Ebony helped herself to a buttered biscuit and took a generous bite. Taking a momentary look around the room, she sized up her competition. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the room, but no one else had her charisma or sexual confidence. That, she was sure of. Most of the women in here looked sexually repressed, she thought, chuckling to herself. And one thing I know for sure is that men adore sexually liberated women. Ebony knew men inside and out. They enjoyed being with females who played by their own rules, lived in the moment and were free to do whatever, whenever, wherever. Ebony was as free as a jaybird. Few hang-ups. Open to try anything at least once. And when it came to sex, she had no inhibitions. None whatsoever.
Ebony set her sights back on the stranger with the killer smile.
“Handsome, isn’t he?”
She tore her eyes away from him long enough to give her best friend a smile. “That’s an understatement. Handsome doesn’t even begin to describe how scrumptious he is.”
Opal laughed. “But he doesn’t meet your height requirement,” she teased.
Ebony licked her lips in an exaggerated fashion. “Every now and then a brother comes along who forces me to make an exception of my rules.” She flicked her head in his direction. “And there he is. He doesn’t clear six feet and he’s more of a caramel shade than dark chocolate, but he’s the best-looking man in the room and there are several cuties in here tonight.”
In the last hour, the room had finally started to fill up with some good-looking men. There was a six-footer with curly hair resting against the back wall. He was positively adorable, but he didn’t look a day over eighteen. Ebony was all for the older-woman, younger man craze, but dating junior would be robbing the cradle. Or rather, the womb. The casually dressed man sitting at the table to her right looked like a low-budget version of Usher, but his mustard-colored dress shirt was speckled with lint and he had a protruding Adam’s apple. An older gentleman, who looked like he slept on silk sheets and had weekly manicures and pedicures, was giving her the eye, but he had stained teeth. With all that money, you’d think he could get his teeth whitened, she thought, turning away from his sleepy gaze. No, the prize for the finest man in the room definitely went to Dimples.
Ebony’s eyes darted around the room. The well-spaced banquet hall was a cluster of tables set with lace place mats, ivory bone china and triangle vases filled with trumpet-shaped daffodils. Diffused lights and classical music provided an intimate and peaceful setting. Guests were in the process of being served, and latecomers moved around the hall, hunting down any available seats.
“Who knew all the hotties were hiding out in church?” Ebony asked, before returning her attention to the object of her affection. Everything about the man was delicious, from the gleam in his eyes to the way his lips curved into that disarming smile of his. As she stared, one word turned over and over in her mind: tas-ty.
“He reminds me of Gavin,” Opal confessed, sorry the moment the words left her mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Ebony waved off the apology. “I was the one who broke things off, remember? I’m fine, Opal. Besides, life’s too short for regrets.”
Her no-strings-attached relationship with Gavin Taylor, a promising investment banker, had been running smoothly until he had ruined things by getting serious on her. While basking in the aftermath of a toe-curling lovemaking session, he had announced that it was time to take their relationship to the “next level.”
“We’re not getting any younger,” he’d said, nuzzling his chin against her shoulder. “Most people our age are already married.” He said he wanted kids. Two, maybe three. With a sedated expression on his face, he had hugged her to his chest and rubbed a hand over her stomach. “Why don’t I sell my place, move in here and we start working on that family?”
Ebony had retreated like a soldier caught in a cross fire. Settling down and having kids was not in her blueprints; operating the most profitable lingerie franchise in North America was. It was her first and only aspiration. Gavin Taylor was a terrific guy—articulate, intelligent, dependable—but Ebony would rather swim in shark-infested waters than get married and have babies.
Three lonely months had elapsed since the demise of their relationship and Ebony was yet to find someone to take his place. Living a sexless life was starting to have adverse effects on her. She was moody. Irritable. Short-tempered. And she found herself thinking about sex twenty-four-seven. During board meetings. On the phone with important clients. Waiting in line at the grocery store. At the bank. And every time a semiattractive man looked her way, she undressed him with her eyes. Sex toys had never appealed to her, but things were getting so bad, she was thinking about buying a battery-operated “friend.” It had been so long since she had been intimate with a man, she had started to wonder if it would ever happen again. But from where she was sitting, things were definitely starting to look up.
“Gavin has nothing on that man. Nothing at all.” Ebony winked. “But I’ll give you all the dirty details in the morning.”
Opal’s mouth dropped. Her earrings tinkled harshly as she swung her head back and forth. “Ebony Denise Garrett,” she began, in a hushed tone of voice. “I know you’re not about to proposition that man. He—” Opal broke off her sentence when she realized the elderly woman beside her had stopped talking and was watching her. Opal put on a warm smile, and when the nosy grandmother returned to her meal, she jammed her elbow hard into Ebony’s ribs.
“Ow! What did you do that for?”
“You can’t take home some brother you met at church! You should be ashamed of yourself for even entertaining the thought,” Opal hissed. “I have half a mind to leave you sitting here by yourself.”
Ebony fought back a laugh. Sometimes Opal was worse than a great-great-grandmother. The tiger print dress hugging her voluptuous figure suggested she was gregarious, reckless and impulsive, but Opal Sheppard was as straight as a ruler. She was responsible and organized and planned every second of every day. There was no room in her life for any funny business or spontaneity. If it wasn’t on her daily agenda, it wasn’t happening.
Lips curled with disgust, Opal tried fruitlessly to hold Ebony’s wandering gaze. Put off by the grin dancing on her friend’s face, she laid down her fork, which had been suspended in midair, and folded her hands in front of her like she was about to drop a bombshell. “I can’t believe the things that come out of your mouth sometimes! It’s like you think with your…your…your private parts instead of using your brain.” The mother in her said, “You need to get it together. It’s time for you to grow up and quit—”
“Dang, girl! I was just playing!” Ebony said, finally giving in to her laughter. She hugged Opal with one hand, and was relieved when the miserable frown on her face fell away. “I just wanted to see what your reaction would be. God, you’re such an easy target.” Ebony resumed eating, but not before she added, “I’m not going home with anyone tonight, so don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“Don’t joke like that, Ebony. It’s not funny.” Opal finished what was left on her plate, and then signaled the waiter over. Dissatisfied with the tiny portion of food she had been given, she asked for another helping of baked chicken and shrimp fried rice. Opal didn’t need a second helping of food, but she believed in getting her money’s worth, and so far, she hadn’t even eaten forty dollars’ worth of anything. Since the New Year, her waistline had been growing at an alarming rate, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from filling her stomach.
Opal cast her eyes back at Ebony, and was surprised to find her still ogling the man at table number twelve. “Is he that fine?”
A roguish smile curled the corners of Ebony’s mouth. In a dreamy-sounding voice she purred, “Girl, I think he’s making love to me with his eyes.”
Chapter 2
That woman is trouble in three-inch heels, Xavier decided, as the statuesque woman with the smoky eyes and mocha-brown skin approached. Her auburn