The Complete Novels of the Lear Sister Trilogy

by Julia London

  “N-no,” she stammered as he rinsed her left hand.

  “I’d like to see the cat, frankly,” he quipped as he took a dish towel that looked as if it had never been used and pressed it gently against her skin.

  As he dried her hands, he looked at her through thick, sandy brown lashes, let his gaze wander her face, smiling softly at the gold in her hair. “You’re rather surprising, Rachel Lear,” he said quietly. “What with all the witchcraft and weaving and catering and cat-liberating. One can’t be certain what will come next.”

  “The same could be said of you, you know. One minute you’re Flynn, then you’re Charlie, then you’re Ollie.”

  “All quite good blokes, actually,” he said with a wink. “This might sting a bit,” he said, pulling a bottle of iodine from his trouser pocket.

  “Iodine?” She laughed. “What sort of man lives in a corporate apartment, has never used the kitchen, and carries a bottle of iodine?”

  “A resourceful one, thank you,” he said, and dabbed some on the first scratch. Rachel sucked a breath. “My mum always said that one must be fully prepared for all eventualities. She was the sort to make certain that our names were indelibly marked in our knickers.”

  Rachel laughed as he dabbed more iodine on her cuts.

  “I’d cringe every time I saw her with a Sharpie in hand,” he said as he turned her hand over and began to coat the scratches on her palm.

  “I bet you have peanut butter and water on hand in the event of a blackout, right?”

  “Kippers, actually,” he said. “And I’ll have you know that I’ve certainly used this kitchen on more than one occasion to dry my socks. The oven is perfectly suited for them, having just the right dimensions.”

  Rachel laughed again, hardly noticing that he had finished one hand and started the other.

  “Do you have a father?” she asked, wincing a little as he coated the scratch on her wrist.

  “By that do you mean am I the product of some science experiment gone awry, or is he living?”

  “Living.”

  “Indeed he is. He’s a putterer, my dear old dad, always on the prowl to mend something around the house and never getting it quite right. And what of your parents?”

  “I don’t think my mom owns a Sharpie, but she’s always had plenty of peanut butter on hand,” she said. “And my dad, he’s . . .” She stopped there, uncertain what to say. An asshole? Dying? Threatening to come to Providence? “He’s not very handy when it comes to the house,” she said quickly, and glanced at her hands, now stained hideously purple with iodine. “Wow. It looks worse now than before.”

  “There’s one last thing,” Flynn said, and took her right hand, held it in his palm as he examined five small but deep scratches on the back of her hand. He lifted her hand, leaned over, and touched his lips to her fingers. “It’s always recommended to seal the cuts with a kiss, or, in the case of a prodigious use of iodine, as close to the cuts as one can possibly get.” He kissed her palm. And then her wrist, his mouth casually surrounding her pulse, his lips lingering like gossamer clouds on her skin.

  A conflagration of pure lust erupted in her, searing her from top to bottom. She sucked in a cool breath, and Flynn lifted his head, gave her a languidly scorching smile as he took her other hand and turned it over, to the scratch on her wrist.

  “All those passions bubbling in you,” he said softly. “Cats and history and art. One can’t help but wonder how a woman like yourself releases the steam of it all.”

  “A woman like me can’t help but wonder the same thing,” she said as she gazed at his gorgeous, lush mouth.

  “I had every intention of ringing you up, you know,” he muttered softly. “But time ran away from me.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, as he pressed his lips to a soft patch of skin directly above the scratch on her wrist.

  “I’ve been rather swamped with work lately, working long hours,” he added, before touching his lips to another spot on her wrist, and lingering there, his mouth warm and wet.

  “Oooh . . .” she whispered as he slowly and calmly and expertly moved his lips up her wrist, to her arm and her elbow, lightly drawing the flesh in between his teeth, nibbling her skin as if it was some delicacy. “But I’ll not make the same mistake again.”

  Rachel stood there, rooted to her spot, her mind gone to mush, aware of nothing but his mouth and his body.

