Mellow, soulful music still rang in Jake’s ears hours later as he and Meghan walked upstairs to his rented condo on Harbour Island. He’d spent most of the afternoon tidying the place up. Who’d have thought one reasonably meticulous guy could have accumulated five bags of trash to be hauled down to the dumpster? His mind firmly set on them having a long, serious talk, he steered her into the living room and onto the black leather couch that, except for his high-tech entertainment center, was the only real furniture in the room. “I’ll be right back with drinks and some snacks I bought down at the deli.”
She’d kicked off her shoes and folded up the shawl that had barely covered her smooth, golden shoulders and back. The woman was temptation too strong to resist. And she apparently hadn’t noticed the opened Hebrew Bible and yarmulke he’d left out in plain sight on the antique steamer trunk that served as his coffee table. Or if she had, she’d attached no great significance to them.
Those articles were part of Jake. Part of a heritage he wasn’t able to ignore, no matter how hard he often tried. Why did he have to straddle two worlds, one he wanted to embrace and the other he felt he had to honor? What he wanted, a typical American family with a pretty, accomplished wife and two or three typically American kids, was diametrically opposed to what he’d been brought up to believe he must have—a traditional, Orthodox household like the one in which he’d been brought up.
When he’d spoken with his mother this afternoon, he told her tentatively about Meghan. Mama had asked if Meghan kept a kosher house, and he’d told her he didn’t know. While that was strictly the truth—he’d never asked—he was fairly certain she didn’t. From the first day they’d spoken while Joci was a patient in the transplant unit, Jake had pegged Meghan as a nonobservant Jew despite the jewel-encrusted Star of David pendant she wore around her slender neck. It was obvious from her last name that Joci’s father—or at least her grandfather—hadn’t been Jewish.
Mama wouldn’t like the idea of him possibly having a daughter whose biological father was goyim. She’d like even less the fact that he was thinking about marrying a widow, not a virgin.
Virginity was a mixed virtue, not to mention that virgins mature enough to interest Jake were probably as rare as a total eclipse of the sun. “Juice or wine?” he asked Meghan, wondering if he should have also bought beer and fixings for mixed drinks.
“Juice, please.” Her sexy, husky voice drove everything from his mind except her—and his bed in the other room. He’d changed the sheets and turned the covers back, hopefully and eagerly anticipating the next step in this relationship.
“Oooh, these look good,” she said when he set a plate full of knishes and cheese blintzes on the trunk that doubled as a coffee table.
“Enjoy.” Sitting beside her and munching one of the knishes, he felt her warmth. A light fragrance that reminded him of a bouquet of mixed flowers tickled his nose, as it had all evening, sweet yet incredibly sensual.
He’d be sorry to disappoint his mother, but not sorry enough to give up the woman he was pretty certain he wanted for his wife. Meghan had stolen Jake’s heart, probably from the moment he first saw her, terrified for her daughter with tears in her beautiful eyes. He wanted her and intended to have her. He already loved Joci and would be proud if the brave little girl someday called him Dad. At the moment, though, he just wanted to make Meghan purr with contentment.
The complications and compromises he foresaw, well, they could work them out later. Right now he couldn’t think for wanting her. “You’re so damn beautiful,” he said, sliding his hand around her neck. Her incredibly smooth skin entranced him as he delved his fingers beneath the glitter of all those crystals that lay above the plunging neckline of her dress. “You can’t begin to guess how much I want you.”
She laid her cheek on his hand and nipped his knuckles with her small, white teeth. “I think you’re pretty hot, yourself, Dr. Levinson.” Her words slid like honey over his ego and fired the need that burned inside him to claim her, make her his own.
“Come on, then. The snacks can wait for later. I want to show you my etchings,” he told her, keeping his tone light, teasing. Standing, he finished off his juice and moved the snacks to the refrigerator. When she tossed back the rich, red pomegranate juice in her glass, he couldn’t take his eyes off her scarlet-stained lips.