The Pleasure Principle

by Kimberly Raye

  She arched against him, every muscle in her body taut. Her breath caught on a sob as he pushed the head of his penis just a fraction inside her. Just enough to tease, to tantalize, to send a burst of feeling through her and push her close. So very close…

  Through the haze of pleasure, she found him staring down at her, his eyes dark and smoldering as he watched. Meeting his gaze, she felt an intense jolt of awareness at the intimacy of this moment, this act, with a man she’d only ever fantasized about before. In that overwhelming moment, Eden did what any desperate woman would have done. She tilted her hips just so, drawing him deeper despite his obvious efforts at restraint.

  He muttered a curse before giving in to her demanding body and plunging deep. His eyes closed and relief flooded her, followed by a burst of heat as he again plunged deep. So deliciously deep…

  She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding on as he shoved his hands beneath her bottom and tilted her, driving deeper, stronger, pushing her closer to the brink until she could take no more.

  Her orgasm crashed over her like a tidal wave, consuming her, turning her inside out and upside down. It was fierce. Intense. Mind-blowing. She barely managed to catch the cry that rolled up her throat.

  But she did.

  Old habits died hard and Eden had been holding herself back, hiding behind a cool, seductive wall for much too long to stop now, even in the face of such delicious heat.

  Because of the heat. It was too fierce. Too intense. Too…unexpected.

  The realization stayed with her for the next few heart-pounding moments, as Brady drove deep one final time. That was the only time he broke the eye contact between them. As if he couldn’t help himself, his lids shut and his back arched. Every tendon in his neck went taut as he groaned, long and low and deep.

  Eden fought back the urge to touch his face, to trace the curve of his cheekbone, to feel the heat of his skin against her palm. Instead, she concentrated on her own body, on slowing the spasms that still rocked her.

  He collapsed on top of her, his head resting against the curve of her shoulder, his lips pressed to the furious beat of her pulse, and it was over.

  Over.

  So why did she feel the need to do it all again? To feel the delicious pleasure? To give him the same pleasure again?

  Eden closed her eyes as the truth crystalized in her brain. She’d anticipated a good orgasm. After all, he was so sexy and hot and so…Brady. She couldn’t imagine anything less with the boy-turned-man who’d haunted her thoughts for so many years. But this…this went beyond a great release.

  She wanted to jump. Shout. Laugh. Cry.

  Worse, she wanted to throw her arms around him and beg him for another. And another.

  The notion sent a burst of panic through her, and she did what any self-respecting bad girl would have done at that moment. She scrambled across the bed and reached for her clothes.

  “Where are you going?”

  “It’s late,” she managed in her calmest, coolest voice. She was calm and cool. And in control. And now was no different from any of the other sexual experiences she’d had in her past. They were finished, and so she was leaving.

  “It’s only midnight.”

  “Sorry, but I’m always in bed by midnight.” Just as the words left her mouth, she felt his fingers encircle her wrist. A strong but gentle tug, and she found herself tumbling backward onto the bed.

  “Then you’re right on schedule, darlin’.” His grin was slow and easy and heart-stopping. Heat rushed to her cheeks.

  Great. Now she was blushing. First she’d stammered. Then she’d trembled. Now she was blushing, of all things.

  She definitely needed to get out of here.

  “My bed,” she clarified.

  “Lead the way, darlin’. I’m game again if you are.”

  “About that…” She crawled from beneath him and reached for her clothes. Blushing? She was not blushing, and she wasn’t crawling back beneath the covers as she desperately wanted to. This was no different from any other sexual liaison. He was no different, even if he did touch her just so and kiss her until her toes curled and her hands trembled and… “I really have to get out of here.”

  “What about our date?”

  “Tonight was hardly a date. It was an agreement. We agreed to sleep together. Mission accomplished.”

  “I thought we could get a bite to eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

  “I had dinner earlier.”

  “Then we’ll have dessert.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and grinned. “You don’t have to run off. I won’t bite. Unless you want me to, that is.”

