The Pleasure Principle Read online

  Rumors. That summed up Eden’s life to a T, at least from the tenth grade up. She was one great big rumor. Her past. Her present. Her future.

  Rumor had it that she’d slept with the entire football team her sophomore year, and that she was presently sleeping with every elk over at the ledge, including Homer Jackson who, everyone in their right mind knew, preferred bulls to heifers any old day. As for the future? She would probably sleep her way through the city council, or maybe boff every police officer on the ten-man force.

  Rumor. That’s all it was, with the exception of one really cute elk Eden had met last New Year’s Eve at the annual holiday party. They’d dated a few times and slept together once, and that had been the end of it. He’d been a horse trainer for one of the nearby ranches, and once breaking season had ended, he’d left for New Mexico and another ranch.

  She’d moaned with him. Not so much because the sex had been great. Looking back, she could objectively qualify it as so-so. But she’d been coming off a long dry spell after her last fling nearly four years ago at a bartending convention in Austin, and even so-so had been an occasion for moaning.

  But a bonafide scream? Not this girl. Not with any of the handful of men she’d actually slept with, much less the hundreds that filled her make-believe résumé since Jake Marlboro had lied about her and made her the scarlet woman of Cadillac, Texas.

  “Eden?” Dottie waved her empty glass. “Are you still with me?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I guess I zoned out for a little while. It’s been so hot out.” She turned and twisted the air-conditioning knob a few notches cooler.

  “You’re telling me. Hit me again.”

  Eden had nothing against a woman quenching her thirst, but she wasn’t in the habit of contributing to the delinquency of friends. Particularly when she sensed an underlying motivation propelling Dottie toward a second drink.

  “Haven’t you reached your one orgasm limit?”

  Dottie Abernathy let out a pitiful sigh. “Usually, but I’m feeling very neglected today.” She stared down at her empty glass. “Not that I really need the calories. Jerry’s sure to run the other way if I pack on a beer belly.”

  Eden winked. “That’s a screaming orgasm belly, and I can’t imagine Jerry doing such a thing. He loves you.”

  “He loves me from February through July. It’s August.” At Eden’s blank look, she added, “Preseason. I’ve dropped to number two on his priority list.” She sighed. “At least it’s not number three. I don’t drop that far until October when deer season opens. Right now, I’m going head-to-head with the Dallas Cowboys.” She eyes the bowl of honey-roasted cashews sitting on the counter behind Eden. “What about those? Those are healthier than an orgasm, right?”

  “Definitely the good kind of fat,” Eden told her as she grabbed the bowl and placed it in front of Dottie. “And I won’t have to drive you home.”

  “Men,” Dottie said around a mouthful of nuts. “I’ll never understand them.”

  “Amen.” Eden popped a cashew into her own mouth. She’d tried understanding them. When Jake Marlboro had taken the treasured gift of her virginity and turned it into a sleazy strip show, she’d tried to see the entire event through his eyes. Had she done something to make him think she was sleezy? Had she come on too strong? Too soon? Had she been deserving of his nasty rumors?

  Hell, no. That’s what she’d finally decided, after a lot of soul searching and years of heartache. The fine, up-standing citizens of Cadillac could see what they wanted to see—namely that Jake was a wealthy, enterprising member of the community and she was little better than a cow pattie stuck to the bottom of his boot.

  As if she cared.

  She’d stopped caring a long time ago about other people’s perceptions—make that misperceptions—when she’d finally come to terms with the fact that her first true love was nothing more than a lying, conceited, egotistical jerk.

  Then and now.

  Her gaze swept the nearly empty bar. Empty when she’d always been packed at this time of afternoon. Even Mitchell Wineberg who gathered with his cronies for Saturday-afternoon dominoes wasn’t in his usual corner. He was over at the VFW, thanks to Jake who’d donated a twenty-seven-inch color TV to the rec room that put her small nineteen-inch black-and-white to shame. Who wanted to watch Pat Sajak and Vanna White in black and white when they could see that wheel spin in vivid technicolor? Not a one of them would give the Pink Cadillac a second glance thanks to Jake’s latest contribution. If Eden wouldn’t sell out, Jake would force her out by making the Pink Cadillac obsolete when it came to fun and entertainment.

