“—like this one, for example,” Nick finished.
“What?”
“I think we should make love,” Nick said.
Tess looked at him incredulously. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
“No. I was explaining my point. What did you say?”
“Get out of my bed,” Tess ordered.
“Why? I just apologized.”
“No, you didn’t,” Tess said. “You were explaining something to me about your career. That’s not an apology. That’s a red flag. In fact, if you ever want to start a fight with me, mention how much more important your career is to you than I am. Trust me, it’ll work every time.”
Nick blinked. “Let me try again. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings that night in the parking lot. I didn’t say no because I didn’t want you. I said no because of where we were. I know you’ll never understand that, but at least believe me when I say it wasn’t you.”
Tess looked up into his face and thought about how sweet he could be and how great his lips felt on hers and how good it would feel to be wrapped around him and how hot she would be if she rolled against him and how she was going to start screaming pretty soon if she didn’t have him, and her anger evaporated. She sank back against the pillow, trying hard not to surrender. “All right. I still don’t agree with you, but I believe you, and I may have overreacted, so I’ll take part of the responsibility. You’re forgiven. You can go now.”
“May have overreacted?” Nick said. “You didn’t talk to me for six weeks because I said, ‘Let’s wait fifteen minutes,’ but you only may have overreacted?”
“Do you want to fight about that, too?” Tess asked.
“No,” Nick said, backtracking. “I don’t want to fight about anything.”
Tess tried to think of something else to fight with him about while she watched him from under her lashes. The problem with Nick was that, aside from the fact that she never knew when he was going to be Alan Alda and when he was going to be Donald Trump, it was getting harder and harder to pick a fight with him because he was right there in bed with her, and if she reached out she could have him, and she wanted him.
She really wanted him.
Getting involved with somebody like Nick was such a bad idea. He’d get mad at the things she did; she’d get hurt because he wanted a partnership more than her. She’d forget to protect his career; he’d forget her name in pursuit of it. The whole idea had Doomed written all over it.
She could see the line of his shoulder through the pajama top, which he still hadn’t buttoned. His neck curved cleanly down into his shoulder, his pectorals swelled and then flattened into the abdominals across his stomach, his biceps bulged because his arms were crossed...
Nick reached across and gently brushed a strand of her hair from her eyes with his finger. “Come on, Tess. What else do you want to throw at me?”
“Thank you for introducing me to all those people tonight,” she said, trying to keep the lust from her voice.
He blinked in surprise. “You came here to help me. You don’t owe me anything for helping you back. Besides, I want you to get the Decker job.”
“You know, just when I think you’re a valueless twit, you do something nice for me,” Tess said.
“Like when you came downtown to the police station in the middle of the night last month.”
“Oh, that was because you’d been arrested for soliciting.” Nick relaxed against the pillow, his face close to hers, and moved his hand into the curve of her waist. “I thought you’d taken to the streets. I had a hundred bucks ready.”
“Very funny.” Tess shifted a little and felt his hand tighten on her, and her thoughts drifted off momentarily into a sea of lust. Then she yanked her mind back to what they were talking about. “And you know very well I wasn’t arrested for soliciting.”
“Well, I was hoping.” Nick slid his arm across her waist and pulled her a little closer. “I liked that story a lot better than the one about you taking pictures of Johns’ license plates to stop prostitution in your neighborhood.” He brushed a kiss against her forehead.
“It was a good idea,” Tess said, trying to ignore him and failing miserably. Despite her better judgment, she snuggled against him.
“No, it wasn’t.” Nick moved even closer, and she felt the lovely long length of his body warm hers and the heat turned her brain to mush. “But I don’t care enough about this one to argue,” he finished.
“I don’t, either,” Tess said, fighting for coherence. “What have we got left to fight about?”
“As long as we stay away from politics, nothing,” Nick said, hope making his voice light. “The parking lot’s not an issue anymore, right?”
“Right,” Tess said. “Guess we’ll have to fight about politics.”
