Tough Prospect

by Laura Strickland

  “A terrible person, one who turned her back on her father and caused him to take his own life.”

  “I told you, Tessa, I don’t think it works that way. I don’t suppose we’re responsible for making each other happy. Or for forgiving, when we can’t find it in us.”

  “You haven’t said. Have you changed your mind about me?”

  “No.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” she asked, speaking from the pain in her heart.

  “What is?” For one of the few times since she’d met him, Mitch looked baffled.

  “I refused to forgive my father because I hated being your wife so very much. Now—here we are.”

  “Where are we, Tessa?”

  “What I mean is, I’m turning to you, of all people.”

  He drew another of those long breaths.

  “I suppose,” she went on out of the grief that possessed her, “that’s not too flattering—that I’m only turning to you because everyone else in my life has turned against me.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. You needn’t stay if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to.”

  “Then touch me. The way you did the other night. It’s all right, isn’t it? We are married.”

  “Yes. But Tessa, I think it would be better if you just get some sleep. You’ve had one hell of a day. If you’re afraid to be alone, I’ll sit here in this chair, and we’ll leave the light on.”

  “That’s a kind offer. A…decent one. By all accounts, you’re not a kind or decent man.”

  “That’s true. But it’s different, with you.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. Tessa, you’re exhausted. I’ll call the maid to help you change and then come back to sit with you, as I say.”

  “Hold me. Please. I just need someone to hold me.”

  He stepped forward and took her gently into his arms. And what did she find there? Warmth, safety? A refuge? A place to anchor her pain?

  When he spoke again, his voice rumbled through her. “Tessa, if you’re offering yourself to me out of shame, because you think you deserve nothing better—you don’t have to. I’ll take care of you, no strings.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. When she did, she could hear the beating of his heart. After this, just like the other night, she’d be able to declare the people who spoke of him were wrong—he did possess a heart, after all.

  She tipped up her face so she could look into his eyes. Dangerous man, frightening man, but she seemed to have lost her fear of him, at least temporarily. “Does it matter why I want you to stay? Does it?”

  Emotions moved deep in his hazel eyes: protest, acknowledgment. Maybe it did matter. Maybe he’d walk out the door.

  Instead, after that one searing look, he swept her up in his arms and laid her on the bed.

  ****

  “Put out the light.” Tessa’s voice came to Mitch in a whisper he obeyed immediately, snuffing the wick of the lamp between his thumb and forefinger, ignoring the sting. He’d already removed his suit jacket and laid it on the chair. Other than that, both of them remained fully clad.

  “Here.” He put his weight on the bed, reached down, and removed her shoes one after the other. Very little light illuminated the room, just what came from outside; unlike the other night, the heavy draperies had not been drawn.

  “Do you feel cold?”

  “Yes.”

  Once again he maneuvered her beneath the blankets and this time crawled in beside her. Was this to be his wedding night, the one he’d half feared would never come?

  If so, it had come to him for all the wrong reasons. That thought would not leave his mind. In fact, it insisted on shouting at him. But he couldn’t walk away from her now if he tried.

  He might well have the strength for many things—not that.

  But she doesn’t truly want you, the voice inside shouted at him. She wants to feel better about herself for a few short moments. When morning comes, she’ll hate herself even more.

  Shut up, shut up! I don’t care.

  How could he make himself care when Tessa moved into his arms there in the bed, and snuggled close? When she curled one arm around his neck in a gesture that unquestionably urged his mouth toward hers?

  Their mouths met, and he found hers open, an invitation he couldn’t resist. Hunger flared inside him, deep and insistent. Since the first time he saw her, he’d been living for this.

  Lips meshed and tongues tangled. He dove for her the way a drowning man might reach for land. His mind blanked out—something that rarely happened to him—and he became pure emotion.

  Pure need.

  He kissed her as he had the other night, till he felt sure neither of them breathed. She made little sounds in her throat and melted against him, all the awful tension flowing away out of her body. Her fingers moved from his neck and splayed across his cheek before she traced his throat downward and burrowed inside his shirt.

  He broke the kiss.

  “Tessa. Do you want—?”

  “I don’t want to think.”

  Well, that was a hell of a reason for making love with him. For an instant, disappointment joined the desire crashing through him. It dissolved when her fingers mastered the last of the buttons on his shirt and tangled with the hair on his chest.

  He could keep her from thinking. Till morning, no doubt.

  At which time there’d undoubtedly be a price to pay. As for everything. She’d likely hate him all over again.

  And herself, yes.

  “Touch me.”

  Her voice banished all thought of tomorrow. He begged her, “Say my name.” He might be willing to bargain over most things, but tonight he wanted to be sure she didn’t think of him, the other man. Not now.

  “Mitch.”

  Fingers suddenly nimble, he began working the tiny buttons on the back of her dress. “Again.”

  “Mitch. Mitch, please.”

  Lost entirely, he stripped her of her lovely gown, his fingers screaming with delight. Soft, soft—she felt like silk and tasted like honey when he ran his tongue over her skin. He didn’t want to frighten her with his hunger, but damn it, he’d very nearly lost his mind.