  Or so he thought.

  She wasn’t going down without a fight. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but it would be something foolproof. She wasn’t selling the Pink Cadillac, no matter how much money he offered her.

  Eden told herself that for the umpteenth time and turned her attention to Dottie and the bowl of cashews.

  “…the Cowboys, of all teams,” the woman was saying. “I could understand if he had me going head-to-head with the Packers. Now there’s a decent football team. And cute. Why, they drafted a wide receiver with muscles out to here and a butt that begs to be pinched.”

  Dottie’s comments stirred a vision of another very pinchable butt and Eden’s attention shifted back to Brady and the picture he’d made standing on the side of the road, looking so hot and sweaty and sexy and…hot.

  A twinge of longing shot through Eden and she reached for a handful of cashews.

  Wait a second. Longing?

  No way. Not when it came to a man. If she’d learned anything in her lifetime it was that men were a dime a dozen. Sure, there were those few good ones. Her father and Reverend Talbot and old Mr. Murphy over at the grocery store who climbed his apple tree out back every afternoon so his ailing wife could have fresh fruit with her lunch. Eden wasn’t so jaded that she’d stopped believing in Mr. Right. He just wasn’t lurking anywhere in Cadillac or the surrounding six counties. But someday…

  She dismissed the thought. Eden wasn’t the type to sit around dreaming about the future. She made the best of the present and the matter at hand—which, right now, was her business—and the only thing she longed for was a rush of customers. That would show Jake Marlboro that he couldn’t win at everything. While he’d certainly gotten the best of her once, it wasn’t going to happen again.

  “These days, the Cowboys ain’t worth the price of a hot dog at Texas stadium. But way back when they could make me sit up and take notice. Why, I remember when Jimmy Johnson was running the team…” Dottie droned on about the good old days and the nostalgia of the past as Eden poured herself a soda.

  Nostalgia. That explained her reaction to Brady Weston. It wasn’t so much that she was attracted to him now. No, she was remembering her attraction to him then.

  The daydreams… All those times she’d sat in the bleachers and watched Brady throw a winning pass and fancied herself the head cheerleader and the object of his sexy all-star smile.

  The fantasies… When she’d lounged on the bank of McKinney’s Lake and watched Brady swing out over the lake in his best Tarzan imitation with the rest of his buddies. The rich kids. The haves. While Eden had sat on the opposite side with the have-nots, and pretended she was his Jane.

  The reality… That one hot summer day when he’d had a flat and she’d given him a lift. In the close confines of her dad’s beat-up pickup truck, with Brady so close and the heat so overwhelming, she’d come so close to living up to her reputation, sliding across the seat and kissing the devil out of Brady.

  She’d wanted to, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. The feeling had been just as strong when they’d been on their “date.” Throughout the night, Eden had wished he would ask her out for real. And she’d also wished he wouldn’t be such a gentleman.

  But that was in the past. Fond memories. A young girl’s crazy infatuation with the sexiest boy in high school. Those days were over and sh
e was all grown up now, and she didn’t salivate over any man, no matter how handsome.

  Besides, he wasn’t that good-looking. Gone was the clean-cut, freshly shaven golden boy who’d taken the Cadillac Texans to the state football championship not once, but twice. The years had added a hardness to his once soft brown eyes. He was older now, with tiny lines rimming his eyes and a roughness about him that came with years of hard living.

  Not her type at all. Eden preferred pretty-boy Ricky Martin to the Marlboro man any day. Brady Weston was a little too different from the All-American who’d dominated her adolescent fantasies. He was too masculine, too sexy, and he was here—

  Her thoughts slammed to a halt as she straightened and focused on him standing in the doorway. His gaze collided with hers and he smiled, and for five full seconds Eden actually forgot to breathe.