“Why?” Nick kissed her cheek, moving closer to her mouth. “Why can’t we just get along?”
Tess slumped down farther in the bed and shut her eyes tight so she couldn’t see his mouth and be tempted by it. “Because if we get along, I’ll end up sleeping with you,” she said, her own mouth partially under the covers. “I can’t handle that.”
“Wait a minute.” Nick pulled back, outraged. “You start fights so we won’t have sex?”
“Not always,” Tess said, both relieved and disappointed that he was farther away. Her voice began to rise as she fought not to reach out to him. “Sometimes you’re such a yuppie I have to fight with you. But a lot of the time, yes— because you really are a good person and you really do turn me on, and God knows I want you, but I know it’s no good because you do things like make snide cracks about Gina and all you think about is that damn law firm, so I just keep telling myself what a throwback you are even if you are being darling at the moment, and how if I give in to you I’ll end up barefoot and pregnant in a shirtwaist reading Marabel Morgan and wearing my hair in a Marilyn Quayle flip while you work late at the office! I can’t stand it! I just can’t trust you! You’re like Jekyll and Hyde.” She sat up suddenly and glared at him, crazed with lust and anger. “And I’ve got to tell you,” she spat at him, “I really hate Jekyll.”
“Jekyll was the good guy,” Nick said through his teeth, and then he sat up and rested his arms on his knees, looking away from her and controlling his temper with obvious effort.
“No, Jekyll was the conservative guy,” Tess said. “He always did the correct thing and he never had any emotions and all he cared about was public opinion.”
“Hyde beat an old guy to death with a stick,” Nick said, turning to glare at her. “This is what you want me to be?”
“Actually I always thought that part was sexually significant,” Tess said, momentarily distracted. “But, no, of course not. I just want you to have an emotion that hasn’t been previously approved by the Opera Guild and seven area churches.”
“You are exaggerating.”
“Oh?” Tess leaned back against the headboard and folded her arms. “Well, then why didn’t you make love to me at the Music Hall?”
“I thought we settled this already. It was a parking lot,” Nick said. “Public indecency is a misdemeanor.”
“Thank you, Dr. Jekyll,” Tess said. “I rest my case.”
Nick closed his eyes for a moment, and Tess waited for him to get out of the bed, go in his room and slam the door behind him. The disappointment that thought engendered made her weak. She didn’t want him going back to his bedroom. She wanted him coming inside her. And if she wanted him that much, maybe it was time to stop saying no. Maybe—
“Tell me something,” Nick said suddenly, rolling next to her so he was leaning over her. “Why did you agree to come this weekend, and why are you in bed with me, knowing as you must have that this would come up?”
“I came this weekend because I really want the Decker job,” Tess said, and then she slid a little lower on the pillows to peer up at him. “But I’m in this bed with you because I really want you. I guess I was hoping you’d sweep me off my feet.”
“
Well, hell, I’m trying to,” Nick said. “You want to give me a few pointers?”
“No,” Tess said, but he was so close and she wanted his mouth on hers and his arms around her, and the more she thought about it, the more she wanted him, and it was taking everything she had not to just pull him down to her and kiss him. Think of something else, she thought, and then she looked into his eyes and knew that she wasn’t going to think of anything else and that she was definitely going to make love with him that night. And so she pulled him down to her and kissed him.
ANY LINGERING QUESTIONS Nick might have had as to why he was wasting his time on a bleeding-heart liberal flake disappeared when Tess kissed him. He’d been waiting for her for a year without realizing it— ever since she’d sobbed in his arms about breaking up with her latest loser, warm and round and vulnerable and still fighting mad, apologizing for crying on his shirt and then curling up against him to sob again, so nakedly emotional that he’d been blown wide open by the experience. He’d been telling himself ever since that his attraction to her was just sexual, but the relief he felt when she finally kissed him was a lot more than just pleasure that he was finally going to have her body. He realized with a sinking heart what he’d known all along and had preferred to ignore— his feelings for Tess weren’t just about sex.
