The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

“Okay, I’ll admit it. I have more than jeans and T-shirts.”

  “Yeah,” she said, walking closer. “You’re really cute.”

  “Cute?” he groaned, rolling his eyes as Robin laughed. But it pleased him enormously. Definitely more than it should have. “Come on, Princess, before your turn my head.”

  The restaurant was a small place, decorated like an Asian river delta, with grass thatching, warm colors, and waiters in Saipan hats. Jake had never had Thai food, or any other international cuisine. Unless he counted Mexico. The menu might as well have been printed in Chinese for all he could make of it. Robin very artfully suggested some dishes he might like without making him look like a clod.

  “Great,” Jake said quickly to their waiter as she pointed out the spicy peppered shrimp, which, she claimed, went well with beer. She ordered chicken with red curry and pineapple. That sounded wholly unappetizing to Jake, but what the hell, he was game for a little experimentation. Of any kind, come to think of it.

  When the waiter brought him a beer with a funny red label on it and Robin a glass of rice wine, he held his breath and drank and asked about her trip to Minot. She confessed to feeling out of place, but seemed really taken with the Pledge of Allegiance, which he found amusing. It was funny how she could speak of a regular old run-of-the-mill American town like it was another planet. He supposed that was because Robin did occupy a whole other planet than most regular folk. Robbieville, he thought as he watched her hands moving, sketching in midair the various people she had met, where money is consumed like water and people flit in and out with no apparent purpose or destination. It was a world most could not fathom and a few could only dream of, yet there were moments he had the sense that Robin wanted off her planet, wanted to be down here with the mere mortals.

  Over what he hoped was the main course, Robin made him very happy by telling him that Mr. Slick had gone to New York for several days. If Jake never laid eyes on that ass again, it would be too soon.

  “And I have to go to Burdette Saturday,” she moaned. “Evan is soooo much better at this than I am. He knows how to put people at ease. I seem to make them uptight.”

  She stared at her plate for a moment, then suddenly gasped and looked up. “You can go with me!” she exclaimed. “Yes, yes, say you will, Jake! This Saturday—it won’t take long, I promise. We’ll just jet up there, spend a couple of hours and come right back—”

  Bad idea, extremely bad idea. He held his hand up, shook his head. “Wait, wait . . . I can’t go to Burdette with you. I don’t know anything about—”

  “You don’t have to know anything! Just come with me, I’ll do the talking.”

  He had no doubt about that. “I’ve got my own work to do. Besides, what am I supposed to do while you are wheeling and dealing?” he asked, helping himself to some of her chicken. “Just sit there and twiddle my thumbs?”

  “Oh, come on, you’re my pal, aren’t you?”

  A pal. They were pals. Great. Okay, as long as he knew the ground rules. “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  They continued to chat like old friends, at least until the check came. When the waiter put it down, Jake reached for his wallet, but Robin slapped her hand down on the leather case. Jake instantly covered her hand. “Let go,” he said gruffly.

  “No. It’s my treat. I invited you, remember?”

  “I remember, but I don’t like women to pay my way.”

  “Excuse me? We’re on caveman rules? Come on, step into the twenty-first century.” Robin tried to yank the check toward her, but Jake held fast.

  “I’m serious,” he said, and he was—very serious.

  Robin smiled sweetly. “Don’t be silly, Hammerman—you’re my contractor, so I buy, and besides, I already had dibs.”

  “No,” he said. “Let go.”

  Robin shrugged. “Okay,” she said and relaxed her hand. Jake reached for his wallet again, at which point Robin suddenly snatched the check up and fled to the front of the room, damn her. And then she brought him home, just like he was a girl, driving the entire distance singing the wrong lyrics to the radio, refusing to listen when he tried to set her straight.

  She was exasperating and pushy, this one, but Jake did not want the evening to end. The Thai food had been, well . . . informative . . . and the company had been, oddly, the best he had had in years. She had a way about her, a spark, a unique view of the world. And it seemed that over dinner, the more Robin talked—her illustrative hands moving wildly in time with the tenor of her conversation—the more enchanted he grew.

