Pearl (The Pearl Series)

by Arianne Richmonde

  But I didn’t back off. “I’ll pay for whatever the lady’s having, too,” I told the girl serving our coffee. I wanted to say, ‘Whatever Pearl’s having’ but thought that Pearl would peg me for some kind of stalker. Why I continued to pursue her I wasn’t sure, since she was clearly not interested. But I couldn’t help myself. “For Pearl,” I added, wondering why I was not getting the response I was after. Not to be arrogant, but women did normally smile at me, if not give me the eye. They still do. Daily. But Pearl was not buying it. I wanted her to flirt, brighten up my dull day.

  I went on, undeterred—for some reason I didn’t feel like giving up; she had really piqued my interest. “Pearl. What a beautiful name.” Jesus what did I sound like? A typical French gigolo type, no doubt. “I’ve never heard that before. As a name, I mean.”

  In my peripheral vision, I caught Sophie rolling her eyes, again, and she whispered in French, “Bet you anything you’ll have that woman on her back in no time.” Shut up!

  Pearl Robinson finally reciprocated with a beautiful big smile. Nice. Pretty teeth. Sexy, curvy lips. She told me about her parents being hippies or something—explaining her name. I wasn’t listening. I’d got her attention, that’s all I cared about. I could tell she liked me. Took long enough for her to warm up, though—all of forty seconds. I felt triumphant. Why? I met pretty women all the time. But there was something about this one that really captured my attention. She was poised and elegant, yet unsure of herself. There was a childish, vulnerable quality about her which I found disarming, even beguiling. She was rifling through her enormous handbag, trying to find her wallet. Why are American women so keen on paying for themselves? Was she embarrassed because I was buying her a coffee?

  “What’s your name?” she asked, while simultaneously staring at my nametag.

  Good…ironic sense of humor, I thought. I laughed and introduced myself. Introduced Sophie, too.

  Pearl went to shake Sophie’s hand and her wristwatch caught on my T-shirt. I looked down at her other hand. No wedding ring. Good. I felt my heart quicken with the physical contact of her delicate wrist brushing against my chest—the intimacy—and I knew….in that nanosecond, I knew; I was going to have to fuck this girl.

  The way she was looking at me was giving me the green light. Yet her big blue eyes were unsure of me. She looked down at the floor, and then up again at me. She may not have even known it herself at that point—women rarely do—but she wanted me to claim her. I could almost hear her screaming my name. I pictured myself pinning her up against a wall, all of me inside her.

  I wanted her. And I was going to have her. You bet. Every last inch of her.

  “Remember to use protection,” Sophie whispered in French, “she may look like an nice Upper East side WASP, but you never know.”

  I retorted, also in French. “Get your coffee, or whatever you’re drinking, and leave because I’ve had enough of your snippy conversation for one day.”

  Sophie cocked her eyebrow at me and smirked. I turned my attention back to Pearl Robinson and prayed that her French was limited or non-existent. I gazed at her, right into her clear blue eyes. Yes, I decided, I want this woman.

  And she wanted me. I was pretty damn sure. She was jittery, nervous, tongue-tied—couldn’t get her sentences out straight. Why? Because I was running my eyes up and down her body, mentally undressing her, and she could sense the electricity. The heat. She was all flustered. She could read my mind. She was fumbling for something in her monster-bag again. Her apartment keys, she told me. Was she planning on inviting me over?

  “Nice to meet you, Pearl,” Sophie said, giving her the once-over. “Maybe see you around some time?” The innuendo was so thick you could have cut it with a machete.

  Sophie sashayed out of the coffee shop and I exhaled with relief. Thank God, now I can get down to business. Real business.

  “I got the drinks to go, but do you want to sit down?” I suggested to Pearl. She nodded.

  Why I was so taken with this New Yorker, apart from her obvious good looks, I wasn’t quite sure—she had a quirky kind of charm. I liked her. And I decided right there and then—I didn’t just want to fuck Pearl, I wanted to get to know her, too.

  She eased her way into an armchair but was unsure whether to cross or uncross her legs. Like a schoolboy, I found my eyes wandering to her crotch and imagining what lay beneath, but she was too demure for that. Her legs crossed closed, and she smoothed that sexy pencil skirt over her thighs. I thought about fucking her again—I couldn’t stop myself. I wondered if what Sophie said was true: that Pearl would put out on a first date. I’d have to find out….

