And there was always the possibility that Rick had good reason to feel safe, Sophie thought. Joseph Carlisle might be innocent. It might be just as the police said: Rick Carlisle’s and his son’s death might have just been a tragic, freak accident.
Sophie found herself chewing on her nails again and made a disgusted sound. She stood and began pacing next to her desk. The fact of the matter was the circumstances had left her in the singular, uncomfortable position of having slept with a man she knew a hell of a lot about, unbeknownst to him. And she had a feeling Thomas Nicasio was not only ill in some fashion, but in a lot of trouble because of those circumstances.
She glanced at her watch. It was 7:45 P.M. The authorities must have finished talking to Thomas by now. She stood from her desk, intending to take the elevator to the forty-sixth floor . . . to walk into Thomas Nicasio’s offices for the first time in her life.
Someone knocked on her door instead.
“Come in,” she called, thinking it was probably the cleaning staff. It was late on a Friday and the office was empty, save for Sophie.
The door swung open and Thomas walked in.
Sophie froze, shocked by the unexpected sight of him. He kept his eyes trained on her as he shut the door behind him. She’d always thought her private office large enough, but the walls shrunk with Thomas Nicasio in the room.
“Thomas. Are you all right?”
“No.”
She saw him push the lock on the door handle. He stepped toward her. She recognized that hot look in his eyes. Recognized it all too well. She’d seen it countless times last night.
“I’m not going to be all right until I bury myself in you.” He stalked across the room and reached for her.
“Tom—”
He cut off her soft whimper of mixed need and uncertainty when he seized her mouth with his own. He proceeded to consume her.
Thomas felt fevered, but not by illness. By lust. He’d never experienced anything like it in his life.
When he’d walked into the lobby this afternoon and come face-to-face with two badge-waving federal agents he’d been frothing with a different emotion: fury. Wasn’t it bad enough that his brother and nephew were dead? His family had been floored by Rick’s and Abel’s deaths, but the FBI continued to nose around relentlessly, investigating his father, accosting him—Thomas—in the lobby of his building and treating him like he was a suspect in some crime, as well.
In the midst of his angry ruminations, he’d suddenly glanced up and seen Sophie Gable standing in the elevator, looking as fresh, golden, and lush as a newly plucked peach.
He’d frozen on the threshold. The sight of her had struck him like a stinging slap.
A wave of intense lust flooded his body, shocking him, given the situation. You would have thought she’d stood there stark naked instead of wearing one of her many conservative skirts and low-heeled pumps, her shoulder-length, wavy blonde hair pulled up onto her head in a no-nonsense, effortlessly elegant style.
He saw her dark brown eyes widen when she saw his strange reaction to seeing her. Pink lips that were naked of all artifice parted in surprise.
How the hell had he ever managed to rein himself in when it came to Sophie Gable before?
Agent Fisk noticed his odd reaction and gave Sophie a sharp, speculative glance. Thomas got a hold of himself and turned his back to her. Still, he was hyperaware of Sophie behind him, her presence pulling at him like a magnet. When he glanced back at her, he saw something on her face that he couldn’t quite interpret.
Had it been alarm?
She probably was alarmed, given the strange way he was acting. Those dreams he’d been having about her—dreams that redefined the meaning of sexual need and pleasure—those were responsible for his bizarre reaction to Dr. Sophie Gable.
Thomas noticed Agent Fisk’s second glance at Sophie and turned away from her again. He didn’t want these assholes noticing her.
What was wrong with him? It had shocked him, to feel something so inappropriate—so powerful—in the midst of such a volatile moment. His brother and nephew were dead and federal agents were investigating his father for federal crimes. And all he could think about was stripping off Sophie Gable’s clothes and fucking her until all of his anguish and fury exploded into a cataclysm of nirvanic forgetfulness.
He was losing control of his chaotic emotions.
Losing control, period.
His family was suffering from unspeakable grief; his mother shrouded in a thick veil of sadness that Thomas couldn’t penetrate, no matter how hard he tried; his sister-in-law shell-shocked and only beginning to recognize the black abyss of her loss; his father’s charisma and heartiness suddenly diminished so that he looked like a husk of the vibrant man he used to be.
Now the FBI had barged into their private family grief, stirring up an already frothing cauldron of anguish by never missing a beat in their investigation of Joseph Carlisle, by alleging his adoptive father had perpetrated crimes so widespread, Thomas couldn’t even consider them without alternating between feeling hollow, numb shock and sheer outrage at the offensive insinuations the FBI was making in their investigations.
Truth be told, as irritated as he’d been when the agents approached him in the lobby, he’d been glad to have a target for the anger, helplessness, and grief that had been building in him since his mother had called last week and told him Rick and Abel were dead.