"Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowell Elizabeth)

9

Numbly Eden began stuffing a lightweight down vest and windbreaker into her own backpack.

"Going somewhere?" Nevada asked, watching her intently.

"Cat hunting," Eden said, her voice carefully balanced within her aching throat. "It's something I'm good at. Obviously I'm not good at much else. Kissing, for one. Warfare, for another."

Nevada's eyes narrowed at the sadness Eden couldn't wholly conceal, but all he said was, "I'll leave a cellular phone with you. Put it in your backpack."

"No, thank you."

"It isn't a request. It's a Rocking M rule. If you're in the backcountry alone, you carry a cellular phone in case you get into trouble. The coverage isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing."

"It didn't help you last week."

"The phone was in my saddlebag."

"Best place for it."

"Don't be pigheaded," Nevada said impatiently.

"Why not? It works for you."

Eden didn't bother to put on her backpack. She just hooked the straps over her arm as she reached for the front door. She barely had the door open when Nevada's hands shot over her shoulders and slammed the door shut again. His speed was literally breathtaking. The corded power of his bare forearms was a blunt statement of his superior strength. He was a warrior accustomed to fighting – and winning.

"I should let you go," Nevada said, his voice husky. "God help me, I tried to. Then I saw you standing in sunlight listening to a bird sing, and your smile was sad and sweet and so beautiful it damn near brought me to my knees."

Nevada's hands on the door became fists, then slowly relaxed once more, revealing the fine trembling in his fingers.

"Fairy-tale girl, all laughter and golden light," Nevada whispered against Eden. His lips brushed her hair, the curve of her ear, the warmth of her neck. "I'm worlds too hard for you, but I want you until my hands shake."

Silently Eden lifted her own hands, showing their trembling to Nevada. When he saw, he breathed a word that could have been either curse or prayer. She started to turn toward him, only to be pinned against the door by the full length of Nevada's powerful body.

"Think hard before you turn around," he said, his voice rough with the violence of his blood rushing. "I'm not offering you love and happily ever after." Slowly Nevada lowered his head, found the nape of Eden's neck, and bit her with exquisite care. "But when I'm finished, your hands won't be shaking anymore."

Even as the primitive caress shivered through Eden, she found herself freed, no hard masculine torso pinning her, no powerful arms confining her, nothing but the certainty that Nevada was standing barely a hand's breadth away, waiting for her answer. Slowly she let the backpack straps slide from her arm and turned toward him.

The look in Nevada's eyes made Eden's breath stop. With a muffled cry she reached for him even as he reached for her and lifted her, bringing her to his hungry mouth. She slid her arms around his neck and said his name in the instant before his kiss claimed her, taking from her the ability to talk, to think, to breathe.

Eden didn't care. All she wanted was to hold Nevada and to be held by him, to taste him and be tasted in turn, to feel the hardness and restraint of his body against hers. Her fingers smoothed the sleek pelt of his hair and beard before finding his powerful shoulders. Making soft, approving sounds, she kneaded the bunched muscles of his arms, glorying in Nevada's strength even as she gave him her own heat and the sweetness of her mouth in return.

Nevada took everything he wanted from the kiss and discovered that Eden had more to give, much more than he had ever found with any kiss, any woman. Eden's response to him was as loving and generous as summer, a pleasure that increased with each heartbeat, doubling and redoubling until he was focused only in the expanding, timeless instant of the kiss. Urgently he savored Eden's gift, tasting and caressing and enjoying her with slow movements of his tongue, luring her deeper and deeper into passion until her breathing was ragged and her arms were locked around him. Breathing harshly, swiftly, Nevada held on to Eden as though he expected her to be ripped from his arms at any instant.

Finally Nevada lifted his head and let Eden slide down his body, making no attempt to conceal the hard length of his arousal, shuddering openly with pleasure when her hips moved over his as he lowered her feet to the floor. Then he held her tightly, fiercely, while he fought for breath, for control, for the discipline of mind and body that he had learned at such great cost and had taken for granted for so many years.

