Forbidden Temptation

Ruby awakened and sat up suddenly, alarmed at the weight of a hand on her bare thigh. It didn’t make sense. And why would a sledgehammer be pounding the top of her head? She looked to her left and gasped. Good Lord, that was Luther. What was…? It came back to her with blinding accuracy. At that moment he awakened fully and propped himself up on his left elbow.

“What’s wrong? Can’t you sleep?” He reached out to put his arm around her, but she slid farther from him.

“Wh-what have I done?”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry or that you didn’t know what you were doing,” he said. “I’m having none of that.”

She slid off the bed. “I’m sorry, and I apologize for…for…I don’t know what came over me. Would you please close your eyes?”

“Why?” he said in an odd voice that didn’t sound much like Luther’s comforting baritone.

“Just please close your eyes. I want to dress.” She got into her clothes as quickly as possible. “I’m going home. Do you know where my car is?”

He sat all the way up. “In front of the house. Are you telling me you don’t remember me driving your car here?”

“Luther, please forgive me for any pain or inconvenience I’ve caused you.” He started to get out of bed. “No, please don’t. I don’t want you to get up. I can find my way out. I…uh…thanks for everything.” She wasn’t sure why she was thanking him, but she hoped she would upon reflection.

She found her car keys on the table beside the living-room sofa, next to her coat. When she got into her car and put the key into the ignition, she glanced up at the house and saw Luther standing at the window.

“Lord, I must have been out of my mind to make love with Luther. He’s like a brother, and…what can he possibly think of me? She rubbed her forehead in an attempt to ease the pain. “That’s the last champagne I’m ever drinking. No. That’s the last alcohol. From now on, I’m going to stay as sober as a judge.”

She drove home, and after she walked in the door, her first thought was of the lonely echoes of her steps as she headed upstairs. The flashing red light on the phone beside her bed told her that she had messages. No doubt from Pearl and Amber. Tomorrow would be time enough to deal with them.

“What do they think?” she said aloud. “And Lord, what was I thinking? I had no business going to Luther’s house that time of night. I must have been out of my mind.” She showered, put on a nightgown and prepared to get a few hours sleep. She hadn’t been in bed five minutes when the memory of the moments in Luther’s arms came back to her as clear as a bright summer morning.

The man sent her through the stratosphere. For the first time in her life, she had exploded in orgasm after orgasm. And oh, how he had loved her. He’d worshipped every inch of her, kissed her from forehead to feet, and when he finally got inside her…the earth had moved, and it wouldn’t stop. She sat up in the bed and let out a sharp whistle. Then she blinked rapidly; she hadn’t known that she could whistle. She wondered what he’d thought of her wildness, her completely uninhibited behavior. If only she didn’t have to see him again. Well, he would learn that she didn’t plan to chase him. Never!

Luther stood at the window of his bedroom and watched as Ruby pulled away from the curb. What had he done to himself? An ache settled inside of him, more painful than any he’d ever experienced in the years of longing for Ruby. He’d known all along that, if he got a taste of her, he’d need her more than ever, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. She had stood before him, almost nude, with her lips parted and that look of expectancy, that invitation to madness on her face. He couldn’t stand it. Her gaze had roamed his face and settled on his lips, and he’d pulled her body to his and plunged his tongue into her waiting mouth.

He turned, limped back to the bed—his limp was always most prominent when he was unhappy—and sat down on the edge of it. What a woman she was! She had come to him like a nail to a magnet, responding to his every touch, every kiss. And oh, man, when he’d finally got inside her, she’d gone wild, matching him stroke for stroke and bump for bump, exploding in multiple orgasms that he could feel, gripping his penis until he thought he’d lose his mind. She suited him as no other woman had.

He fell over on the bed, but sat up quickly when the musty odor of their lovemaking aroused him. “What do I do now?” he asked aloud. “She couldn’t get away fast enough. This prosthesis turned her off, and she was in such a hurry to leave that she didn’t even take the pains to hide that from me.” He knew he wouldn’t sleep, so he showered, changed the bedding to remove that reminder, went to his den and turned on the television. On the coffee table sat the two glasses he had placed there earlier, hers empty and his untouched.

