She forced the thought aside and turned her attention to Brady. Her nostrils flared and the hair on her arms stood straight up. “Did you come here to talk about my business?”
“I didn’t come here to talk at all. Are you ready?”
This was it. Her chance to back out. To give in to the doubts racing through her mind and preserve the dream she’d nursed for so many years.
The trouble was, Brady had already killed that dream when he’d propositioned her. So there was no turning back.
Insecurity rushed through her, feeding her anger. Brady shouldn’t make her feel so…self-conscious. He wouldn’t. Not after tonight. Not after her body finally understood what her brain had known since the beginning of the week—that Brady Weston was just like any other man. Nothing special. Certainly not the shining white knight she remembered from high school. His propositioning her had colored the picture. Following through with it would shatter the entire thing and Eden could go back to thinking about her bar and forget all about the man who’d rolled back into town and turned her thoughts upside down.
“Let’s go.”
6
“WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?”
Brady glanced from Eden to the grocery store where they’d pulled up. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“I’m not,” she stated, stiffly holding the flowers he’d handed to her when they’d reached the car.
“Well, I am.” He started to climb out.
“But I thought we’d just cut right to the chase. I mean, you didn’t say anything about us eating together.”
“I didn’t say anything about us not eating together. I just need to pick up a few things. Why so jumpy?”
“I’m not jumpy.” She was clingy. The truth hit her as she glanced down to see her white-knuckled grip on the flowers. Taking a deep breath, she forced her fingers to relax. “I’m just not one for wasting time.”
“It won’t be a waste. I can promise you that much,” he said before disappearing inside the store.
Eden spent the next ten minutes doing her best to relax. Not an easy task with his scent swimming around her, teasing her nostrils, stealing inside her head. Why did he have to smell so good? Or look so good? Or be even nicer than she remembered?
Good-looking and arrogant, she could have handled. While confident, Brady wasn’t the least bit full of himself. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn she’d sensed a moment’s hesitation when he’d climbed out of the car. As if he, too, was nervous.
Crazy. He’d propositioned her, after all. A woman was the last thing that would cause Brady Weston to be nervous, particularly Eden herself. Men had been many things around her—arrogant, insincere, flirty—but none had ever been nervous. Except Mikey over at the diner. But he was fifteen, with a face full of acne and a body full of raging hormones.
Brady Weston was a grown man. A handsome, sexy, grown man and she was just plain, old Eden Hallsey who’d sat behind him in English and lusted after him along with the entire adolescent female population.
“You must be really hungry,” Eden commented when he deposited a bag full of groceries on the seat between them.
“You can bet on it, sugar.” His eyes glittered as they locked with hers and she knew he was talking about more than dinner. The crazy notion that he might actually be nervous about their interlude faded in the smoldering depths of his eyes.
The line begged for a comeback, but the only thing she managed was a weak, “That’s nice,” as they pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the main strip through town.
Thankfully, the drive to his garage apartment was blessedly quick. Otherwise, Eden felt certain she would have died of lack of oxygen. As she climbed from the cab, still clutching the flowers, she drew in a deep, life-saving breath and tried to slow her pounding heart.
It wasn’t the close confines, she decided as he ushered her up the stairs. They were out in the open and she still couldn’t get enough air. It was the quiet. The unnerving quiet filled with nothing except the buzz of crickets and the thunder of her own heart.
“So this is where you live?” she asked once he’d kicked the door of the apartment shut behind them.
“For now.” He deposited the sack of groceries on the sink and started to unpack.
Eden glanced around and noticed the squares of white cardboard littering the nearby sofa. She didn’t mean to be nosy, but she desperately needed to be distracted from listening to her heart hammer in her chest.
“What are these things?” she asked, picking one up and studying the drawing of an old cowboy boot.
“Nothing. I’ve just been playing with a few ideas to beef up business.”
“Your granddaddy has you working on advertising?” Brady shook his head and Eden could have sworn she saw a look of pure longing on his face. “I’m working production. I like working production. This is just something I’m playing around with.” He pulled a carton of ice cream from the bag. “But I’d rather play with you.” His eyes gleamed. “What do you like? Chocolate or vanilla ice cream?”
“Chocolate, but I’m really not hungry.” Her gaze swept the one-room efficiency, from the small kitchen to the leather sofa to the bed visible just beyond an open doorway. The place was small, but expensively decorated despite its location. Then again, she expected nothing less from the Westons. Even when they roughed it, they had style.
“Nice clock,” she said as her gaze lit on a glittering chrome hubcab hanging on a nearby wall.
“Merle made it.” He held up two jars. “You like chocolate or caramel syrup?”
“Caramel.” her gaze went to the row of framed photos lining the wall. Each image depicted a group of children sporting the same uniforms. “These are the T-ball teams Merle has sponsored?”
“Yep.”
“They’re nice. I sponsor a team, too,” she added. Now, why had she said that? Because they were about to do the deed and she suddenly had the strange urge to get to know him. To share something about herself.
