“Say you adore me, say you love me,” he pressed.
But the words seemed lodged in her gullet—she couldn’t force them out. Robin buried her face in a pillow. “I can’t,” she muttered helplessly.
“Oh God,” Jake muttered somewhere above her, and she felt him draw away.
Robin sat up. “No—it’s . . . I’m just not ready, Jake,” she pleaded with him.
“Yeah, I see,” he said, swinging his legs off the side of the bed.
“No, no, you don’t. I do adore you. I just. . . I want to—I need to go slow. . . .”
Jake didn’t say anything for a moment, just gazed sadly at her. At last, he lifted his hand and stroked her cheek. “Okay,” he said and gently pushed Robin down onto the bed. He kissed her softly. “Okay,” he said again, as if to convince himself that it was okay, and kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, and then her breasts, pushing aside her blouse to explore her entire body with his mouth. Robin moaned, both from pleasure and pain. Pleasure from the expertise with which he brought her to the brink of a violent climax; pain from knowing that the man who did this to her had fallen in love with her, and that she didn’t know how to return it, or what to do with it, other than to lie there, to let him say it, to let him show her. And when she came, she unconsciously called out his name as tender gratification rained down and covered her, creating a shroud beneath which she lay, feeling just barely alive as she tried to catch her breath and what was left of the bearings instilled in her a long, long time ago. Bearings that were fast slipping from her white-knuckled grip.
Jake was up before the light the next morning. He envied Robin her zombie sleep, with arms and legs sprawled everywhere. An A-bomb wouldn’t have waked that girl. But he couldn’t sleep, troubled by his stupid admission, blurted out like a teenage boy in love. Gaga, Mom had called it. What he wouldn’t give to be able to deliver himself a good swift kick in the ass. What had he expected her to do with his poetic declarations? Announce her own undying love? Ask him to marry her?
You’re a fucking idiot, man.
He was already working when the crews showed up and started banging around the house, trying to figure out how he had come to fall in love with a woman who was so far above him in economic and social stature as to be unreachable. It wasn’t that he was intimidated by her wealth, exactly, or thought Robin above him in some way. It was just that it didn’t seem . . . practical. Robin knew it, but oh no, he had gone and fallen deep into the magic and believed it. For a man who accounted for every nickel he made, Jake didn’t think there would ever be a time he would feel good about spending money wantonly like she did, no matter how much money he had.
But then again, he harbored the insane notion that if he could just concentrate on getting his architect degree—he was so damn close, after all—that he could, conceivably, make the kind of money Robin was used to. He could support those things she was accustomed to, like fancy restaurants, trips abroad, even shopping sprees. Although he might eventually have to put his foot down about the shoe thing, because nobody, and that meant nobody, should pay more than fifty bucks for a pair.
It was that singular, faint hope of a potential future with Robin that made Jake even more determined than ever to finish school and expand his business, and it felt with every swing of the hammer against the brick wall that he was one step closer. And when Robin came out of her room that morning, dressed in a short skirt and a sheer blue blouse the color of her eyes, sporting a shy, dimpled smile, he was suddenly swinging the hammer with abandon, trying to remember when, if ever, he had been so captivated by a woman. And every time he looked at her—or caught her looking at him with the expression of confusion—or was it torture?—he felt an even bigger fool.
That evening, Robin arrived on his doorstep with a picnic dinner she had gotten from a very fine French restaurant. As Jake looked down at what was supposed to be lamb in a port wine glaze, he couldn’t help wonder how much she had laid down for it. “Where did you get that?” he asked.
“Pierre’s.”
He knew that name belonged to a fancy French restaurant. “What did that set you back?” he asked, a little more sharply than he would have liked.
Robin frowned. “What difference does it make?”
Jake wished for a burger.