He thought his heart would fly out of his chest. “Ruby, I’ve been deeply in love with you since I was nineteen years old, and for over sixteen years, I’ve wanted you and dreamed of how we’d be together.” She braced her hands against his chest, widemouthed and trembling, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t, because the words tumbled out of him.
“When I finally had my place inside of you, I felt as if the whole world was mine. You suited me so perfectly. Yes, you were uninhibited, wild if you want to call it that, but that hour was the happiest of my life. I could hardly contain the joy I felt.”
She couldn’t wait any longer. Pounding his chest, she said. “Listen to me, Luther. I’m crazy in love with you. I don’t know when it happened—”
He interrupted her. “You love me?” He stared at her as if she were an apparition. Then, as happiness suffused him, he locked her to his body, but when he felt her erect nipples, he eased her from him. “Amber said you loved me, but I didn’t believe her.”
“Oh, Luther, why do you think I jumped into that pool? You came in there looking like a brown Adonis, and all those women crowded around you and you hardly looked my way, so I jumped into the pool to get your attention. Unfortunately—”
“Don’t go into that. It’s in the past. I need your honesty about one more thing.” Her eyes, wide and trusting, brought to his mind the Ruby who had so adored him when she was a little girl.
“What?” she asked him and added, “Now that I know you love me, nothing you say or do is going to keep you from me.”
“You’re a beautiful, desirable woman, and you attract men easily. There was a time when I could have offered you a whole, a complete man, but…” He made himself say it. “How do you feel about this prosthesis that I have to wear for the rest of my life? I take it off at night before I go to bed and put it back on the next morning.”
She frowned as if she didn’t understand his question. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it. I didn’t notice it when you wore Bermuda shorts to Paige’s pool party. Show me what it looks like.”
Was she serious? He looked at her. Yes, she really wanted to see it. He pulled his right pant leg up above the amputation so that she could see where the prosthesis joined his flesh.
“Does it hurt there?” she asked, pointing to the spot where the artificial limb was attached to his flesh.
He didn’t shift his gaze from her face; he wanted to know what she felt, and her words might not convey that. “It did a couple of weeks back because that padding wore thin. Otherwise I don’t think about it.”
She stroked the plastic limb. “Whoever makes these is clever. It looks almost exactly like your leg. No wonder I didn’t notice it. You thought it disgusted me? Don’t you know that any part of you is precious to me?”
She kept her gaze locked on him, and he couldn’t pretend that what he wiped from beneath his eyes were not tears. He pulled her onto his lap. “Oh, sweetheart, I want to tell the world that we love each other.”
She stroked his cheek and then rubbed his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb. “I love this lip, but it’s my undoing.” Suddenly, she sucked it into her mouth. “If I can’t get you into me any other way…”
He plunged his tongue into her mouth, in and out, simulating the act of love, and her hot blood began to pound in her loins. “I need you,” she moaned.
“And I need to give you what you want, what we both want,” he said, as she straddled him and pinned him to the sofa.
His belly rumbled, and she sat up. “Oh, goodness. Does this mean you’re hungry?”
“Looks like it.” He had never been able to make love when his stomach was empty. “It’s almost one, and I am starved. I’d better fix us some lunch. I’m gonna need all the energy I can get.”
If he’d asked her, Ruby would have told him that food was as far from her mind as Detroit was from the North Pole. “What can I do to help?” she asked.
He splintered her nerves with a wink and a wicked grin. “Not a thing. Go watch television and tell me what’s happening.”
She went back to the porch, tuned the TV set to a cable news channel and sat down to watch. How could they have been so far wrong about each other? She knew he cared, but she hadn’t dreamed that he loved her. Imagine! Luther Biggens had loved her since she was a teenager, but had waited for her to grow up. During that time, she went to the University of Michigan and he went to the Naval Academy; he went overseas as a commissioned officer; her mother died; and she took care of her three sisters, had an affair and became disillusioned. He came home to recover from the loss of his leg and, although he remained friendly, he showed no interest in her until that miraculous evening.
“Luther, come here! Hurry!”
He opened the kitchen door. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Look. It’s Dashuan Kennedy. The police have him in handcuffs. Him and his trainer have been arrested for trafficking in steroids.”
“Thank God, Paul got Amber away from him,” Luther said. “He’d have ruined her life.”
“Yeah. We don’t always know what’s good for us or what can be our ruination. Just think of the years that you and I lost.”
He leaned down and kissed her nose. “Everything in its own time, sweetheart. Be ready to eat in ten minutes.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not hungry,” she said to herself. She wanted to call her sisters and tell them of Dashuan Kennedy’s apprehension, but the day belonged to her and Luther. After a few minutes, she went inside. He’d set the table in the dining room.
“My goodness! When did you do this?” she asked when he brought the food into the dining room.
He put on a stern face. “Look at me, miss. Would I give the woman I love a crummy lunch?”
