The feel of Reno’s fingers shaping and stroking her breasts made Eve tremble. Heat bloomed within the darkness of her body. The pleasure his kiss gave her was heightened by the sensual, shifting pressure of his hands caressing her.
Then Reno’s mouth replaced his hands, testing and tugging at Eve’s sensitive flesh through the cloth. Her nipples hardened in a rush of sensation that dragged a low cry from her. Surprise and currents of pleasure arced through her body, making her feel as though she had been struck by tender lightning.
The husky sounds Eve made sent Reno very close to the breaking edge of his restraint. His hands tightened reflexively as he fought to control the unexpected fury of his need. As his fingers clenched, the worn-out cloth of her dress gave way at the shoulder seams. A flap of material fell forward, revealing one perfect breast.
Reno groaned. He hadn’t meant to tempt himself like this. But having done it, he couldn’t resist.
He lowered his head and took the hard peak deep into his mouth. She tasted of hot summer nights, of lilacs and hidden springs and secret pleasures. The husky sound he drew from her throat was a siren song urging him to forget whatever danger might wait in the surrounding darkness.
The rest of the dress gave way with a soft sound that was lost in the rippling cries Eve made while Reno’s mouth and hands drew her breasts into a sensitivity that was almost painful. She knew she should protest the intimacy, yet the pleasure he gave her was so great she couldn’t make herself draw back.
Eve didn’t realize that Reno had eased his hand between her legs until only the fragile barrier of old cloth separated his fingers from her hidden softness. All she knew was that she had never felt the way she did now, a fire spiraling and burning, reaching toward something unknown, something both fierce and beautiful, something she must have or die from its loss.
Passion burst though Eve, drenching her in liquid heat, yet there was no relief from the urgency driving her. She twisted like a flame on Reno’s lap, seeking a release from the searing need she had never before felt.
«You’re killing me,» Eve whispered raggedly.
Reno laughed almost painfully. «No. You’re killing me. Do it again, sweetgata.»
«What?»
His hand moved once more, tightening around the soft flesh that wept passionately at his lightest caress.
Eve gasped and felt liquid fire spread from her body to Reno’s hand.
Abruptly Reno lifted and turned Eve until she sat astride his thighs. When he pushed up her skirt, she saw that his pants were undone. The blunt evidence of his arousal gleamed in the moonlight between her thighs.
Too late Eve understood what the fire had been reaching for, and who would ultimately burn with regrets.
Only one thing a man wants from a woman, make no mistake about it.
«No,» Eve said. «Reno, no!»
«You want it as bad as I do. You’re shaking with it.»
«No!» Eve said frantically. «You promised you wouldn’t take me if I didn’t want it. I don’t want it!»
Reno hissed words that made Eve turn pale. Without warning he shoved her off his lap so fast she barely caught her balance against the stone ledge. She yanked her dress up and faced him with an anger that was as great as her passion had been.
«You have no right to call me names!» she said in a shaking voice.
«The hell I don’t! You teased me and —»
«Teased you!» she interrupted wildly. «I wasn’t the one taking off your clothes and putting my hand between your legs and —»
«— you were all over me like spilled honey,» Reno snarled, talking over her.
«I didn’t — didn’t mean to,» Eve stammered. «I don’t know what — what happened.»
«I do,» Reno said savagely. «A cheating little tease found herself dangling at the end of her own damned rope.»
«I’m not what you think!»
«You keep saying that, gata. Then you keep proving yourself a liar. You wanted me.»
«You don’t understand.»
«The hell I don’t.»
Eve closed her eyes and clutched the worn, ragged cloth against her body with fingers so tightly clenched they hurt. All of her ached and trembled, and she wanted to scream.
«Why do men want only one thing from a woman?» she asked angrily.
«Honesty?» Reno retorted. «Damned if I know. I don’t think it’s in a woman to be honest.»
«And I don’t think it’s in a man not to take what he wants and then walk away without a thought to what he’s done!»
«What did you have in mind — marriage?»
Reno’s sardonic question was like a whip.
Eve opened her mouth, but no words came out. Pain rippled through her as she realized Reno was right. She wanted a man to love her enough to build a life with her. But she was too smart to speak about love with the gunfighter whose nakedly aroused body gleamed in the moonlight.
«I want a man to care for me,» Eve said finally.
«That’s what I thought,» Reno said. «Your comfort and to hell with his.»
«That’s not what I meant!»
«Horseshit.»
«I was talking about being loved,» she said passionately, «not about being kept like a princess on a satin cushion!»
Hastily Eve backed up as Reno stood and began fastening his pants with angry, abrupt motions. He cursed steadily, disgusted with himself and with the saloon girl who could make him ache like no other woman ever had.
«No matter how hard you get me,» Reno said in a savage voice, «you won’t make me beg for the cold chains of marriage.»
Reno reached down, swept up his six-gun, and spun its cylinder to check the load. His words were like the gun itself, cold, hard, unrelenting.
«Women sell themselves into marriage the same way whores sell their bodies for an hour at a time,» Reno said. «Women never just give themselves out of love to a man who has promised them nothing in return but his own love.»
«Is that how it was with Willow and Caleb?» Eve challenged.
Reno’s mouth shifted into a cold smile. «They’re the exception that proves Reno’s Golden Rule.»
He holstered the gun with a single smooth motion and looked at her. The bleak expression on his face made her shiver.
«What rule?» Eve asked, knowing as she spoke that she wouldn’t like the answer.
She was right.
«You can’t count on women,» Reno said, «but you can count on gold.»
11
Before dawn was more than a vague promise along the eastern horizon, Reno and Eve were on the trail. All morning he divided his attention between the landscape and the journals. He hadn’t spoken two words to Eve since he had told her about his own version of the Golden Rule.
By noon, Eve was becoming tired of her one-sided conversations with the lineback dun. The two Shaggies weren’t any better. In fact, they were worse. They wouldn’t so much as flick an ear in her direction when she spoke to them.
«Part mule, just like he is,» Eve said clearly.
If Reno heard — and she was sure he had — he didn’t even bother to look in her direction. He just kept opening first one journal, then the other, bracing the books on his thigh while he tried to find something.
«Can I help?» Eve asked finally.
Reno shook his head without looking up.
Another mile went by with no change except that Reno stopped long enough to get out his spyglass and take a good look at the land ahead and behind. Then he collapsed the glass and urged Darlin’ forward.
In the days past, the silence of the trail hadn’t bothered Eve at all. In fact, she had found it peaceful. It gave her as much time as she wanted to look at the colorful, ever-changing rock formations and imagine how they had come to be as they were.
This morning was different. Reno’s silence goaded Eve in a way she didn’t understand.
«Are we lost?» Eve asked finally.