Like Savannah Marie had been ruined. Like Willow had been ruined.
A decent man marries an innocent girl if he ruins her.
Suddenly Reno felt cornered. Like any cornered animal, he fought to be free. His fingers wrapped around Eve’s shoulders.
«If you think you just traded your maidenhead for a husband,» he said, «you’re dead wrong. I won you in a card game. I took what was mine. That’s all the payment that’s required.»
«Thank God,» Eve said between her teeth.
For the second time, Eve had shocked Reno. He had expected an argument, a torrent of words telling him how it was his duty as a decent man to marry the girl his lust had ruined. It was an old trick, the oldest and most potent in the arsenal of the war waged between marriage-minded girls and freedom-minded men.
Yet Eve wasn’t using it.
«Thank God?» Reno repeated numbly.
«Damn straight,» Eve shot back. «Thank God I’ve paid off the bet fully and you won’t want to do that again, because —»
«What the hell are you talking about?» he interrupted.
«— now I know why women get paid for it!»
Eve’s furious words hung in the air for a long, taut moment before Reno trusted himself to answer.
«You liked it and you know it,» Reno said in a low, lethal voice. «I didn’t rape you.»
«You didn’t rape me. And I didn’t like it!»
«Then why did you beg for me?» he retorted.
Humiliation and anger burned on Eve’s cheeks. Her lips trembled, but her voice was as steady as her eyes.
«I’ll bet if you asked a baby bird how it liked flying, it would sing happily all the way down to the ground that breaks its stupid neck!»
For an instant Reno was silent. Then he laughed despite his anger at taking a saloon girl and discovering he had made a passionate virgin bleed.
«Flying, huh?» he asked deeply.
Eve gave Reno a wary look, not trusting the sudden, velvety darkness of his voice one bit. With small, subtle motions, she tried to ease away from his grip. His long fingers tightened just enough to let her know that she was well and truly held.
«Not flying,» she said in a clipped voice. «Falling. There’s a big difference, gunfighter.»
«Only in the landing. Next time you’ll land on your feet like the sleek little cat you are.»
«There won’t be a next time.»
«Are you going back on your word?» Reno challenged smoothly.
Eve’s smile was like a piece of winter.
«I don’t have to,» she said. «You can handle me until fire freezes solid. I won’t ask again to be hurt until I bleed.»
«It’s only like that the first time. And if I had known you were a virgin, I —»
«I told you I’d never let a man under my skirts,» she interrupted. «But you didn’t believe me. You thought I was a slut. Now you know I’m not.»
Then realization came to Eve. Her mouth turned down in a bitter curve.
«I wasn’t a slut,» she corrected. «But I am now.»
Anger coiled in Reno.
«I did not make you a slut,» he said, biting off each word.
«Really? How does it happen, then? One time is a mistake and two times makes a slut? Or is it three? Maybe four?»
«Damnation.»
«Precisely,» she hissed. «How many times does it take before a girl magically becomes a slut? Do tell me, gunfighter. I’d hate to use up more than my God-given share offun.»
«What am I supposed to do?» he asked furiously. «Marry you? Would that make it right again?»
«No!»
«What?» Reno asked, wondering if he had heard correctly.
«Nothing would make what we did right but love,» Eve said bitterly, «and getting love from a man like you is about as likely as finding ‘a ship made of stone, a dry rain, and a light that casts no shadow. ’»
Hearing his own words come so harshly from Eve’s tongue told Reno that he had hurt her in more than the breaching of her maidenhead.
«You thought you were in love with me,» Reno said, shocked.
Eve went pale. «Does it matter?»
«Hell, yes, it matters! You responded to me because you’re very much a woman, not because of any girlish crap about love.»
With a twisting movement, Eve pulled free of Reno’s grasp. She drew his shirt closer around her body and watched him with feral yellow eyes.
It occurred to Reno that he could have been more tactful on the subject of love. A lot more tactful.
She had been innocent, and innocence believed in love.
«Eve…»
«Fasten your pants, gunfighter. I’m tired of seeing my blood on you and knowing how foolish I was.»
15
Eve knew without turning around that Reno had followed her to the pool where water danced and whispered. She had sensed him behind her every step of the way from camp.
Her hands hesitated as she began to peel off the shirt. Beneath it she wore only underclothes whose sheer cotton provided scant protection from Reno’s eyes.
It’s a little late for maidenly modesty, Eve told herself mockingly. Very much like locking the barn door after the horse is long gone.
With quick, edgy motions, Eve stripped off the big shirt and threw it aside.
Reno’s breath came in with a sharp sound as he saw the bright scarlet stain on Eve’s pantalets that had been hidden by the long tails of her borrowed shirt.
«Eve,» he said in a raw voice. «I didn’t mean to hurt you.»
She said nothing. Nor did she look over her shoulder at Reno.
Soundlessly he came up behind Eve and put his hands on her shoulders.
«Do you think me such an animal that I get my pleasure hurting women?» he asked harshly.
Eve wanted to lie, but saw nothing except more hurt in it for her. Reno was relentless when it came to the subject of truth and saloon girls.
«No,» she said flatly.
The rush of his expelled breath stirred the hair at the nape of Eve’s neck. Gooseflesh rippled down her arms.
The treacherous response of her own body infuriated her.
«Thank God for that much,» Reno muttered.
«God had little to do with it, gunfighter. More like the devil.»
«You begged for me.»
«How kind of you to remind me,» Eve said. «It won’t happen again.»
Her whole body was rigid beneath Reno’s hands. He cursed his quick tongue and the savage anger that came when Eve reminded him of how little she had enjoyed being his lover.
Yet for him, it had been a pleasure both sweet and violently intense, right up to the instant when he realized he had taken a virgin. Then there had been a fury as deep as his passion.
«Itwillhappen again,» he said, «but it won’t be a mistake. You’ll like it this time. I’ll be certain of it.»
