She took the mail, turned, and swung the door behind her. It didn’t close.
She could smell him. She’d know his scent anywhere. She whirled around, her legs going weak already, and he was there. Adam. She could hardly believe it.
The mail dropped onto the wood floor, but she didn’t care. What could he possibly want? And why did he have to look so damn beautiful, making her head spin?
Oh, God.
She put a hand to her hair self-consciously.
“Skye.”
Even the sound of his voice made her quiver all over. She had to get a hold of herself. “Adam…What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you, talk to you.”
She couldn’t figure out what to say, so she stepped aside and let him in. Her pulse was racing with fear, with a yearning so strong she could hardly stand it. She led him into the living room, gestured for him to sit down, but he went immediately to the painting by the window.
“It’s me.”
She bit her lip. “Yes.”
“You’re very good.”
“It’s awful. It’s not…I can’t get it right.”
When he turned his gaze was full of emotion. Shocking, to see his face like that. She was shaking. “No, Skye. You had it right all along.”
“What do you mean?”
Two long strides and he was right in front of her. He took her shoulders in his hands and held on tight. Her heart felt as though it would pound right out of her chest. She was going weak all over from his touch, his scent, from the nearness of him.
His eyes were pure, smoky blue fire as he gazed down at her, and she had an overwhelming sense of his height, the breadth of his big body. The pure power of his commanding presence. And the emotion on his face. For the first time in her life she understood what it might mean to swoon.
“Damn it, Skye, all the way over here I knew exactly what I needed to say to you. But now I’m here and…you’re so fucking beautiful, I’m speechless. That’s never happened to me before.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she had to laugh. “I look like hell.”
He shook his head, his brows drawing together. “You look perfect. That’s why I’m here. You are perfect, and I’m an idiot to pass that up. You are perfect for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her pulse ran hot in her veins. Her breath came in shallow gasps.
“That last night…everything you said was true. I knew it. I was just too damn stubborn to listen. And what did that get me? A fucking miserable week without you.”
“It’s been eight days,” she said quietly.
He nodded. “Eight long days with me driving myself crazy thinking about you. Needing you. Fucking needing you until I thought I would explode. Needing to touch you, to kiss you, God damn it. But just as much to talk to you. But I spent a week being stubborn. Being stupid. I know I’m an asshole, Skye. I’m sorry, I truly am sorry. And I know we hardly know each other. But we do. I’ve talked about it before, the intensity of connection in the BDSM life. I’ve been on panels speaking about it, even though I’ve never allowed myself to go there with anyone. But I get it. I always have. It’s like the time is condensed for us, magnified by the things we do together. By the trust that’s implicit in these acts. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes. I know exactly.”
She was beginning to loosen up all over, to warm up finally. The heat started where his hands slid down onto her arms, spread down into her belly. It was the intensity of the physical chemistry between them—there was no denying it. But it was something more, too. She could see it in his face. Felt it in every beat of her heart.
“Tell me what this means, Adam?” she asked. “Please.”
“I don’t know—not exactly. This is all new to me. But I want to find out.”
She watched the transformation as his features went soft, making her heart surge. She saw pure, raw emotion there for the first time. Saw the gentle gleam in his eyes as he stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, bent down and kissed her. His lips were the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted. And his hands holding her face felt warm. Safe. Her breath came out on a sigh laced with gentle tears.
She pulled away. “I’ve been so mad at you. And you’ve been so stubborn.”
“Yes. Stubborn. Stupid. Fucking scared. And I’m sorry. I am. So damn sorry I put us both through this.”
She held onto his shoulders—because she needed to touch him. Needed something to hang on to. “I’ve been scared, too. And I know I’ve had my walls up. But you made me tear them down. I haven’t even been able to fight it. I was mad that you could.”
“Not really. But I put on a good show, didn’t I?” He smoothed a hand over her hair. “That’s kind of my specialty.”
“Don’t ever do that with me again,” she said fiercely, her fingers digging into the heavy muscle of his shoulders.
“Baby…” His expression grew more serious, his brows drawn together as he studied her face, kissed her lips softly, pulled back. “I won’t. At least, I’ll try not to. I’m counting on you to call me on it if I do. If we’re going to be together, I need a woman who can do that. Who can stand up to me as needed. Who wants the kink, but isn’t always the submissive. I want a woman who can think. I want a woman like you.”
“Do you? Tell me again. I need to hear it.”
He bent his head until his forehead rested on hers. He said quietly, “I want you, Skye. I want to be with you. I need to be with you. Fucking need to. It’s that need that forced me to push through the resistance I’ve built up all my life because I couldn’t risk…losing someone again. But I need you more than I want to avoid all that shit I thought I’d dealt with. I still have a ways to go, but I don’t want you to ever doubt it again. I won’t be the kind of man you’ve always been afraid every man would be.”
“It’s true. It was…unfair.”
“No, I understand it. And I almost was that man. But I couldn’t let myself be. Because I need you, my beautiful girl. Because I love you.”