  His words stirred a vision of him over her, kissing his way down the curve of her neck, nibbling the slope of her breast, licking the tip of her nipple…

  The urge to jump back into the bed nearly overwhelmed her and panic rushed through her, sending her scrambling for her shoes. “Look,” she said as she pulled on her boots, “it’s nothing personal, but let’s not make more out of this than it really was.”

  “And what exactly was it?”

  Earth-shattering. Mind-blowing. Romantic. “Nice,” she finally murmured, determined to get a grip on the small voice inside her that kept insisting otherwise.

  Any man.

  His grin died and his eyes narrowed. “Nice, huh?”

  “Very nice. But now it’s back to the real world. We’ve done the lust thing and now I really need to get over to the bar and help Kasey. She’s probably swamped. Saturday’s our busiest night, after all.”

  Dream on, sister.

  “I thought you were going home to bed.”

  “I am. I mean, I was. I mean…” Great. She was stammering again. It’s just, he smelled so good and looked so good, so dark and tanned sprawled there against the pale yellow sheets. Heat rushed through her body and her thighs tingled. She wanted another touch. And another kiss. And—

  It’s over.

  “I am going home to bed,” she managed as she snatched up her purse and made a bee-line for the door. “After I go to the bar.” She reached for the doorknob. “I’ll see you around.”

  “You can sure-as-shootin’ bet on that, darlin’.”

  “I THOUGHT YOU HAD A DATE tonight,” Kasey said when Eden walked into the bar ten minutes later.

  “It wasn’t a date. We just got together to talk over old times.”

  “I s that what they’re calling it now?”

  Eden shot Kasey a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. It was a joke. Since when did you get so touchy?”

  Since Brady Weston had rolled back into her life and made her feel so nervous and anxious and…just feel. Something Eden hadn’t allowed herself since she’d run from Jake’s house crying the night she’d lost her virginity. She’d buried her feelings from then on, hiding behind her cool persona. But Brady shook the image and drew her feelings to the surface. He stirred her so fiercely that she couldn’t bury the feelings anymore.

  At least until tonight. But now that they’d done the deed, she’d gotten him out of her system. Her infatuation with him was over and done with. No more thinking and dreaming and seeing himself as anything other than the flesh-and-blood man that he was. No way was she going to keep trembling or hoping or dreaming. And no way did she want to do it again. Even if he had talked about a whole week.

  “We might as well go ahead and close up,” Kasey said, her gaze sweeping the empty bar. A familiar sight since Jake had set about using his strong-arm tactics to persuade the town that the Pink Cadillac was best left alone.

  Strong-arm as in monetary incentives. Jake wasn’t man enough to put any muscle into his threats. He simply bought his way around Cadillac, providing the bingo hall with a new speaker system in exchange for extended hours that cut into Eden’s business and kept the Senior Singles playing double and triple cards rather than playing darts and nursing sodas in Eden’s back room.

  “You go on ahead. I think I’ll
get a headstart on tomorrow’s inventory.” Because the last thing Eden wanted to do was go home and climb into an empty bed. Heck, she didn’t even want to see a bed. Not with her body still on fire. Still alive and wanting and—

  You’re doing it again.

  Yep, inventory was what she needed, all right.

  She locked up behind Kasey and headed toward the stockroom. Picking up her clipboard, she made her way toward the pantry and the twenty-odd jars of maraschino cherries.

  A very vivid of image of Brady popped into her mind. His gaze dark and intense as he fed her a piece of the ripe succulent fruit. Her nipples pebbled at the remembrance and her blood rushed and the need to turn and bolt for his apartment nearly overwhelmed her.

  She flicked the light switch off and plopped the clipboard onto the counter.

  On second thought, inventory could wait until tomorrow.

  7

  NICE?

  What kind of word was nice?

  Brady pulled on his jeans and walked into the kitchen a good half hour after Eden left, a half hour he’d spent thinking and remembering and doing his damnedest to figure out what had happened.

