David collapsed across her damp body. He vowed that it wouldn’t be her last one tonight.
Chapter Five
Tessa smelled bacon and coffee. The delicious aromas dragged her from a sound sleep. For the first time in, well, in forever, she thought, smiling, she’d had no nightmares. She opened her eyes and looked at the pillow next to hers. It held no impression of David’s head. She was alone in bed. She frowned. This wasn’t David’s bed. It was the queen-size bed in her room. How had she got from his king-size bed back to this smaller bed?
She sat up and the covers slid down. She was naked. Her breasts were a bit red where David’s day-old beard had abraded her skin. Her hands lifted her breasts marveling at the way he’d made them feel. He had magic hands. And a magic mouth. The rest of him wasn’t so bad either. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and winced. She was sore in some pretty amazing places. If she’d needed convincing, that told the truth about last night. It hadn’t just been a wonderful erotic dream.
By the aromas drifting from downstairs, David must be cooking breakfast. With a happy sigh, she rummaged through the supermarket bag that held her clothes and found a robe and some clothes for the day. She selected the red bra and panties with visions of David removing them from her body and went down the hall to the bathroom. All in all, life was looking up. She knew who she was. Tessa Galloway. She knew she was married to a man who filled her with desire and knew exactly how to sate that desire.
Did she remember anything else? No. The closed door, as she imagined the barrier that kept her from accessing her past, remained closed, but after last night, she didn’t mind so much. With a chuckle, she wondered if she—and he—were always that insatiable? She certainly hoped so. Just thinking about last night made her nipples pebble and desire settle between her legs. Their first time had been amazing, but it had addicted her to David. To his touch. She blushed. To his taste. By the fourth time they’d made love, all it had taken was his sliding into her, and she was climaxing.
With a happy sigh, she stepped into the shower, convinced that things would work out. Today, she’d get all the answers she needed. Then they could move forward into this new phase of their life together.
A half hour later, she was ready to face the day. She tidied up the bathroom and the guest room then followed the aroma of coffee to the kitchen. From the doorway, she could see the lake through the windows. It made a beautiful picture, but she had eyes only for David.
He was working on a laptop at the kitchen table. Her gaze swept over him. Wow. This man was hers. A Houston Rockets tee shirt hugged his broad shoulders and chest and revealed well-muscled arms. Arms that had enclosed her and held her last night as his hands did incredible things to her body. He wore old, frayed jeans that looked as if they’d been washed a million times and running shoes.
Tessa imagined embracing him and sliding her hands into his jeans, finding him, clasping him. Her mouth went dry. She’d like to do that. She’d like to do him. Right here on the kitchen floor. Or the table or any horizontal surface.
She went to him and leaned over to give him a hug and a kiss. David jerked away from her, frowning. Startled by his reaction, she straightened. He looked at her as if she were a stranger.
“There’s coffee over there,” David said, pointing.
Tessa bit her lower lip and nodded. She didn’t know what else to do in the face of what could only be described as another rejection. Blinking back the tears and telling herself to not be ridiculous, that he didn’t need a weepy amnesiac female crying into her breakfast, she looked around the kitchen. Like the bathroom, it was modern and well-equipped with sleek white cabinets and black granite countertops. The wall of windows looked out at the lake, and she could see part of the hill too. She found no pleasure in the view.
David didn’t look up from the laptop. “Cups are in the cupboard above the coffeemaker.”
Tessa didn’t bother saying thank you. She opened the cupboard and pulled out a heavy white mug. Maybe the flavorful coffee would improve her suddenly sour mood. She filled the mug half full, found milk in the refrigerator and added an inch.
“How come there’s fresh milk and other food here if your grandparents aren’t around?”
“There’s a woman who cleans the house for them who has a key. I had her stock the fridge and pantry.”
She was surprised he’d even answered. She found the flatware in another drawer and a canister of sugar on the granite countertop. She spooned a level teaspoon of sugar into her mug. Next to the stove was a plate covered with a paper towel. She removed the paper towel and spied two slices of perfectly cooked bacon. Despite herself, her stomach growled. It had been a long time since yesterday’s lunch. She’d really worked up an appetite last night. Although David seemed to have forgotten last night’s physical exertion entirely.
She went about locating bread and eggs. In a few minutes, she had bread toasting, and eggs scrambling. With her coffee doctored to her liking, she grabbed a knife and fork and took the white ironstone plate with her breakfast to the table, sitting across from him. “Are you working?”
David looked at her clean shining face. In the bright light of day, he resolved not to repeat the mistake he’d made last night. Good thing Paul wasn’t around to call him on it. “Yes. Did you need something?”
Tessa frowned. “Is there something wrong?”
“Wrong? What could be wrong?” Other than the fact that she was as addicting to him as heroin was to an drug addict. He shouldn’t have given in. Now that he had, resisting her was going to be even harder.
Tessa’s frown deepened. “Could you answer some questions now?”
His lips tightened. “Yes. Why don’t you eat your breakfast, and I’ll finish what I’m doing. Then we’ll talk.” His cell phone rang. He answered it and decided to stay in the room so Tessa could hear exactly what was happening.
