Pearl (The Pearl Series) Read Free

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