The air felt sleek and cool on Eve’s damp skin as she finished her bath. She shivered, but not from chill. Like the half-wild, wary mustangs, Eve sensed she was no longer alone. She shook out her flour-sack dress and hurriedly pulled it on over her head.
«Finished?»
Reno’s voice came from only a few feet away.
Eve spun toward him, her eyes wide. He was standing within reach. Clean clothes were bunched in one hand.
«Yes,» she whispered. «I’m finished.»
«Then you won’t mind if I use the basin.»
«Oh…»
Eve took a shaky breath and told herself she wasn’t disappointed that Reno had followed her merely because he, too, wished to refresh himself after the long ride. Quickly she held out the basin.
«Here,» she said.
«May I use your cloth, too?»
The husky darkness of Reno’s voice heightened Eve’s awareness of him until it was almost painful. Her skin tingled as though it had been stroked.
«Yes, of course,» she said.
«And your soap?»
She nodded.
The motion of her head set her carelessly bound hair free of its loose knot. Moonlight tangled in the tawny locks that fell below her waist.
«And your hands, gata. May I use them, too?»
Reno heard the break in Eve’s breathing and wished that he could see her eyes. He wanted to know whether curiosity or dread, sensuality or fear, had caused that soft, tearing intake of breath.
«I know that wasn’t part of our bargain,» he said, «but I would appreciate a shave. Heat makes beard stubble itch like the very devil.»
«Oh. Yes, of course,» she said hurriedly.
«Have you shaved a man before?»
Moonlight gleamed and ran like liquid silver through Eve’s hair as she nodded.
«And cut hair,» she said. «And gave manicures.»
«Another way you earned your keep, is that it?»
The edge in Reno’s voice made Eve flinch.
«Yes,» she said.
Then, knowing what he was thinking, she added, «And none of them touched me.»
«Why? Did it cost extra?»
«No. I had a razor at their throat,» Eve said succinctly.
Reno remembered how he had seen her a few minutes ago, naked in the moonlight, all glistening silver and black velvet, with curves that made a man ache. He wanted to believe that she was as pure as she looked.
But he couldn’t.
Even night and shadow didn’t conceal Reno’s skepticism. Eve saw it clearly. Her expression changed, becoming as cool and remote as the moon.
«I never sold myself, gunfighter.»
Reno smiled rather grimly. He wanted to believe Eve the way he wanted to take his next breath. He would have given up heaven and taken on hell if it would have made Eve half as innocent as she had seemed as she stood naked, shimmering with moonlight and water.
The depth of his desire to believe that Eve had never been bought and sold shocked Reno. Yet he could no more deny his futile wish than he could control his primal response to something as simple as watching her move around the campfire.
Nor could Reno understand his reaction to Eve. He had never fancied saloon girls. Nor had he ever used them. He had preferred to go without rather than to slake his thirst at a tainted water hole. Yet he wanted Eve like hell burning, no matter how many other men she might have had in her young life.
That was why he had taken cards in the Gold Dust Saloon. A single look at Eve’s steady eyes and trembling mouth had drawn him straight across the room. He hadn’t cared if the two outlaws at the table with her objected to having a stranger join them for a few rounds of draw poker. He would have fought just to sit near her. He would have killed.
And he had.
Abruptly Reno turned and went to the smooth, blunt shelf of sandstone that Eve had used as a table for her basin of water. He sat on the rock ledge, put the clean clothes aside, and started undoing his shirt with quick, angry motions of his hands.
«Do you have a razor with you?» Eve asked.
Reno reached back to his hip pocket and took out a folding straight-edge razor. Without a word he handed it to Eve, for he didn’t trust his voice not to reveal how much he disliked the idea of her hands moving over other men’s faces, their hair, their hands; and all the while the men would be looking at her lips and her breasts, breathing in the scent of lilacs from her skin, undressing her in their minds, opening her thighs….
Warily Eve came closer to the dangerous man who watched her with eyes made colorless by moonlight. Years of living in the Lyons’ Gypsy wagon had taught her how to wash herself and others with a minimum of fuss and water. She wet Reno’s hair and heavy beard stubble and began to work soap into both.
Normally she stood behind a man to do this, but Reno was sitting on a smooth stone outcropping rather than a chair. She had no choice except to stand in front of him.
And, Eve admitted silently to herself, no real desire to stand elsewhere. She liked watching Reno’s closed eyes and knowing that her touch was pleasing him.
Slowly, subtly, Reno shifted his position as Eve worked. Before she quite understood how it had happened, she found herself standing between his legs. She made a startled sound.
As though she had stumbled, Reno’s hands came up to steady her.
«Perdition,» she whispered.
His eyes opened. «I beg your pardon?»
«The manicure. I forgot your hands.»
Reno raised a single black eyebrow and flexed his hands, sinking his fingers into the lush flare of Eve’s hips. He felt the heat of her body dearly, for there was only one layer of cloth between his skin and hers. She was quite naked under the floursack dress.
Eve’s breath rushed in and stayed until she felt dizzy. She had never imagined that there would be pleasure in a man’s hands on her hips.
«Your hands,» she said.
Reno smiled and flexed his fingers again.
«My hands,» he agreed. Then he bent forward and whispered against Eve’s breasts, «Where else would you like them?»
«That wasn’t what I meant.»
She turned away quickly, stepping beyond Reno’s reach. Using the canteen he had brought, she poured just enough water in the basin to cover his hands.
«Here,» Eve said, putting the basin in Reno’s lap. «Soak your hands.»
Wryly Reno moved his knees together to make a platform for the basin. As he did, he wondered if Eve really thought putting his hands in a basin would keep them off her warm curves.
The feel of Eve’s fingers rubbing his scalp made gooseflesh ripple over Reno’s body. In the silence of his mind he cursed his unruly response to this one woman, but he said nothing aloud. If Eve chose to ignore his arousal, he wasn’t going to call attention to it.
He wanted to give her no more hold over him than he already had. The feel of her fingers buried in his hair and rubbing his scalp was arousing him to the point of pain.
«Are you cold?» Eve asked when she sensed a faint tremor in Reno.
«No.»