  He removed his own clothing—somehow—while keeping his mouth on her. Now, now, he thought, she’ll protest, realize what’s happening, and call a halt.

  How will I bear it?

  But she touched him tentatively, fingers returning to the nest of hair on his chest before venturing a bit lower.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he told her.

  “I’m not, but I’ve never…”

  “I know. Stop me if you want to.” Please God, no.

  By means of persuasion, he cupped one breast in his hand. She gasped, and the tension returned to her body, but in a new way. Heaven. Surely that was the only word to describe her softness and the way she tasted. Very gently he thumbed the bud at the tip of her breast until it hardened. The hunger pounded through him more fiercely.

  Ah, such intimacy. Somehow it had never felt like this with other women. But if Tessa let him inside her now, he’d never ask for anything else.

  “Tessa, let me show you. Let me show you how it can be, between us.”

  “Show me.”

  He laid his mouth to her breast.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At last, at last, Tessa didn’t need to think. In fact, all thought flew away from her when Mitch Carter—her husband, as she reminded herself—laid his mouth to her breast. Then it became all heat and sensation, and a longing she couldn’t begin to define.

  Nothing existed beyond the two of them. Nothing could be amiss in a world that didn’t exist. If she asked him to touch her, he did. He seemed able to understand the language of her body, mostly silent, better than she did. When she caressed his cheek, he suckled more strongly. When she sighed and arched her body, he played it with gentle hands. When she stretched her legs apart, he drew her beneath him and positioned
himself there, hot and heavy.

  Her whole body screamed for him now. When he took her face between his hands and said, “Tessa, are you sure?” She told him, “Hush,” and kissed him. His tongue slid into her mouth at the very same instant—

  Oh, she would never, ever, ever be the same.

  Pain, a flash of light, and then a wave of possessiveness so strong it stabbed her through. She didn’t understand it: did she possess him, or he her? No way to tell, no time to puzzle it out. He gasped into her mouth as he began moving inside her, and the light grew so bright it almost hurt, built and built until her world shattered.

  She wanted to scream and laugh and weep. The tears won when he stopped moving and, when he eased down on top of her, they trickled down her cheeks.

  “I’ve hurt you,” he whispered, appalled.

  “No, no, you haven’t.”

  “I was too rough.”

  What was that she heard in his voice? No way to tell, yet it made her assure him, “No, you were…you were very gentle.”

  He withdrew that part of his body that fit so perfectly into her body, and tried to move away. Tessa clung to him.

  “Wait.”

  “Tessa.” That great, nameless emotion still lingered in his voice. “If I haven’t hurt you, why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know. It was just…” She had no words that did not seem wholly inadequate for such an act, such depth of sharing. “It was fine.”

  “Fine.” He repeated it like a man stunned. She felt his fingers smooth through her hair. “You’re exhausted. Get some sleep.”

  Could she, possibly? Maybe. All her terrible thoughts had flown away when the light exploded through her body and mind. But she feared they’d return if he got up and left the bed.

  “What now?” she whispered.

  “Eh?”

  “Are you going to leave me?”

  “Leave you!”

  “To sleep alone.”

  “Oh. No. No.” He drew her back into his arms so her body fitted against his, her buttocks tucked against the hollow beneath his chest and his arms wrapped around her from behind. Back into the marvelous warmth he seemed to exude.

  “Sleep,” he told her.

  “I’m not sure I can.” His hand lay just beneath her breasts, tantalizingly close. She wouldn’t mind if he touched her again with his rough thumb. It might be too bold of her, though, to ask.

  Instead she said, “Is it true?”

  “Is what true, darling?”

  Darling. Never had she thought to hear such a word cross Mitch Carter’s lips.

  “Were you really found in a gutter? My mother said…”

  Mitch moved restlessly. For an instant, Tessa feared he’d get up and leave after all. But after a moment he said, “It’s true. I was found by a passerby, a newborn no doubt dropped by a whore.”

  “A whore?”

  “Who else? Don’t know who she was, and my father could have been anyone. Some john.”

  “Oh.” Tessa tried to imagine it. Dropped by a prostitute. The lowest of the low. “What happened to you?”

  “Foundling. Taken to Carter’s. Spent my whole life there till the age of fourteen.”

  “That’s why your last name’s Carter. They didn’t know…”

  “All boys without a last name are given that one.” Irony entered his voice. “There are a lot of ‘Carters’ hanging ’round the city.”

  “I see.” She contemplated it. She’d always known where she came from, youngest child of Hugo and Elise Verdun. Generations behind her, most of them French in origin.

  “What was it like growing up there, at Carter’s?”

  He stiffened. His hand, on her belly, tensed and took a moment to relax again. “Hell on earth. I got out as soon as I could. Swore I’d never go back again.”

  “What was so terrible about it?”

  “You name it. Hunger. Beatings. Remind me to show you my scars, some time.”

  “Scars! They beat little children?”

  “Darling, you have no idea.”

  She shivered. He pulled her still closer, fitted his face into the crook of her neck. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “So you got out when you were fourteen?”