“Yeah, the Houston Astros, pint-sized edition,” she continued. “I’ve sponsored them for the past eight years.
“I didn’t see the team banner at the bar. Don’t all sponsors have banners?”
“The league president, Conrad Phillips, doesn’t like the fact the kids are sponsored by a bar. And I agree. I do sell alcohol, after all.”
“And so does the Longhorn Steakhouse, but they have a banner.”
“It’s okay. Conrad’s never really liked me, not since I turned him down for a date several years back.”
“But he’s been married ten years.”
“I know.” Eden studied the pictures again. “These are really nice. So…have you settled things with your grandfather?”
“Nut preferences. It’s cashews, right? And just what do you know about the situation with my grandfather?”
“Yes to the cashews, and I know what everyone else knows. That you left and he got mad.”
He took the flowers from her hands and placed them in some water. “He got more than mad. He disowned me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“So am I, but I don’t blame him. He had every right.”
“You were only eighteen. Just a kid, and kids make mistakes.”
“True, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
The comment hung between them for a few moments as he unloaded the rest of the groceries and Eden glanced around the near empty apartment.
“So this is your sofa? It’s nice.”
“Thanks.”
“And your TV. It’s nice, too.”
“Thanks again.”
“And I really like this lamp.” Even as she stared at the base, also made from a giant hubcap, she couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. She’d never been into small talk. Neither had she ever nursed a pounding heart or tried to calm a racing pulse or fought for every breath.
Then again, this was Brady Weston. The Brady Weston.
“Look, can we just get to it? We agreed to sex, so there’s no reason for all this small talk. I know you, you know me. We know what we want.”
“Almost.” He held up two small crates. “Strawberries or blueberries?”
“For the last time, I’m not hungry.”
A slow grin spread across his face and a smoldering light lit his eyes. “Then let’s see what we can do about that.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Eden blurted as Brady stepped across his kitchen, a satin blindfold in hand.
“It’s called foreplay.” He circled and came up behind her. The hard wall of his chest kissed her shoulder blades. “You do want to play, don’t you, darlin’?”
“Yes, but I was thinking more along the lines of a little kissing, some heavy petting. I don’t see—” She stopped abruptly when his arms came up from behind and his palm brushed her cheek. Electricity skimmed through her body as two strong fingertips pressed against her lips.
“You don’t need to see,” he murmured. “You just need to feel.” Before she could protest, his hand fell away and she felt the cool glide of silk against her skin. “As for the kissing and petting…I plan to pet you until you purr like a kitten. Make no mistake about that.”
“I’ve never done anything like this,” she blurted, a zing of panic rushing through her as the silk blocked out the light. With her sight gone, her other senses took control and became sharper in those next few seconds. Her nostrils flared with the aroma of warm, husky male. Her skin prickled from the heat of his body. Her ears seemed to tingle as they tuned in to the deep, husky murmur of his voice.
“Then this is a first for both of us.”
Her heart thundered at the thought before common sense intruded. She fought for a calming breath. “I mean, I have,” she rushed on, determined to take back her previous naive statement. Granted, it was true, but he didn’t know that. No one did, and Eden intended to keep things that way. She had a reputation to uphold, after all. “Done this, that is. It’s just, I didn’t expect it. You said sex. Just sex. So I assumed this would be pretty straightforward. No frills. Just the basics.” She knew she was rattling, but damned if she could help herself. Not when he smelled so good and felt so warm. “The bare bones. The nuts and bolts—” The words died on her tongue as something cool pressed to her lips. The scent of chocolate filled her nostrils and she realized it was one of the fudge truffles she’d seen him pull from the grocery sack.
“Let’s see if you can do something else with that beautiful mouth of yours besides talk.” His voice, so rich and deep, stirred her even more than the decadent aroma wafting through her nose. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were nervous.”
But he knew better. The whole town did. She was Eden Hallsey, bad girl extraordinaire. A woman who’d been around the block and then some, or so most people thought. What she wanted the entire town to think.
Everyone except Brady Weston.
The minute the thought pushed its way in, she pushed it right back out. Brady was no different. He was every man she’d ever slept with—the few and far between—and every man who’d ever wanted to sleep with her. Nothing special.
And so Eden gathered her precious control and did what she did best. She put on her I-know-all-the-ropes persona and stuffed that small insecure part of herself down deep where it belonged. “I can do plenty with this mouth,” she murmured in her most sultry voice. Her lips parted and she sank her teeth into the sweet confection, focusing on the burst of flavor rather than the strange fluttering of her heart.
This had nothing to do with her heart. It was all about satisfying her body and proving to herself once and for all that Brady Weston was just a man. Tonight would be exactly what they’d agreed upon….
“Just sex,” she murmured to herself as she took another bite.
Just sex?
The thought stuck in his head as he watched her mouth work at the truffle. Was she crazy? Tonight was about more than a little no-frills mattress dancing. Much more. It was about great sex. Stupendous sex. The best of her life. So Brady spent the next few hours recreating his favorite scene from last night’s erotic movie.