  When they reached his house, he glanced at his watch—ten o’clock. He had a crew showing up at eight in the morning. Today had been grueling; he really needed to sleep. “I’ve got a new Red Temple CD. Wanna come in for a little while?” he heard himself ask.

  “Are you sure? It’s getting late,” Robin said, but she had already turned off the car.

  Inside, he offered her a beer, and wished he had something a little more sophisticated when she declined. She was standing in the middle of the room as he put the CD in the player, and as a haunting strain of a violin lifted from the speakers, he turned around, intent on making her sit in the one chair he had while he fetched another from the dining room.

  But Robin surprised him. Shocked him. Put him back on his heels and floundering like a rodeo clown as she came striding forward, slipping into his arms as if she belonged there, tilting her head back and going up on her toes to kiss him.

  That knocked Jake for a loop, sent him reeling, his heart tumbling and pinging off the wall of his chest. Her lips drifted across his like a whisper of silk, tantalizing him. Her arm slipped around his waist, pulling him closer, and she nestled against his chest. With her breasts pressed against him, he could feel the heat of her body and the shot of fire straight to his groin. Mentally, Jake stumbled; he was unaccustomed to being the recipient of bold ardor, always the one to initiate. Her hand was now on his rib cage, moving up, slipping around to his arm, then his neck, until she cupped his face.

  Jake recoiled as if he had been burned by fire.

  Robin opened her eyes, smiled so seductively that he believed for a split second he might literally collapse to his knees. If she touched him again, just touched him, he feared how he might react, how swiftly he might sweep her into his arms, carry her to his bed.

  “What’s the matter?” she said in a throaty whisper. “Don’t you like it?”

  Oh, he liked it all right—liked it so damn much he couldn’t find his tongue to tell her to stop.

  With her finger, Robin lightly stroked a trail across his lips, then kissed the corner of his mouth, trailing a row of feathery light kisses to his ear. “Don’t you want me?” she whispered, and the dam burst, flooding every part of him, hardening his cock to the point of aching. The rock music was blaring in the background no creating a white-hot noise to surround them.

  There was only one problem—she had invited him to dinner, she had paid for it, and she had driven him around like someone’s granny. He’d be damned if she was going to take this from him, too. Jake suddenly grabbed her hands and pushed them behind her back. “You’re gonna have to learn that you can’t always just take what you want,” he said low.

  “What’s the matter?” she purred, smiling seductively.

  “Sometimes, it’s sexy for a woman to be aggressive. But most of the time, its sexier if she just lets herself be a woman. Relax.”

  Robin arched a brow. “Wow. That sounds like a another chapter from Confessions of a Neanderthal.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, inhaling her scent. “It’s a chapter from I’m Gonna Make You Scream.”

  “Ooh,” Robin said and laughed low, letting her head fall back, exposing the creamy white skin of her neck.

  Jake pulled her into his chest and with his mouth, he found her neck, devoured the flesh there before lifting his head so that his lips were against her ear. “I want you,” he said gruffly. “I want you so bad I just might explode.
”

  She sighed, wrapped her arms around his neck as his lips grazed the curve of her throat. His hands had started a slow ascent up her rib cage; as he drew her earlobe between his teeth, he sought her breasts, finding them, cupping them, rubbing his thumbs across the flimsy fabric of her blouse. He could feel her body tense with his touch, and that only made his desire burn. His hand moved again, to her bottom, kneading it, holding her tightly against his rigid shaft while his tongue dueled wildly with hers.

  His mind, his eyes, every orifice, every fiber, was filled with the scent and the feel of her. He didn’t even realize he was moving, until they bumped into a wall. God, he was melting, dangerously aroused and piteously desperate for her body. His hand slid from her cheek, fluttered to her collarbone and drifted down over her breast, cupping it in his palm to feel the succulent weight of it. His mouth, hungry for the taste of her, followed his hand, dipping to her neckline, touching the swell of her breast. Robin’s hands splayed against the wall behind her, and she rose on her tiptoes, lifting her breast to him, whimpering softly when his lips closed around her nipple through the sheer fabric of her blouse. Aware that he was devouring her like a madman, without care to her expensive clothing or anything but the need to feel her, touch her, be in her, he could not keep his hands from roaming her body, could not stop his mouth from suckling her.

