Until we find the mine, you’ll be my woman.
And the mine had been found.
«With or without gold, I’d stay,» Eve said softly.
Reno held out his hand. When she took it, he kissed her palm, and led her to the place where he had cut evergreen boughs to make a bed. It was several hundred feet away, for any intruders would expect to find them by the campfire.
The tarpaulin rustled as Reno and Eve sank down on the bedroll together.
«I’ll never forget the smell of lilacs,» he whispered against her neck. «Or the taste of you.»
Before Eve could answer, Reno took her mouth in a long, deep kiss. By the time it ended, both of them were breathing quickly and flushed with heat. Long fingers moved over Eve’s shirt, baring her to the waist. The camisole gleamed like silver in the moonlight. Slowly he bent and brushed his lips over the rapid pulse in Eve’s neck.
«The first time I saw you in your camisole,» Reno said, «I wanted to take it off and bury my face in your breasts.»
Smiling, Eve unlaced the camisole and shrugged it aside.
«Lilacs and rosebuds,» he whispered. «God, but you’re sweet.»
«It’s my soap.»
Reno smiled slowly. «No, sugar girl. It’s your breasts.»
Reno kissed first one tip, then the other. The silky caresses of mustache and tongue drew Eve into velvet peaks. She made a murmurous sound of pleasure that became a gasp when he began taking tiny, gentle, repeated bites of her.
«I could eat every bit of you,» he said. «Head to heels and back again. Would you like that, gata?»
«Do I get to nibble on you, too?»
For an instant Reno went still. Then a sensual shudder went through his whole body.
«You don’t have to,» he said. «I’ve never asked that of a woman.»
«I want to,» Eve whispered. «I want to know you every way a woman can know a man.»
Between kisses and gliding caresses, they undressed each other until nothing lay between them but moonlight and the crisp air of mountain night. Reno pulled a blanket over them as he wrapped Eve in a long, naked hug.
«I wanted to do this, too, that first time I saw you,» he said. «I wanted to feel your body all bare against mine.»
Eve tried to speak, but the shiver of pleasure that went through her as the heat of Reno’s skin pressed against her whole body took her voice, making words impossible.
Her silent response was enough. A low, ragged sound came from Reno’s chest as he felt Eve’s delicate trembling.
«Each time it’s better,» he whispered. «Only you affect me like this. I don’t understand it, but I don’t care anymore. I need you tonight, Eve. More each time. Only you.»
«Yes, I can feel it. More each time…»
Reno barely heard. The feel of Eve’s fingers wrapped around his aroused flesh was like having golden flames licking all over him. The pleasure was so intense his whole body tightened.
Then Eve pushed the blanket aside, slid slowly down his body, and taught him what it was like to be loved by fire.
Her name came in fragments from his lips as she tasted him with all the curiosity and delicacy of a cat. The satin roughness of her tongue licked and teased each difference in masculine texture from rigid base to blunt satin tip.
When Eve circled him with her mouth, Reno tried to speak, but couldn’t. She had taken the breath from him and left seething, searing currents in its place. Sweat broke out all over his body as he fought to control the firestorm coiling in his loins. Fists clenched, he made a raw sound of passion and restraint.
«Reno?» Eve asked in a low voice. «Did I hurt you?»
His laugh was as broken as his breathing.
«No, sugar girl. You’re killing me, but you’re not hurting me one bit.»
Her sigh washed over his moist, sensitive skin, sending a visible pulse of pleasure through him.
«Did it feel good?» she asked.
«There’s only one thing that ever felt better.»
«What?»
«When I sheathe myself in your sweet…»
The rest of Reno’s words were lost in the groan that was dragged from his lips as Eve caught him up in the loving firestorm once more. He took as much as he could, and then more, because it was a wild, sweet ecstasy he didn’t want to end.
Suddenly he could bear no more.
«Eve, I…»
Reno shuddered, ravished by fire.
She whispered against him, telling him how much she liked his taste.
Another satin pulse escaped his control before he dragged her up his body until she straddled his hips, his waist, his chest.
«Higher,» Reno said huskily. «Higher. Make it easy for me. That’s it. Right there…so sweet…Stay there, sugar girl.»
The sleek questing of his tongue licked over Eve like sensual lightning. She made a husky sound that ended in a moan as a long finger tested her and found her sultry readiness.
Knowing that Eve had truly enjoyed the intimate caresses she had given him made Reno laugh with sheer pleasure. He redoubled his presence within her body, hearing her response in her broken breathing, feeling it in the slick heat of her body.
«You liked tasting me,» Reno said, nuzzling against Eve’s hot, soft skin.
«Yes, I…»
Her words became a broken sound as his teeth closed delicately over her most sensitive flesh. She barely succeeded in controlling the liquid heat bursting through her.
«Don’t fight it,» Reno said huskily. «Let it come.»
«But…»
Teeth raked with exquisite care, and tongue caressed.
«Share with me, sugar girl.»
Ecstasy stole softly through Eve’s body, claiming it. Reno felt it, tasted it, and laughed against her, caressing her again and again, savoring the silken rain of her response. When she could bear no more, he lifted her and turned over, stretching her out beneath him. She clung to him until the wild shivering subsided.
When Eve opened her eyes, Reno was propped up on his elbow, fully aroused, watching her. The two slender dowsing rods were in his hand. He bent, kissed her gently, and waited, a question in his eyes. Without hesitation, she reached for one of the rods.
It was warm from his body heat.
Slowly Reno settled between Eve’s legs even as she drew them up around him, yielding her warmth to him. He paused just before he fitted himself to her.
«Are you sure?» he whispered. «It could make me…wild.»
Eve smiled and shifted her hips, taking Reno even as he took her. The rod tips met, meshed, shimmered…and blossomed in a soundless explosion of fire. The world receded as they joined more deeply than they ever had before, knowing no difference between their bodies. They kissed each other and were kissed at the same time, caressed and were caressed, until rapture both delicate and elemental coursed through their interlocked bodies, fusing them into a single flesh, a single being, a single life.
As one they learned that ecstasy was like fire itself, changeless and yet never the same, burning everything but itself, a mysterious Phoenix reborn in its own flames, soaring upward to fly and die and be born yet again.
21
The horses had been restless when Reno and Eve emerged from the mine the previous day, and were restless much of the night. Shortly after dawn, Reno and Eve were awakened by the sound of three rapidly fired shots from a six-gun.
Without a word, both of them got up and dressed quickly. Instead of wearing boots, Reno pulled on knee-high moccasins of the kind favored by Apaches, some Comancheros, and Caleb Black, who was the quietest man on the stalk that Reno had ever seen.
Wish I were that good, Reno thought grimly. I’d send him out to find out what’s riling the horses while I did what I’m good at — shooting and mining, not sneaking around like a shadow.
Reno shoved the spyglass in his belt, strapped on his six-gun and bandolier, and picked up his repeating rifle.