Elizabeth Lowell - Only You

«I kissed you!»

«The way a frightened virgin kisses her first boy. Well, you’re no virgin, and I’m no wide-eyed country boy.»

«But I–I am,» she stammered.

Reno said something beneath his breath, then added in a cutting voice, «Save the wide-eyed act for a pup that’s still wet behind the ears. Men my age know everything worth knowing about women’s tricks, and everything we know, we learned the hard way.»

«Then you didn’t learn enough. I’m not what you think I am.»

«Neither am I,» he retorted dryly. «I haven’t been taken in by that look of wide-eyed innocence since I was innocent myself. That was a long time ago.»

Eve opened her mouth to further argue her innocence, but a single look at Reno’s face convinced her that he had already made up his mind on the subject. There was nothing of comfort in his ice green eyes or in the flat line of his mouth beneath his mustache. He believed she was a saloon girl and a cheat, pure and simple.

Even worse, she couldn’t wholly blame him. Shehadcheated him. Although she hadn’t started out to use Reno in her deadly game with Slater and Raleigh, in the end she had risked Reno’s life without so much as warning him of what was at stake.

To add insult to injury, she had run off with the very pot she had cheated to give to Reno. The fact that he had survived at all was due to his own unusual skill with a gun. She hadn’t even known who he was, so she could hardly say that she was certain he would be able to fight free of the trap he had walked into.

A kiss seemed a simple enough apology to a man whose death she had nearly caused.

Lifting up again, Eve put her lips over Reno’s. This time she didn’t retreat instantly. Instead, she increased the pressure of the kiss gradually, learning the smooth resilience of his lips in a silence that was bounded by the frantic beating of her heart.

When Reno made no move to deepen or to end the kiss, Eve hesitated, wondering what she should do next. Though Reno didn’t believe it, she had told the truth about her innocence. The few times she hadn’t been fast enough to dodge a kiss from a cowboy, there had been nothing gentle or pleasant about the embrace. They had grabbed, she had fought free, and that had been the end of it. If there had been any sensual enjoyment in the experience, it hadn’t been hers.

But Reno wasn’t grabbing, and Eve had agreed to this kiss. She just didn’t know how to go about it. The realization perplexed her almost as much as the discovery that kissing Reno affected her in an entirely unexpected way.

She liked it.

«Reno?»

«Keep going. I’ll get an honest kiss out of you yet.»

Tentatively Eve’s hands crept around Reno’s neck, for she was becoming tired of holding herself in a half-upright position. At first she was reluctant to trust her weight to his strength, but the temptation was too great to resist for long. Gradually the pressure of her arms around his neck increased as she allowed him to support more and more of her weight.

«Better,» Reno said in a deep voice.

His lips were very close to Eve’s. The warmth of his breath sent a glittering wash of sensation over her. For an instant her own breath hesitated, then came back quickened. She arched her body to close the remaining distance between her mouth and Reno’s.

The first touch of his lips was already familiar, as was the frisson of pleasure that went over Eve when their mouths met. The silken brush of his mustache over the edge of her upper lip was also a pleasure she had known before. Yet each time she felt it, the intensity of the sensation grew greater, shortening her breath even more.

«I wouldn’t have guessed,» Eve whispered.

She was so close that each word was a separate brush over Reno’s mouth. It was the same when he spoke to her, each word a caress.

«What wouldn’t you have guessed?» he asked.

«That your mustache would feel like a silk brush.»

Eve wondered at the ripple that went through Reno, but had no time to think about it, for his arms were sliding around her. She stiffened, expecting to be grabbed and held down once more.

But Reno made no further move to force her. He simply held her so that she didn’t have to make any effort at all to stay close to him. Slowly she relaxed, letting his arms support her.

«I’m still waiting for my kiss,» Reno said.

«I think I’ve kissed you more than once.»

«And I think you haven’t kissed me at all.»

«What was I just doing?»

«Teasing,» he said bluntly. «Nice enough, but not what I had in mind, and you know it as well as I do.»

«No, I don’t. I’m not a mind reader,» she retorted, irritated that he hadn’t been half so unsettled by the slow, gliding kiss as she had.

«I know what you are. You’re a saloon girl with fast hands who promised me the one thing she can’t deliver — an honest kiss.»

Eve opened her mouth to ask Reno what he thought an honest kiss should be. Then she remembered what he had said about kissing.

I like it hot and deep. Take that quick little tongue and rub it over mine.

Before Eve could lose her nerve, she brought her lips against Reno’s open mouth and touched his tongue with her own. The nubby, velvety texture she felt intrigued her. Tentatively she ran the tip of her own tongue over him once more, tracing the shape of his mouth. In the course of her explorations she discovered how smooth and silky the underside of his tongue was.

She didn’t notice the gradual tightening of Reno’s arms or the quickening of his breathing. She didn’t notice that she was being lured more deeply into the kiss with every speeding heartbeat. All she knew was that Reno’s taste and warmth were more intoxicating than the French brandy Don and Donna had so loved.

Eve didn’t question the growing urgency that claimed her. She simply tightened her arms around Reno’s neck, trying to get even closer to him, seeking a more complete merging of their mouths.

Suddenly the ground pressed up hard beneath Eve’s body. She was on her back once more, and Reno was covering her like a warm, heavy blanket.

This time Eve didn’t protest, for the position allowed her to get even closer to Reno. Her fingers searched through his hair, knocking aside his dark hat. Restlessly she combed her fingers through his hair, enjoying the thickness and texture and warmth of it.

Reno shifted and arched against her like a great cat, silently telling her that he liked the feel of her nails against his scalp, his neck, the bunched muscles of his back. He liked the taste of her too, sweetness and a heat that grew greater the more he tested it.

Reno’s tongue probed deeply into Eve’s mouth as his weight settled between her thighs, separating them until he could press the ache of his arousal into the soft nest that was made to receive him. He felt the sensual ripple that went through her body at the contact and wanted to groan at the savage thrust of his response.

He hadn’t meant to get this aroused. He certainly hadn’t meant to show her just how badly he wanted her.

But it was too late now. She would know exactly what that hard ridge of flesh pressing against her meant, and she would know exactly how to use it against him to get what she wanted. All that remained of the game was to see how far she would let him go before she tried to stop him.

And what she would offer to make him stop.

Reno’s hips moved again, pressing more intimately against Eve’s yielding body. A sweet fire blossomed in the pit of her stomach, making her moan. Instinctively her arms tightened around him, seeking to keep him close. She was rewarded by a sinuous movement of his hips, his body retreating and returning to hers in the same primitive rhythms of his tongue moving within her mouth.