  He kept moving, up the bunched fabric of the sweater she had pushed up over her elbow, his breath seeping hot through the sweater, moving up, until his mouth was at her neck.

  “Oh Jesus,” she whispered as she bent her head to one side to accommodate him. He laughed somewhere deep in his chest and slowly devoured her neck, caressing the skin with his lips and tongue. His hands landed on her waist and pulled her to him; she could feel the start of an impressive erection in his pants and thought, with a violent shiver, that all the passions bubbling inside her might burst prematurely, all over his pristine kitchen.

  “You smell wonderful,” he whispered as he casually moved to her earlobe, taking it in between his teeth. “A bit like vanilla.”

  This cannot be happening. This can so not be happening, she thought wildly as she leaned her head to the side and back, silently willing him to cover every inch of her with his mouth. Every inch of her, and she didn’t give a damn how bloated she was, for at the moment she felt incredibly sexy.

  He drew her earlobe into his mouth, as well as her dangling earring, while his tongue languidly flicked about her lobe. His hands moved slowly up her sides, to the sides of her breasts and gently pressed against them, and around them, cupping them.

  A sigh of pure longing escaped her, and Flynn moved his mouth from her ear, letting the earring fall from his mouth and swing, wet, against her skin, as his lips left a warm, damp trail across the skin of her cheek. “Did you know,” he murmured, “that in some cultures, a kiss is considered an exchange of souls?”

  “No.” His tongue flicked into the corner of her lips, leaving a stunning sensation behind.

  “And did you know that there are those who believe the scent of a woman’s skin is more arousing than the touch of it?” he asked, nipping her bottom lip.

  Rachel never had the chance to answer, because his tongue slid inside her mouth. She knew nothing after that, only that her hands had found his neck and shoulders, and that his hands had slipped beneath her sweater, sliding over her bare skin, to her breasts, pressing and kneading in rhythm to his lips and tongue. She felt herself on a slippery slope, only moments away from sliding onto the kitchen floor and taking him down with her, to be on top of her. His attentions to her body had turned molten in her groin; there was a wetness building between her legs that made her ache with desire, and her skin felt almost as if it was shimmering beneath her clothing.

  Flynn eased her back against the countertop and remarkably, slipped one hand beneath her tight skirt as he continued to kiss her. He easily pushed her skirt up, until his hand was on her hip. His fingers sank into her flesh so that he was gripping her, holding her against his cock, moving suggestively against her while the intensity of his kiss deepened.

  Rachel hadn’t longed for a man, hadn’t craved a man’s touch this bad since . . . since ever. She hooked one leg around him, pushed against his erection as she pushed her breast into his hand.

  Flynn moaned into her mouth, and he suddenly grabbed her by both hips, lifted her off the floor as if she weighed nothing, and pushed her back against the counter as he pushed himself between her legs so that she could feel his erection sliding up and down and around her sex.

  Rachel sank her hands into his gorgeous hair and she wished to heaven he’d unhook her bra.

  But Flynn lazily lifted his head, brushed a long strand of curly hair away that had been caught between their mouths. “I believe it’s yours,” he said, and kissed her forehead as he let go her hips and let her legs ease toward the floor.

  “Your mobile,” he said, and she realized that
the Vivaldi she was hearing in her head was actually in her bag.

  Her eyes flew open—no one had ever called her on that phone, and she imagined her mother. Dad. Something had happened to Dad—she jerked around frantically fumbled for it, yanking it from her bag. She punched more than one button before she found the one that answered.

  “Hello?” she said breathlessly, heard the voice on the other end, and felt her heart sink like a rock.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Rachel?” Myron said, his voice full of concern.

  How embarrassing. Rachel could die, right where she stood. Why was he calling her? Why, of all the times he could have called her, of the months and weeks and years, did it have to be now? “Uh . . . yeah. Hey,” she said quietly, and self-consciously yanked down her skirt.

  “Jesus, where are you? I’ve been worried sick!”