“It’s a lesson I won’t forget,” he said. “Neither Ruby nor any other woman who’s likely to interest me will settle for a man with one leg. I might as well accept that and get on with my life.” He went into the kitchen to make coffee, turned on the tap and stopped with his hand suspended in the air. “Maybe it wasn’t my leg. Maybe I was mistaken. I thought I gave her all that a woman could ever want, but maybe I was so carried away with what was happening to me that I got it wrong. Yeah, that’s it. My prosthesis doesn’t look that bad. Oh, I don’t know. I’ll learn to live without…Oh, hell!”

In his semidark living room, Luther sat in the early-morning quiet, thinking of his life, of the woman he loved and had possessed but couldn’t have, of the family he wanted so badly. He had to fight back the threatening depression. He couldn’t let it sink him. And why should he? His mind brought back to him the story of Derek LaChapelle, who had won eight varsity letters at Northbridge High in Northbridge, Massachusetts, while playing with a prosthetic left leg. Derek had lived with it from childhood, Luther said to himself. At least he’d grown up with both legs, and nobody who didn’t know would guess he had a prosthesis.

He punched the sofa pillow and said to himself, “Heck, I’m going back to bed.”

Several afternoons later, while sorting out a problem in her office, Ruby answered a telephone call from Pearl.

“Paige and I are going to paint our bathroom and kitchen,” her sister said. “This yellow on the walls now was Opal’s suggestion. She loves yellow, but I’ve gotten to the place where I can hardly stand it. D’marcus will see so much yellow in his place that he’ll think he’s got jaundice. Say, why don’t you come over and help us?”

“Okay. I can leave here around five-thirty, but I’ll have to run home and change.”

“Good. Paige bought some frozen quiches, and we can make a salad. See you later.”

Ruby hadn’t been in the apartment Pearl shared with Paige more than half an hour when Luther walked in with containers of paint, two rollers and some paintbrushes. She stared at her sister. “Why didn’t you tell me he’d be here?”

Her face the picture of innocence, Pearl merely shrugged. “He who? You can’t be talking about Luther. Anything wrong with you two?”

“Of course not,” Ruby said, so quickly that Paige’s eyebrows shot up. “I mean, what could possibly be wrong with Luther and me?”

“Nothing,” Paige said. “The two of you left Opal’s reception when it was still going strong, and my tongue almost dropped out. Arm in arm is what I saw with my own two eyes.”

“You’re imagining things,” Ruby said.

“Maybe she was, but I wasn’t,” Pearl said. “I also didn’t imagine all that champagne you drank. I know you were happy for Opal, but you didn’t have to drown yourself in it.”

“Now, look here. I—Oh, hello, Luther.”

Pearl and Paige stared at Ruby. “Did you two have a fight?” Pearl asked without looking directly at either of them.

“If we did, I don’t remember it,” Luther said, his gaze piercing Ruby with an unmistakable and unspoken accusation. “Why do you ask?”

“’Cause you’re acting like you just met,” Paige said.

“Where do you want me to put this stuff?” Luther asked Pearl. “If I’d known you planned to paint this evening, I’d have worn something appropriate. If you can hold off till Saturday, I could do most of it myself.”

He went to the refrigerator, opened it and poured a glass of orange juice. “I love orange juice,” he said. “If I thought I could tolerate the local politics, I’d move to Florida.”

“Thank God you can’t tolerate them,” Pearl said. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

“You’d manage,” he said. Suddenly, Ruby realized that both Pearl and Paige were staring at her. Wasn’t she the Lockhart who was closest to Luther? Yet she hadn’t reacted to his suggestion that he preferred Florida to Detroit. Her second slipup. The first was not hugging him when he walked in.

Luther seemed preoccupied and in a hurry. “I’ll just set this stuff in the pantry, Pearl. If you need me to help you with it, give me a ring.”

“You going?” Pearl asked him, obviously astonished.

“Yeah. Call me if you need me.”

“Something’s gone wrong,” Pearl said to Ruby after Luther left. “You two are always like two peas in a pod. Did he give you a hard time about drinking all that champagne and playing up to him at Opal’s reception?”

“I didn’t play up to him,” Ruby said.

Paige rolled her eyes. “Girl, if you think you didn’t, then you really did have too much to drink.”

“Right,” Pearl said. “And if you don’t ever get kissed again, he sure laid one on you when you led him out to that little anteroom. Darned if I would have thought he had it in him.”

A frown distorted Ruby’s face. “I don’t believe a word of that, and if you two don’t stop putting me on, I’m going home.”