  “Ran away.”

  “What did you do, though? No money, no people—”

  “I survived. By stealing, mostly. Slept wherever I could. The one thing I knew was I couldn’t let the coppers catch me, ’cause they’d return me to Carter’s. I had two years left—you’re supposed to stay till you’re sixteen.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Twelve years.”

  So when she’d been a girl of ten, living a comfortable life beneath Hugo’s beneficence, Mitch had been fighting to stay alive. And fighting ever since.

  “Well, how did you get from that to being—”

  “The King of Prospect Avenue?” He laughed softly; it tickled Tessa’s shoulder. “It’s a long story, and you needn’t worry about it. All you need to know is if I’m the King of Prospect Avenue, you’re my Queen. All right?”

  “I don’t feel much like a queen.”

  “You will. I’ll make sure you feel that way.” He kissed her ear. “I promise.”

  She turned in his arms so his lips met her lips. She moaned with desire.

  Very slowly and luxuriantly, he made love to her again.

  ****

  When Tessa woke to bright sunlight flowing through the bedroom windows, her husband had already gone. She lay in the bed thinking about what had happened during the night—had any of it truly happened?—until the knob on the door rattled and the mechanical maid rolled in.

  Tessa raised the sheet to cover her nakedness, though she couldn’t say why. The maid certainly knew nothing about modesty.

  Or shame. Or remorse.

  At times, Tessa decided, it must be comforting, being an automaton.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Carter,” the maid said. “Mr. Carter asked me to bring your breakfast.”

  “Did he?” Sure enough, the maid bore a tray piled with more food than Tessa could eat in a week. “Where is Mr. Carter? Can you tell me?”

  “Mr. Carter is in his office, working.”

  “I see.” Tessa glanced at the window. “Is it late?”

  The maid tilted her head to one side. “Late, as relative to what, Mrs. Carter?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Just after ten a.m.”

  “So late as that?” Well, she’d had little enough sleep during the night, though after the second time they made love she thought she’d more or less blacked out in Mitch’s arms.

  The second time… Oh, what had she done?

  Guilt suffused her. She’d meant to save herself for Richard. The man she loved. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be?

  But the need had been so overwhelming, last night. Not just the physical need, but that for a comfort she couldn’t even begin to name.

  Well, she resolved, it would never happen again. Even if she was no better than she should be, the Queen of Prospect. Oh, but she wanted to hear the rest of his story, how a baby pulled out of the gutter had grown into the king of anything.

  And she had a strange, strong craving for one of his kisses.

  Instead, now she had to face the day which, from where she lay, seemed impossible.

  She looked at the tray the maid had laid across her lap, suddenly sure she’d be sick if she took a single bite. She waved a hand.

  “Please take this away. And help me get dressed.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Carter.”

  She needed quite desperately to go downstairs and talk to her husband.

  ****

  Mitch sat at the desk in his office, trying unsuccessfully to concentrate on the report his man, Dinty, was giving him. Important stuff. He was supposed to be listening to numbers concerning how Danny Dwyer had been expanding his territory.

  Instead, he could think only about his wife—how she’d tasted last night. How she�
��d clung to him and trembled in his arms. How it had felt when he entered her for the first time.

  Just like he’d come home.

  Mitch Carter had never had a home. Oh, he’d bought a lot of houses, and had lived in this one for a while. Nice house. But it didn’t feel like home.

  “He’s been liquidating some of his holdings,” Dinty said. Dinty had a talent for numbers. “Must mean he’s planning a big move. And there’s a new consortium.”

  “What?”

  “A new consortium. You all right, Boss?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be? Who’s behind it?”

  “Behind what?”

  “The new consortium.”

  Dinty’s muddy brown eyes lit up. Mitch had a sudden flashback to Dinty huddled in a corner back at Carter’s, no more than six years old, with welts on his cheeks where the strap had caught him.

  “That’s what makes it interesting, Boss. No one seems to know. Whoever it is, they have money. And people are saying they’re gonna make a big purchase.”

  “Downtown?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Damn it. I—”

  The office door inched open, and Tessa peered in. All other thoughts fled Mitch’s mind.

  “Morning,” Tessa whispered.

  “Good morning, Tessa. Come on in. Dinty, we’re done here.”

  “But—” Dinty began.

  Almost in the same breath, Tessa said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “We’re done here.”

  “We’re not, actually,” objected Dinty, who could be stubborn.

  “Get back to me on this later,” Mitch told him. “Meanwhile, find out all you can.”

  “All right.” Dinty didn’t look happy, but he left.

  Mitch looked at his wife; she gazed back at him.

  “Are you well this morning, Tessa?”

  She nodded. God, how beautiful she looked with her auburn hair piled up on her head, a few curls trickling down, a blue ruffled blouse and straight, blue skirt covering the delectable curves he’d touched last night. He wanted to pull her into his arms and do it all over again.

  But he didn’t figure she had come into his office looking for that. Rather, following last night’s events, he imagined she’d come to tell him she wanted to go home to her mother.

  That she wanted out of the marriage after all.