moved her.
«Lift your right foot,» Reno said.
The pressure of her hands on his shoulders increased. He slipped one leg of the pantalets free.
«Now the other.»
She moved, only to stop, frozen by the touch of his fingertips. When he traced the delicate skin, sweet lightning rippled through her. She closed her eyes and held on to his shoulders so hard that her fingers pressed deeply into muscle.
«Does that hurt?» Reno asked, looking up.
«No,» she whispered through trembling lips.
«Does it please you?»
«It s-shouldn’t.»
«But it does?»
«Yes,» she whispered on a rush of air. «Dear God, yes.»
Reno leaned his forehead against Eve and let out a long breath of relief. Only then did he admit how afraid he had been that he had irrevocably driven her away. That was why he had followed her to the pool. Fear, not passion.
«Such tight petals,» Reno whispered, touching Eve delicately, «yet so full. Like a bud in spring. And I was expecting a flower full-blown by a hundred suns.»
Eve didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Heat was sweeping through her body, making her forget everything but the rushing instant and the man who caressed her so tenderly.
Turning his head from side to side, Reno stroked her belly and thighs with his cheeks and the thick silk of his mustache.
«So smooth,» he whispered. «So warm. Open for me, sweet Eve. Let me show you what it should have been for you. No hurt, no bleeding, just the kind of pleasure you’ll die remembering.»
Eyes closed, Eve responded to the gentle pressure between her legs, allowing Reno greater freedom. A warm, lightly probing caress was her reward. Its silky heat astonished her, loosening her knees. She made a ragged sound of pleasure and tried to catch her balance.
«That’s it,» Reno said, smiling, urging her legs farther apart as he bent to her. «Hold on to me.»
Only when Eve felt the heat of Reno’s breath did she understand why the caress had been so sleek and hot.
«Reno.»
His answer was a tender movement of his tongue that dragged another husky cry from her.
«Don’t fight me,» Reno breathed. «You gave me what you had given no other man. Let me give you what I’ve given no other woman.»
«My God,» Eve whispered as his caresses turned her very bones to honey.
Reno made a husky sound of discovery and pleasure in one as he found the satin knot rising from her softness.
«The bud swells,» he whispered. «This time you will flower, too.»
Eve couldn’t answer. She had no voice, no thoughts, nothing but the sensual lightning licking up through her body, taking it from her control, giving it to the man who both cherished and consumed her in fiery silence.
Reno sensed the storm that was claiming Eve, convulsing her secretly. The scent of her was an elemental perfume singing to him of dark fires and wild release, luring him unbearably.
When the sensual storm broke, her taste was that of a desert rain, sultry and mysterious, bringing life to everything it touched. And after the storm passed, she was the earth itself, flushed with the miracle of rain, all contrasts heightened, radiant in completion.
Reluctantly Reno released the sweet, captive flesh and stood up, holding Eve, for she was barely able to stand. He tucked her head against his chest and rocked her slowly while she came back to herself.
After a long time Eve gave a shivering sigh and looked up at Reno with dazed golden eyes.
«That’s what it’s all about between men and women,» Reno said, kissing Eve gently. «The kind of pleasure you would kill or die for. Not a childish notion of love.»
A painful shudder went through Eve.
«You’re saying I’d feel that with any man?» she asked, her voice strained.
The violent denial that leaped to Reno’s lips made him uneasy. He had never been a possessive kind of man, yet even the thought of Eve allowing another man the freedom of her silky body enraged Reno.
«Reno?» Eve asked, her lips trembling and her eyes steady.
«Some people are better together than others,» he said finally. «You make me hotter than any woman ever has. I make you hotter than any man ever has.»
Reno looked down into Eve’s clear golden eyes. «That’s why you gave yourself to me. Not the poker bet. Not love. Just passion, pure and simple and hot as hell.»
«That’s why men and women marry?» Eve persisted. «Passion, pure and simple?»
Again, Reno hesitated.
«It’s why men marry,» he said after a moment. «Damn few women have enough passion in them to burn.»
«But —»
«Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hold out long enough to get a man to the preacher,» Reno continued, ignoring Eve’s interruption. «But the little dears do somehow manage, don’t they?»
Reno saw the pain in Eve’s expression, and winced. He hadn’t meant to hurt her with his blunt declarations about the nature of men and women and the illusion called love. But he had hurt her.
Again.
«Sugar child,» he said, kissing her temple softly. «Would you feel better if I told you sweet lies about love?»
«Yes.»
Then Eve laughed sadly and shook her head.
«No,» she amended. «Because I’d want to believe you so much, I’d do it, and then I’d wake up one day and find you saddled up and ready to leave, and I’d know the words for the lies they were.»
«I’m not saddling any horses.»
«We haven’t found the mine yet, have we?»
Gently Eve pushed away and looked up at Reno with steady eyes and a smile that threatened to turn upside down. She stood on tiptoe to brush her lips over his.
«Thanks for the teaching, sugar man. Now maybe we better get to work finding that mine. I’ve had about all the learning I can bear in one day.»
16
The next day Reno and Eve followed the shaman’s directions, heading for an old, nearly forgotten way down the plateau. Late in the afternoon, Reno turned to Eve, breaking the companionable silence that had grown between them as they rode through the wild land.
«The shaman said I had to be sure to take you to a special place up ahead,» Reno said.
«Where?» Eve asked, surprised.
«About a mile from here. You stay put while I check it out. I don’t want you getting caught in some old shaman’s revenge.»
It didn’t take Reno long to reconnoiter. No more than ten minutes went by before he was back. He reined in next to Eve, saw the unasked questions in her eyes, and reached for her. He leaned over and wrapped his hand around her nape, pulling her to meet the quick, fierce claiming of his mouth. When he released her, she gave him a look that was both startled and…hungry.
He smiled. «Did you think that, once satisfied, it would go away?»
Bright color rose in Eve’s cheeks.