  “What?” she asked dumbly and stole a quick glimpse of Flynn over her shoulder. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, looking at her. His hair, she noticed, was all messed up, and she vaguely remembered running her fingers through it.

  “I said, where are you? I’ve been out of my mind worried, Rachel.”

  “Since when?” she asked in a near hiss as she turned away from Flynn and walked into the other room, gaining a distance of oh, generously speaking, six feet.

  “Since I came over to make a sandwich and you were gone, that’s when. You’re never out this late—it’s almost three in the morning!”

  “Thanks for the time check, but I happen to be out at the moment,” she whispered harshly.

  “What do you mean, out?” Myron demanded just as harshly.

  “What do you think I mean?” she whispered, and glanced over her shoulder again. Now Flynn was at the sink, cleaning up. Great. Party over. Thanks, Myron!

  She walked deeper into the living area for a little privacy to tell Myron what he could do with his stupid sandwich, but Flynn could still hear everything she was saying.

  “You mean . . . you’re on a date?”

  Myron’s voice, she couldn’t help noticing, was full of disbelief. Rachel sighed to the ceiling. “In a manner of speaking, yes I am.”

  “Wow,” he said, as if trying to wrap his mind around what was obviously a hugely improbable concept. “I mean, I didn’t know—”

  “Right. So really, thanks for your concern, but—”

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Who are you out with? Is it that guy from the bar?” God, he was so irritatingly . . . incredulous. Was it so unbelievable? Rachel Lear on a date?

  “Is it?” he asked again.

  “Wait . . . what are you talking about?” she asked, confused now.

  “You know, the guy who was in the ladies’ room.”

  “He was not in the ladies’ room, Myron!”

  “It’s that dude?” he said, skipping right over the ladies’ room into incredulity again.

  The whole thing was just making her really, really furious. “Yes, that dude. Look, I really have to go—”

  “Hey, did you get any salami this week? I’m standing here looking, but I don’t see any.”

  If she’d been in a B-movie about the chick who goes off the deep end, this would be the point Rachel would take the butcher knife and chop Myron into teeny-tiny pieces and feed him to Valicielo’s little dog. She hung up on him. And then she fussed with the phone for a moment until she had figured out how to turn it completely off, and screwed up her courage. She turned around to face Flynn with a huge smile on her face. So huge and frozen into place that it hurt her cheeks. “Friend,” she said, shrugging.

  Flynn just gave her a wry smile and walked back into the kitchen to fetch her bag. “I understand if you’re with someone—”

  “No! I’m not with anyone!” she insisted, and really, the irony was not lost on her that she was, for the first time in her life, desperate not to have a boyfriend. “I don’t even have a dog, Flynn. That guy is just an old—” The word dick came to mind. “He’s just an old friend, and he was worried that I wasn’t home.” She didn’t add that he was worried because she apparently had no life, but perhaps more important, that she was out of salami.

  “Just happened to be driving by, eh?” Flynn smiled again and glanced none too subtly at his watch.

  All right. She wasn’t exactly a girl who had it going on, that was for sure, but she definitely knew the international sign for this-is-so-over. She sighed, dropped the phone into her bag. “Actually, he was in my house. I have a couple of friends who sort of come and go . . . well, more come than go, actually. Sometimes they need a place to hang out. Or something to eat,” she added with a roll of her eyes, and realizing, for the first time, maybe, how insane it was for an ex-boyfriend to have free run of her house. “But it’s really all very platonic, and believe me, even if he was interested, I couldn’t possibly be less interested, and I—”

  Flynn put his hand on her arm, stopping her. “It’s quite all right, really,” he said again. “Like I’ve told you, it’s not as if I expected you were living alone in a hovel just waiting for a bloke like me to appear,” he said with a lopsided smile. “And it’s certainly not as if I—” Whatever he was about to say, he stopped there, looked briefly but strangely confused, then shook his head, as if to clear it.

