She studied the erotic tableau of their reflection in the picture window. He leaned down over her from his great height, his neck bent, his large hands on her shoulders looking dark next to her skin.
She reached around and encircled his hips with her arms, palming the rock-hard muscles of his buttocks. Her vagina clamped tight around his cock, securing him in her embrace.
He raised his head slowly. Sophie couldn’t make out his eyes in the reflection, but she sensed his gaze on her.
He suddenly withdrew and turned her in his arms. He lifted her. Neither of them spoke as he carried her down the dark hallway to the bedroom, his hand at the back of her head pressing her cheek to his chest. Sophie couldn’t find words to speak. But as Thomas had said earlier, conversation wasn’t his focus at the moment.
He pushed her tighter against his body when they reached her bedside so that he could use one hand to whip back the covers. He laid her on the cool sheets and settled on the mattress next to her. She put her arms around his shoulders and stroked his dense back muscles while his hand caressed her waist, belly, and hips, and finally settled between her thighs. She whimpered in pleasure as he skillfully amplified the friction that had grown in her flesh during his volatile possession.
When she climaxed a moment later against his hand, he covered her mouth with his, eating her cries of pleasure. After she’d quieted, he transferred his lips to her cheeks, where he wetted them with her tears. Her hand found his cock and she stroked him while he kissed her, feeling the fever amplify in his flesh yet again.
“What’s happening to me?” he whispered roughly next to her lips after she’d opened her thighs and guided him back inside her.
“I don’t know for sure,” she replied in a hushed voice. She moaned shakily when he began to roll his hips, fucking her with slow, firm, delicious strokes. She cradled the base of his skull and leaned up to press her mouth to his. “But I wish you would trust me,” she gasped as he subtly rotated his pelvis against her clit, “because I think I’m falling in love with you.”
He went still for a moment before he seized her mouth in a branding kiss and resumed making love to her, this time more heatedly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The next morning she awoke to the ceaseless drone of falling rain. She was beginning to wonder if it would ever stop. She glanced at Thomas, her gaze sticking on the sight of his usually tension-filled face relaxed for once in sleep. He didn’t stir when she got out of bed and tucked the blanket securely around him. She shrugged into a thick robe—the house felt chilly and damp—and wandered out into the kitchen to start the coffee.
Peering out the kitchen window into the gloom, she was heartened to see that the water in the ditches next to her driveway had receded. Even though it still rained, it came down lighter than last night, and must have been doing so for a while. She thought of the Dolans and was about to try their downed phone line again when Thomas came up behind her.
“Good morning,” she whispered when he wrapped her in his arms and pressed his mouth to the juncture at her neck and shoulder. She laughed softly when he didn’t answer, but turned her around and lifted her. She encircled his waist with her legs as he carried her back to bed.
He made love to her with a fierce focus. Just before he’d nearly driven her over the edge into ecstasy, he bit at her lower lip as it shaped a plea.
“Tell me, Sophie.”
And she did: She told him she loved him.
God help her.
Afterward, he held her in his arms and they stared out the wet window onto the sodden day. Dread settled on her chest.
“You’re in danger, Thomas,” she whispered. “The people who knew about your brother’s and Bernard Cokey’s conversations are dying.”
He paused in stroking her upper arm. “Cokey had a long history as a criminal, Sophie. Word must have leaked out about him sharing secrets with Rick. Obviously Cokey was fearful for his life.”
“How do you know—”
“I doubt he and his wife make a point of vacationing in roadside dives. They were on the run.”
“But doesn’t that mean—”
The next thing she knew, Thomas had pushed her onto her back and leaned down over her.
“I think it means my brother and my nephew might have been murdered.”
A chill convulsed her as she stared up at his face.
“Rick told me about Cokey’s background,” Thomas said, his mouth grimacing as though he spoke of these matters reluctantly. “There’s little doubt Cokey knew inside information about the Outfit. He gave Rick loads of information—dozens more names—than just the lie he told about my dad. But even if it were true that the mob was targeting people who knew about Cokey feeding information to my brother, it’s a far leap to try to implicate my father.”
“Thomas,” she spoke softly. “Whoever this witness is that the FBI has, whoever this impeccable witness is, he must have had good reason for going to the FBI. Maybe they aren’t the traitor that you’re imagining—”
She paused when she noticed how his eyes gleamed at her between narrowed eyelids.
“Let’s not go there, Sophie,” he rasped. “Please,” he added, seeming to recognize his harshness too late.