Tessa sneaked glances at him and ate while he fielded phone calls. She listened, hoping to gain some insight into his world. He and the caller discussed renegotiating loans. He told the caller that he and Tessa were taking a few weeks to get away from it all and reconnect. She caught him looking at her. And not with passion. Even though his expression was fierce, her body heated, as if it knew no recourse when she was near him. He finished that call and another came in. He repeated the same statement. This happened again, and he told the same story. David was affable and charming to each caller. He ended each call by saying, “I assume there won’t be any more awkward financial difficulties in the future?”
Tessa felt ill. This is what he’d had to deal with since she’d disappeared. Tessa swallowed the knot of emotion in her throat. After two more similar calls, she realized the magnitude of the situation David was in. When he ended the last call, and the phone was silent for a few minutes, she asked, “Are you bankrupt?”
To her surprise, David didn’t lash out at her. He just sighed tiredly. “I might have some breathing room. I don’t know. If Sosa hadn’t found you when he did, I don’t think I’d have a hope in hell. Oilfield service companies are built on reputation. When you lose that, it’s tough getting people—banks and clients—to trust you.”
David knew Paul would have wanted him to make the scenario as grim as possible. He watched Tessa rise and take her dishes to the sink. Her hair was wet, and he could smell the clean scent of shampoo. She wore no makeup. The pink scar near her hairline wouldn’t be noticeable after more time had passed. Whoever had stitched her up had done a good job. She wore gray jogging shorts, a baggy gray tee shirt, and her canvas sneakers. Her clothes were plain and ill-fitting, but he could think only of what she might be wearing underneath.
Tessa rinsed the dishes while he thought how he’d like to remove her clothes and bend her over the sink, curving his body around hers while he pushed into her tight passage from behind. His instant arousal was painful. He should have had enough of her last night. He should be so sated that he couldn’t get a hard-on. But this was Tessa. Hi
s own personal obsession.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low, intense voice. “I’ve thought only of how this affected me. Every morning when I wake and every night before I fall asleep, I search my mind, trying to remember who I am and what happened to me. But, I never thought that someone else might be hurting just as much as I was.”
She dried her hands and refilled her coffee. “Want more?”
Oh, God, yes, he wanted more. It took all of his will power to hold the words back and try not to think of how it felt when he was buried deep inside her.
“David? More coffee?”
“No. I’ve had enough.” Had he. He needed to get out of the house and away from her. But he had to stay seated for the moment, lest she realize exactly the kind of hold she had over him.
“Good. Let’s talk.” Tessa seated herself.
When he didn’t say anything, just looked at her with his enigmatic dark eyes, she wondered what he was thinking? Did he find her appealing or did the dark hair and a big honking scar across her forehead change that? She hadn’t thought of her looks last night in the dark, but now it bothered her. She tugged at her wet hair so it draped over her forehead a little. She should have had bangs cut, but she was still putting Vaseline on the scar at night. Bangs would just end up being greasy clumps of hair.
“Do you miss my blond hair?” Tessa asked, trying for a light tone.
“Why? Do you miss being a blonde?”
“How can you miss something you don’t remember?”
They fell silent again.
“Okay. Where to start?” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “On the photocopy of my driver’s license, it said I’m twenty-seven so how old are you?
“Twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty next month.”
“Exactly how long have we been married?”
His lips compressed. She saw the tension in his face, in his whole body. Finally, he said, “Technically, we’ve been married a little over a year. We were married last year in February. The week after Valentine’s Day. You disappeared in August. For all practical purposes, we were together only six months.”
She frowned. “I wish I could remember. I guess that means we have no children?”
His jaw hardened. “No kids. You told me that you couldn’t get pregnant.”
“But … I want children.” Tessa felt tears sting her eyes at a loss she hadn’t known she’d incurred. “Why? What’s wrong with me?”
“I really don’t know.” David shrugged. “You said you had some surgery when you were young that made it impossible.”
She was shattered by this news. Last night, she’d thought about having his baby. He hadn’t used a condom, and she’d thought that meant he loved her and was prepared to resume their married life, including having children. She turned her face away so he wouldn’t see her tears. “Yet, you married me anyway?”
David saw her wipe her eyes. In that moment, he believed that she really had amnesia. He expelled a loud breath. “Yeah. I did.”
Tessa wanted to ask if he regretted that, but she was afraid of the answer. She took the coward’s way out and changed the subject. “Do I have clothes at home?”
“You do. They’re a little conservative, but they’re good quality.”
“Do I have some decent running shoes? I’d love to get out of these.” She lifted her feet for him to see. “They don’t fit well, and they rub my heels. Could you have someone send me the shoes and maybe some other things? I could make a list.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Tessa giggled and the sound went through him, making him remember how she’d giggled in bed last night when he’d stroked a patch of skin just above her rib cage. He couldn’t do this. She’d break his heart again if he let her into his life.
