«I hope you’re right about having lots of lives, gata.»

Eve’s lashes lifted, showing eyes that were still glazed with pleasure.

«What?» she asked huskily.

Her voice broke before the question was finished, for Reno was moving slowly within her, filling her.

«Do you like this?» he asked, withdrawing and returning once more.

«Dear Lord, yes.»

«It doesn’t hurt?»

Soft laughter was Eve’s answer. Her hands caressed the length of Reno’s spine. She paused to comb through the scattering of silky hair in the small of his back before she went on to his buttocks. The taut muscles intrigued her, as did the swift, ripping breath he took when her hand strayed between his thighs. She repeated the caress, drawing another shudder from him.

«No more of that,» Reno said, dragging Eve’s hand back to his flank.

«Don’t you like it?»

«Too damn much,» he admitted. «Save it for next time.»

«Next time?»

«Yes, gata. Next time. I may need it then. I sure don’t need it now.»

«I don’t understand.»

Reno moved again within Eve, caressing and stretching her in the same motion.

«If I get any harder,» he said, «it will be over too soon. I want this one to last a long, long time.»

«Oh.»

He bent down and put his cheek next to hers. The heat of her skin amazed him.

«Are you blushing?» he asked.

Eve buried her face in his neck and hit his shoulder lightly with her fist.

«How anyone can be so abandoned and yet so shy…» Reno’s voice faded into a soft laugh. «Never mind. You’ll get over it.»

A muffled comment told him that she doubted it.

«Look at me, sugar girl.»

When she shook her head, he gently pried her face from his neck.

«Shy little night-blooming flower,» Reno said, dropping tiny kisses over Eve’s hot face. «If you knew how rare you were, you wouldn’t blush.»

He saw the narrow gleam of Eve’s eyes as she peeked through her lashes at him.

«And you are rare,» he breathed against her lips.

«I’m just a…»

Whatever Eve was going to say was lost in the slow penetration of his tongue until he filled her mouth just as he filled her body. The tiny, throaty cry she gave affected him the way a burning match affects dry straw. He retreated and returned with exquisite control from her body, measuring both of them simultaneously, intimately. Then he withdrew again.

With a ragged sound that was Reno’s name, Eve moved her hips, trying to reclaim him.

«You make me feel like the man who first discovered fire,» Reno said in a low voice, watching her.

He rocked slowly against her, leaving none of her untouched, moving with the deliberate rhythms of a storm that has eternity to gather and break.

«Hurt?» he asked softly.

Her answer was a rippling sigh of pleasure.

«Tell me if I hurt you,» Reno said.

Smoothly he shifted, sliding his arms beneath her knees, bending and lifting her legs, pressing them gently back against her body, moving in slow motion, joining them more deeply than she would have believed possible.

«Eve?» he whispered.

«Dear God,» she said, shivering with pleasure.

As Reno moved, a hot, gentle vise closed around Eve, a burning so soft she knew it only in after-thought. A long, sweet shimmering began to steal through her, making her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Reno withdrew, taking the sensual pressure with him.

«No,» Eve said.

«I thought I was hurting you.»

«Only when you left.»

She made a low, ragged sound as Reno slowly returned, rocked against her, then retreated as deliberately as he had taken her. The ghostly shimmering returned, delicate currents of fire claiming her softly.

«I think…» Eve whispered.

He moved again, and flames licked gently, stealing her voice.

«What do you think?» he asked.

«I think…a woman…discovered fire,» Eve said. «With you…»

Tender fire leaped, consuming her.

Reno heard the echoes of ecstasy in Eve’s voice, felt it in the rhythmic shivering of her body, and wanted to shout his triumph at the stars.

But he had no breath to shout, for the flames that he had nurtured in her were spreading outward, licking over him in the silken rhythms of her release. He held himself utterly still, fighting against the need to join her. He didn’t want that yet, not before he had plumbed the depths of her ability to respond to him.

The lure of Eve’s body was too great to withstand. When she twisted slowly, repeatedly, against him, Reno felt the world unravel in a series of soft explosions. With her name breaking on his lips, he came undone a single heartbeat at a time, giving himself to her in a long, rippling current of fire.

Eve’s breath caught and sighed out in wonder as she held Reno, savoring the gentle shuddering of his body. For long, sweet minutes, her slender fingers caressed his back and shoulders. The breadth and power of him were obvious even now, when he lay with his head between her breasts, breathing slowly, utterly relaxed.

Smiling, Eve stroked Reno’s back with slow sweeps of her hands, savoring the strength of him and the knowledge that she had never been so close to anyone.

It was more than the fact of their interlocked bodies. She loved Reno as she had never loved anyone in her life.

Eve didn’t know she had spoken her thoughts aloud until Reno lifted his head and turned it from side to side, stroking her breasts with his cheek as he spoke.

«Love is an illusion, sugar girl,» he said. «But passion isn’t.»

She felt the slow drawing of Reno’s tongue over her nipples. With each delicious movement, his body stirred within her, redoubling the effect of his caresses. An answering heat splintered through her, making her breath break audibly.

Reno heard Eve’s response and felt it in the swift rise of her breasts. His laughter was velvety, dark, exultant.

«Passion is very real,» he said, biting delicately at Eve’s taut nipples. «We’re good together, you and I. Hell, we’re better than good. There’s no word for what we have when we’re like this.»

«What do you mean?» she whispered.

«Little innocent,» Reno murmured, drinking the tender shivering of her flesh as his teeth raked lightly. «You don’t even know, do you?»

«What?»

«This.»

His hips moved and he drove into her as though he would fuse their bodies into a single seamless whole. A throttled cry and an urgent twisting of her hips answered him. Laughing with sheer pleasure, he twisted against her in turn and listened to his name come from her lips in a rush.

«Yes,» Reno said. «It’s me. Again. But don’t blame me, gata. I’ve never been like this before in my life.»

Another twist, another cry, another sultry wave melting through Eve to lick over Reno, fueling his passionate fire, driving him higher, urging him to drive her higher as well.

Reno moved heavily, sparing Eve nothing of his power. Nor did she ask for less. She moved in urgent counterpoint, meeting strength with fluid grace, hunger with desire, fire with searing fire.

When sweat misted her skin, he bent his head and licked salty drops, bit flesh that strained to become part of him. He seduced her breasts with his teeth and tongue, demanding and receiving a hard bud from each while his hips moved relentlessly, demanding a different kind of flowering.

His hand slid down between their slick, hot bodies until he found the satin bud. He circled, pressed, raked with shattering delicacy.

«What are you…» Eve said brokenly. «Dear God…Reno.»

Pleasure burst in her with the force of a blow, arching her body as fierce currents swept through her, driving her even higher.

Reno held Eve wild and shivering while he moved over and within her relentlessly, riding the fierce passion he had called from her. He punctuated each heavy thrust with a savagely restrained caress that demanded everything of her, plucking at the delicate bud until it began to flower one dark petal at a time.