He’d picked what he’d dubbed the cherry scene, in which Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger had sat in front of an open refrigerator and engaged in a uniquely delicious form of foreplay. With her eyes closed, Kim had sat dutifully in front of Mickey while he’d fed her everything from cherries to honey. The scene hadn’t featured the sex act itself, but rather the buildup. Mickey had been intent on stirring all of Kim’s senses, on truly turning her on.
Exactly what Brady wanted to do for Eden.
He succeeded over the next hour. She’d smiled quizzically when he’d told her about renting the video, but he’d also seen her hands tremble as she reached blindly for another spoonful of chocolate mousse. Her ripe nipples pressed against her T-shirt as he trailed ice down her chin and the slope of her neck. Her bottom lip quivered as she opened her mouth for a trickle of honey.
She had great lips, so full and pouty and kissable. It had taken all his willpower back in high school not to kiss her that night she’d won the date with him. But he hadn’t wanted to be just every other guy in her eyes.
He’d wanted her to see him differently, as more than just a conquest, though the notion hadn’t sounded so distasteful. Particularly when she’d stared at him with all that young hunger in her eyes as he’d walked her to her door.
“You’ll never know how much I wanted to kiss you that night. I wanted it so bad.”
“Right.” The incredulous look on her face almost made him smile. Almost, but he was too aroused, too intent, too eager to see if her nipples tasted as ripe as they looked beneath her thin tank top. The incredulity faded into curiosity. “You really wanted to kiss me?”
“Darlin’, every guy in school wanted to kiss you. I was no exception.”
She frowned and, for a split second, Brady had the distinct feeling that he’d said the wrong thing. But then her mouth tilted and she smiled, and the notion faded in the sudden burst of heat that shot through his body.
He moved to feed her another cherry, but she caught his hand. A few swift tugs behind her head and the blindfold fell away.
“May be if you’re nice to me,” she told him as she tossed the slip of silk to the side, “I’ll give you that kiss now.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“You’re not going to be nice to me?”
“I’ve already been nice, and I’m not going to settle for a kiss after all this effort.” He popped a cherry into his mouth and swallowed. “I want more, darlin’. I want you.” And then he did what he’d been wanting to do since the moment he’d rolled back into town and Eden Hallsey had offered him a ride.
He picked her up and took her to bed.
WHILE THE PAST HOUR had passed with excruciating slowness, the next few moments were a dizzying blur. One moment Eden was sitting on Brady’s kitchen floor and the next she was sinking down on the edge of his bed.
She watched, her lips parted, her breathing shallow, as Brady stripped in front of her. When he pulled off his shirt, her mouth grew dry at the sight of hard, smooth planes of his wide chest. When his hands went to his fly, her breath stopped completely. She had the barest glimpse of white cotton before he drew her to her feet and grasped the edge of her T-shirt. He held her gaze for one charged moment before pulling it over her head, swiftly and expertly. She wanted to step back, to take a good long look at his body, but she burned too fiercely for him. When his hands reached for the waistband of her jeans, a small voice in her head urged him faster, faster. He slid her button free and urged her zipper down. Cool air swept over her legs as he pushed down her jeans, leaving her in only bra and panties. He urged her down onto the bed and followed, his hard body covering the length of hers. The sudden sensation of heated skin against skin made her gasp.
Before she could draw in her next, ragged breath, he captured her lips with his own in a kiss that
was even better than she’d anticipated. Hotter. Wetter. A moan worked its way up her throat and her lips parted for him. His tongue slid against hers, coaxing and hot, a fierce contrast to the coolness of the cherries she’d eaten just moments before. Sensation overwhelmed her and Eden closed her eyes, reveling in the flood of heat.
His fingertips slid toward the clasp of her bra and sanity zapped her. She caught his hand an inch shy and shook her head. “I like it on. It’s sexy.”
“It’s in the way.”
“Not really,” she mumbled, glancing down at the dark tip of one nipple peeking up between the lace.
“I can see your point.” He dipped his head, catching the ripe peak between his lips. His tongue lapped at the sensitive bud and her panic faded in a rush of heat.
He trailed his hand down her side, hooked his thumb in the edge of her panties and dragged the lace down until it pulled free and she lay naked beneath him. Almost. She still had on her bra and Eden intended to keep it that way.
Brady obliged her. He was too focused on other things, particularly the triangle of curls at the base of her thighs. His fingers ruffled the hair and slid along the dampness between her legs.
Her entire body seemed more alive than ever before in those next few moments. She felt everything. The rasp of his chest hair against her lace-covered nipples. The glide of his big toe down the inside of her calf as he shifted his position and nudged her legs apart. The pulse of his now condom-covered erection as it settled in the damp heat between her legs.
The past hour had, indeed, stirred her hunger and brought her body to throbbing awareness. She was on fire and each touch made her burn hotter, brighter.
Dipping his head, he kissed her again, rubbing his erection against her sensitive slick folds. Back and forth. Again and again.
The Pleasure Principle Page 7