“That sounds like what Michael Westen always said in Burn Notice, one of my favorite TV programs. In case you haven’t seen it before, you can stream it from the internet. People say that when they have no intention of complying.” When he snorted at her analysis, she said, “Okay. Let’s talk about our marriage.”
“Why don’t we just cut to the chase,” he said standing. “We had a whirlwind romance and married within two weeks of meeting each other. You were working for an oil company in Houston in the accounting department. I have an oil field services company so it was a business mixer disguised as a Valentine’s party.”
Tessa remembered the photograph. The man and woman so obviously in love. Even when they’d first met. Before she could ask anything else, he said, “Trite, isn’t it. We married, you disappeared, now I’ve found you.”
Something in his voice chilled her. He smiled, but there was no warmth there. That smile, that tone of voice, spoke volumes. He might be hot for her, but he didn’t like the fact. She suspected he didn’t like her. That might explain why he’d rejected her last night before she’d sought him out and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Her body.
Tessa felt her bubble of happiness begin to collapse. “Are you angry that I disappeared?” Hastily, she held up both hands, palms extended like a traffic cop. “Stop. Don’t bother answering. That was a stupid question. I’m sure you must have gone through every emotional stage there was.”
She could believe the whirlwind romance part. They were like flame and gasoline in bed. It must have been that way from the moment they laid eyes on each other. That was still there, but what had happened to the adoration she’d seen in the photograph?
“Anything else you want to know?”
Tessa withheld a sarcastic comment about his tone of voice. “Sure. Where did I work? Where do you work? What did you tell my friends? How did you go about finding me? When will we go home?”
“Like I said, you worked in accounting for an oil producer when we met. We came home from a too short honeymoon, and the next day, when I got home from work, you told me you’d decided to cut back to part-time. You said you wanted to oversee the decorating of our house. You already know that I own an oilfield services company. My dad founded it. When he had a heart attack three years ago, he retired. I took over the company.”
“Is he okay now?”
“Yes. He and my mom are traveling in Europe. They don’t know you’ve been found.”
“You didn’t tell them?” Tessa frowned. “Why not?”
“You’re not exactly their favorite person at the moment.”
“Oh. Your parents don’t like me?” She felt her bubble deflate more. “Why not? Was I a terrible wife?”
“It’s complicated,” David hedged, responding despite himself to the anguish in her voice.
“What about my friends? Our friends?”
He studied her. “I think you’re getting upset. That’s probably enough for now.”
“In other words, I don’t have any friends?” Her voice rose. “Your parents hate me, and I have no friends.” To her dismay, she felt tears sting her eyes again. She was turning into a veritable leaky faucet. “Was I a horrible bitch?” She thought of the passion he aroused so easily in her. Her eyes rounded. “Oh, dear. Was I a slut?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
David saw her eyes glistening. Damn him for being gullible where she was concerned. He watched a tear break loose and slide down her cheek.
“Or was I both? A slut and a bitch?”
To his chagrin, he found himself pulling her into his arms. “Come here.”
She tilted her head back and stared at him. After a moment, she relaxed. Her breasts touched his chest, and she moved closer, sighing and closing her eyes while she looped her arms around his neck.
David held her like that, not caring if his raging hard-on made contact with her soft belly. He wanted her. Now. On the floor with her pants down. He stroked her back and made soothing sounds. More importantly, he wanted to make her tears go away.
Tessa felt her heart crack. Something was wrong with her marriage. She huddled closer to David, wishing he would make love to her right now. When he was inside her, she felt that h
er mixed-up world wasn’t so mixed up. She’d survived whatever had happened to her. She finally knew who she was. And she knew she was falling in love with her complicated husband. Again. She wanted to fix her marriage, but how could she when she didn’t know what was wrong?
In a mournful whisper, she asked, “Wasn’t there anyone who missed me? My parents? Friends. Anyone in your family?”
When he didn’t answer, she found the courage to look into his eyes. She blinked the tears back. In a small voice, she asked, “Did you miss me, David? Even a little?”
Chapter Six
David dropped his arms and pulled away from her. He couldn’t do this. He would only be making things worse for her in the long run.
Pain stabbed Tessa. He was rejecting her again.
He turned and shut down the laptop. “I need some fresh air.”
She drew her tattered pride around her. Resentment sharpened her tongue. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have more mood swings than a menopausal woman?”
He looked startled. For a minute, she thought he was going to grin then his lips compressed into a thin line. “I’ll be back later.”
Instead of staying in the kitchen as he probably expected, Tessa followed on his heels.
He went to what must be the den judging by the knotty pine paneled walls, built-in book cases, and manly furniture including a large flat screen television. She watched him take a key from a woven basket on one of the book shelves and run his fingers along the edge of one of the wood panels. She heard a click and the entire panel popped open.
“What’s in there?”
“Don’t you have anything else to do?”
“You mean other than annoy you with questions?”
“You hit the nail on the head.”
“Nope. You brought me here so you have to put up with me.”
He stepped through the opening and snapped on a light. She followed and saw tall metal cabinets lining the walls. “What’s this?”