  We were interrupted by a phone call from my assistant, Jim, telling me to snap up the Austin Healy I’d had my eye on—they’d accepted my offer. So the conversation with Pearl swung around to cars. I felt like a jerk. I knew what women were like; feigning interest about bits of machinery when they really couldn’t give a damn. Pearl was no different. Still, she did a good job of pretending. She nodded and smiled and widened her pretty eyes. Meanwhile, I had one thing on my mind: to get her into the sack ASAP.

  But then she took me off guard. She started talking about re-runs of old sitcoms, classic novels, and old songs and I began to think we had something in common besides physical attraction. Then, when I mentioned my black Labrador, Rex, that was it. I began to mentally tuck my tackle back into my pants, so to speak, because she admitted that she was crazy for dogs, too. She loved the fact that I could take Rex to restaurants in Paris and a flash of our future ran before my eyes. I swear. I had a vision of us together eating something delicious, Rex at our side, and something told me that Pearl and I would make the grade. It does sound crazy, that. Call it a premonition—I think it was.

  She was telling me about her childhood Husky.

  “My dog was called Zelda,” she said, her liquid eyes flashing with happy memories.

  “Like Zelda Fitzgerald?” I asked. “Scott Fitzgerald’s wife?”

  She looked up at me, surprised. “Yeah, you know about her?”

  “Of course I do. She was a little bit crazy, wasn’t she? The Great Gatsby was partly inspired by her.”

  “Well, like Zelda Fitzgerald, our Zelda was a little out to lunch. I mean, literally. She loved chickens. Went on several murderous escapades.”

  “The way you say that with a little smile on your face makes me believe you didn’t have much sympathy for the innocent, victimized chickens,” I teased.

  “They were going to be slaughtered anyway, poor things.” She put her hand on her mouth as if she’d put her foot in it. “Sorry, Alexandre, are you a vegetarian?”

  I loved the way she said Alexandre with her cute American accent, trying to accentuate the re. “No, you?”

  “No red meat. Only organic chicken. I know…kind of ironic considering what Zelda did. I do have a conscience—I’m against intensive farming, you know, animals spending their lives in tiny cages, so small they can’t even turn around. Cows being forced to eat grain, not grass—being pumped full of antibiotics. People don’t like inviting me to dinner. I’m a tricky customer.”

  “Not for me, you’re not,” I found myself saying. “I’d be delighted if you came for dinner. I’ll cook you something wonderful.” I narrowed my eyes at her. Fuck she was sexy.

  Her eyes, in return, widened and her lips clamped around her straw, as she sipped her iced cappuccino, seductively. Jesus, I felt my cock harden watching her mouth. I shifted in my seat and leaned forward to hide my bulge. As I leaned down, I let my hand brush against her golden calf. Smooth, soft legs. Nice. This unexpected coffee date was getting too hot to handle so I tried to turn the conversation around to stop myself from mentally undressing her. She got there first, asking me why I chose to live in New York.

  “France is a great country,” I began. “Beautiful. Just beautiful. Fine wine, great cuisine, incredible landscape—we really do have a rich culture. But when it comes to opportunity, especially for small bu
sinesses, it’s not so easy there.”

  “You own a small company? What do you do?”

  Interesting. This woman has no idea who I am. Refreshing. She won’t be after my money—she doesn’t have an agenda. Good.

  “That’s why I was at that conference,” I explained.

  I expanded a bit, gave her the usual blab about ‘giving back,’ and how I liked to share a few tricks of the trade with others.

  “And you?” I asked, wondering what the hell this unlikely sexpot was doing at an I.T. conference. She so didn’t look the type. “What were you doing there?”

  She flushed a little, slid down into her chair as if she wanted to disappear and shifted her gaze to her feet. She looked acutely embarrassed. Maybe she had a very boring job, I reasoned, and didn’t want to spoil the mood. I dropped the subject. So we brought the conversation back to me again, and she had heard of HookedUp, after all. Of course she had. Who hadn’t? Everyone and his cousin hooked up with HookedUp, even married couples. But Pearl didn’t seem particularly impressed by me, even when I let it slip that I was the CEO.

