Only You (11 page)

“Hell of an idea. Are you volunteering?”

“No,” she said instantly. “It’s not part of—”

“Our bargain.”

She looked up sharply. He smiled.

Eve concentrated on the buttons. As she worked, she tried not to notice how different his powerful body was from Don Lyon’s frail, agetwisted form.

It was impossible. Health and strength radiated from Reno’s big body.

“Why didn’t his wife take care of Lyon?” Reno asked.

“Donna did what she could, but a lot of the time her hands were worse than his.”

The smell of lilacs rose from Eve’s hair, infusing Reno with her fragrance more deeply than even the scented soap had.

The matter-of-fact skill with which Eve worked told Reno she had spent a lot of time caring intimately for a man who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—care for himself.

It’s just as well that cheating whoremaster is dead
, Reno thought grimly.
The temptation to kill him might have put my good sense in the shade.

“There. All finished,” Eve said.

“Not quite. It’s not tucked in.”

“You’ll manage.”

“What’s wrong? It’s not like I’m asking you to undress me.”

When she gave him a skeptical look, Reno smiled.

“Guess you’d rather I went back to touching you, huh?” he asked.

“Perdition.”

Before Eve could think better of it, she reached for Reno’s waist. As his belt was already undone, it was only an instant’s work to open the metal buttons. Moving quickly, she began tucking in his shirt as she had Don Lyon’s, starting at the back and working forward.

Moments later, Reno’s breath hissed in as he felt the pressure of Eve’s fingers slide across his aroused flesh. She made a startled sound and tried to jerk her hands out of his jeans.

Reno was faster. He caught Eve’s wrists and held
her fingers where they were, where he had wanted them to be for so long he almost lost control at her mere touch.

“Let me go!”

“Easy,
gata
. There’s nothing down there that’s going to bite, and you’ve unfastened enough pants to know it as well as I do.”

The shocked look Eve gave Reno made him want to laugh, but the ache of his hunger was too fierce.

“I’m tempted to have you pet me a little, but it would be too damned distracting. I’ll settle for a kiss or two….” Reno said.

Eve struggled against his grip. It only served to rub her fingers over his aroused flesh.

Reno couldn’t stifle a groan of pleasure and need. He looked hungrily at the soft lips that were only a few inches from his mouth.

“Be still—” he began roughly.

“Let go of—”

“—or else I’ll pull off my pants,” Reno continued in a hard voice, “and make you finish what you started, and to hell with anyone who might be following us.”

“What I started? You were the one who—”

“Be still!”

Eve froze.

Reno let out a strained breath. He started to ease her hands from his pants, then stopped, for her balled fists made it difficult.

“Open your hands,” he said.

“But you said not to mo—”

“Do it,” he interrupted. “Slowly,
gata
. Very slowly.”

Eve uncurled her hands. As she did, she found herself measuring Reno inch by hard inch.

A thread of sound came from Reno, as though
he were being drawn on a rack. He eased her hands from his pants, but instead of releasing her wrists, he pulled them up and over his shoulders.

“Stop fighting me,” he said. “It’s time to show me how well you can keep your word.”

Fear and the memory of the pleasure she had found in his kisses fought for control of her body.

Maybe when he sees that I keep my word, he’ll look at me with more than desire. Maybe…

“You’ll keep your word, too?” she asked.

“I won’t take you unless you want it,” he said impatiently. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, I—”

Reno’s mouth closed over Eve’s. His tongue slid between her lips, cutting off the possibility of talking.

Other than a startled sound, she made no protest. Despite his obvious strength and hunger, he wasn’t being hard on her. Quite the opposite. Once he understood that she wasn’t going to struggle against him, he held her rather gently.

The sensitive edges of Eve’s lips were caressed by the silky thickness of Reno’s mustache. The tantalizing currents of awareness that had shimmered into life the instant she had first seen him became stronger as the kiss inevitably deepened. Warmth flared in the pit of her stomach, making her shiver with a delicious awareness. She had wanted this without knowing it.

But she knew it now.

Eve’s eyes opened, wide and curious, wondering if Reno was feeling the same unexpected warmth. All she could see of Reno was the dense black eyelashes any woman would have envied. Their softness reassured Eve.

