«Was that so bad?» Reno asked.
Eve shook her head. A long tendril of hair floated free. Reno tucked it behind one ear.
«How about this?» he asked.
He bent and began tracing every clean curve of Eve’s ear with his tongue and then his teeth, biting with exquisite care, enjoying the ragged intake and breaking of her breath. When the tip of his tongue probed and tested, spiraling down, retreating, returning, caressing, she made an odd sound in her throat and clung to his arms for balance.
Reno lifted his head and looked down into Eve’s wide, surprised eyes.
«Is something wrong?» he whispered.
«I…» She swallowed. «I never know what to expect from you.»
«Your boyfriends must have been, er, unimaginative.»
«I never had one, imaginative or otherwise.»
«No boyfriend?» Reno asked. «Not even for a few stolen kisses out by the barn?»
Eve shook her head. «I never wanted a male near me. Until you.»
«My God.»
The realization of just how innocent Eve had been went through Reno in a shock wave of pleasure and surprise. So innocent, yet she had been a passionate spring welling up at his touch, his word, his lightest caress.
So innocent…so passionate. The possibilities for mutual pleasure were enough to make him light-headed. He hardly knew where to begin.
Reno’s glittering green glance swept over Eve. Her underwear was nearly transparent, clinging to every curve and valley of her body. The taut crowns of her breasts stood out clearly, as did the luxuriant triangle of bronze hair that both shielded and outlined her essential femininity.
«My God,» he said again, reverently. «No man has ever touched you at all, has he?»
«Not quite,» she whispered.
«Who?» he demanded.
«You’ve touched me,» she said simply. «Only you.»
In a hush that seethed with the small songs of water, Reno washed Eve to the waist. He tried not to linger over her breasts, but it was impossible. The velvet hardness of her nipples lured him irresistibly. He returned to them again and again, until they stood out urgently against the camisole, drawn taut by more than the cool water.
Saying nothing, Reno pulled Eve under the gentle waterfall, rinsing her. When he was finished, he slowly pulled off her camisole and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. Then he bent and tasted the freshness of her skin until she made small noises and clung to him.
«I shouldn’t let you do this,» Eve said huskily.
«Am I hurting you?»
«No. Not…yet.»
«Not ever,» Reno said, nuzzling her breast. «Not ever again.»
Eve couldn’t answer. The sight of Reno’s mouth so close to the rosy peak of her breast took away the ability to speak. The tip of his tongue circled her, stabbing softly. He sheathed his teeth with his lips and bit down.
The ragged sound Eve made owed nothing to pain and everything to a sudden, bright pleasure. Before she could become used to it, the caress changed. Heat surged through her, making it hard to hang on to her anger, for her body sensed a different outlet for the emotions churning beneath her control.
Eve didn’t know whether to be relieved or unhappy when Reno finally, slowly, lifted his head and resumed washing her.
«I should have taken the time to tell you how beautiful you are,» Reno said. «You have the kind of skin poets write sonnets to. But I’m not a poet. I never wanted to be, until now.»
Reno bent and brushed his lips over first one breast, then the other. «I don’t know the words to describe you.»
Long fingers smoothed soap over Eve’s pantalets, waist and hips and thighs. When his palm rubbed against the lush delta, she made a frightened sound.
«Easy,» he murmured. «That doesn’t hurt you, does it?»
Her lips were trembling. She shook her head.
«Move your legs a bit,» Reno said, pressing gently. «Let me wash all of you, especially there, where I hurt you.»
He waited, watching her face, wanting her to give so that he wouldn’t have to take.
Slowly Eve shifted position, giving Reno the freedom that he wanted. In a silence seething with memory and possibility, he bathed away every last trace of the virgin she had been and would never be again.
«If I could take back the hurt, I would,» he whispered. «But I wouldn’t take back the rest of it. I’ve dreamed all my life of finding a passion like yours.»
Eve shivered and bit back a throaty sound as Reno’s fingers unfastened her pantalets and eased them down her legs until he was kneeling in the pool at her feet.
«Brace yourself against my shoulders,» he said huskily.
He felt the trembling of her hands as they settled on his naked shoulders, and wondered if passion or fear 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.