  “So when you’re not working or zipping about in your beautiful classic cars, or hanging out with Rex, what do you do to relax?”

  “I rock-climb,” I replied, already having planned in my head that rock climbing would be the perfect first date for us. Not too ‘date-like,’ not typical—she’d go for it.

  “Oh yeah? I swim. Nearly every day. It’s what keeps me sane.”

  Ah, so that accounts for her tight peachy ass and sculpted legs. We discussed the benefit of sports—how it was good for one’s mental state of mind as well as keeping your body fit. This woman had me intrigued. I was getting more than a hard-on talking to her. She made me laugh. She was bright, opinionated. Had read the classics, loved dogs and sure, I couldn’t deny it, she had a body like a pin-up and the face of an angel. Besides, with all her straw-sucking, I knew what was going through her mind. She wanted to see me with my shirt off. Yes, damn it, I could tell. She couldn’t take her eyes off my chest. She even licked her luscious lips while she was ogling me, and then said—her eyes all baby-doll…all come-and-fuck-me-now:

  “I tried rock climbing once. I was terrified but I could really understand the attraction to the sport.”

  On the word, attraction, I swear to God, she looked at my chest, then my groin, and back again to my chest before she finally fastened her gaze on my face. Oh yeah, believe me, I knew what was going on in Pearl’s mind. Her smart attire, educated voice and expensive handbag didn’t fool me. Still, her come-on would have been imperceptible to an un-trained eye—not slutty, not over-flirtatious…just a split second of wanton lust on her part, which I bet she thought I hadn’t clocked onto.

  But…Miss Pearl Robinson, daughter of hippies, lover of dogs, quasi-vegetarian temptress….I had your number.

  I knew everything there was to know—instinctively.

  I wanted her quirky ass and I was going to have it. And everything that went with it, too. All of it. I was going to put my mark on that peachy butt.

  I presumed I had her all worked out. Clever me.

  Little did I know that I was dead wrong.

  "Things weren’t going to be quite so simple."

  2

  So there we were chatting about this and that, still drinking our coffees, lingering over them, trying to make our drinks last, because neither of us wanted our tête-à-tête to end.

  During the conversation that followed, it struck me that Pearl was damaged goods. But it was too late. I was invested. I invited her rock climbing—feeling smug about all the things I was going to do to her, picturing her having multiple orgasms as I fucked her senseless in several different ways. How I’d take her to a hotel the night before, we’d have passionate sex, and by the next day, she probably wouldn’t even want to go rock climbing anyway, because let’s face it, when she told me she’d once been, she was obviously lying.

  “Would it seem too forward to invite you to come with me for the weekend?” I suggested.

  Her eyes lit up, at first, “Not at all!” she said with enthusiasm. But suddenly, she froze. Froze. She was like a beautiful flower closing its petals. I saw horror flash across her face. She was even eyeing the front door as if she planned to make a dash for it. Why? She was stunning, had a great body (so must have felt confident in that department), fancied the pants off me, obviously wasn’t playing the hard-to-get-I’m-so-virtuous game, so why was she freaking out about us spending the night together?

  I read her expression: she was terrified of sex.

  “Don’t worry, Pearl. I can arrange for us to have separate bedrooms,” I said.

  But it only made things worse: she looked even more panicked; her face paled, her mouth fell open. She mumbled—her disappointment deeper than a well, “Yes, of course. Separate bedrooms.”

  I understood, then and there, that she wanted me, but would be too traumatized for anything more than a peck on the cheek.

  How did I know all this at the tender age of twenty-five? I won’t go into it now, but trust me, I know women. I’ve been intimate with the female species—because they are a ‘species’ unto their own—since the age of fourteen, when I lost my virginity to a friend of my sister’s, a ‘colleague’ of hers. Women have always revealed to me their deepest secrets, fears, loves and passions. How many women have I ‘known’ in my life? I lost count a long, long time ago. Because I started young, by the time I was college age, I really was au fait with the physical and physiological machinations of the female sex. Not that I went to college. Not for long, anyway. I was too busy plotting to take over the world, shut in my man cave. Coding. Being a nerd. Designing HookedUp. But as most people know, nerds get their revenge. One day I’d be a rich man, I told myself.

