Jake's Love (Courthouse Connections, #7) Read online

  After all, he’d long ago decided there was no valid medical reason for that particular ritual cleansing in these modern times, no matter how much store the Orthodox rabbis set by it.

  He’d already shed his suit jacket and tie, so getting rid of the rest took just a matter of seconds. Seeing her take in his body with obvious appreciation fed his ego as well as his lust. Naked now, he reached out and drew her to him, tamping down his need because the untamed part he hadn’t realized lurked inside him until now wanted to toss her on the bed and take her like a rutting beast.

  She was so damn beautiful, a morsel to be savored, not wolfed down in one intensely satisfying bite. He cupped her chin and drew her to him for a deep, arousing kiss. When he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue she opened up and welcomed him inside. Damn, she took his breath away when she laced her fingers through his hair, holding him as surely as he was holding her, his arms a vise around her slender waist.

  His sex rose between their bodies, as impatient as Jake himself was determined to take Meghan slowly and gently. He wanted to promise her not only the hot, mindless sex they both needed, but also a future he hoped they would find together.

  “Let’s get you naked and make love,” he whispered next to her soft earlobe.

  “Yes, let’s do.” She reached down and encircled his penis in both her hands while he fumbled with the fastener to her bra. Hell, he was a surgeon who handled delicate instruments every day. Figuring out how to get this bra off her should be a piece of cake. It would have been if she weren’t stroking his erection, lightly handling his scrotum, making him desperate to claim her now.

  “You’re driving me crazy doing that,” he muttered, making one last effort and finally freeing her firm, full breasts. After tossing her bra out of the way, he bent and tasted both pebbled nipples before turning his attention to the matching bikini panties. When he peeled them down, he groaned.

  “Like the Brazilian, do you?” she asked, her laugh sounding a little nervous. “The aesthetician at my salon suggested that my lover might enjoy it. I never had it done before, but it came with their “works” package.”

  “Oh yeah. Tell your aesthetician I like it, a lot.” Her sex, waxed clean except for a thin landing strip, looked as soft as a baby’s behind, and he could hardly wait to see if she tasted as good as she looked. “Lie down, sweetheart, and let me make you feel good.”

  He’d never dreamed that a woman would have what he imagined must be uncomfortable at best, excruciating at worst, done solely for his pleasure. As he stroked her, dipping a finger into her warm, damp vagina, he figured this was something Mama and his nanas would think was scandalous. Of course they’d never see it, and so he concluded that they didn’t need to know. He scissored two fingers, caught her swollen clit between them. “Does this feel good?”

  Her moan, and the way she spread her legs farther apart, answered him with that action as clearly as if she said the words out loud. He turned his body, determined to sample her softness with his tongue, and when he did, he felt her twist around and close her lips around his erection. She started to slide her tongue up and down on him, wet and warm and as arousing as anything he’d ever had done to him.

  “Don’t stop,” he said, because her tongue felt like heaven. He loved the fact that she’d taken him in her mouth so eagerly.

  Shifting his body more, he gave her more of him as he drank his fill of her sweet honey and nibbled her pouting labia. Her arousing scent mingled with her sweet perfume and drove him crazy. Wanting to devour her yet needing badly to hold out until she writhed beneath his hands and mouth with her climax, Jake clamped down on his self-control, continued sampling her while he kneaded the supple flesh of her thighs, her buttocks.

  Meghan loved the way Jake touched her. He built up her need slowly, methodically. He made her anticipate more, not fear it. She hadn’t always enjoyed oral sex with her husband, but she loved tasting Jake, hearing his delighted groans as she ran her tongue over his intimate flesh. He felt smooth, like velvet over steel—and clean. A little salty, a lot delightful. She tangled her fingers in the tangled nest of soft, dark hair that cushioned his erection.

  More than anything she wanted to give back the delicious sensations he was bringing her, so she cupped his scrotum in her hands and strained to take him all. With as much love as lustfulness, she sucked and licked him.