Tentatively she touched Reno’s tongue with her own, rediscovering the textures of his mouth, the
velvet and the silk and the heat. For a moment she forgot all about fear and bargains and her hopes for the future. She simply savored the kiss in a hushed, trembling silence that was like nothing she had ever known.

Unexpected heat splintered through Eve, a single current of sensation that went from her breasts to her knees. She liked the taste and feel of his intimate kiss. It sent currents of pleasure to hidden parts of her body, teaching her things about herself that she had never suspected.

The slow, repeated rasp of Reno’s tongue over hers was dizzying, making it hard for Eve to breathe. Instinctively her grip on him tightened even as she pulled back.

Reno made a thick sound of protest.

“I can’t breathe,” Eve explained.

It was the huskiness of her voice that told Reno more than her words. He caught her lower lip between his teeth and bit with great care, drinking her startled gasp.

“Give it back to me,
gata
.”

“What?”

“I like it hot and deep.”

Reno’s arms tightened, arching Eve closer to his hungry mouth.

“Remember?” he asked.

Before she could answer, he caught her lips under his own. His head moved abruptly, opening Eve’s mouth.

The sensual rubbing of Reno’s tongue over hers drew a small sound from the back of her throat. Her body tightened, but not in protest of the increasing force of the embrace. This time she liked being held hard against Reno’s muscular body. More than that, she needed it in a way she didn’t even question.

The tentative touches of her tongue against his changed as she became accustomed to the sensual fencing. She probed more deeply into his mouth, tasted him more fully, stroked his tongue completely with her own. The sensation of his tongue tangling rhythmically with hers made her head spin. Her breath wedged in her throat until she could barely breathe.

Reno made a thick sound and pulled Eve closer, taking and giving a kiss that made him realize he had never really kissed a woman before-not like this, two hungry flames burning, twisting, straining toward each other across the barriers of flesh and clothing.

When Eve finally tore her mouth from Reno’s, her breathing was ragged and her mouth felt empty without him. She looked at him with dazed, eyes. His smile was dark, hot, and as male as the power in his body. His fingers sank into the resilient flesh of Eve’s hips as he dragged her against himself, letting her feel the fire she had started.

Then Reno was kissing Eve again, sending the night spinning darkly around her. She was aware only of his strength, of his heat, of his tongue’s rhythmic stroking over hers. Holding him as tightly as she could, she let his heat sink into her.

“
Gata
. You’re burning me alive.”

“No. It’s you. Burning me.”

Reno lifted Eve, holding her suspended in his arms, while his mouth made hot entreaties to hers. He wanted to take her down to the ground and bury himself in her warm and willing body, but knew it would be foolish.

Even worse, it could be fatal.

Damn Slater
, Reno raged silently.
I should have killed him in Canyon City. Then I wouldn’t have to spend
every minute looking over my shoulder.

Reno’s arms tightened and he took Eve’s mouth as he wanted to take the rest of her sultry body. Without breaking the kiss, he carried her the two short steps to the weathered sandstone ledge and sat down.

Eve made a surprised sound when the world shifted and she found herself sitting across Reno’s legs. Quickly he pulled his six-gun and set the weapon within reach on the ledge. With a stone wall at his back and a lap full of warm woman, he was as safe as he was going to be.

Not very damned safe
, Reno thought sardonically.

But when Reno lowered his mouth to Eve’s once more, Jericho Slater seemed very far away. Her kiss was as wild as his, making and meeting sensual demands.

Neither skilled nor coy, Eve’s kiss told Reno that she wanted him enough to forget for the moment all the cold tricks women played on hungry men, tantalizing them until they would agree to anything to get at the hot lure that was burning just beyond their reach.

Reno had never had a woman want him so much that she forgot the coy game of tease and retreat and ended up burning in her own fire. Knowing that Eve wanted him that much made Reno shake with a hunger greater than he had ever known.

“Sweet God,” Reno said heavily. “It’s a good thing that dress doesn’t have any buttons.”

“W-why?”

“I’d have it down around your waist before you could blink. And that would be a mistake.”

Before Eve could say anything, Reno’s mouth fastened almost savagely on hers. The cloth of the dress she wore was frail with long use, and so
thinned by age that it was little barrier to his caresses. She wore nothing underneath but the heat that radiated up to him, stripping away his restraint.

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, sweet
gata
.”

“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.