held her a little closer. “Do you want to go back to the table?” he asked her.
“Nope. I’m perfectly happy right where I am.”
“If I were you, I’d be careful of my words,” he said.
She snuggled closer. “I’m always careful. Don’t you know that careful is my middle name? Careful Ruby, that’s me.” She glanced around his shoulder and saw Pearl and Amber talking. “I’ll bet they’re talking about me.”
“Who?” He stopped dancing and guided her back to their table.
“My guardians,” she said. “Amber and Pearl.” She took another glass of champagne from the waiter’s tray, sat down and took a few long sips. “What are you two saying about me?”
“That you shouldn’t drink any more champagne,” Amber said.
“Oh, pooh,” Ruby replied and, realizing that Luther had taken the chair beside hers, leaned over and kissed his neck. His eyes widened and he ran his fingers back and forth over his hair.
“Let her alone,” she heard him say. “She deserves to have some fun. I’ll take care of her.”
She drained her third glass of champagne and looked at Pearl. “If this good-looking man was with you, you’d be having a good time, too. Come on, Luther, let’s go see what everybody else is doing.” Amber’s gasp didn’t concern Ruby. She was having the time of her life, and she didn’t intend to let her sisters spoil her fun.
“Where are you taking us?” he asked her.
“Out here,” she said, leading him to the anteroom that faced their table. At the door of the anteroom, she traced his bottom lip with her right index finger. “I’ve been thinking about this lip all evening. I don’t know why I never saw it before tonight. It’s so inviting. Maybe it’s not real.”
His pupils dilated, and he stared down at her with hot, stormy eyes. “Why are you playing with me?”
“I’m not,” she said. “I just want to see what it tastes like.”
Luther couldn’t imagine what had gotten into Ruby when she reached up and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, but he didn’t hold back. He couldn’t. He rimmed her lips with the tip of his tongue, and when she opened to him, fire shot through his veins and he plunged his tongue into her mouth, gripped her body to his and, mindless of their public posture, enjoyed the first sweetness he’d ever had from the lips of the woman he loved so desperately. He heard a gasp and set her away from him.
“What do you mean by starting that here in front of all these people?” he asked in a voice that trembled with the emotion that besieged him.
“There’s nobody else in here,” she said, but he could see that the kiss had discombobulated her, as well.
“I’m sorry that happened, Ruby.”
“Well, I’m not. I loved it.”
He shook her shoulders, though he did it gently. “Don’t you know better than to tease a man the way you’ve been teasing me all evening? I’m a man with feelings, Ruby.”
“Of course you are, and I haven’t been teasing you. You look good, and I’m enjoying it.” She looked around. “Where’s that waiter with the champagne?”
“I think I’d better take you home. We’ll take your car, and I’ll come back and get mine. You shouldn’t drive.”
“You listen to me, Luther Biggens. I am perfectly sober.”
“If you’re sober, why did you kiss me?”
Her hands went to her hips, but she quickly removed them. “I kissed you because I wanted to, and I fully enjoyed it.”
Luther couldn’t deny he had, too.
“I’m not going home to that big empty house,” she said. “If the wind blows the slightest bit, the whole place creaks. It’s too big, too old and too dark. I don’t like living there all by myself, and I’m not going there tonight.” She folded her arms like a recalcitrant child, poked out her bottom lip and pushed out her chin. “I’m going home with you.”
“Oh no, you’re not,” he said, feeling as if he were between a rock and a hard place. He wanted her alone with him in his house in the worse way, but he didn’t want to spend the night struggling to control his rampaging libido.
She walked to the table with head up and shoulders back in her usual regal stride, and got her jacket.
“Where’re you going?” Pearl asked her.
“Yes,” Amber said. “Are you leaving already?”
“After all that I did yesterday and today, you’d think I’d be tired, wouldn’t you?” he heard Ruby say, and as far as he was concerned, those were the words of a sober person. What the hell! If she wanted to go home with him, he’d take her there. Ruby tripped to the bridal table, kissed Opal, patted D’marcus’s shoulder and walked back to Luther.
“I’ll take you home, Ruby,” he said, wanting to do the right thing. “If you’re afraid to stay there by yourself, I’ll sleep on the living-room sofa.”
She laid her head to one side and looked at him with half-open, seductive eyes. “Didn’t I tell you that I’m going home with you?” She reached out and took a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, and before Luther could stop her, she emptied the glass down her throat. “Delicious. Absolutely delicious,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She didn’t seem to need steadying, but, nonetheless, he walked out of the room with his arm around her. At the cloak room, he collected their coats, helped her into hers and took his time getting into his gray chesterfield. He was stalling for time while he did some thinking, but she locked arms with him, reached up and kissed his cheek and urged him to the door. If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never forget this night.
He loved her and he desperately wanted her, but did he dare make a move? What if he misread her, took the wrong step and ruined the most important friendship of his life?
“All right,” he said to her when they got into her car with him at the wheel, “you said you want to go to my house, so I’m taking you there. But when you decide you want to leave, you only have to tell me.”
“I know that, Luther,” she said. “I’ve trusted you all my life. Sometimes I think you’re closer to me than my sisters are.”
For some reason, he didn’t want to hear that. He wanted some assurance that, when she got to his house, she’d sprawl out on the sofa and go to sleep or, at best, she’d go to the guest room and stay there. He parked in front of his house, walked up the stone path to his front door and inserted his key. He opened the door, and she strolled in.
“Gosh, what a beautiful place,” she said as she dropped herself on the sofa, crossed her knees and began swinging a shapely leg whose slope he knew so well that he could draw it from memory. “You wouldn’t have any champagne, would you?” she asked him. “I’ve decided that I like it. Imagine living twenty-nine years and not knowing how good champagne is.”
“I’m
