by Eden Bradley
“We all have baggage.”
“I have more baggage than most people.” Her hands twisted together at her waist. She wanted so badly to touch him. “Being with you has made me see things about myself, about my life, I didn’t see before. And it’s not only about the food fetish, although that’s part of it. Facing that part of myself has forced me to face other things about my past, about who I am. It’s as though being with you has opened up my Pandora’s box. But not everything inside there is pretty.”
“It doesn’t have to be. None of us are all pretty on the inside. All that twisted crap I’ve been carrying around about my past relationships. About not being able to love you because of what another woman did to my heart. But I understand now I don’t have to allow that to determine whether or not I let myself love you. I was on autopilot, operating on an outdated idea about what I had to do. I had to meet you, to fall in love with you, to fight it.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough. I don’t know if I can trust myself enough. I want to be with you. You know I do. But there are other issues involved.”
“Issues like our age difference?”
“No. I’ve hardly thought of that since I first met you.”
“It’s about the schoollthing, then.”
“Jagger, I just don’t think you should quit with only this one semester to go! You’re too close to your degree. I can’t let you do that.”
“It’s my decision.” He took her hands in his, held on tight. “There’s no way I can wait for the end of the semester to be with you. I’m going to do it. I’m dropping the class tomorrow morning. I’ll take a summer class to make it up.”
“I think it’s a foolish decision.”
“You think I’m foolish?”
He dropped her hands, and the loss of his warmth cut into her like a knife.
“No. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“What are you saying, then?” His voice was stark, cold.
“I’m just…I don’t…” She shook her head. She couldn’t find the right way to say it.
“You don’t trust me to make a good decision for myself, do you?” he asked quietly. “Because of Ben.
Because he decided to ride without a helmet, and he died because of that choice.”
“Please, don’t bring Ben into this.”
“Ben will always be a part of you, Mia Rose.” He paused, ran a hand over his hair. “You lost Ben because he made a stupid choice. But I’m not him.”
“I know that. I understand it’s not about you. But that’s what I mean about my baggage.” The more she tried to explain, the harder the knot in her stomach twisted, grew. The worse she felt about hurting him.
And she didn’t even know anymore if her own rationalizations made sense. She was so tired. So sad. She was losing him. And it was her own damn fault. “God, I don’t mean to hurt you, Jagger. I don’t.
How can you even love me?”
The tears came again, hot on her cheeks. The sense of impending loss felt like drowning, like suffocating.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand on her own feet.
And she just collapsed, her legs going out from under her. Jagger caught her in his arms, held her up, held her tight. Held her while she cried.
“Shh, baby. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You think you’re not lovable? You think that’s why the people you love have left you? But it’s not true. I love you. And I’m not going anywhere. You just need to let it be okay. Be with me. Love me. Let me love you.”
“I don’t want to do it wrong.”
His arms tightened around her even more, crushing her to his chest. “You won’t. We’ll figure things out together. And it’ll work. Because we love each other.”
“I do. I love you.”
He cradled her face in his hands, wiped her tears away with his thumbs. “That makes everything okay.”
A warm flood of relief was seeping through her body, like a current of honey: that sweet, that slow. And with it was pure love. Powerful. Intoxicating.
Jagger leaned in and kissed her forehead, her cheek. And when she turned her face up to his, he kissed her mouth.
His lips were soft and sweet at first, but in moments he was kissing her hard, parting her lips with his tongue. And she felt that same urgency she sensed from him, a small trembling vibration just beneath his skin.
Her own skin was heating up as she pressed closer.
And as she slipped her tongue into his mouth, wet heat against wet heat, he groaned, grabbed her around the waist, yanked her hard up against him.
Then all tenderness was gone. All that was left was a greedy hunger, a driving need that hummed in the air all around them, between them. His mouth was hard on hers, his hands everywhere at once, pulling her robe off, gliding over her skin.
“Ah, Jagger. I can’t wait. I can’t wait one more moment. Please.”
He took her hand and moved toward the doorway leading to the kitchen, but she stopped him.
“No. I don’t need that now.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was raw with desire.
“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll want it again sometimes. But right now all I need is you.”
He nodded, smiled. Kissed her as he backed her up to the sofa, sat her down, and pushed her onto the pillows. It took him only moments to strip his clothes off. Then he was kneeling over her, parting her thighs with rough hands. But she needed that from him, needed him not to tease, not to seduce. She was right there already, waiting, eager. She was soaking wet.
“Lord, Mia Rose, I need to be inside you now. Right now, baby.”
“Yes…”
He cupped the back of her head in one hand, and with the other he guided his cock into her body.
Pleasure knifed into her, hot and sharp. And when he drove home in one long thrust, she cried out.
Her arms went around his neck, her legs around his back. She couldn’t get close enough.
“More,” she whispered.
“There’s always more for you.” His voice was a low rasp. “Always, baby. My baby.”
He slid out, then back in, each devastating arc of his hips driving pleasure deeper and deeper into her body. Sensation built on sensation: sensation and scent and her heart nearly bursting with emotion.
“More,” she begged again.
He slid his hand over her cheek, her jaw, his fingertips brushing her lips as he drove harder, hammering into her. Desire built, crested, and it was too lovely. She forced herself to hover there, to draw it out.
