Hot Westmoreland Nights - Brenda Jackson [57]
His words further eroded her sensibility. He sounded so serious like there was truly an answer for his question. There wasn’t one, so she shook her head, tilted it up and smiled at him. “For the same reason you always taste so delicious.”
And to show him just what she meant, she took the tip of her tongue and licked a corner of his mouth. The instant she did, his long eyelashes swept upward to reveal the depths of his darkened gaze, and she could just imagine what he was thinking now.
“Doing something like that can get you into trouble,” he warned, as his arms tightened around her waist, drawing her even closer into the fit of his muscular form.
She smiled. “So you say.”
“So I can prove.” He took a step away from her. “But not now. First, I need to let you know that we’ve been invited to dinner.”
She lifted a brow. “Dinner?”
“Yes, my cousin Dillon and his wife Pamela want to meet you.”
Panic settled into Chloe’s bones. She didn’t want to pull any more of Ramsey’s family members into her web of deceit. She liked all of the ones she’d met so far and from what she’d heard about the oldest Denver Westmoreland, Dillon, there was no doubt in her mind that she would like him as well.
“Why do they want to meet me?” she asked, not sure she was ready to meet the man Ramsey was so close to.
“They’ve heard a lot of nice things about you and want to meet you for themselves.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She had heard a lot of nice things about them as well. “I bet it was Jason who told them how I could fix his eggs just the way he likes them,” she said in a teasing voice, trying to make light of what Ramsey had said.
Ramsey chuckled. “Might be. Or it could have been one of my brothers or sisters. You’ve made quite an impression on them.”
Chloe glanced down to study the floor. At any other time knowing she had impressed the family of the man she loved would have been a feather in her cap. But not now. When they found out the truth it won’t just be Ramsey who’d think she’d deceived them. Lucia had been right. Chloe had been around them long enough to know the Westmorelands stuck together and if you were to hurt one, then you hurt them all.
“So, will you go to dinner with me at Dillon and Pamela’s?”
A part of her wanted to come up with an excuse not to go. She should claim a headache or something, but she could not do that. Although she deserved nothing, she wanted it all. She wanted to get to know more about the man she had fallen in love with. As well as to get to know those he loved and those who loved him.
She pulled in a deep breath and then said, “Yes, I’ll go to dinner with you.”
Ramsey could not remember the last time he’d brought a woman to a family function. Even with the annual charity ball they sponsored each year for the Westmoreland Foundation that had been established to aid various community causes, he usually went solo. For him it had been better that way and because there had been enough eager-beaver Westmorelands who enjoyed being the center on attention with beautiful women on their arms, he was left alone.
He couldn’t even recall bringing Danielle to dinner when they’d dated. He never had to bother because his mother had liked Danielle enough to invite her to dinner whenever she saw her at church most Sundays. He knew the main reason he had dated Danielle as long as he had was because his family had liked her. And then because she’d hung around waiting for him to finish college, he had felt marrying her was the least he could do.
The truth of the matter was that she hadn’t been idle while she’d waited. At some point she had met someone, slept with the person and had gotten pregnant. The sad thing about it was that the man never married her and she ended up being a single mom.
He glanced around the room thinking that this was not supposed to be a family function. Dillon and Pamela had invited him and Chloe to dinner and they had accepted. He had expected to see Pamela’s three younger sisters because this was spring