"You don't have to," he said.
"Would it shock you to know that I want to? You have a beautiful body, Nevada. Touching you would be like stroking a big cat, all steely muscle and satin pelt."
Nevada's eyes closed as he bit back a groan of need. The realization of how close he was to the limits of his self-control shocked him.
"Not now, Eden," he said roughly.
She leaned forward, bracing herself against Nevada's hard torso. Her mouth sought his. When his lips refused to open, she ran the tip of her tongue across them.
"Yes, now," she breathed.
"You ask too much of me," Nevada said in a low, savage voice. "What happens if half a loaf isn't enough for me? What if I lose control and take you? I could get you pregnant!"
As Eden looked down the length of Nevada's body, her eyes changed, becoming a luminous golden green. "Yes, you certainly could."
The approval in Eden's voice was as seductive as the glide of her tongue over his lips had been. Nevada closed his eyes, no longer able to bear the sight of Eden kneeling naked by his side. He wanted her hands all over his skin, he wanted her mouth, he wanted her hot, silky body fitted to him.
Nevada didn't know he had released Eden's hands until he heard the first metal snap on his shirt open. The other snaps followed in slow succession, for Eden was enjoying each new bit of masculine territory that was revealed by the steady retreat of his black flannel shirt. Finally she tugged the shirt-tails free of his jeans and ran her hands almost greedily over his chest.
The pleasure Eden took in touching Nevada made the air wedge in his throat. She was smiling dreamily while her fingers kneaded through the wedge of black hair that began at his collarbone and narrowed to a finger's width just above his navel. When she smoothed her way back to Nevada's chest and bent to kiss him, her breasts swayed against him with soft invitation. She shivered as the cushion of hair on his chest teased her nipples to life once more.
"I'm new to this," Eden whispered, moving again, this time deliberately, increasing the sweet friction of her breasts against Nevada's chest. "But I'm assuming that men and women like the same kind of touching." Her hands searched through the rough silk of his chest hair, seeking and finding the flat male nipples, teasing them into hard points. "If I'm wrong, let me know."
Nevada's breath hissed between his teeth as pleasure lanced through his body, tightening it as surely as the male nipples hardening beneath Eden's fingertips. This time when her tongue traced his lips, they opened hungrily, both accepting and demanding a deep mating of mouths. By the time the kiss ended, his skin was slick with a sultry sheen of passion and he was breathing much too hard.
Knowing he shouldn't, needing Eden too much to stop himself, Nevada lifted her astride his half-naked body and took the pink tip of one breast into his mouth. As he shaped her with the changing pressures of teeth and tongue, he felt the sudden arching of her back, the clenching of her thighs, and the secret rain of her passion. He groaned and pulled her more deeply into his mouth, loving her responsive flesh.
"I'm supposed to be – pleasuring you – not the other way around," Eden said, fighting for the breath that had deserted her without warning.
After a last, lingering love bite, Nevada released her breast and whispered, "Turning you on pleasures me."
Before Eden could answer, Nevada's mouth moved to her other breast. He licked its pink peak until Eden shivered and her nipple tightened in a rush that made her moan. His lips parted hungrily as he took all of her sweet flesh that he would into the heat and darkness of his mouth.
"It's dangerous, though," Nevada said finally, his voice thick.
He released Eden with a slow reluctance that was itself a caress. She trembled again, and again Nevada felt her hot, secret rain against his naked skin. He swore softly, shockingly, even as one hand traced her spine to the small of her back and from there down the warm cleft below until she gasped in pleasure once more.
"Too damned dangerous," he whispered.
"W-why?"
One of Nevada's hands flattened between Eden's shoulder blades, pressing her tightly against his chest, while his other hand explored the warmth that now lay open to his touch. Eden's breath went out in a moan as Nevada caressed the swollen, sultry flesh that had known only his touch. His fingertips glided inside, drawing forth more of Eden's secret rain.
Nevada's hand retreated, returned, caressed, and when Eden moaned, so did he. His hand retreated and there was a muted sound of metal buttons opening one at a time. Gently, inexorably, Nevada's hands eased Eden's weight farther down his body until the hard length of his arousal pressed up between her legs. Only the thickness of his underwear prevented the joining of their bodies.
The barrier was not nearly enough for safety. "That's why it's dangerous," Nevada said savagely.
For a moment Eden couldn't answer. The elemental fitting of male against female had just taught her how much had been missing from her previous taste of passion. The realization was dizzying, like the heat spreading up in waves from between her thighs, wildfire melting her. Instinctively she moved her hips, rocking slowly, softly, hotly, getting as close as she could to the hard male flesh despite the barrier of cloth.
Nevada had meant to shock Eden from her passion with the blunt reminder of his arousal, but he was the one who was shocked. The melting response of Eden's body spread through the thin barrier between them as though nothing were there at all.
And then nothing was.
A sweep of his hands, a muscular twist of his body and Nevada lay naked between Eden's legs. She made a soft sound of discovery and approval at the new masculine territory he had given to her. He watched through narrowed green eyes while her fingertips caressed and traced hot satin skin, learning the contours of his hunger, capturing the single drop of passion he could not contain.
Eden lifted a fingertip to her lips, touched it to her tongue. "Now I know what life tastes like."
A groan was dragged out of the depths of Nevada's soul. His hands moved, lifting, seeking, finding, joining his body with Eden. He tried not to join with her completely. Then he saw that she was watching him take her and her eyes were like sunrise, burning away darkness, hungry for the day to come. Her name was torn from him and he pierced the veil of her innocence in a single incandescent instant.
Eden's breath unraveled as she accepted the transformation, taking all of Nevada until she was hot and sleek around him, fully alive and lush with the secret rain of her passion, and his name was a chant on her lips. As she bent to kiss him, the motion shifted her body around him, caressing him with silky urgency, calling to him in a communication far older and more potent than words.
"Don't move," Nevada said hoarsely.
"Why?" Eden breathed, moving, shivering, moving again, because she had never felt anything so perfect as being joined with the man she loved.
"I can't – control-"
Even as Nevada's voice broke he reached for Eden, drawing her mouth down to his, hungry for every bit of her. He rolled over swiftly, taking her with him, pinning her with his hips, making it impossible for her to move. Shaking with the violence of his restraint, Nevada began to withdraw from Eden.
But when only a last, tantalizing fraction joined them, Nevada found he couldn't force himself to leave Eden completely. Body rigid, he fought for the self-control that had been his only weapon and defense against life's treachery.
Eden's voice broke over Nevada's name. She shivered and whispered fragments of words, passionate sounds without meaning, pleading and demanding, knowing only that she must be completely joined with him again or die. "One more, fairy-tale girl," Nevada breathed against Eden's lips. "Just once."