It was possibly the worst revelation he’d ever had.
Then Tess traced his lips with her tongue and arched her body up to meet his, and he felt the bed move beneath him as he slid his arms around her and pulled her close.
No, this wasn’t just about sex, but for the next hour or so, it was going to be mostly about sex.
Her mouth was hot and tasted of peppermint and salt and Tess, and he lingered there, tasting her, because she was like no one else he’d ever kissed. And then she sat up and pushed him away gently, and he braced himself for an argument on Republican kissing. But she only pulled her nightgown over her head, yards of flannel flowing past his face, releasing her scent, and then she threw the gown on the floor by the bed, and he watched her stretch in the lamplight, her breasts round and full above the slope of her stomach. Without thinking, he said, “Park was right.”
Tess stopped. “What?”
“Forget it.” Nick stripped off his shirt and reached for her, shaking slightly as her skin touched his. Then he pulled her down on top of him to feel the soft weight of her on his chest. “God, you feel wonderful.”
She kissed him again, biting his lip, and he lost himself in her heat, trailing his hand solidly down the curve of her back, pulling her hips tight against his and then rolling her under him, all without losing her mouth.
All he lost was his mind.
NICK WAS EVERYTHING Tess craved, all that solidity and security and excitement in one broad body pulsing against her. His weight anchored her as her mind moved into instinct and heat. Her fingers traced the corded lines of his back, her lips touched all the warm places she’d promised herself but never tasted. She shuddered under his hands, feeling soft and liquid against his hard heat, loving the way her body pressed against his, feeling every difference between them, hard and soft, rough and smooth, salt and sweet, until they rolled together, laughing and trembling at the desire that was driving them together. And because it was Nick, everything was easy and safe; the condom was in his pajama pocket, and then on Nick, and then pressed against her, and she moved against him, grateful for his care and crazy for his touch.
And then Nick smiled at her, a smile that was lazy and thick with lust, and whispered, “Now,” and pulled her hips to his, and she arched to meet him, and the shock of him moving inside her made her clutch at him while he moaned into her throat, and she relished the way he filled her until her eyes lost their focus. Then they weren’t playing anymore; there was too much need. Tess wrapped herself around him, trying to rock away the sudden mind-bending craving, scraping her fingernails down his back, biting into his shoulder as he surged hard against her, until finally the twisting hunger came welling up in her and she cried out. He muffled her mouth with his, pounding against her, inside her, leaving her mindless. And then they both lay shuddering together, twisted in the sheets, silenced by the shock of their coupling.
And when Nick finally moved away from her, Tess’s sigh was more of a laugh, and he gathered her back close and kissed her, and she fell asleep, cradled against his chest.
Chapter Six
Early the next morning, Tess sat on Welch’s whitewashed pasture fence a hundred yards from the mansion’s front door and brooded. She pulled her navy jacket closer around her and looked out at the rolling landscape: long-muscled horses, lush emerald green grass, a sky too blue to be real, all caressed by a gentle breeze perfumed with honeysuckle.
Bah humbug, she thought. And those damn birds can shut up, too.
“You look like hell this morning,” Gina said from behind her, and Tess jerked in surprise, grabbing the fence post to keep from falling off. She frowned down at her friend, and Gina, swathed in a bulky black turtleneck, leaned against the fence, her face a mask of gloom. “If you’re thinking about ending it all, wait— ‘cause I’m gonna go with you.”
“Don’t joke,” Tess said. “It’s a thought.”
“I know why I’m depressed,” Gina said. “I embarrassed myself and Park to pieces last night, and now I’m never gonna see him again, which I knew, anyway, but I still kinda had hopes. You know? Oh, hell.” Gina climbed onto the fence beside Tess and twined her black-clad legs around the fence rails. “Why are you so upset? You and Nick have a fight?”
“No,” Tess said gloomily. “We made love. It was wonderful. Then I woke up and he was gone. But he left a note.” She fished a piece of paper out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Gina.