  “Hey, Eden!” The greeting came from Brady’s sister Ellie, who came up next to him. The woman waved and steered her brother into a nearby booth.

  Eden had barely forced a calm breath, much less responded when the door swung open again. A group of men and women walked in and made a bee-line for Brady and his sister.

  The past pulled her back as she remembered all the lunches spent staring across the school cafeteria. She’d sat with her friends while Brady had held court amid the A-crowd in the center of the lunchroom.

  There were several beer bellies now and a few pairs of fake breasts, but otherwise the group could have been plucked from the yearbook pages as they smiled and laughed and piled into several booths surrounding Brady and his sister.

  “Looks like tonight’s going to be busy,” Dottie said, drawing Eden away from her musings and back to the fact of the matter—she had customers.

  Her gaze shifted to Brady, to his sexy smile and the handsome picture he made sitting there in a straw Resistol, faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Gone were the designer clothes and the preoccupied look from this afternoon. He’d transformed back into the good-natured, relaxed cowboy who’d smiled at her from the side of the road that day so long ago. The same cowboy she’d stared at day after day in her English class.

  Only he hadn’t stared back at her then, not the way he stared at her now.

  The look he fixed on her was different. Older. Wiser. Hungrier. What’s more, that looked called her forward. Beckoned to her. Along with a deep, sexy male voice.

  “We’d like to order.”

  The prospect of getting close, of feeling his body heat the way she had the other afternoon had an immediate effect on her. Heat rushed through her, making her nipples throb and her thighs ache, and for several long moments it was all she could do to simply breathe.

  “I think they want to order.” Dottie’s voice finally drew her away from the sound of her own thundering heart, back to the present and the fact that her feet were still glued to the same spot, despite the fact that she had a booth full of much-needed customers.

  Her first instinct was to call Kasey. Eden hadn’t taken a break in several hours and the young woman could easily leave whatever chores she was doing out back to fill in for Eden out front. To save her.

  The minute the thought hit, she forced it aside. What was wrong with her? She was bold and daring Eden Hallsey. She was the one who made men nervous, not the other way around. She made them sweat and want and need. Drawing in a deep breath, she gathered her courage and reached for her order pad.

  Eden barely managed a few steps before Ellie called out, “Bring us some of your best champagne. We’re celebrating. Brady’s home!”

  Saved by the little sister.

  Relief swamped her and she turned before she could dwell on the feeling and the fact that she was actually nervous about approaching Brady Weston. She headed through the double doors that led past the rest rooms to the back room where she kept her stock. She was not nervous.

  She was pleased. Thrilled. Ecstatic. She had a dozen new customers and it was shaping up to be the most promising Saturday evening she’d seen in a very long time. All she had to do was ignore her ridiculous school-girl fantasies and concentrate on her business.

  Sexy or not, Brady Weston was just a man. And men she could handle. She knew what they thought when they looked at her, what they wanted, what they expected, and the knowledge gave her an advantage.

  That’s what she told herself as she retrieved the champagne and pushed through the storage-room doorway. She’d barely taken two steps before she ran smack-dab into a wall of solid warmth.

  One of the half dozen bottles she cradled in her arms slipped and hit the floor with a thunk and a roll.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t see—” she started, the words dying in her throat when her gaze shifted and collided with bright blue eyes.

  “No harm done. I’m just glad nothing broke.” Brady dropped to his knees and retrieved the wayward bottle.

  “Wh-what are you doing back here?”

  “Call of the wild.”

  The answer stirred several images. Of tangled sheets and sweaty bodies and them. Touching and kissing and…

  She shook the thought and gathered her control. He was presumptuous, all right. But she hadn’t expected anything different. He was a man. “You’ll have to answer the call someplace else, buddy.”

  He arched an eyebrow and stared past her at the men’s-room door. “You mean that isn’t the men’s room?”