“My advice to you is lay off the drinks,” Paige said. “If you don’t remember that, you don’t know what you did after you left there.”

“Your imagination is getting out of hand, Pearl,” Ruby said, wondering why she hadn’t stayed home. She didn’t even like quiche. “Get off my case, or I’m leaving.”

“I haven’t said a thing,” Paige said. “It didn’t used to be so easy to yank your chain, Ruby.”

“Leave her alone,” Pearl said. “When I wake up tomorrow, I don’t want to see anything yellow. Let’s get started.”

Ruby wrapped her hair in a hand towel, grabbed a pair of rubber gloves, a roller and a can of paint, and went to the bathroom to begin painting. Luther had hardly acknowledged her presence. Would a man be so cool if he thought you were good in bed? She doubted it. And especially not Luther who, for almost as long as she could remember, had encouraged her in everything she did. Maybe she hadn’t satisfied him. She couldn’t remember how he’d reacted in the end. She only knew that he’d made love to her as if she were the queen of his heart, and she had seemed to float on a cloud, and then go higher and higher until she exploded in relief.

A tear fell on her hand. How could I do that? I’m so ashamed. He doesn’t want to be around me. I drank so much champagne I don’t know what I did to…Why did Luther make love to me?

“What about Wade?” Ruby heard Paige ask her sister, interrupting Ruby’s thoughts. “Maybe he won’t like the gray you’re putting in the bathroom.”

“You can’t get more conservative than gray,” Pearl said, “and you know how conservative Wade is, bless his heart. Gray walls, silver shower curtain, silver frames on the posters, gray carpet and gray and green paisley towels. That’ll be cool, right?”

“Works for me,” Paige said. “By the way, let’s see if we can get Ruby into something other than black and navy blue for your wedding reception.”

“You have to admit that the royal blue she had on on Saturday night was an improvement. I’m going shopping with her tomorrow. I’ll find her something to wear.”

“We’ve almost finished here,” Paige said. “Let’s put the quiches in the microwave, and you start on the salad.”

“Maybe we should call Luther and ask him if he wants to have supper with us. We certainly have plenty.”

“Okay,” Pearl said. “He was so nice to pick up all this stuff for me.”

Ruby put the paint roller on the tray and sat down on the closed commode. Did her family think her dull? She didn’t have anything against bright, fashionable colors. She’d simply been so busy since their mother died trying to be a role model for her sisters that she hadn’t given much thought to being fashionable and to making a life with a man of her dreams. No wonder she hadn’t been able to please Luther. But she had no intention of withering like a rootless plant in the hot sun. She would always be grateful to Luther for teaching her her sexual potential, but now that she knew what she was capable of, she wasn’t going to be timid about exploring it.

Ruby pulled off the rubber gloves and brought the paint and roller to the kitchen. “Where do you want me to put—” She broke off when she saw her sister on the phone. “Who’re you calling? Are you talking to Luther?”

“Just a minute, Luther,” Pearl said. “I think Ruby wants to speak with you.”

“I do not. I didn’t say I wanted to—” Pearl shoved the phone to her face. “Uh…hello, Luther. Actually I didn’t tell Pearl I wanted to speak with you. I asked her if she was speaking with you.”

“So I heard. I never did find out why she called. Let me speak with her.” Ruby listened for a few seconds, long enough to realize that he wouldn’t say anything else, and handed the phone back to Pearl, who, with her mouth agape, nearly dropped it.

“I’m going to skip the quiche,” Ruby told Paige, since Pearl was still speaking with Luther. “I’d rather shower than eat. Tell Pearl I’ll meet her at Saks tomorrow at five.”

She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

After Pearl’s wedding she told herself she’d take a nice long vacation. That would make it impossible for her sisters and their cousin Paige to pester her about her behavior during and after Opal’s wedding reception. Frankly, she was sick of hearing about it, because she was sure she hadn’t done anything dishonorable. She’d always heard it said that a person wouldn’t do anything when inebriated that she wouldn’t do sober. “I’m definitely counting on that,” she said to herself and walked into her house. Actually, it was the family home, and she’d give anything if her sisters would agree to sell it and share the proceeds. But no, they wanted to gather there on holidays and special occasions with her substituting for their parents. She didn’t mind, because she loved her sisters.