  Sexual desire lay heavy in the room, all sounds of sucking and heavy breathing, smells of man and woman and the musk of sex. In her mind every sensation was magnified, the tickle of his soft chest hair on her belly and the pressure of his taut abs on her chest and breasts. His wavy, dark-brown hair brushed her inner thighs, enhancing the feel of his hot breath on her naked flesh as he used his tongue to lap up her juices that now were flowing freely.

  She sucked harder, swallowed. She was close now, but she didn’t want to come alone. His iron control amazed her, but she felt him shudder and pull away as the first waves of her climax began to flow through her body. “I need you inside me now.” Reaching for him, digging her fingers into his back, she tried hard to pull him on top of her.

  “In a minute.” His voice had a tortured edge as he rolled away and reached for something. “I have to protect you.” He turned back to her, gathered her in his arms then laid her down and knelt between her legs. The slick lubrication on the condom met her own well-lubricated sheath and made her shiver with anticipation. Slowly, maddeningly so, Jake took her, his invasion hot. He stretched her, the pleasure-pain of his entry almost too much to bear. “Wrap your gorgeous legs around me. I want to be inside you so deep we can’t tell where I end and you begin.”

  Fully seated inside her now, he lowered his head and found her mouth. Their essences merged, male and female, enhancing the sensation of being taken...conquered by this incredible lover. She knew. She’d been halfway in love with Jake since he’d taken time to comfort her in the hospital so long ago. Now her nipples tingled when he rubbed his chest against her breasts. Pressure built inside her, waiting...

  Then he began to move, so deep that she felt him press against the mouth of her womb. His motions sure and smooth, he practically withdrew before plunging in again. God help her, she was about to come again. She bucked, taking him deeper yet, grinding herself against him. When he raised his body and took her buttocks in his big hands, controlling her, the bubble of her climax expanded, demanded total surrender to his every touch.

  His breathing grew ragged. His sex swelled inside her, growing impossibly harder and bigger. “Come for me, sweetheart. Come now.”

  The bubble inside her burst, finally set free as his flesh began to spasm against her inner walls. She clung to him, an anchor in a delicious world of carnal sensation. Their sweat mingled. Their hearts beat hard and fast, in perfect rhythm. Meghan had never experienced sex quite like this before, the sharing Jake gave so freely. When he stopped jerking inside her, he rolled them both on their sides, stroked her all over as though she was precious. Beloved.

  ● ● ●

  For a long time they lay there spent, savoring the closeness, the quiet aftermath of sex. Finally Jake got up and discarded the condom, but he came right back to bed and curled spoon-fashion around Meghan, cupping one full breast in his free hand.

  If making love with Meghan had taught him one thing, it was that there was no way he was going to give up this woman, not for his mother or the Orthodox traditions he’d been brought up with. He’d waited all his life to feel like this, so wanted and so loved. If he was going to be honest with himself, he would accept that he’d realized Meghan was the one for him, from the first day she’d come to his boss’ office, fighting tears when Dr. Kramer had told her the only answer for Joci was a liver transplant—but being strong for Joci.

  He’d do whatever it took to claim Meghan as his bride. No compromise would be too great, if only he could spend the rest of his life loving her. Being a father to her little girl and any other children they might be blessed with.


  “Meghan. Sweetheart?”

  She stretched, ending up closer to him than before. He willed his sex to behave, at least long enough for him to say what he had to say. “Yes, love,” she said, her voice a husky purr.

  “You may think it’s too soon, but once I make up my mind, I tend to dive right in. I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you in Dr. Kramer’s office. I don’t think you even noticed me come in the room, you were fighting so hard to stay calm for Joci. I knew for sure when I met you in the hospital, the night before her surgery. It damn near killed me, not being able to say so then, having to wait until I no longer had any part in Joci’s care.