  Reality dawned and heat rushed to her cheeks. “You mean wild as in nature wild,” she blurted. “I’m sorry. I thought you meant…I mean…”

  “Thanks again for the ride this afternoon,” he said, saving her from her own embarrassment.

  “Glad to do it.” She accepted the bottle from him, fighting back the heat that burned her cheeks. She’d misjudged him.

  Maybe. Sure, she’d misread his comment, but that didn’t mean that Brady Weston was different from the other men she ran into. She’d still caught him staring at her with that smoldering look in his eyes.

  Like now.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” he told her.

  “Really? And how would you know? You never even noticed me back in high school.”

  “Oh, I noticed you, all right. I couldn’t help but notice.”

  “And what exactly did you notice?”

  Here it comes. The cheesy comments about how pretty she was and how much he’d wanted to talk to her and go out with her and—

  “You always smelled like peanuts.”

  Eden had heard enough pick-up lines to fill an entire volume, Cheesy Comments that Desperate Men Make, but this one actually surprised her. Still, original or not, it was just a line. A prelude to the kiss that was sure to come. And he was going to kiss her. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in the tightness of his body as he leaned toward her.

  Eden’s heart pounded and she licked her lips in anticipation. Here it comes…

  His mouth opened and his head dipped and he sniffed her.

  Wait a second. Sniffed?

  “Pistachios?” he murmured, his warm breath fanning her temple.

  “Honey roasted cashews,” she managed, doing her best to stifle the disappointment that rushed through her.

  He leaned back and grinned. “That was my next guess. The champagne’s getting warm,” he said as he moved past her toward the restroom. “Thanks again.”

  Before Eden could take her next breath, he disappeared into the men’s room and she was left staring at the closed door, her heart pounding and her lips tingling and her mind racing.

  He’d sniffed her, of all things. No kiss. No attempt at a kiss. Not even a touch. Just a sniff. A sniff.

  “Mitch,” she called out, turning to walk back into the back storage room where her employee was stocking cases of Lonestar. “Take over the bar.” She handed over the bottles, pulled off her apron and retreated into the kitchen.

  Brady had just proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t like the other men she came into contact with. he was different, one of a kind, and Eden wanted him.
/>   For the first time in her life, she actually wanted a man. She wanted to kiss him and touch him and talk to him, and the realization scared her.

  Almost as much as it excited her.

  HE WAS STUPID.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Eden had been practically begging for his kiss and he’d sniffed her, of all the crazy things.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  The question echoed through his head for the entire evening as he talked and laughed and got reacquainted with his old crowd. But it was the answer that followed him down the street toward his room above the Gas-n-Go and crawled into bed with him much, much later.

  “I need a man who can really satisfy me.”

  Satisfy. That’s what it all came down to and, after eleven years of a not-so-satisfying marriage, Brady didn’t know if he was up to the task. He wasn’t, according to his ex-wife.

  Then again, she couldn’t see him right now. A quick glance down at the bulge in his jeans and he smiled.

  And then he frowned. After all, having the equipment roaring and ready to go was different from actually doing the job. There were lots of guys out there who could get it up. It’s what a man did with what he had that separated the stallions from the plow horses.

  Satisfaction.

  Did he have that something extra—be it know-how, an inbred sexuality, whatever—that would enable him to truly satisfy a woman? That special something that would make her call out his name in the middle of the night?

  Forget call. He wanted a woman to scream for him.

  But did he have it? Did he know what really turned a woman on?

  Brady wasn’t sure if it was the four beers coupled with the glass of champagne he’d chugged down at the Pink Cadillac, or the fact that he was half-exhausted and not thinking too clearly, or just a textbook case of insanity that made the answer suddenly obvious. Hell, it could have been all three. He didn’t know. He just knew there was a solution to his problem.

  He’d find a woman and satisfy her fifty ways ‘til Sunday.

  Then he would know, deep down in his soul, that his ex had been a gold digger like his family had claimed, and that he was still the same man he’d been when he’d walked away from Cadillac. Still a Weston. Still in control of his life and his destiny and his identity.