New York Nights

However, Gabe looked serious. As if he wasn’t joking. As if he thought she could do it. “I think I’d be really bad at it.”

“Is that a joke?” he asked.

“No. I can’t do sales.”

“But when you know what you’re doing, it’s not like selling, more like…I don’t know…finding people and matching them to what they want—and that you could do. Definitely.”

“I don’t know, Gabe,” she started, because she had already decided on a career path and, okay, a D on an accounting test wasn’t the most promising of signs, but if she kept changing her path, who knew where she’d end up? Probably a chain-smoker at forty-seven, still tending bar, with a tattoo on her arm that said Mother to match the D-E-N-N-Y that was still tattooed on her butt.

“What’s the safest apartment building in the city?” asked Gabe.

“The Lucerne,” she answered, ripping her mind off the creepy image of a Mother tattoo.

“I’m looking for a building. Pets, walk-up, in Battery Park, and I don’t want to pay too much. Where should I start?”

“Liberty Manor,” she said automatically, and Gabe gave her one of those annoying I-told-you-so looks.

Slowly it dawned on her that, yes, Gabe was correct. “You think I could do it? I wouldn’t, uh, scare people?” she asked, mentally comparing her wine-stained T-shirt to Marisa’s unwrinkled suit.

“Certainly you could do it. But don’t quit your night job. I’m not ready to lose my best bartender.”

Tessa tossed her rag in his direction. “You’re the best bartender here, Gabe.”

“I can’t put myself in the competition. Wouldn’t be fair.”

He smiled at her then, looking at Tessa as if she could do anything. And she wanted to believe that.

“Slacker,” she teased.

“Speaking of slacker, do you know if they delivered the wood next door?”

“Lindy didn’t say anything, but…”

He cocked his head toward the street. “Come on, we’ll check it out. You’re not in a hurry to get home, are you?”

Home. He said it so easily, and she bought into this whole I-can-live-there-forever fantasy so easily. Still, she shook her head, drifting along, not willing to correct him. “No, I had a cup of coffee at eleven.”

“Jeez, you’re never getting any sleep tonight.”

They walked outside and around the corner to the empty space next door. The early-summer wind was perfect and a soft rain was just starting to fall. Tessa lifted her face to the warm water, feeling herself come alive.

The old bodega had stood vacant for all of two weeks before Gabe had jumped all over it. The truth was, the crowds at Prime did usually bump over capacity, and buying the old space back had been a smart idea. Of course, Gabe was good that way. Making a plan, executing and then seeing it through to success. He didn’t wait for anything, or let anything get in his way.

While Tessa watched, he used his keys to lift the grate and then unlock the door.

“We’ll have power tomorrow if the gods at Con Ed are agreeable, but tonight darkness rules,” he said, as the glass door creaked open.

Tessa followed him through, curious to see the guts of the place now that it was empty. In the darkness there wasn’t a lot to see, but even so, she could sense his enthusiasm.

“S’all right,” she told him, picking her way around the spools of electrical cable and the mess of tools scattered throughout the place. She stumbled over a power cord, and he caught her arm.

“I’ve got it,” she said and quickly pulled her arm free.

“Sure,” he answered, his voice cooling a degree.

Then she noticed the presence of most of telltale cans of Dr Pepper. Gabe was the only person in New York she knew who drank Dr Pepper.

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.”

7

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.

They showered, changed, and Sean bought a drink for Gabe at the juice bar. Gabe ducked his head low in case anybody recognized him. He had a reputation to uphold, and sipping soy juice at some Nancy-boy health bar wasn’t part of it.

Only for Tessa—and she would never know the depths he had sunk to in order to keep this Twilight Zone of a relationship alive.

When the bartender shoved the glass of OJ in Gabe’s direction, Gabe sniffed and then raised his glass. “To my brother, who has fallen far, far from the esteemed ideals that the O’Sullivan name has stood for through four generations. Juice? Juice? What is this?”

“I think it’s important to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Alcohol can be dangerous,” Sean said, pushing back the hair from his eyes, trying to weasel his way into respectability.

“Sean, our family’s fortune was made on the ill-gotten gains of illegal alcohol. O’Sullivan’s started as a speakeasy. You can run to a career in the law, but you can’t hide.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t go straight.”

Gabe downed the juice in one gulp. “Are you sure we’re related? You’re the brown-eyed kid. Why brown? Did you ever think about that, Sean?”

“Why are you here?” asked Sean, sipping demurely at his carrot juice.

Carrot juice? Gabe sighed, wanting to avoid this, but he couldn’t. This was important. And if he had to humiliate himself in front of his lesser-respected brother, then so be it. “I need to talk to you about a woman. You are still interested in women, aren’t you?”

Sean laughed and appeared relieved by the change of subject, the flicker of humanity coming back into his eyes. “Desperate, aren’t you? Coming to the master.”