  “Where?” she whispered hoarsely. “Where is your bed?”

  With a groan, Jake swept her up, carried her through the darkened door beside them, and deposited her at the foot of his bed. She smiled in that wicked way of hers, reached up to wrap him in an embrace as she kissed his mouth, his eyes, his cheek.

  And then she pushed him down on the bed. Hard. She crawled over him, straddling him, holding herself victorious above him. “You are making me crazy,” she said hoarsely, as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse. With the speed of a snail, she pulled the flimsy blouse open, revealing a dark red, lacy bra that barely covered her breasts. She tossed the blouse aside, reached for his hand, and pressed it against her breast.

  Something primal and deep kicked Jake hard in the balls; blood was surging through him like a raging river, ripping through his veins. He had never desired anyone or anything so completely in his life. The need to fill her was so overpowering that he couldn’t stop now even if he tried. With a surge of strength, he toppled her over, moved her onto her back in one movement, then covered her with his body, pinning her hands above her head.

  Robin laughed.

  “You never learn, do you?” he asked, kissing her.

  “So I’ve heard.”

  He pressed his mouth against hers, thrust his tongue inside, sending them both into the dark of his oblivion. Somehow, he managed to free her breasts of the bra she wore. The touch of his fingers across her taut nipple undid him; he gripped her wrists tighter above her head. Her chest was heaving; she looked up at him with a glint in her eye, and he chuckled deep in his throat while his eyes feasted on her body, awed by how the curvy shape of her formed his desire. “Be still,” he murmured.

  “Touch me,” she whimpered breathlessly.

  Turned on like a bolt of lightning, Jake growled as he unbuttoned her pants, slowly unzipped them, and slipped his hand inside. She wasn’t wearing any panties. Ah hell, he had died and gone to heaven. He slipped a finger into the space between her pants and her crotch, just barely brushing the wild curl there, and Robin squirmed. He then slipped his finger between the wet folds of her sex.

  “Oh God,” she moaned, tossing her head back, bearing her long neck to him. Jake let go of her hands, kissed her bare belly, and moved lower, catching her pants in his teeth and, with help from his hands, pulling them from her hips, his mouth brushing the spring of curls, inhaling her feral scent.

  She was writhing now, kicking off her pants and opening her legs wider, giving him access. When his tongue slipped between her damp lips, her hips bucked and she made a guttural sound of pleasure that sent the blood pounding through Jake, engorging his heart and his penis. But he held on, and with painstaking consideration, he began to explore her with his tongue, laving every crevice, flicking airily across the core of her desire, then deep into the recesses of her body.

  Robin’s response was explosive; she was moving against him, gasping for breath, the little cries of pleasure coming quicker and quicker in anticipation of release. He stroked her, sucked her, nibbled as if she were a delicacy until she almost came, then backed away, tried another delectable portion of her, and would have been happy to continue for hours, he thought, until Robin came with such force and unapologetic pleasure that he almost came with her.

  She raked her fingers through his thick hair before jerking him up and smothering him with a profoundly deep kiss. Jake groaned, felt himself very close to losing it. She was panting now, tugging at his belt, frantically pulling the tail of his shirt from his trousers. Jake stroked her breasts with his hands as she worked, content to shape the hardened nubs between his fingers and his mouth while she clawed his shirt from him.

  “Jake,” she whispered anxiously when she at last got his shirt from his back. “Your pants,” she hissed. And in a gymnastic move worthy of Olympic consideration, unzipped them and shoved them down his hips while Jake groped in his nightstand for a condom. She managed it, leaving only a pair of boxer briefs between her and the Biggest Erection Ever. Robin attacked the boxers and was hardly gentle about it, and gasped with pleasure as he sprang free. “Oh,” she exclaimed in a rare moment of calm, admiring his body, “you’re beautiful.”

  Jake lowered himself to her. “Not as beautiful as you,” he said sincerely.

