He walked for miles on the mostly deserted country road that was just outside the turnoff to Sophie’s and the Dolans’ houses. Later, he couldn’t have said exactly what the countryside looked like or where he’d been. He’d just walked and walked—at one point, running—until he finally noticed a few fat drops of cool rainwater splashing on his face. The splendor of sunset had been shut out by a dull, gray cloud cover. Only a muted dark purple glow lingered on the western horizon, a dull, bruised residue of the quickly fading, brilliant summer day.
He paused and wavered on his feet before he slowly turned back toward Sophie’s. A vague realization of how far he’d gone struck him suddenly and his pace quickened. Sophie’s house was in a very remote area. Why had he left her alone like that?
He began to run.
By the time he turned down Sophie’s long gravel driveway, the blackness of night enveloped him. The air hung thick, still and humid. The rain had never done much more than spit irregularly for his entire run back, but as he stood there panting, it increased to an irregular sprinkle. He paused when he cleared the tree-lined path and just stared at Sophie’s neat, white house for a full minute, his heart beating like a drum in his ears. The house seemed bizarrely both familiar to him and like a place he’d never seen except for in a hazy dream-memory.
He closed his eyes and then opened them again onto the picture-perfect house with the cheerful lights glowing through the windows.
What the hell was he doing here?
And what the hell was Sophie up to?
Why had she asked him to Haven Lake? Surely she could see he was a bundle of frayed nerves following Rick’s and Abel’s deaths?
A memory sliced through his mental haze—the vision of Sophie sitting in his lap while his cock was buried deep inside her flashed into his mind’s eye in graphic detail, making him feel like he could reach out and touch the image: the soft, wavy hair tousled around her flushed face, her hands reaching behind her neck and untying her dress, the look in her eyes as she offered her breasts to him.
His cock stirred and stiffened.
He may not know what the hell he was doing with Sophie, but his almost rabid need for her couldn’t be denied. He wanted to deny it, but it felt almost ridiculous to try, as stupid as the idea of willing his blood to stop surging wildly through his veins.
He jogged to the back door.
“Sophie?” he called out harshly for the third time several seconds later as he came out of the hallway back into the living room. The flicker of flames caught his eye through the large picture window that faced the lake. She must have started the lakeside bonfire before the sluggish rain began. He rushed down the hallway and swung open the screen door on the porch.
Dammit, why did she always leave this place wide open to all comers? She was too trusting, he thought in growing agitation.
He stalked through the grass and the pitch-black night, as silent as a hunter stalking prey. He couldn’t explain why, precisely, his breath was coming in short, ragged pants and his cock was fully erect, his heartbeat throbbing dully along its turgid length.
When he was twenty feet away from the bonfire, which now hissed and sputtered from the sprinkling rain, he paused. The double-wide chaise lounge that had been pulled up to it was empty. A feeling of profound frustration and anxiety went through him. He scanned the area, but she was nowhere to be found within the globe of flickering light cast by the wildly dancing fire.
He opened his mouth to call out to her when he heard a sound like a stick popping beneath someone’s foot and then a low, murmuring voice. His cock tingled in anticipation as he headed in the direction of the boathouse, his footsteps rapid and silent.
He paused when he rounded the back corner of the building. She carried a small handheld flashlight and knelt. He could see the dim outline of her behind the beam of light, which fell on the paw of the fox they’d seen earlier.
“It looks like it’s healing okay, Guy. Shhh . . . I know. I won’t touch the wound, I promise,” she murmured soothingly when the animal whimpered and flinched away from her. She lifted the flashlight, tracking the animal and sighing softly when it retreated back to the woods. Thomas realized the fox had probably sensed his presence, even if Sophie hadn’t.
“Sophie.”
The hand that held the flashlight jerked.
“Thomas?” she gasped. The light wavered and fell on him where he stood several feet away. For several taut seconds, neither of them moved. Something dark and nameless rose in Thomas’s chest and caused his cock to jerk in his boxer briefs, some primitive, biological mandate.
“That animal could hurt you,” he breathed out, his emotional state making his voice low and harsh. He stepped closer to her. “How can you be so stupid?”
She made a sound of protest, like she’d started to rebut but suddenly checked herself. The light shifted, alerting him to the fact that she’d stood. He drew nearer. The air seemed to vibrate between them with electrical energy. The darkness in him, the bundle of twisted, taut emotion, felt like it’d burst out of his chest.
It had coalesced into a powerful, almost alarming need.
She made a little gasp of surprise when he swooped down and took her mouth in a voracious kiss. He swallowed her surprise and gave a groan of satisfaction when he felt her mouth soften and mold against his own. She pressed closer, participating in the kiss fervently, making the blood in his veins roar.
“Sophie?” he asked roughly next to her seeking lips a moment later.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice audibly trembling, making him wonder if she knew precisely what was happening between them.
“Better run.”
“Thomas, I’m not going to—”