“Don’t rub it in, this is hard enough. I can’t talk to Daniel, because I can’t handle talking to Daniel about sex. That’d be cruel. I’m not cruel.”

Sean tugged at the cuffs of his Brooks Brothers shirt and studied Gabe like a scientist. “So we’re actually having sex with this female? Are you sure this isn’t a case of lusting from afar?”

At that moment Gabe wished he had a tie. Something silky, probably with a designer label. Preferably long enough that he could loop it around his brother’s neck and then pull. Tightly. He smiled at the thought.

“No, it’s not lusting from afar. But it would be a lot easier.”

“That’s just sad, Gabe.”

“Yes, yes, it is.” He took a deep breath and pitched his voice low, finally admitting the unsavory truth. “She likes to pretend, Sean.”

“Pretend what?”

“Pretend that I’m not me.”

Sean stroked his chin. “I see. So she’s so revolted by you that she has to pretend you’re someone else.”

“That’s not it,” Gabe snapped and saw heads turn with curiosity. He scowled back.

“It looks like it. Why else would she need to pretend? Unless you can’t satisfy her, of course.”

“Of course I can satisfy her,” answered Gabe through gritted teeth.

“On the basis of the facts as presented before me, I’m thinking that answer is a big no.”

“Screw you, Sean.”

Sean lifted his hands. “Okay, okay. All joking aside, I can see you’re in need of guidance. Did you ever think about ditching her?”

The bartender came over, clearing the glasses. “Another round of juice?”

“Not in this lifetime,” said Gabe. He glared at his brother, feeling uncomfortable. “Hell, a man needs a BlackBerry and a cellphone in order to fit in here. Next time, we’re playing wall ball the old-fashioned way—out in the alley.”

“Sure, if it makes you feel better. But I’ll still whip your ass. Now, getting back to the sex girl—which is much more interesting than how I can wipe the floor with you—why don’t you ditch her? You’re not the obsessive-compulsive type.”

“I can’t ditch her,” answered Gabe, sounding obsessively compulsive.

“Why? Every woman can be ditched for the right reasons.”

“I like her. I’m not going to stop seeing her.”

A big guy in sweats plopped down next to Sean and started talking, completely butting into a personal conversation. Gabe sat for a few minutes while Sean chatted legal gibberish with the other dude until Gabe cleared his throat.

“Do you mind?” he asked Sean.

Sean turned to the other guy. “My little brother. He needs help. Sorry.”

The man held out his hand. “You’re Daniel? I’m Frankie Ryder. How you doing?”

“No, I’m Gabe,” he responded, shaking the meaty paw but shooting meaningful “hurry-up” glances to Sean.

Frankie turned to Sean. “I didn’t know you had two brothers.”

“I’m the brother he keeps hidden up in the attic.”

“Gabe, you don’t have to be rude.” Sean looked at Frankie. “He’s a little edgy. It’s a sex thing.”

“Excuse me?” Gabe coughed.

Frankie blushed around the gills and then sat up. “I’ll see you back at the office, Sean.”

“Sure thing,” said Sean with a happy wave.

“Did you need to drag this out in the open?”

“No, but it seemed like the fun thing to do. And stop acting like you’re the only man in the world who’s ever suffered from blue balls. Do you know that ninety-nine-point-seven-three percent of men’s frustrations come from sex issues? If I didn’t tell Frankie, he’d figure it out. One of the best estate lawyers this side of hell. Great guy.”

“I’m sure Frankie’s great, but can we get back to my problems?”

“Ah, so now you do want to admit you have a problem? Which is an important step because, yes, you do—a giant one. Why do you think she has to pretend?” asked Sean, using his courtroom cross-examination voice, but Gabe was too wound up to care.

Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? Gabe had thought long and hard about why, but he couldn’t come up with anything. “I don’t know why. There doesn’t have to be a why. Why why? I don’t want to think about why.”

“Why goes to motive, Gabe.”

“This isn’t a court case. I’m talking sex. Just sex.”

“But don’t you want to know her why?”

“No, I only want to fix it.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Can’t? What does that mean?”

“What if she can never accept you for who you are or for what you are? Maybe she has issues with dating a bartender? Maybe, for instance, she’s always wanted a more cerebral man. Like me.”

“It’s not that.”

“So you do know the why.”

“I don’t care about the why.”

“Then there’s your problem. She has a why, you don’t care about the why and she wants you to care about the why. Elementary, Gabe, elementary. You just have to understand the female psyche.”

Gabe looked around the club, seeing it through the red haze of his rage. “This is pointless. I shouldn’t have talked to you.”

“Why don’t you talk to Tessa?”

Gabe pretended he wasn’t affected, but, okay, his heart stopped for a second. “What? What do you mean?”

Sean looked completely casual. “Tessa. A female point of view, who conveniently happens to be your roommate, as well. Maybe she can explain the why.”

