Suite Seduction. Leslie Kelly

inquisitive eyebrow.

      “Spoils from the wedding.”

      He dropped his stare to her dress. “I gathered as much.”

      She grimaced as she looked down at the bunched-up material on her lap. “Had to be, huh? I guess I can’t pass for a seventeen-year-old, so you’d never have figured I was a dumped prom date.”

      “Dumped? Never.”

      “Maybe not a prom date. But dumped.” Ruthie heard a tiny whine in her voice and hated it.

      “Only if the guy’s a complete and utter moron.”

      She tried to take comfort in the conviction in his voice, but, remembering her evening, could do nothing but frown. “It’s not him. It’s me. I’m just not desirable.”

      A look that could only be described as incredulous crossed the man’s features. “How much champagne have you had?”

      “Not enough to make me forget this stupid dress and the look on his face when I…”

      “Yes?”

      “Not enough to make me forget this stupid dress,” she repeated, forcing herself not to mention how Bobby had reacted when she’d asked him to spend the night with her in her suite.

      Shocked wasn’t quite the word she’d use to describe his expression. More like horrified.

      “I take it the bride didn’t want any competition,” the man said as he hefted the champagne and took a healthy swig straight from the bottle. Ruthie grinned, seeing a few drops trickling down his chin. Her grin faded as he lowered the bottle and caught the droplets with his tongue. Oh my, how very agile!

      “I’m sorry?”

      He waved a hand toward her dress. “You know. She didn’t want her bridesmaids to look too good.”

      “Hence this awful dress that’s the same color as the stuff in my one-month-old godson’s diapers?”

      The gorgeous stranger coughed as he choked on the piece of cake he’d just put in his mouth. Ever helpful, Ruthie leaned forward and gave him a good solid whack on the back. “Okay?”

      “Yeah,” he muttered. “Sorry…got a strange visual there.”

      “Can’t be any worse than what I’ve been picturing ever since I showed up at the dress shop two weeks ago and found this, instead of the emerald-green gown I was supposed to be wearing! I think they call it ‘olive’ but it’s obviously ‘strained peas.’ Wrong color. Wrong size. Wrong style, even though I did agree to wear the stupid hoops to please Celeste’s future mother-in-law. She’s a little old-fashioned.”

      “The bride?”

      Ruthie shook her head. “Celeste? No, she’s wonderful. And more into Modern Bride than Southern Weddings!”

      “She doesn’t seem the type to inflict hoop skirts and bows on her friends.”

      “She’s not. But she married a great man with a sweet, craftsy mother, whom she really wanted to please. So Denise and I were stuck playing Suellen and Coreen to Celeste’s Scarlett.”

      “Denise?”

      “Another cousin, her older sister,” Ruthie explained. A loud sigh escaped her lips. “She got married, too.”

      “Tonight?”

      “No, two months ago. To a very successful, rich guy, who happens to be much too nice for her, but who is also about three inches shorter than Denise!” She heard a note of satisfaction in her own voice. “Sorry, I’m not usually spiteful.”

      “Denise the bad seed in your clan?”

      Ruthie thought about it. “I guess not. A little sneaky, sometimes mean-spirited. Not truly bad. Just very competitive, since we’re only a few months apart in age. She does tend to flash her two-carat diamond at me an awful lot.”

      “And you’re the only single one left?”

      Ruthie plunged her fork in and hoisted another hunk of cake into her mouth. “Even my sixty-year-old mother got married last year. She’s now touring the western part of the country in a camper with her new husband, Sid, and his four Scottie dogs,” she muttered after she swallowed. “And here I sit. Single. Undesirable. Alone.”

      The man grabbed her hand as she reached for the bottle. He held it tightly, forcing her to look at him. “If some guy turned you down, it was his own stupidity. You are one amazingly attractive woman, in spite of your…”

      “Butt-ugly dress?” she volunteered softly, somewhat awed by the intensity of his stare as he studied her face, her mussed hair, her chocolate-smudged lips.

      He laughed, bringing her hand to his mouth to press a kiss on the tips of her fingers. They literally tingled at the warm contact. “Butt-ugly dress or not, the guy’s an idiot. He obviously didn’t know what he was turning down.”

      She tugged her hand away. “Oh, yes, he knew,” she said sourly. “He knew very well. I handed him my room key and came right out and asked him to spend the night with me.”

      The man coughed again, making a funny choking sound. Again, Ruthie leaned forward and whacked his back. “Okay?”

      “Yeah,” he muttered. “Fine. Uh, you handed him your key?”

      She nodded. “We’ve been dating for four months, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like I’m some stranger trying to pick him up in a hotel bar! But he looked at me like he was appalled.” She shook her head, regret drawing her brows down over her eyes. “I knew he was conservative. It’s been sheer misery trying to act like I am, too.”

      “Why would you have to act like anything but who you are?”

      “Who I am doesn’t seem to work, judging by the completely nonexistent sex life I’ve had for the past three years.” Ruthie clapped a hand over her mouth, unable to believe she’d said something so personal to a complete stranger.

      He didn’t seem the least bit fazed by her confession. “So you took action?”

      “I thought I’d go for a different image,” she admitted, finally realizing what an idiot she’d been to try to fit herself into the mold Bobby seemed to want filled. She ruthlessly reached up and pulled at another bobby pin in her hair, tugging a few red strands out with it. “I even tried to tame this mess. But, I’ll tell you, if I never have to wear a bun or French twist again, it’ll be too soon!”

      He reached out a hand and fingered a curl hanging next to her ear, stroking it lightly. Knowing her hair was wildly tangled, she self-consciously moved back until the strands slipped free from his fingers.

      “It’d be a crime to hide this,” he murmured. “Other than the curls, what else would you want to change?”

      Ruthie looked down at herself and frowned. “Maybe the ten extra pounds sitting on my hips and chest that couldn’t be blasted off with dynamite?” she muttered.

      This time, he didn’t chuckle. He laughed, loud and long. “You have got to be kidding. Honey, women pay plastic surgeons buckets of money to get what you’ve got!”

      “I’m not an exotic dancer,” she said sourly.

      “You could be,” he shot back.

      Ruthie’s breath froze in her throat at the intensity in his stare. He ran his gaze over her entire body, messy hair down to her feet. She realized that within a five-minute acquaintance this man was looking at her in a way Bobby never had the entire time they were dating.

      Like he wanted to devour her.

      Swallowing hard, Ruthie took another bite of cake. She was sitting alone in a darkened kitchen with a complete stranger—a gorgeous stranger, granted—but she didn’t know anything about him. This interlude went against every rule her mother had