else, his body so deeply embedded inside her.
Her head fell back against his shoulder, and he kissed her neck. Such a small, simple kiss, not the passionate kiss of her fantasy lover but the kiss of someone else, a kiss that would jolt a woman right out of her fantasy. Tessa half rose in his lap, the fantasy over, and he didn’t understand. He thought she was still playing the game.
He held her tight against the chair back in front of them, entering her from behind, and she knew who was there. She could feel the tightness in her chest, she could feel him, taste him, smell him.
This is Gabe.
Again and again he pushed inside her, bearing down on all the barriers that she had built up around her. He filled her so completely, so totally, and she couldn’t fight this. Her body couldn’t fight it. Even more dangerously, her mind couldn’t fight it either. Pleasure, exquisite pleasure, overwhelmed her, pleasure so exquisite that it hurt, white-hot and splitting her in two. Again and again he moved, and she wanted to scream. In satisfaction and in fury. But Tessa couldn’t. She’d kept the sound inside her for too long. Finally she came, soundlessly.
A long, long moment passed and she could feel him still inside her, feel his arms around her, and she knew. It would be so easy with Gabe. So easy to believe that with him she didn’t need to worry about a thing in her life. No apartment, no career. Just one man and a woman, alone.
Then he pulled out of her, his arms disappeared, and Tessa hurriedly tidied her skirt, her fingers silently skimming over the tatooed letters on her backside.
There were things to do, an apartment to find, a career to prepare for.
Quickly Tessa left before she did something stupid for the second time in her life.
6
FORTY MINUTES LATER, Tessa had changed into blue jeans and a ragged T-shirt and then went to talk to a man about an apartment. The Hamilton Heights building had been built in the seventies, and had central AC, but the place itself had no character, no soul. Samuel was a nice enough man, with a well-trained English bulldog, and he needed a renter now, but he wasn’t roommate material. Not really.
Pathetically enough, her standards had changed. Sex with Gabe had done that to her. Weakened her.
Tessa told Samuel that she was allergic to dogs and left him and his bulldog, wishing them both good luck.
Her next stop was crosstown to West End Avenue. Hudson Towers.
Tessa needed the visual reminder, the tangible piece of real estate that represented what she knew she was capable of achieving. At eighteen, she’d been so full of dreams before she’d met Denny, and then Denny became her life and her dream—but man dreams weren’t going to pay her rent. No way would she let Gabe become Denny redux.
Get a life, she told herself and then promptly remembered she was working to get a life, which was why she was standing her at the exterior of Hudson Towers instead of going to Accounting class. Tessa might have poor decision-making skills, but at least she was self-aware enough to know it.
On that note, she grabbed a coffee and sat inside a bus shelter, watching the tenants as they entered and left the building. Power suits and biking shorts. Smart sundresses and yoga pants. These were people who knew what they wanted in life and how to get it.
Tessa took in her own crummy T-shirt and wondered what key piece was missing from her DNA. Recently she’d been sidetracked from her goals, but all she needed to do was regain her focus. Regain her independence. Maybe she wasn’t as tough as her brother, but deep inside she was a Hart and she could do this. She knew she could.
For some time she sat there, staring, visualizing, sucking in life and letting the neighborhood genes seep into her spirit. This was her dream, and nobody—nobody—was going to distract her from it. Eventually she rose from the bench, a new resolve firmly in place, and headed off for work.
Tonight it was she and Lindy behind the bar, which was always fun. Tessa liked Lindy, who knew more dirty jokes than most Vegas comedians and always smiled no matter the tip. Lindy had come from Trenton, but had a Malibu tan and short, bleached-blond hair to match. Plus, she was multitalented, able to not only waitress but bartend, as well.
“Busy?” asked Tessa, automatically reaching underneath the counter to start refilling the stock of bar napkins and coasters.
“Slow as Peter’s salami-hiding skills—and just as rewarding.”
Tessa was never sure if Peter was real, or only a figment of Lindy’s imagination, not that it really mattered. Lindy’s stories were always full of “Peter this” and “Peter that.”
“You need to get yourself a real man,” answered Tessa.
Lindy smiled. “I have a real man. I call him my vibrator.”
Tessa laughed, checking the inventory against the par sheet and counting her till. As always, things balanced exactly. As the Wednesday night happy-hour crowd began to appear, Tessa got busy pouring drinks, telling jokes and listening to the trials and tribulations of a world that simply needed a drink.
A woman in a suit came up to Tessa, ordered a low-carb wheatgrass martini and waited for the drink, eyeing the pictures on the wall behind the bar. The customer’s focus was caught on one particular picture, and Tessa, idly playing the “who’s she eyeballing?” game, accidentally upended the martini glass, drenching the woman in vodka.
“Oh, God!” Tessa exclaimed, reaching for a towel. It’d been over three years since she’d spilled a drink on a customer. Tessa was getting clumsy—a bartender’s curse.
Thankfully there was a good-natured smile on the woman’s perfectly lipsticked mouth. “Don’t worry about it. I needed to get the suit dry-cleaned anyway.”
“It’s a great suit,” Tessa said honestly. “I’ll take care of the dry cleaning.”
“Get over it. I am.”
And immediately Tessa liked her. The woman introduced herself as Marisa Beckworth, who had had a bad day and had come in for a quick pick-me-up after work.
“Where do you work?”
“Cocoran.”
Tessa put down the shaker. “You guys are the best,” Tessa stated, trying not to gush but failing.
“You’re not in real estate, are you?” asked Marisa, being impressively polite considering that Tessa had just drenched her.
“No, I’m studying to be an accountant.”
“Oh.”
“But I am looking for an apartment right now.”
“I could help you out,” offered Marisa, smoothly pulling out her card.
“To be honest, I know where I want to live, only I have to figure out how to get in there.”
“The Dakota?”
Tessa laughed. “Do I look delusional? No, Hudson Towers, on West End.”
Marisa