A sob escaped her. “Adam…”
His hands wrapped around her, pulling her in tight. He whispered, “Is it not what you wanted to hear? Because I can’t fucking help myself. Maybe it sounds insane, but I love you, Skye. I just do.”
Tears pooled, blurring everything but the sensation of his body pressed against hers, every plane, every muscle, every beat of his heart held tight against her.
“This is exactly where I want you to be, Adam. Exactly what I needed to hear. Maybe we’ve both gone crazy, because I love you, too. I do.”
His arms tightened, until she could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. He kissed her hair, pulled back to kiss her cheeks, her neck, then finally her mouth, over and over, until her head was swimming, her heart bursting.
“I love you, my baby,” he murmured against her mouth. “And I need you now.”
He moved her to the sofa, laid her down and undressed her slowly, his touch almost reverential. He took a few moments to take his clothes off, to take a condom from his pocket and sheathe himself, his gaze never leaving her face as he lowered his body over hers. He was kissing her again, his tongue doing lovely things to her mouth, sending heat lancing through her body. She held his face in her hands, needing to keep him close, loving the soft scratch of his goatee under her palms. Her breasts filled, ached, and when he crushed her naked body to his she wanted nothing more than to be right there, with him.
To be his.
She broke away to tell him, to demand of him, “Touch me, Adam. Be with me.”
“That’s all I want, Skye,” he murmured, raining kisses over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly. “To be with you.”
This was new to her, too, allowing herself to feel this way about a man, wanting him to feel the same way about her. Even though neither of them knew exactly what the hell they were doing, they would explore the possibilities together.
He raised himself up until he was poised over her body. She wrap
ped her arms around his neck and opened her thighs, opened to him. Completely.
“Touch me the way I need you to, Adam. Come on.”
He pulled back and grinned down at her as he pinched one nipple between his strong fingers. She arched up, her body suffused with pleasure through the pain.
“Is this what you’re asking me for, my beautiful girl?”
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
“I’ll always try to give you what you need. Always. That’s what I want with you, Skye.”
“Adam…”
She blinked away a tear. She wouldn’t cry anymore. Not now, when she was seeing her heart’s desire come to life. A desire she’d never even known she had until she’d met him.
“What does that mean when you say always?”
“That we can be together,” he answered, his voice rough. Raw. “If that’s what you want. That we can try this. But with that intention. Permanency. I think it’s the only way we can go into a relationship. And that’s what I want with you. I want you to be mine. To be my girl.”
“I want that, too. To love you.”
His features shifted once more, and she saw everything he was feeling. And it reflected her own emotions, surging in a wild tumble in her chest.
“I fell for you, Skye,” he said, his voice soft with wonder. “Fell so damn hard. I never thought this was possible. But it’s happening. You brought me here. And I’m grateful. I’m damn grateful.” He stroked her cheek softly, bent to brush a kiss across her lips. In that kiss she felt all that he was saying. Felt again the chemistry buzzing between them. The connection that was both implied and intensified by their naked bodies pressed together.
“I think I fell the moment I saw you,” she told him. “I want this. I want you. I want to be yours.”
“You are mine, Skye,” he murmured as he pushed himself into her. “Mine.”
He wrapped his arms around her body, holding her tight as he began to move, as she began to move with him, their bodies in perfect synchronicity. She was lost in his embrace, in Adam, in who he was, in everything he was to her already. For the first time in her life, she allowed herself to be.
Adam had been right in their very first conversation. She’d had to give up control, to let it all go: her history with her father, her fear of intimacy that experience had created. She could see it all so clearly now, in the light of love. She’d had to give up control to allow herself to let someone in. Finally, she’d found the way. With him.
ABOUT EDEN BRADLEY
Best-selling and award-winning author Eden Bradley, who also writes as Eve Berlin, has published a number of novels and novellas, both print and e-books, with Bantam, Berkley Heat, Harlequin Spice & HQN, Samhain Publishing and Black Lace, as well as several self-published novellas. Several of her books have been translated into German, French, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese, and her Eve Berlin books will soon be available in Czech. Her BDSM novel THE DARK GARDEN will appear as a graphic novel in Japan in 2013, and her novel FORBIDDEN FRUIT was profiled in Cosmopolitan magazine. Eden appears regularly on Playboy Radio and conducts workshops on writing craft and writing about sex. A psychology major, she's fascinated with how the human mind responds to intimacy, especially when sex and romance collide.
When not writing, you can find her wandering museums, buying shoes, and reading everything she can get her hands on.