Gabe hid his sigh of relief. “I’m not sure that Tessa is the right person to talk to.”

“Why?” asked Sean, his eyes narrowed—and suspicious.

Quickly Gabe backed off. “You’re right. I’ll talk to Tessa. I bet she’ll know exactly what to do.”

Sean grinned. “See? Look how smart your older brother is.”

People didn’t realize how difficult it was being the youngest of three brothers. People didn’t give Gabe enough credit for putting up with bullshit like this.

However, Gabe rose above all the crap that Sean dished out. He was the bigger man. “You’re lucky this time, Sean. Next time, I’m going to smash your candy ass into the floor.”

“Empty threats, nothing more. Because it’s obvious that I’m the lover in the family, baby brother, as well as the fighter.”

Gabe eyed the silk tie around his brother’s neck, considered the very real presence of witnesses, and opted to spare Sean’s life. But only because Sean was wrong. Gabe was the lover in the family.

Sean signaled the bartender, and he came over holding the glasses in his hand completely wrong. Poser.

“Another round of juice.”

“Just the check. Sean’s paying.” Gabe slapped his brother on the back. “Thanks, bro.”

Then he left this godforsaken establishment before its wholesome aura started to rub off on him.

Carrot juice? Jeez.

TESSA SPENT THURSDAY afternoon looking at apartments and meeting potential roommates. Some people might call it boring, Tessa considered it depressing. She’d met Stella, a longtime bartender at 87 Park, who was a fifty-three-year-old with platinum blond hair and a rose tattoo on her arm and, best of all, she smoked like a chimney. Tessa mentally did the math. Fifty-three minus twenty-six was twenty-seven. Tessa had twenty-seven years before she ended up like Stella—not that there was anything wrong with that.

But Tessa wanted more.

After Stella there’d been Barry, who was twenty-two, and just starting in the MBA program at Columbia. After ten minutes in the shadow of his type-A personality, Tessa knew she would turn suicidal.

After Barry, there’d been Karen, who was an aspiring Broadway dancer. Everything was fine until Tessa had met Karen’s fiancé, Chaz, who’d slapped Tessa on the butt immediately after meeting her, and then started talking threesomes when Karen went to answer her phone. Tessa hadn’t waited for Karen to get back.

Next Tessa had gone up to Washington Heights, crossed over to the Bronx and then gone south to Bensonhurst. She’d seen studios, one-bedrooms and lofts—and exactly zero that she wanted to live in. The studios were like living in a closet. The first one-bedroom she’d seen had a view over the sanitation facility, the second was directly over the subway, shaking ominously every ten to twelve minutes. And the loft was not even in the same area code of her price range.

All in all, it was true: in the naked city, there was only one building that provided good value and adequate security.

Hudson Towers. Someday maybe the New York real estate market would go bust—possibly Tessa’s great-great-grandchildren would see it—but not anytime before.

For a second she considered moving, moving back to Florida, giving up, telegraphing to the world that, yes, it was true, Tessa couldn’t survive on her own.

Only one second did she consider this defeatist mentality.

No way. No way in hell.

Marisa wouldn’t give up. Marisa would take the deal and not lose any sleep.

That was the thing about people like Marisa. They were connected, knew people who knew people and made it their business to make sure they were always collecting more people.

Marisa wanted to add Tessa to her collection and she wanted to add Gabe, as well. Quid pro quo. The world ran on quid pro quo.

The answer was simple.

Tessa would get her apartment, she’d help out Marisa, and she’d get over this Gabe thing. It was a sexual crush, nothing more. She’d been too long without a man and he’d been the first guy in four years, so it was completely natural that she was a little overheated.

But passion didn’t last. Not like real estate.

No, her apartment was her future. The men would have to wait their turn because Tessa was going to get her own place, pay her own bills, buy her own furniture and possibly get a cat.

Friday afternoon was her accounting class, so she went and listened to Professor Lewis drone on about tangible operational assets and intangible operational assets, which helped cement her own operational decision.

Gabe was right. Accounting was a mistake. She’d just picked a career out of the phone book instead of trying to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. However, to be fair, she’d never had to pick out a career before, and who knew there was a right way and a wrong way to do it?

Well, lesson learned. Considering she had to execute an alternate career plan, like, yesterday she was going to talk to Marisa ASAP. Immediately after class she pulled out the Realtor’s wrinkled card and punched the numbers on her cell.

“Marisa—Tessa. The bartender from Prime? How you doing?”

“Good. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Wow, you work fast.”

Unfortunately Marisa wasn’t interested in Tessa’s life decision. No, she wanted to talk about men in general, Gabe in particular.

Shoot.

“Actually, I want to talk to you about something else. Can you meet me for a drink? Or dinner—I don’t care. I need to ask you a few questions.”