  “Will you marry me?” To his surprise, the last few words slid out like butter off his tongue. No hesitation, no regret, only a twinge of guilt because he knew he was letting Meghan in for some possibly very unpleasant time with his mother. When she turned to face him, he put a finger over her lips. “No, don’t answer yet. I have to tell you what you’ll be getting into.”

  Her smile took his breath away. “Go ahead, Jake. Say whatever you think you need to say. It’s not going to change my mind. I love you, and I want to be your wife.”

  He tried to ignore that last declaration, but it wasn’t easy. “First off, we’re going to have to make some compromises between your religious beliefs and mine.”

  “What kind of compromises?” Her smile darkened, but she reached over and cupped his chin with both her small, soft hands. “I don’t mind going to temple—becoming more observant—if that’s what you’re referring to. When my parents were together, we observed all the major holy days. Whatever you may think, I’m not a total heathen even though I married a gentile. That sort of scandalized some of my older relatives.”

  Not as much as him marrying her was going to have his entire family in an uproar. “I’m Orthodox.” That ought to give Meghan a hint of what his family would expect of her.

  “Oh.” She paused a minute as if pondering what that might mean to her. To them. “But you don’t wear black clothes, or have side curls. You don’t even wear a yarmulke all the time, much less one of those big, black hats like I’ve seen men wear in Brooklyn.”

  Jake turned his head and nibbled at her fingers. “I’m not that Orthodox. Some of my ancestors were, though.”

  “Do you follow the dietary laws? Do you expect to shun me nearly half of every month and send me to some ritual bath house before you’ll sleep with me?”

  “The mikveh.” He laughed. “No, I don’t think there’s any point to that and would never ask you—or myself, for that matter—to sacrifice even one of our nights together. I imagine our ancestors may have thought there was good reason, years before birth control, not to mention the primitive conditions under which they must have lived. Before you ask, I’d never ask you to cut your hair or wear a sheitel, either.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. What about keeping a kosher kitchen?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you wanted to. Some members of my family wouldn’t eat in our house if our kitchen wasn’t kosher. But it’s not a necessity. I don’t keep kosher, myself, and while I don’t generally eat pork or shellfish, I don’t obsess about how my chicken and beef are cooked, or whether they’re prepared and served up in separate dishes from those used for dairy products. Even my mother isn’t as fanatical about all the details as my grandmothers were. Before she moved to an assisted living facility, Nana Levinson even had two ovens and two refrigerators as well as two of just about every implement she might ever want to use, and she took all her new pots to the mikveh before she’d use them.”

  Meghan looked Jake in the eye. “I’ll learn how to keep a kosher kitchen if you want, but there’s no way I’m going to wear a wig or miss out on even one night sleeping with you because of some outdated rules. I’m sure your patients will steal you away from me often enough.”

  “No more than I can help. Now that I’m in a private group practice, I can halfway control my nights on call. There are three of us who’re certified to do pediatric transplants. Being the newest one, I have to take an extra night in the rotation, but it beats being a resident or fellow stuck in the hospital virtually 24/7.” Jake wrapped an arm around Meghan, drawing her head onto his chest. He didn’t want to see her reaction when he told her the rest.

  “I’m a Levite. I’ve never actually performed the limited ritual duties that being one qualifies a person to do. But I won’t be a member of that group after we’re married, and that may alienate Mama and the nanas.” The height of understatement, Jake thought, picturing the small war that would start when he announced his plans. “I’ll do my best to keep them from going after you, but they’re probably going to assess you with much of the blame for me losing the position.”

  She traced a slow circle on his shoulder. “Because I’m not a virgin,” she said quietly, surprising him because she knew that.

  “Yes. You must have spent more than a few afternoons at Hebrew school. Not many people would know that much. Don’t worry, though. I’d rather have you than the privilege of being part of the priestly class.” She looked so sad, he had to say something to take her misplaced guilt away. “Anyway, as old as I am, where could I find a virgin old enough to interest me, not to mention one even half as beautiful as you? I don’t believe I’ve run into a pretty virgin much over sixteen. Have you?”