  Where was the screaming? The begging? The noise that follows supreme, earth-shattering sex? Hell, he would have settled for a smile of satisfaction, anything other than the passive look on her face as she’d donned her clothing and left him to question his manhood.

  H e sank down onto the sofa, a beer in hand. He popped the tab and downed a long swallow. Nice described a sunny Saturday afternoon or the pitter-patter of rain on a barn roof. The term didn’t come close to touching the past two hours spent with Eden. He’d had sex before, but never had it been so hot, so intense, so damned terrific.

  Then again, that was his opinion. Not hers.

  Nice.

  Had he failed to push her hot buttons?

  The question bothered him all of five seconds, until he remembered the flush that had crept across her silky skin, the desire that had flashed in her eyes. Her body had milked his in a mesmerizing rhythm that had made him come harder and heavier than ever before, and his gut told him it had been the same for her.

  She’d been turned on, all right. Hell, she’d been on fire. But, for whatever reason, she’d been dead set on controlling the flames. She’d concealed her pleasure on purpose, pushed it away just the way she’d pushed his hands away when he’d tried to remove the last stitch of her clothing—that lacy wisp of a black bra that had revealed a helluva lot more than it had covered.

  I like it. It’s sexy.

  No doubt it was sexy, but Brady couldn’t help but think there was more to it than that. She’d been too nervous when her fingers had grasped his. Too desperate when he’d toyed with the clasp of her bra. Too scared.

  Eden Hallsey, bonafide bad girl and the sexiest woman he’d ever had the pleasure of touching, had actually been frightened of him.

  Or herself.

  The notion reminded him of the bashful, bright-eyed girl he’d known back in tenth grade, the girl she’d been before that Monday morning that changed everything. Eden had looked stricken and distant. And during the lunch hour, Brady had discovered why. According to Jake Marlboro, Eden had stripped for him and his entire baseball team. Hardly. Brady hadn’t believed it then and he didn’t believe it now. Yep, Eden was scared, but she needed to face her fear. And he was just the one to help her.

  He got to his feet and walked over to the bag he’d brought home from the video store. While Eden might be of a mind that they were finished, he wasn’t nearly done.

  He pulled out another video and popped it into the VCR. Tonight had just been the warm-up. Brady was armed and ready for more, and he wasn’t about to stop until she was back in his bed, completely naked, out of control and conscious of nothing—her insecurity, her anxiety, her fear—nothing save the heat that burned between them.

  “COME AND SHARE your misery.” Kasey’s eyes lifted from the neon pink flyer. “I don’t know much about advertising, but this doesn’t exactly make the Pink Cadillac sound like the happening place to be on a Saturday night.”

  “The book I’m reading says to play off emotion and that’s what I’m doing. I’m thinking, if Dottie and Trina—both football widows—like to come in to eat snacks, toss down a few brews and share war stories, some of the other women in town might want to join in also. See, these ladies aren’t out to have a good time. They’re interested in a sympathetic ear. A little friendly advice. Some understanding. That’s what this flyer is all about. It calls to those lonely hearts in need of kinship, and that’s what the Pink Cadillac is all about.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to sing the theme from Cheers right now. After the night I had—” Kasey touched her head “—I don’t think I could take it.”

  Eden couldn’t stifle her grin. “Actually, I thought we could do a few verses of ‘Kumbaya.’”

  “You’re trying to torture me, aren’t you?”

  “The hangover is doing that. I’m just trying to make you see that you don’t have to compete with Laura Winchell on everything. Who cares if she can drink six hurricanes and still recite her ABC’s? You don’t have to follow suit.”

  “It wasn’t as if I had anything better to do. I didn’t have a date with the hottest cowboy in Cadillac.”

  “For the last time, it wasn’t a date, and Brady Weston isn’t a cowboy.” Once upon a time he’d been the classic hero wearing the white Stetson and riding the white horse, but no more. He’d changed, despite the fact that he’d given her flowers and gone to all the trouble of renting a sexy video just to turn her on.