“I’m…oh God, I’m going to come, Jagger.”
“Love you, Mia Rose.” Harder and harder. “Love you, love you…ah!”
He tensed, and she let it go, let her body tumble over the edge and into that exquisite darkness. Her heart followed. Pleasure roared through her, drowning her.
She was pulsing, hot, raw. Blind with pleasure, blind with love. And as wide open as she’d ever been to another human being.
They were still moving together, all damp skin and a tangle of arms and legs. Panting, sighing, as though with one breath.
“I love you, Jagger,” she whispered, and felt the gentle brush of his lips on her hair.
She had never felt anything like this. So much more than she’d ever expected to have. He’d opened her up, and no matter what he’d found inside, the fear, the ugliness, he thought she was beautiful. Worthy of love. Like so few others in her life ever had.
“Jagger…”
“Yeah, baby.”
“Have I ever told you about my grandmother?”
“No, not much. But we have all the time in the world.
You can tell me anything you want.”
It was true. They did have all the time in the world, if she would let it happen. If she could let them love each other. She was learning. And Jagger was teaching her.
Impossible. Yet here they were, together. Somehow she’d found him. Found release. Found joy.
Found love.
about the author
EDEN B RADLEY lives in southern California with a small menagerie and the love of her life. She can be contacted at www.edenbradley.com.
Hungry for more?
Eden Bradley’s next novellTHE 21STCENTURY COURTESAN
takes titillating to new heights…
Coming from Delta in Spring 2009.
I have a dirty little secret—a taboo among professionals of my world. It doesn’t matter what you calllus. The fact is, I get paid for sex…and it’s the only kind of sex I can get off on.
Valentine Day is a high-class call girllin love with her work. The protégé of a wealthy Italian filmmaker, Valentine is a true renaissance woman who caters to only the most powerfullof men. Skilled in the arts of epicure, language, and business—as well as of epicure, language, and business—as well as seduction—she is undoubtedly the best in the business. With her days full of lavish vacations, designer clothes, and mind-blowing passion, Valentine thinks she has it all….
Then a drink at the opera with an unforgettable stranger turns into more than innocent flirtation, and Valentine is forced to question her so-called perfect life. Can one man be worth surrendering her freedom? And would he still want her if he knew the whole truth?
Scrolldown the book for a peek inside…
THE 21STCENTURY COURTESAN
Coming in Spring 2009
chapter one
The costly scents of the finest imported champagne and custom-blended cologne fill my nostrils as I straddle his prone figure on the big bed. I love these beds at the Beverly Wilshire; plush and lovely, with soft Egyptian cotton sheets. Only the best for Enzo Alighieri. Including me.
“Fuck me now, my Valentine,” he says, his elegant, Italian-accented voice rough with desire. “You know just how to do it, mi tesoro.”
“Ah, Enzo…” I sigh in pleasure as I lower myself onto his erect cock.
I have always loved Enzo’s cock. The skin is a deep gold, as it is all over his body, which is still fine and beautiful, no matter his age. He is strong, wellmuscled. And he has the stamina of a twenty-year-old. Which is the only way he manages to please his wife, his mistress, and me. And he does please me.
I squeeze the walls of my sex around his cock and he moans a little. Pleasure is swarming my system already and I smile down at him, moving my hips, grinding onto him.
“Touch me, Enzo.”
He reaches up and takes my breasts in his hands, plumping them, kneading them, playing my hardened nipples between his fingers.
“Oh, yes…”
I reach back and slip my hand between his thighs, caressing his balls. He loves this. He loves my every touch, to hear my panting breath, to watch me come.
Oh yes, I know exactly what he loves, what he needs.
It’s my job to know. And I am nothing if not a perfectionist.
He pumps up into me, shafts of pleasure filling me, spreading, making me shiver. One of his hands has snaked down and is teasing my clit, tugging, rubbing, pinching. He knows how to make me come.
Of course he does; we’ve been together nearly ten years, Enzo and I. My mentor, my friend. My client.
Why is that the most important part? But I don’t want to question it as his thrusting hips take on a more urgent rhythm. His breath is a panting gasp now, and I feellhim tense beneath me.
“Ah, just another moment, Enzo. Give it to me…I know you can do it.”
“You will be the death of me, Valentine,” he says, his voice rough.
But he does it, pistoning into me, his clever fingers never leaving my throbbing clit, my swollen nipple, untillI’m coming in a flood of heat onto his thick, lovely cock.
“Oh, yes…”
I throw my head back, let it wash over me. And he tenses beneath me, cries out, his hands going to my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh.
And I catch that scent I adore, that scent of arousal, that scent of come, beneath his expensive cologne.
And underlying it all, the scent of money.
ALSO BY EDEN BRADLEY
Exotica
The Darker Side of Pleasure The Dark Garden
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
A Delta Trade Paperback / November 2008
Published by
Bantam Del
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actuallpersons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Eden Bradley Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bradley, Eden.
Forbidden fruit / Eden Bradley.
p. cm.
1. Teacher-student relationships—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R34266F67 2008
813'.6—dc22
2008013504
www.bantamdell.com
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33811-6
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