“Gone to see Welch about the contract,” Gina read. “Things look good. See you at lunch. Nick.” She frowned at Tess. “Are you sure you made love? ’Cause if you did, I don’t think he remembers it.”
“Well, I thought so.” Tess sighed. “But I must have been wrong. And I was feeling so warm about him, too.” She kicked her heel against the fence as she remembered. “I was all soft and squishy about it. And then he drops me a line as he leaves. He didn’t even wake me up to kiss me. The contract comes first.” She exhaled a long depressed breath. “I can’t believe I fell for him again. It’s not as if I didn’t know he was like this. So I came out here to forget.” She looked at Gina for the first time. “But I’ll live. How about you? Did Park stop by your room to say goodnight?”
“Yeah,” Gina said. “And then he left.”
“Really?” Tess blinked in surprise. “That seems unlike him. Maybe he respects you too much to make a move.”
“Are you making fun?” Gina demanded. “You know why he didn’t try anything. It was that thing I did with the gravy. I embarrassed him.” She let her head drop lower. “I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that.”
“No.” Tess shook her head. “It wasn’t that. He was surprised, but he didn’t care.” Gina groaned, and Tess shook her head again. “Stop it. It was no big deal. He didn’t care. Nobody cared except that obnoxious Sigler woman.” She winced as she thought about Tricia Sigler and her now even-more-distant chances for a job at Decker. Then with an effort she dragged her mind back to comforting Gina. “And I’m serious about the respect part. You were right about the way he treats you. I watched him all last night —ready to kill him if he snubbed you— but you were right. He does treat you like a queen. I’ve never seen him act like that with any other woman. So I think you’re all right.” Tess stopped to consider what she’d said. “If being involved with Park could ever be termed all right.”
“Aw, Tess,” Gina began.
Tess held up her hand. “Okay, okay. Enough of this obsessing about men. We knew they were rats to begin with. We’re liberated women. We don’t need them, anyway. Let’s forget them and go get some breakfast.” Tess climbed off the fence and started to stride away, and Gina dropped off and followed her, walking doubl
e time to keep up.
“You really think Park didn’t care?” Gina asked, the pleading clear in her voice. “You really think he’s different with me?”
“Yes,” Tess said reluctantly. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s always been impeccably polite to every woman he’s ever been with, but they’ve always been more—”
“Upper class,” Gina said.
“—like accessories,” Tess finished. “I swear, he picked some of them to go with his ties. But he talks to you. He listens to you. If you seem uncertain, he takes your hand. So maybe the reason he’s not making a pass really is that he has too much respect for you.”
Gina kicked the ground. “I don’t want that much respect.”
Tess sighed with exasperation. “Well, then, do something about it.”
“What’d you do to get Nick to come across?”
“I breathed,” Tess said glumly. “Nick’s a self-starter. And when he’s done, evidently he’s done. I should have known.”
Gina shrugged. “So don’t see him again after this weekend.”
“Oh, I’m not going to, but...” Tess stopped walking, concentrating on trying to put her unhappiness into words. “I’ll miss him. The good Nick. I’ll miss him a lot.”
“The good Nick?”
Tess bit her lip. “Nick...changes,” she said finally. “Back and forth. Deep inside, I think there’s a real Nick, but there’s mostly this plastic Nick who’s climbing to the top of his profession and doesn’t care about anything else. And I hate the way he acts when he’s like that.”
“Like forgetting you exist?”
“Like that, yes, but also—” Tess started to walk again and Gina tagged along beside her “—the way he is with Welch. Respectful all the time so he’ll get the contract. Or the way he goes to the opera because it gets his picture on the society page. And the thing is, for a while I thought it was just a stage he was passing through. That once he’d made it, he’d go back to being himself.” She looked at Gina. “Now, I’m not sure he knows which one is real—the nice guy or the climber. And I love the one and I hate the other and I’m afraid, I’m really afraid that I’ll end up with the other one. Jekyll.”