She grabbed his hand and urged him closer. “Bend down. I need to kiss you.”
His eyes darkened to obsidian, and then his irises seemed to light up like the blaze that heated her insides. “Better not. If you do, we won’t get any lunch, and I need to eat, because I’m hoping to need energy,” he said with a grin. He poured a glass of wine for each of them and sat down.
With her hand in his, he bowed his head and said, “Dear Lord, I thank you for the blessing of this woman’s love that I so often thought would never be mine, and I thank you for giving us this day together. Amen.”
“You don’t like it?” he asked after they had been eating for a few minutes.
“It’s delicious, but I’m too full to eat much.”
He continued eating for a while and suddenly drained his glass of wine and looked at her. “Are you going to drink your wine?” She nodded and drank the remainder of it.
He looked at her, unmasked, his emotions bare. Shivers coursed through her. “Luther! You’re tearing me up.”
Luther stood and held out his arms to her. “I want to know if we can find again what we had the night after Christmas.”
He took her to his room, sat her on the edge of his bed and knelt before her. “You are the only love my life has ever known, and I will never be truly happy until you are my wife. I will love you as long as we both live, and I will take care of you and our children. Will you marry me?”
She hated crying, but joy overcame her. He’d shattered her control. As tears met beneath her chin, she brought his head to her breast. “Yes. Yes. I thought we’d never get together. I love you so much, and I want to be your wife and the mother of your children.’
His tongue slid along the seam of her lips, and when she opened to him, he plunged into her, sending shock waves throughout her body. She pulled him deeper and, immediately, her nipples hardened and began to ache.
“Take this thing off me,” she said, tugging at her sweater. He pulled it over her head while she tugged at her tight jeans. Finally she kicked them away, and he stood and stared down at her until, fired by the heat of his gaze, her body began to twist and turn of its own volition.
“What do you want?” he asked in deep guttural tones.
&n
bsp; She fumbled at her bra, unhooked it and offered him her breast. He pushed her to her back, straddled her, pulled the nipple into his mouth and began sucking it. She rubbed his hand over her other nipple. She’d waited so long to feel like that, so long to have him inside of her. The rough fabric of his jeans against her naked skin gave her a feeling of wantonness, and she reached down to caress him.
“Wait a minute, baby. I need some protection for you.” He sat on the edge of the bed, pulled off his clothes and stood. She sat up, pulled down his shorts, fondled his penis, and then sucked him slowly into her mouth. As much as his body cried out in pleasure, he told her to stop.
“You didn’t like it?” she asked, afraid that she had offended him.
“I loved it.” He lifted her, and covered her body with his own. When he looked down at her and smiled, she took his breath away.
“Be patient,” he said when she started panting and her hips began to roll. But her hands swept up and down his back, squeezing and pinching his buttocks. How she adored him, as his lips cherished her eyes, ears, cheeks and mouth. She thought she’d explode from the heat he built up in her. But he did not linger there. She held her breath until at last his mouth was on her breast, and when he sucked the nipple into his mouth again, she cried out.
He didn’t ignore the other one, but stroked and sucked it until she began to undulate wildly beneath him. “Luther, please just get in me. I’m on fire for you.”
“Good. That’s the way I want you.” His tongue twirled around in her navel, and then he kissed, nipped and licked the inside of her thighs until she couldn’t stand the tension.
“Luther, I feel like I’m going to explode.”
He said nothing, but spread her legs wider, kissed her and buried his tongue into her. Screams poured out of her when he started sucking. When she thought she could stand no more, his finger slid into her, and she thought she’d go insane from the sensations he created.
“I can’t stand it,” she said. “Please get in me.”
He moved up her body slowly, as if he relished every second of it. “Take me.”
She grasped his penis with both hands and led him home.
“Look at me, don’t close your eyes. I want you to know who’s loving you,” he said as he eased into her.
“So good,” she moaned.
He accelerated his pace, and she hooked her legs around his hips and met him thrust for thrust. She felt as if she’d been sucked into quicksand. Her whole body quivered for release and then she exploded into ecstasy. She flung her arms wide and gave herself to him.
“You’re mine. Mine, do you hear?” he shouted and gave her the essence of himself.
After a long while, he said, “What will we do with your house?”
He didn’t think he’d ever seen a smile sparkle as hers did. “Sell it and split the money four ways. Can we call my sisters and tell them that we’re lovers, and that we’re getting married Valentine’s Day?”
Happiness suffused him and he laughed aloud. “Sure, but why Valentine’s Day? That’s almost three weeks away.”
“It’ll take me that long to get ready. I want a formal wedding.”
“And I want you to have whatever pleases you.”
“Oh, Luther. I love you so much, and I’m so happy.”
His arms tightened around her. “I can’t express how I feel this minute, but I know I’ll love you forever.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0836-4
FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION
Copyright © 2007 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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