Touch of Eden by Jessie M Page B

digging her nails in it and ripping it apart. I'm near to breaking point over her.
    If  I'm to stand any chance at all with Eden, I've got to earn her respect somehow, make her trust me. Get Josh the man slut friend out of her mind. This is going to take time. Time and considerable effort, and I'm willing to do it. I'll do whatever it takes for us to get together. I'm going to seduce her with the new me, charm the panties off her pretty little ass and make her realise I'm dead fucking serious. I love her to pieces and more, what else can I do?
    It takes some time but I do manage to fall asleep eventually, I think the wine helped me with that, thank God.
    === * ===
    I'm woken up by her the next morning. She shakes my arm. “Josh, wake up... I need to get my mum home before we go to work.” She sets a mug of tea down for me on the coffee table, then sits in the armchair opposite, watching me and drinking hers.
    “ Yeah, okay. I just need to use the shower. I'll be five minutes.” I stretch myself out. I feel like shit. It's a bit cramped on my sofa. I get up slowly, stretch again and head for the bathroom having given her a good long view of my very appealing and almost naked body and sexy sleep mussed hair. Then I notice Lorraine is up and sitting at the table, thankfully already engrossed in the horse puzzle. I dart past her and into the bathroom fast.
    As I drive to work I am thinking how to start my love campaign. I have no experience whatsoever in this type of thing. I've never given a woman flowers, apart from my mother on Mother's Day and Rosie my cleaner. I've never dated anyone without sex being the one and only reason. I've never tried any loving sweet talk, only chatting up sex talk... My line of seduction usually goes something like...
    'You have such a pretty face, d'you mind if I lick it?...
    or...
    What lovely long hair, want to wrap it around something?....
    or even worse... 
    Did you know your eyes are asking me to fuck you?....'
    Shit, I'm well and truly fucked for sure. Up the creek without a paddle, or a boat even.
    But no, I've just had a thought. I know just the person to ask for advice. My mate Nate. He's been with the same women for weeks and months at a time. He must know a hell of a lot more than I do. I send him a text as soon as I arrive in work.
    “Need help with something. Urgent.”
    “ WTF it's 8 on Sat”
    “ Very urgent”
    “ ?”
    “ You won't believe this.”
    “ ??”
    “ I love Eden. She doesn't want me. How do I change her mind?”
    “ Are you ill, feverish, hallucinating?”
    “ NO... Come on, help me mate.”
    “ Too big a Q for 8. See you LT, Yates at 1”
    “ Thanks man. Owe you.”
    Eden and I keep to our own part of the gym, studiously avoiding each other all morning. When I do look her way my stomach flips over and over until I feel sick and then I feel a stab of pain straight through my heart. I'm a complete love struck sad bastard. At lunchtime I slip on my jeans and take the ten minute walk through town to Yates. Nate's there chatting up the very pretty but overly tattooed and pierced bar-girl. I order us both a drink, a coke for me and another beer for him and we move up the other end of the bar.
    “Thanks for this Nate. I really need help you know.”
    “ So, run it by me, how the fuck did this happen? You've known Eden for years and years.”
    “ I took her out Thursday night, because she's stuck in a lot with her mum. I thought it'd be good for her to get dressed up and go out for a while. But she was just too lovely, all sexy and gorgeous. It was like I'd never seen her properly before, and suddenly, there you go, she'd flicked my love switch full on...”
    “ Okay... but she doesn't want you? Why? You get on well, she went out with you, got all sexy and done up for you...”
    “ She knows everything about me Nate. Well almost everything. All the women and stuff I get up to.”
    “ Ah, now I get it. She doesn't mind being friends with a fucker like