  It had all been part of the game. The seduction.

  The thing of it was, no man had ever gone to so much trouble to seduce Eden. Because of her reputation, men assumed she was like a light switch. One flick of a button and she was blazing hot. No muss. No fuss. No foreplay.

  Certainly not three hours of it.

  So? The end result had been the same. Sex. Granted, it had been outstanding sex, but the big S nonetheless. And now it was over and done with.

  “Are you okay?” Kasey’s voice pushed into her thoughts. “You look flushed.”

  “It’s hot in here.”

  “We’re in the refrigerator.”

  “It’s still hot in here.”

  “It’s sixty degrees.”

  “It’s hot. Would you stop changing the subject. When are you going to learn that you don’t have to drink seven hurricanes to prove your superiority?”

  “It was seven and a quarter, and it’s the principle of the thing. Laura thinks she’s so much better than me. She always has.”

  “That’s just her opinion.”

  “Her and her dozen or so friends down at the Cut-n-Curl.”

  “It shouldn’t matter what those old biddies think.”

  Kasey’s eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me. This from the woman who puts her slinkiest dress on to go to church just so she can set those very same biddie’s tongues to wagging?”

  “That’s different. It’s not that I care what anyone thinks. I don’t care, which is why I dress the way I want to.” At Kasey’s skeptical gaze, Eden rushed on. “But we’re not talking about me. I’m not nursing a throbbing head and a queasy stomach.”

  “The queasiness passed. I’m in full-blown nausea as we speak.”

  “Go home and get some sleep.”

  “But I can’t leave you here all by yourself,” Kasey protested, even as she abandoned her clipboard and reached for her purse.

  “I think I can make it.”

  “You’re sure? Because all you have to do is say the word.”

  “Go.”

  A smile split Kasey’s face. “That’s the word I was hoping you’d say.” Then she turned serious. “But just so you know, I would be the first to stay if you absolutely, positively, unequivocally needed me.”

  Eden arched an eyebrow. “Unequivocally? Are you and Laura taking an expanded language course?”

  “Thre
e nights a week at the community college.” She started for the door. “Speaking of which, I’ll need off early tomorrow night.”

  “How early?”

  “Early enough for a full manicure. Laura practically lives in a French set.”

  Eden wondered briefly what it would be like to worry so much over something so superficial.

  She’d never had the luxury. Her problems had always been real—not enough money, enough food, enough class.

  That had been a contributing factor to Jake’s rejection and betrayal. She’d been the wrong girl for him and so he hadn’t taken her feelings seriously.

  But she’d been serious. For those heart-pounding five minutes when she’d bared all, she’d been deadly serious. And scared. And hopeful.

  No more. She was a grown woman and she knew the score. Namely, the haves didn’t belong with the have-nots. Sure, it happened in movies. She was still a die-hard Pretty Woman fan. But real life? Eden had spent too many years with a reputation she hadn’t earned, and all because she’d been from the wrong side of town. Jake would never had spread rumors about Mitzi Carmichael, the only child of city councilman Buford Carmichael and heir to the Double C—one of the largest purebred horse ranches in the country—even if Mitzi had done it with the Cadillac Wolverines’ entire defensive line, and all in the same night. An incident that wasn’t hearsay, but the God’s honest truth. Eden had seen for herself when she’d walked into the back bedroom in search of an extra bathroom at one of Myra Jackson’s infamous after-game parties.

  Eden had seen it, all right, and the guys involved had even bragged about it, but no one had truly believed it because Mitzi was the product of good breeding and old money. Not the sort of girl to do something so outlandish.

  But Eden? She was just the sort. Her parent s were gone now—both killed in a car accident years ago—but before that—her mother had served beers for a living while her father had poured them. Neither had ever set foot in church except on special occasions. They’d incited a fair share of gossip themselves when they’d been young, particularly since they’d lived together for several years before ever tying the knot.