  He felt her muscles relax, heard the musical sound of her laughter. “I was a virgin until I was twenty-two. And I’m afraid that very little of what they taught me in Hebrew school stuck—just a few snippets of information here and there.”

  “A good girl, were you? I’m glad. You have no idea how much I love you, how I’ve gone to sleep nights and dreamed about you since Joci was in the hospital. And after you took her home. I want to adopt her, if her father’s family won’t mind.”

  “They’ve never even tried to see her. They didn’t like me at all, and all their grief was for Bruce after he got drunk and lost an argument with a big oak tree, two months before Joci was born. Speaking of Joci, she adores you. She’ll be thrilled to have you as her daddy.”

  For hours they lay together, dozing lightly, caressing each other and talking. “I’d better call Mom and ask her to fix brunch for both of us. No time like the present to tell her. And Joci. If you’re not working one day next weekend, I’d like us to drive to Englewood and break the news to Dad in person.”

  “Actually, my day off this week is Tuesday, since I’ll be taking call next weekend. Would going down there then work for you?”

  “Yes. I’ll take Joci out of kindergarten and we can spend an hour or so, out on the beach. “

  Jake decided to tackle his own mother alone, absorb as much as he could of her vitriol before she started spewing it on Meghan. “That sounds like fun. As much as I’d like to spend all day making love to my future wife, we’ve got family to meet. Plans to make.”

  Chapter Four

  Teri Miller, Meghan’s mother, was a bundle of energy, taller than Meghan and impeccably dressed in something soft, clingy, and mixed shades of brown and beige. Her dark hair was highlighted and arranged as nicely as any sheitel he’d ever seen. From the way she acted, Jake gathered that Teri was thrilled that Meghan had finally found a daddy for her precious granddaughter.

  “I like you,” she told him, her manner forthright. “Michael and I will have to collaborate on this, because I want you two to have a gorgeous wedding—” Her lips curled in a satisfied grin. “—Even more extravagant than Meri Stone had for Gracie last month.”

  “Mom, Gracie Stone is no more than twenty-one or so. And she had never been married before. I think something simpler, maybe outdoors, would suit us better.”

  “Simpler? Not for my youngest. You broke my heart when you eloped the first time, not that you could have had a temple wedding anyhow, seeing that he wasn’t Jewish.”

  Guilt washed over Jake as he listened to Meghan and her mother arguing about how elaborate a ceremony they’d be ha
ving. “Ms. Miller, I agree with Meghan. We’d both like something simple, with just our families and a few close friends.”

  He envisioned not the showy, costly wedding Meghan’s mom apparently yearned to engineer, but the battle he imagined taking place at the wedding between his very traditionally minded widowed mama and Teri Miller, who Mama would likely refer to as a wannabe Shiksa. Probably to her face if he knew Mama as well as he thought he did. If anything, his mother would benefit from a large dose of tact.

  Jake smiled, then casually dropped his bomb. “Besides, we probably won’t be able to marry in a temple, either.”

  “Why not?” Teri gave him the once-over, as though she thought she might have missed some obvious flaw she should have seen.

  “I’m not certain, but I’d rather pass on all the bells and whistles and do this simply if it’s what Meghan wants.” Let Teri think he had some flaw that would make him unsuitable in a rabbi’s eyes. He’d save the necessary religious implications to discuss on Tuesday when he formally asked Meghan’s father for her hand in marriage.

  His head was beginning to ache from Teri’s nonstop talk of bridal gowns, dance bands and champagne fountains, and he was looking for an escape when Joci bounded into her nana’s living room on the heels of Patches. “Dr. Jake,” she yelled as she wrapped her arms around his knees. “Are you really going to marry Mommy?”

  “Yes, sweetie.” He’d have preferred that he and Meghan sit down with Joci and tell her themselves, but apparently Nana Teri had spilled the beans. “Then you’ll be my little girl, too. Will you like that?”