  And I was right.

  So by the time I was the grand old age of twenty, I’d played the field so much that all I wanted was a safe, stable relationship with a normal girl. I ended up in the arms of someone less than stable and swore I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. But here I was again, being drawn to somebody with issues. Major issues, I suspected.

  And that somebody was Pearl Robinson.

  I was a rich, powerful man used to getting what I wanted. And ironically, I wanted her.

  So I suggested I’d pick her up the following day. No hotel. I’d play it safe.

  “Actually, I know another place that we can go rock climbing closer to the city. It’s only ninety miles upstate—we can drive there early and come back late, all in one day. What do you say?”

  “Great,” she answered. And I saw both relief and regret flicker in her blue eyes.

  I wouldn’t fuck her, after all. I’d wait. Bide my time. Because something told me that this woman hadn’t been fucked properly for a very long while. Maybe never.

  Most guys like the chase. They love it when girls spurn them and play hard to get. I guess they have something to prove to themselves, like going hunting. But I don’t operate that way. I don’t want a woman to be with me because of my own powers of persuasion, or because I’ve ‘bulldozed’ her into it. I’m not the bulldozing type. I don’t want to tread over anyone’s sensibilities, least of all a female’s. You know how children and dogs can be? Curious but wary? You can’t force them. Let them come to you, I say. Pique their interest. Don’t be overbearing or over-possessive. It makes for a good story in a romance novel (I know, my mother devours them, one a day), but in reality, a woman wants a man to be a man, not some insecure wreck wondering where she is every second, or having a jealous fit if her top’s too revealing. A woman desires a confident man—that’s another thing I’ve learned over the years from listening to their woes: be confident.

  And if you aren’t feeling that way?

  Fake it.

  Besides, I believe in love at first sight, or at least, lust at first sight. If the magic isn’t there for both parties within the first twenty seconds of meeting each other, you can be sure it never will be. Of course, m
any people would disagree with that, but for me, I’ve found this to be true. With Pearl that connection was there. Has it ever been there before or since? No, never. Not in that twenty-second kind of way.

  I didn’t let Pearl know how I felt. Another rule: Don’t scare a woman off by being too keen or pushy. Because if she succumbs to you, you’ll never know if it’s because she genuinely loves you or because you’ve worn her down. There are a lot of worn-down women out there. They think it’s easier to give in. Some men are foolish enough to mistake that for lust, or even love.

  Also, I’m French. Pride is in my DNA. I can’t help it. So when Pearl made it obvious that she had second thoughts about spending the night with me, I held back.

  Our rock climbing date was interesting, to say the least. I picked her up at 7 am from her Upper East Side apartment, and we drove upstate to the Shawangunk Mountains. During the car ride, I knew I was giving her double messages but I couldn’t help myself. One minute I was talking about falling in love with my Corvette because of the LeMans blue, adding, “Same color as your eyes,” and the next I was acting like a strict Victorian father, telling her how certain types of sex play didn’t do it for me—namely whipping. (Fantasy is one thing, reality is another. Seriously, what woman wants to be physically hurt?) Pearl was confused. I was confused. How the hell did the conversation veer off in that direction? Was it normal for two people to talk about sex on a first date? Talk about it, but not do it? I didn’t think so, but nothing was normal about the pair of us. We were two misfits trying to slot our jiggled bits of puzzle into the right place, hoping that somehow, at least our pieces would fit together.

  When I alluded to her LeMans blue eyes, she replied, “My eyes? You should talk with your tiger-green eyes set off against your dark hair.”

  At that point, on Date One, I wasn’t quite sure what Pearl’s deal was. What kind of Life Cards she’d been dealt. So far, I had learned that her hippy, surfer father abandoned her family when Pearl was young and he now lived in Hawaii. She told me that her mother died of cancer—they’d been very close. And her gay brother, Anthony (who sounded like a jerk, reading between the lines), lived in San Francisco with his boyfriend, Bruce. All this I gleaned, and yet I felt I was no closer to knowing why there was a shadow of fear in her eyes, a shimmer of benign mistrust.