Visit her websites: EdenBradley.com EveBerlin.com or her group blog Smutketeers.com
Other Titles by Eden Bradley
Now Available from Samhain Publishing:
Tempt Me Twice
Midnight Playground Series
Ever: The Turning
The Seeking Kiss
Bloodsong
The Turning Kiss
Eversong
Celestial Seductions Series
Winter Solstice
Spring Equinox
Summer Solstice
Wasteland Continuity Series
The Breeder
Now Available from Bantam/Delta:
The Dark Garden
The Darker Side of Pleasure
Exotica: Seven Days of Kama Sutra, Nine Days of Arabian Nights
Hot Nights, Dark Desires
Forbidden Fruit
A 21st Century Courtesan
The Beauty of Surrender
Now Available from Harlequin Spice:
Soul Strangers
The Lovers
Naughty Bits (anthology)
Night Moves
Fallen Angel
***
Written as Eve Berlin
Now Available from Berkley Heat:
Pleasure’s Edge
Desire’s Edge
Temptation’s Edge
***
Also from Eden Bradley
Sanctuary
From The Smutketeers - A Kinky Christmas Carol
Getting Scrooged
Bonus Excerpt: THE DARK GARDEN
Eden Bradley
If you loved Fifty Shades of Grey…get ready to enter The Dark Garden.
Surrender has its own rewards…
A deliciously potent tale of one woman’s quest for self-discovery.
Rowan Cassidy likes to be in charge—especially in her personal life. As a mistress at Club Privé, the most exclusive bondage/S & M club on the West Coast, Rowan can live out her dominant fantasies safely, and with complete control—until the night Christian Thorne walks in. Self-confident and sophisticated, he’s a natural dominant if Rowan’s ever seen one. Yet she can’t stop thinking about him and imagining his touch.
Christian has returned home, hoping to break free from his dissatisfaction and malaise—and discovers the cure in Rowan. He’s dying to get his skilled hands on her and watch her surrender, to unlock the mystery of her that captivates him. Determined to be her master, he makes Rowan a daring proposition: give herself over to him for thirty days.
Rowan finds Christian’s offer terrifying—and impossible to resist. But abandoning herself to Christian’s power might be more than she can handle…. Or it might be the realization of her true nature and the dark garden within her. There will be only one way to find out. And once the game has begun, there’s no turning back.
EXCERPT:
He led her to the bed once more, and this time he undressed her with his own hands, carefully, tenderly. He helped her step out of her shoes, then her wool slacks, slipped her crème-colored cashmere sweater over her head, left her in her ivory silk camisole and matching thong.
“We’re going to take things slowly.” He spoke softly, soothingly. “One step at a time. I just want you to get used to my touch first. To being under my hands. You know you can always stop the scene if anything gets to be too much for you. But I want you to try to stretch your boundaries a little.”
“Just being here is a stretch for me.”
“I know that. That’s why I haven’t thrown you over my knee and given you a good, hard spanking.”
His wicked grin was infectious and she couldn’t help but smile.
“Ah, that’s better. Come now, sit here on the end of the bed.”
He pressed down a bit on her shoulder, guiding her. The bed was soft beneath her, as though it had a layer of down ticking on it under the rich brown and gold bedspread. The room was warm enough, but she shivered anyway. It was impossible to hold still.
He moved to the head of the bed and she couldn’t see what he was doing, only heard the slide of a drawer. She felt the mattress sink a little beneath his weight as he sat down behind her. When he touched a fingertip to her bare shoulder she jumped.
“It’s all right, Rowan. It’s just me.” He slid that fingertip down her arm, raising a trail of goose bumps. Down her arm to her wrist, over the back of her hand, then back up. His fingers continued their stroking exploration, over her neck, the line of her jaw. She could feel the heat from his hand on her skin. Incredible, how much heat came off that one finger. What would his whole body feel like pressed against
hers?
Before she could banish that thought, her sex gave a squeeze, went liquid. She couldn’t fight it with him still touching her. He continued to stroke her skin, moving down to her collarbone, and her nipples peaked hard as he swept across the swell of one breast, then the other. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the sensation.
His hand slid over the outer edge of her bra, down over the curve of her breast and she wanted to arch into that hand, to make him cup her breast, but she didn’t move. She was trembling inside with desire.
His hand made its way over her ribcage, the lines of her abdomen, lower, until he brushed the very top of her panties. Her sex ached. She was sure he could sense the pacing of her breath, the heated flush of her skin. But right now she couldn’t find it within herself to care. She only knew she didn’t want him to stop touching her.
He took his hand away, leaving her skin cold. Then his mouth was next to her ear, whispering, “I’m going to blindfold you now.”
Panic hit her full force. “No!”
“Yes.” It was a tone few would argue with.
“I…I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to, Rowan. That’s the beauty of this arrangement. I’ll do everything.”
He tucked her hair behind her ears while she sat, shaking and silent. She didn’t know how to fight him.
The blindfold came down over her eyes, shutting the world out. She raised her hands to her face but he quickly pulled them away.
“Still, Rowan.”
How many times had she given that very command to the bottoms she’d played with?
“You know how this is done. I want you to focus. To be aware of only the sensations in your body, your own breathing. Shut out the rest of the world. It’s just the two of us now. Let the rest fall away.”
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