm’s incredulous look.

“He’s just experienced a terrible loss,” Sophie explained rapidly. “You’ve heard of posttraumatic stress syndrome? That’s . . . that’s kind of what he’s experiencing.”

Even though her explanation sounded lame to her stunned ears, she realized what she said was true. Thomas was indeed behaving like someone with posttraumatic stress syndrome. She’d suspected it before, after talking to Andy—and even after her brief conversation with Agent Fisk last night—but the more obvious symptom of amnesia had thrown her off course.

Sherman pointed up toward the house. “That man nearly attacked me.”

“I know . . . I’m so sorry. Please try to understand. He’s not himself. People with his condition can suddenly become hyper-vigilant about threat; they’re always waiting for something dangerous to happen. Their body and mind are sort of in a constant overdrive.” She glanced anxiously at the house. What was Thomas doing in there?

God, what had happened to Thomas that had made him into this coil of twisted, stretched nerves? Was it just Rick’s and Abel’s unexpected deaths plaguing Thomas’s soul?

It had to be something more . . .

She thought of the way he’d so carefully locked the doors when they’d arrived last night, the bruise on his head and his abraded knuckles. A nameless, uneasy fear buzzed in her gut.

“I hope you can understand, Sherm. I should go check on him. I’m so sorry about this.”

She left her neighbor standing in the yard. She’d go over to the Dolans’ house and try to smooth things over later. Right now, Thomas was her primary concern.

She hurried into the side entrance of the house and rushed past her untouched painting on an easel into the hallway. The living room was dim, cool, and empty. She heard a noise behind her and spun around.

“Thomas. What . . . what are you doing?”

He never stopped walking as he exited the hallway wearing the trousers from his suit. He pulled the rumpled white dress shirt he’d worn last night across his tanned torso and began to button it briskly. Sophie flinched when she saw the blood at his collar.

“Thomas?” she queried again shrilly when he walked into the kitchen, still not meeting her gaze. His expression looked rigid, like it’d been carved from stone.

“I’m going.”

Sophie’s eyes widened in disbelief when, without another word, he began to walk toward the back door. She ran. She barely had time to pass him and block the screen door.

“No,” she countered bluntly.