Kathleen O'Reilly - New York Nights

She shook her head, cutting through the dim light to see him standing there, so absolutely sure he could do anything. “And you’re going to do this in your spare time?”

“Sure. You can ace accounting, and I can pull a rabbit out of a white Russian.”

“You shouldn’t believe your own press. Besides, I got a D on my exam last week.”

He took a step closer, and she could feel the waves of sympathy emanating from him. Not the pity look—she hated that. “Do you want me to help you study?”

“Accounting?” she asked skeptically.

“Maybe not, but Daniel would if you asked.”

“I hate accounting,” she said in a quiet voice, sitting down on the electrical spool, confessing the secret that she’d come to realize recently.

He sat down next to her, not touching but exuding that bulk of warming comfort that was fast becoming as necessary to her as water. “Maybe you’re chasing the wrong career,” he offered gently.

“At some point in time I have to pick one, Gabe. You’ve known what you’ve wanted to do since you were sixteen. Not all of us are that lucky.”

“Six.”

“What?”

“Actually, I’ve known what I wanted to do since I was six. Other kids were out playing Starsky and Hutch, me and Sean were inventing drinks and lighting them on fire.”

Tessa felt the smile curving her lips. “You’re lucky you didn’t burn the place down.”

“I knew where the fire extinguishers were.”

She envied him that sense of belonging, the peace of knowing his future, missing out on the whole what-are-you-going-to-do-with-the-rest-of-your-life? stress. “You really think I could get into real estate?”

“I really think you ought to try if you really want to.” His voice had changed, gotten deeper, huskier, and she knew—absolutely knew—that he was bone-stirringly close because her Gabe-challenged nerve endings quivered in response.

In the darkness, she didn’t see him move as much as felt it. His hand cupped the back of her neck, unerringly leading her toward his mouth, and—sweet mercy—she wasn’t about to pull away.

The tender draw of his lips on hers was something new, not the hot sweat of passion that they’d found before. She tried to conjure up her security blanket of fantasy images. Desperately seeking a handsome stranger who could coax screaming orgasms from her or the dark loner who didn’t want anything from her but a single night of sex. But she was losing focus on these men. She wasn’t interested in fantasy anymore.

She wanted Gabe.

And if Tessa kept her eye on the sex only, not letting her heart get involved, not getting distracted from her goals, she could have her cake and eat it, too.

Sex. That’s all she had to focus on. The sex. And it wasn’t difficult because, well, she knew about sex with Gabe and, best of all, she loved the sex with Gabe.

Unfortunately, Gabe wasn’t in on her plan. His kiss was no promise of raw sex but a promise of something else. Tessa grew bold, shifting in his lap, trying to turn the kiss back into sex, but Gabe seemed unusually determined now.

When she pushed her hand down between them, working to cup his erection, he took her hand quite firmly and placed it behind her back. When she gently bit his lower lip, pulling it between her teeth, he laughed.

Gabe leaned into her, and she could feel the hammering of his heartbeat against hers. The pulse of the heart wasn’t what she needed to concentrate on, she needed to focus on the pulse between her thighs. The pulse between his thighs.

Tessa pushed her hips closer, not so subtly telling him what she wanted.

His lips nuzzled the side of her neck, coaxing a moan from her. “Do you know who I am, Tess?”

The words were so husky, so pressing, so seductive, and she could hear his name echoing in her head, but she wasn’t going to do this. She already had one man’s name tattooed on her skin, a burning reminder of how far she still had to go until she could take care of herself. It was important that she keep the distance between them until it was time. Until she had built a life of her own. She trusted Gabe with pretty much everything but not the future. She trusted no man with her future.

Did she know who he was? “No,” she lied.

He laughed again, low, and this time one hand curved under her shirt, palming one breast, feeling the rise of her nipples, the swell of her flesh.

She arched into him, pushing her skin more firmly in his hand, needing the hot touch. He lifted her shirt, replacing his hand with his mouth, biting gently.

The ache between her thighs pounded now, and she could feel her resolve melting. Anything—anything—to fill the ache inside her.

“Do you know who I am, Tessa?”

“No,” she snapped, the knot of frustration winding tighter and tighter. And the desire, too. Always the desire.

This time his wayward hand went farther, unzipping her jeans, sliding down, lower, until one finger stroked against her core. Tessa cried out because this teasing wasn’t enough.

“Who am I, Tessa?” he asked, his voice rough, but still so familiar.

“No,” she answered because she needed the defenses between them. The one tiny wall remaining was all that was keeping her from falling down on her knees and giving up everything that she wanted.

Quietly, in the darkness, he removed his hands from her, zipped up her jeans and adjusted her shirt.

Tessa sat on the wooden spool, her body still shaking and tense, waiting for him to return.

“Please,” she started, needing him to finish, needing him inside her.

Needing Gabe.

She felt his gaze in the shadows, could nearly touch the cold snap of his anger. And his voice, when it sounded, was crystal clear.

“No.”

GABE MET SEAN FOR racquetball on Friday morning. Playing racquetball with Sean was usually a pain in the ass, but in the end Gabe had agreed because he had to talk to somebody about Tessa. Slowly, quietly, painfully, Gabe was going insane.

The challenge here was that Gabe would have to talk about Tessa in a way that Sean wouldn’t know Gabe was talking about Tessa, but Gabe figured he could handle that. He had to.

All due to this damned need of hers to pretend that Gabe wasn’t Gabe.

Yes, at first he’d thought it was hot. Every guy likes to think that his girl has an active fantasy life.

But every time? That sad truth wears a man down.

So on Friday morning he was stuck in Sean’s high-end athletic club, which was filled with white-collar alpha males needing to assert their masculine superiority in a twenty-by-twenty room with no windows.

Gabe dressed in cutoffs and an FDNY Engine 31 T-shirt, which was his token effort to assert masculine superiority. He took in Sean’s tennis whites, and arched a mocking eyebrow. “I think I should call you Mortimer or Preston or something equally nerdy.”

Sean shook his head and pointed to the court. “Hello, my name is Sean O’Sullivan. You mock my clothes. Prepare to die.”

Gabe followed him inside, slammed the door closed. Next he lifted his racquet, gave a cursory bow to his opponent—and then, the war was on.

Gabe took the first game fifteen to eleven. Sean came back, perfecting his killer smash, and took the second game fifteen to seven.

By the third game they were both sweating like pigs, and the game had regressed to a primitive slog to the death. Never let it be said that an O’Sullivan wasn’t competitive. One long hour later Sean took the match fifteen to thirteen. Gabe didn’t mind because this felt good. Relaxed. Powerful. And his mind was completely Tessa-free.

Progress, definitely progress.

Besides, he’d whip his brother’s ass the next time. There was always a next time.