The phone rang as she walked in. She didn’t have to look at the caller ID; she knew she’d hear Pearl’s voice.

“Hi, Pearl,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Hi, Ruby. This isn’t Pearl. This is Trevor Johns. Pearl and Wade sent me an invitation to their wedding, and I…uh…would you allow me to accompany you?”

Well, maybe her life was about to become interesting. “Why, yes. I’d enjoy your company,” she said, seeing an opportunity to show Luther that he had nothing to fear from her, that she didn’t expect anything of him more than usual. “But I have to be there a little early,” she added.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just tell me what time to come for you.”

She told him, adding that she would look forward to seeing him. She didn’t plan to mention the date to her sisters. Oh, they’d have something to say, but she wouldn’t hear them. She hoped Luther would notice that she wasn’t without a date at the reception. He hadn’t even said goodbye to her when they spoke on the phone, so he wouldn’t ask her to go along with him. Let him wonder about Trevor Johns and what he was to her. She just couldn’t figure out why Trevor had asked her when Detroit was full of younger and flashier women. If he had an agenda, she’d know it quickly.

Chapter 2

Ruby went to meet Pearl and Amber at the famous department store somewhat halfheartedly that afternoon. Reasonably satisfied with herself, she saw no reason to remake herself to suit anyone, including her beloved sisters. But a kind of restlessness pervaded her, and she couldn’t put her finger on the why or what of it. Granted that, after what Luther did to her, an eagerness to discover more about sex and to make up for lost time seemed to have gotten a solid hold on her. Still, that didn’t seem to be reason enough to dress according to Amber’s sense of fashion. Or Pearl’s, for that matter.

She strode into the store and headed for the bank of elevators where her sisters waited for her. “Sorry I’m a little late, but the traffic was awful.”

“I thought maybe you’d decided to let us mind our own business,” Amber said.

“Don’t think it didn’t occur to me,” Ruby replied.

“I saw a beauty in last Sunday’s paper,” Pearl said. “I hope you’ll like it, ’cause I think it’s perfect for you.”

When they wandered into the section containing evening gowns, Ruby stopped at the first rack. “That one’s pretty.”

Amber rejected it. “It’s blue and doesn’t have a bit of sex appeal. Try living dangerously for once, and wear something that flatters your figure. If I had your height and figure, I’d dress like Halle Berry and Tyra Banks. Give ’em something to whistle at.”

Ruby couldn’t help laughing. Amber knew how to make a case for the ridiculous. Something to whistle at, indeed! “I’m not wearing anything that has my nipples showing. Half of these dresses don’t leave a thing to the imagination, neither above nor below the waist.”

“Put one of ’em on, and I bet you won’t leave that reception alone,” Amber said.

Ruby wasn’t going alone, but she didn’t plan to tell them.

“How about this one?” Pearl said, holding up another gown. “It’s dazzling, and you can wear it.”

“It’s red,” Ruby said, wrinkling her nose and making a face. “Attention is supposed to be on the bride.”

“Oh, I’ll get enough attention,” Pearl assured her. “I just want you to look great. Try it on.”

“Yes, indeed!” Amber said. “That dress is to die for. Go on. Try it.”

Ruby hated pulling off her clothes, and liked even less trying on clothes in stores. But she knew when to give in. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Uh-uh,” Amber said. “We’re going in there with you.”

Resigned, she found a size ten and a size twelve and took both into the dressing room. She tried on the ten first and let out a gasp.

“What did I tell you?” Amber asked in a voice that held more than a note of triumph. Superiority was more like it, Ruby thought.

She had to admit that she’d never looked that good in anything. “But what about my shoulders?” she asked, hoping to finding something wrong with the strapless, draped sheath in brick red.

“What about ’em?” Pearl said. “This dress is perfect on you. Wrap it up, girl, and let’s go. Wade’s waiting for me. We have a date tonight.” She winked at Ruby. “In this dress you’ll get one, too.”

On New Year’s Eve Ruby wore the same royal blue dress and jacket to Pearl’s wedding that she’d worn to Opal’s the week before, but with her hair up in a French twist and Amber’s “Jezebel earrings,” as Wade called them. She looked much better. Even she had to admit that last week the dress didn’t do a thing for her. Except get her into trouble with Luther.