  But then again, he really didn’t need to say anything, because it suddenly dawned on Rachel, and man, she was so stupid. All this time she’d been so focused on making sure he knew she didn’t have a boyfriend that it hadn’t really occurred to her that he might be attached. Of course he was! A man like Flynn couldn’t be unattached if he tried. What was amazing was that she hadn’t thought of it before.

  “I see,” she said, nodding and smiling as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time. “You’re the one with the attachment.”

  “Actually, I’m the one who hasn’t had a bit of sleep in days, really. I’m quite knackered.”

  He didn’t deny it. And he was tired. This was the old heave-ho.

  He picked up his trench and held it open for her. “I think it would be best if we continued this conversation another time. Perhaps over dinner sometime soon.”

  Fabulous! He was going to dump her before he’d ever really had her, all because Myron was stoned and wanted a salami sandwich and had phoned to open this can of worms.

  “Yeah,” she said, and walked into the trench coat, let him put it around her shoulders again.

  She leaned over to pick up her bag, but Flynn stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, forcing her around. “Monday I’m all booked up. But there is the weaving class Tuesday—I’m really looking quite forward to it, you know. I’m thinking of making my mother a little scarf or something fetching like that for Christmas. So would Wednesday be convenient for you to have dinner? I’ve heard of a quaint little place on Benefit Street, if you’re free.”

  Rachel blinked. “Are you kidding?”

  “Kidding?” he laughed. “Why would I kid about such a thing? What, you thought I’d be put off by the American competition?” he asked, grinning. “Absolutely not. I thought I’d start with dinner, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll simply challenge him to a duel.”

  Rachel laughed, decided that she wouldn’t be put off by the competition, either. At least not yet.

  Flynn’s blue-gray gaze warmed her. “Is Wednesday good for you?” he asked again.

  “Wednesday is great,” she said genuinely.

  “Brilliant,” he said, and with his hand possessively on the small of her back, he ushered her to the door.

  As they drove to her car, Flynn told Rachel about Marlene and how he’d driven her home and put her on her couch and left her snoring something fierce.

  “How do you know Mr. Feizel?” Rachel asked.

  “I did some work for him.”

  “Computer work?”

  “Yes, right. Where’s your car? I don’t see it.”

  “Another block
,” she said, pointing ahead, and looked at Flynn. “But I thought you specialized in bank software.”

  “Actually, we specialize in anything for which people are willing to pay us gobs of cash.”

  Rachel laughed at that as he pulled up next to her car. As she gathered her things, he grabbed the trench coat by the collar and pulled her across the car, kissed her once more with passion before getting out and coming around to her side to open her door and help her out.

  “Wednesday, then,” Flynn said. “You’ll promise to keep free, will you?” He leaned forward to nuzzle her neck.

  “I will.”

  “I’ll ring you Monday to make sure you have. If you don’t hear from me, then by all means, cast a torturous spell complete with the eye of the newt.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she said laughingly, and let him give her one last kiss that, she was certain, full of his promise.

  When she arrived home, Myron was on her couch, remote in hand, his feet encased in dirty socks on the coffee table, and the remains of some sort of sandwich on the table next to his feet. “Hey!” he said brightly as she let herself in.

  Rachel walked in, dropped her bag, and glared at Myron. “What are you doing?”

  “Watching a movie,” he said cheerfully. “X-men. Dude, it is so . . . so unreal,” he said with awe.

  He was stoned again. “Is there a reason you are watching it here instead of your own place?” she asked.

  He thought about it for a moment. “Not really. Just turned it on when I was eating a sandwich and kind of got caught up.” He turned it off, tossed the remote aside, and looked at Rachel. “Hey . . .” he said, as if he was noticing her for the first time. “You look really hot tonight.”

  What was it about a skirt that was at least two sizes too small that made her look hot? She looked like a freaking sausage and she knew it. “It’s time for you to go, Myron. I want to go to bed.”

  “Hey, Rach,” Myron said, coming to his feet. His corduroy pants, too big as usual, pooled at his ankles. “What’s the matter? You seem really uptight.”