  Robin buried her face in his neck; her hands swept down his belly, swirled around his throbbing erection, and cupped his testicles.

  The moan Jake heard was his; he realized that he was straining to maintain control, that he was dangerously, deliriously close to spilling himself all over her. He brushed against her damp heat, a slow, back-and-forth movement that was so tantalizing he was actually torturing himself while her hands and mouth sought every other inch of him. When he couldn’t stand his own teasing another moment, he slipped into her.

  Shit, she was so hot, so wet, so tight. Her body opened for him, wrapped firmly around him, and hell, she was beginning to move in all the right ways, stroking him, squeezing him, and threatening to send him to the moon. “You’re gonna make me lose it, baby,” he groaned.

  Robin’s dark brows dipped into a vee. “I can’t wait.”

  Neither could Jake. He lowered his head to kiss her, devouring her lips and tongue, and before he lost the last little bit of reason he had left, he began to move, withdrawing, sliding in again, picking up the rhythm with each new stroke. His hips circled, stroking her a little differently each time. They were both panting now; he was struggling to hold back, struggling to reach for the biggest and brightest orgasm of his life.

  Then Robin began to move, circling to meet each thrust, tightening around him each time he withdrew. Jake clenched his teeth—between the swell of her breasts rubbing against his chest, the pout of her lips, and the way her body coiled around him and drew him in, he had no direction or thought in mind but to reach home, to reach the very core of her.

  His body thrust deeper, faster, and harder into her, angling her legs in a way that he could reach her, pressing his body against her, slipping in and out so fast and hard that Robin had given up trying to keep pace with him. She had buried her face in his shoulder, moaning her pleasure, her fingernails sinking into his back. And when he thought he could not take another moment of it, he felt her body contract tightly around him, felt her shudder violently, felt the bite on his shoulder as she tried to muffle the cry of her orgasm.

  He lost it.

  Completely, totally, his life spilling in quick, burning spurts at the end of savage thrusts, until he was numb with exhaustion and contentment.

  He slowly lowered himself to her, kissing the arch of her neck and burying his face in her hair as she tried t
o regain her breath. When he was convinced his breathing would return to normal and he would not expire, he rolled to his side, gathering her in his arms.

  Neither of them spoke.

  Jake watched her—she lay with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted, her breasts lifting with each saturated breath. Robin Lear made love like a woman who had been shipwrecked for a thousand years.

  And he had never been so completely, so wholly satisfied.

  In the dark, she reached for his hand, clung to it tightly as she tried to regain her breath. And when she had caught it enough to talk, she opened her eyes, smiled up at him, and said, “Let’s go again!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  That might have been the best sex she ever had, but nonetheless, Robin tiptoed out after Jake had fallen asleep, then worried that she had really screwed things up. She hoped he wouldn’t think it was one of those wham-bam-thank-you-Sam deals, because it certainly wasn’t that. It was more a generalized fear of what she had gotten herself into, because just thinking about what had happened between them made her all warm and mushy inside and sent a delicious little shiver up her spine.

  This would not do—she wasn’t about to embark on some protracted fling with her contractor. Surely he understood they were pals. Sort of. Okay, so they’d hung out a little bit. They were in close quarters—it was natural. But surely he knew, like she knew, that everything would return to normal when the job was done.

  But when Jake arrived at work, he was carrying a bouquet of lilac and bridal veil flowers. “I’ve got a couple of bushes growing around my house,” he said, sort of apologetically.

  Uh-oh. The man had gotten up, discovered she had left, and still had gone outside with a knife to cut her fresh flowers. In the rain. Damn. Yep, they were just about the most beautiful flowers she had ever seen. And Jake . . . well, Jake just made her sigh. Which was why this whole thing had all the markings of a complete disaster.

  In fact, Robin was so preoccupied with those thoughts as she arranged the flowers in an old cut-glass vase that she was oblivious to the crews stomping about, or Zaney singing the new song he had penned (it was sooo bad), or the rain, or the phone, or the herd of pink flamingos, which, for some inexplicable reason, had been moved to her kitchen in her absence.