After the ceremony, she rushed home to change into the red evening gown for the reception. She stood at the mirror admiring what she saw and appreciating, at last, her sisters’ pleas to stop looking so dowdy. From now on, she vowed, there would definitely be some changes made. She slipped on her black satin shoes, got the matching purse and added her perfume—something else she intended to change. After wearing the same fragrance for over ten years, she could use a different scent. Yes, indeed, she told herself as she walked down the stairs, anybody who expected the same old Ruby was in for a surprise.

She let Trevor Johns ring a second time before she opened the door. He stared at her, and she’d swear with her hand on the Bible that his eyes doubled in size.

“Ruby?”

She squelched the laughter, but a grin broke out on her face nonetheless. “Hi, Trevor. Come on in while I get my coat.”

“You sure look pretty. Even prettier than you looked last week at Opal and D’marcus’s wedding. You ought to wear red all the time.” He handed her a bouquet of yellow roses. “I didn’t get red ones, because they’re supposed to be for intimate relationships, but I sure wish I had.”

She decided not to comment on that. If he was working up to something, she didn’t think she was ready to hear it. Not that he wasn’t interesting in some ways. He towered over her, and that was in his favor, as were his good looks. And the brother knew how to put on clothes; he looked almost as great in that tux as Luther did in his. Luther…She was not going to allow him to cross her mind. She put the roses in a vase on the table in her foyer and handed him her coat.

He helped her into her coat without allowing his hands to touch her bare shoulders—another point in his favor—and she let herself relax. The evening would be all right.

“I wonder what’s keeping Ruby,” Luther said to Opal and D’marcus, who had delayed their honeymoon in order to attend Pearl and Wade’s wedding. They stood near the door at practically the same spot where, only one week earlier, he’d kissed Ruby for the first time. It seemed as if years had passed.

“I think she’s with Pearl,” D’marcus said. “You know Ruby has to check everything out. I expect she’ll be out here in a minute or two. After all, she’s at the head of the receiving line, and it’s time for the reception to begin.”

Luther hoped they considered it normal for him to express concern about Ruby. He was worried about her; maybe he’d killed any chance that he could have a relationship with Ruby. He didn’t expect her to accept him as a lover, her behavior since rocking him out of his senses was proof of that.

What the hell! He stared in disbelief as Ruby—it was Ruby, wasn’t it?—approached them arm in arm with a six-and-a-half-foot turkey dressed up in a penguin suit. He shook his head in dismay. He wasn’t being fair, but he couldn’t help it. The knife stabbed his gut and then turned when she looked up at the guy and smiled.

“Hi,” she said airily, as if she hadn’t created a stir. “The place is lovely, isn’t it? And so romantic.”

“Hello, Ruby,” he said, struggling to keep his voice low and calm. “Well, I suspect you’re ready to begin receiving, so I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, Luther!” she said, as if he were an afterthought. “You’re supposed to be in the receiving line right after Amber and Paul. Where do you think you’re going?”

He wanted badly to tell her he was going where he wouldn’t see her, but instead, he said, “Where did you think I was going?” and headed down to where Amber and her new husband, Paul Gutierrez, shared a laugh with Paige Richards. He didn’t wait to be introduced to Ruby’s date. Indeed, he didn’t want to meet the man or even to remember what he looked like. And he prayed to God she wouldn’t drink any champagne. In all the time he thought about it, he hadn’t been able to figure out any other reason why she’d made love with him last week. She had appeared to be stone-cold sober, and he prayed that she had been, but then, why did she reject him? He shook his head. He wasn’t going into that again; he’d suffered enough about it.

“Who’s the guy with Ruby?” he asked Paul.

“Damned if I know, man. I hardly recognized her. Talk about a siren! She ought to come out like that all the time.”

“Tell me about it. Where are the bride and groom?” he asked Amber, effectively getting the conversation away from Ruby.

“They’ll be in as soon as the best man gives the signal, and he has to get it from Ruby,” Amber said. “Reminds me of Ford’s assembly line. Thank goodness Paul and I skipped all this formal stuff.”

Luther looked from Amber to his friend Paul, and for the first time that evening, a feeling of warmth and happiness enveloped him. When he’d sent his buddy to rescue Amber from Dashuan Kennedy—a no-good man if ever there was one—he didn’t dream that Amber and Paul would fall in love and marry. But as he thought of it now, it couldn’t have been otherwise. They seemed to suit each other the way pods suited peas. Perfectly.