He didn’t fumble through the cabinets this time, but walked directly to the drawer that held her wine opener. He uncorked the wine with a brisk efficiency of movement that she admired, even in her muddled state.
“Drink,” he said firmly when she accepted the filled glass he handed her.
She tipped the red wine between her lips, her gaze never leaving Thomas’s stare as he did the same.
“Sophie, what were you doing there . . . at Mannero, Inc.?”
She shivered at the impact of his low, hoarse voice. She experienced a nearly overwhelming desire to ask him to hold her. But she needed to accept, here and now, that their potent physical attraction to one another didn’t give her the right to run for reassurance into Thomas’s arms.
Especially when he didn’t even recall some of that volatile lovemaking; especially when he was the one who suffered so greatly.
“I don’t know, Thomas. I just . . . I had a feeling you were in danger. I didn’t want you to go to that place. Not after what you’d told me earlier.”
She shifted uncomfortably beneath his hard stare and took another sip of the rich wine.
“You expect me to believe that? That you had a ‘feeling’ that warehouse was going to be torched?”
“No!” she corrected abruptly. “I never said I thought that place would explode. How could I know something that bizarre would happen? I said I thought . . . felt as if you were in danger.”
“Who or what would I be in danger from?” he demanded, taking a step closer to her.
“I don’t know, exactly. It was just a hunch.”
“A hunch,” he repeated flatly. His gaze narrowed. “I thought doctors were scientists. The other physicians in your practice must be surprised when you have these precognitive moments.”
She threw him an irritated glance and set the glass down on the counter. She stepped a few paces away from his burning stare, needing the space his dominant presence refused to grant.
“You have to admit it’s strange, Sophie.”
“I could say the same about you. You’ve been acting strangely around me, as well.” When he didn’t speak, she inhaled slowly, steeling herself before she faced him. “Is it any wonder I was worried about you? You’ve been behaving very erratically.”
She waited, her breath stifled in her lungs, for him to reply. What, exactly, would cause a memory to trip in his brain?
Light flashed outside the window and thunder rent the night, startling her. Thomas never stirred. From the fierceness of his stare, she was convinced for a few seconds that he was about to close the distance between them and shake the truth out of her.
Instead, his jaw stiffened and he took another swig of the wine. His put-together business look had started to come apart at the seams given the events of the past several hours, reminding Sophie of the tense, desperate, slightly disreputable appearance he’d had last night when he appeared on her dock. His long hair had fallen forward, bracketing his cheekbones and shadowing his eyes. Whiskers darkened his lean jaw. Her gaze flickered down over his neck and broad shoulders.
She muttered under her breath and headed toward the hallway.
“Sophie?”
She turned at the sound of his harsh query.
“Where are you going?”
“Your neck is cut, Thomas. From the glass,” she replied softly.
He touched the skin above his bloodied collar.
“Just give me a moment to get some things to clean it up. Why don’t you sit down in one of those chairs,” she suggested, nodding at the breakfast bar that took up one side of the kitchen. Her gaze skimmed over the long length of him. “I’ll be able to reach you better from there.”
For a second she thought he’d accuse her of purposefully changing the subject, but then his face settled into an impassive mask.
In her bathroom, she wrapped some cotton balls, tweezers, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, adhesive bandages, and some antibacterial ointment into a clean towel.
She paused when she walked out of the hallway, carrying her supplies.
Thomas stood by one of the chairs she’d indicated earlier, unfastening the last button on his dress shirt. Her gaze stuck on the tantalizing strip of bronzed skin and ridged muscle between the stark, white fabric. The memory of him shoving apart the placket of that very same shirt impatiently while his cock was buried deep inside her flashed into her brain in graphic detail. She noticed that he’d frozen just like her, his stare on her unwavering. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder answered.