Finally he heard the sound of Eve half crawling, half scrambling through the coyote hole. As soon as her head and shoulders appeared, he pulled her out and gave her a hug that all but squeezed the breath from her.
«That’s the last time you go into a coyote hole alone,» Reno said flatly. «I aged ten years waiting for you.»
«It was worth it, sugar man,» Eve said breathlessly, laughing, kissing him. «I found it! I found the gold!»
TWO gold ingots gleamed in the firelight, gold as pure and uncorrupted now as the moment when slaves had first poured the molten metal into molds to cool. Reno looked from the ingots to the girl whose eyes were the exact shade of the Spanish treasure she had found hidden in darkness.
Eve looked back at Reno, smiled, and then laughed softly.
«I can’t believe there are sixteen more just like that one,» she said. «You should have let me go back and get them. I could have had them all out in the time it took you to widen the coyote hole that connects the two big tunnels.»
«The gold has waited this long. It will wait until tomorrow.»
«With both of us working, it shouldn’t —»
«No,» Reno said flatly, cutting across her words. «You’re not going into that coyote hole again. The part where it cuts the second tunnel is too damned dangerous.»
«But I’m smal —»
«The reason they closed out that second big tunnel,» Reno said over her, «is that the middle section isn’t stable. It collapsed more than once. Each time they cut a coyote hole around the cave-in and kept digging until they mined out the good ore, and things kept on caving in. Finally they came at the ore from the other side, where we started.»
«Do you really think that second big tunnel goes all the way to the alcove?»
He shrugged. «The rock layers looked the same.»
«Dear Lord.» Eve shivered. «That mountain must be honeycombed with holes.»
«Are you cold?» Reno asked, noting the shiver that had passed over Eve.
«No,» she whispered. «I was just wondering how many slaves died for those eighteen ingots of gold.»
«Not to mention the other forty-four ingots that are hidden somewhere down there,» he said.
Another shiver passed over Eve. She knew that Reno was going to search for the missing ingots. The thought of him hunting through the mountain’s lethal coyote holes for gold that might or might not be there made her wish they had never found the mine.
«I didn’t see any other coiled-snake symbols chiseled in the wall,» Eve said. «Maybe the Jesuits took most of the gold with them. Maybe it would be a waste of time to search.»
«Maybe they didn’t have time to spend chiseling snakes into rock walls to mark where treasure was buried,» he said dryly. «Maybe they just piled the ingots in a coyote hole and got the hell out of there before the king’s soldiers came and dragged them back to Spain in chains.»
Reno finished the last of his coffee and began scattering the embers of the small fire. Soon there was no illumination but that of the moon.
«It’s worth staying until the weather changes to look for forty-four gold ingots, isn’t it?» Reno asked.
The dark velvet of his voice acted on Eve like a caress. Suddenly she knew he wasn’t asking about staying for the gold; he was asking if she would stay here with him awhile longer.
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.»