"My God," Nevada said huskily.

He forced himself to loosen his arms from around Eden. One big hand stroked her hair as he let out his breath in an explosive hiss.

"Nevada?" Eden said, hugging him hard, afraid that he would turn away from her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything. You surprised the hell out of me, Eden."

"I did?"

Nevada threaded his fingers through her pale, soft hair, tugging gently backward until Eden's face was turned up to his.

"Yes," he said simply. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, bit gently, and shuddered even as she did. "You wanted me."

Shivering, Eden whispered, "What?"

"I could taste it, feel it, see it. You wanted me."

She watched Nevada with uncertain hazel eyes. "Is that wrong?"

He looked down at her, sensing her confusion as clearly as he had sensed the depth of her passion.

"No, it isn't wrong," Nevada said. "It's just… surprising. No woman has ever kissed me that way. No calculation, nothing held back, just a kiss as hot and honest as fire. Then I was kissing you the same way and you burned even hotter and so did I and it just kept on, hotter and brighter. I could have taken you right there, straight up. God knows I wanted to." A faint tremor rippled through his body. "It was a near thing."

Wide-eyed, still uncertain, Eden watched Nevada, trying to understand.

"You don't get it, do you?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I didn't come up to Wildfire Canyon expecting to have sex with you," Nevada said bluntly. "In fact, I deliberately emptied out my pockets before I came up here so I wouldn't be tempted to touch you. Well, that didn't work, and now I have no way to keep from getting you pregnant. What about you? Can you protect yourself?"

Eden shook her head again.

Despite the hunger blazing in his eyes, Nevada's mouth kicked up at the left corner. "I didn't think so. You don't sleep with men much, do you?"

For the third time Eden's head moved in a silent negative.

"It's a good thing," he said, bending down to her mouth once more, "that there's more than one way to skin this particular cat."

"What?"

Nevada hesitated, lifted his head enough to see Eden's expression, and asked, "Just how experienced are you, fairy-tale girl?"

She bit her lip and looked at him rather warily. "Are we speaking of practical or intellectual experience?"

"Practical."

"Not much."

"How much is not much?"

"Not. Much."

Nevada whistled softly between his teeth, then said, "You're a virgin, aren't you?"

"That shouldn't matter," Eden said. "Every girl starts out that way."

"My God," was all Nevada could think of to say. He looked at Eden in a combination of disbelief and wonder.

"Don't worry," she said, exasperated. "Virginity isn't contagious."

"I'm not contagious, either," he shot back, "but that's not something you need to worry about."

"I don't understand."

"You're going to stay a virgin."

"But I don't want-"

Nevada kept talking. "You'll be a very experienced sort of virgin, but a virgin just the same."

"What does that mean?"

Nevada's big hands came up, framing Eden's face. He looked from her puzzled hazel eyes to her generous mouth. Her lips were still flushed with the kiss that had taught Nevada more than he thought he had left to learn about men and women and passion. He wondered what else he would learn, what he could teach, what discoveries awaited his exploration of his own private, passionate Eden.

The narrowed green blaze of Nevada's eyes as he watched her mouth made shimmers of sensation curl from Eden's breastbone to her knees. She felt like a tightly furled bud being discovered by the first, searching heat of spring's potent sun.

"Nevada," she whispered. "Aren't you going to kiss me?"

"Do you want to kiss me again?"

"Want?" Eden shivered and laughed softly, almost wildly, wondering how she could make Nevada understand feelings that were so new, so fierce, that she had no names for them. "When I grabbed your wrist to keep you from killing that cowboy in West Fork and you looked at me… you saw me, Nevada, all the way into me, and then you let me stop you, let me see you in return. Nevada," Eden breathed against his lips, standing on tiptoe, "Nevada, I was born for you and you were born for me. I want it all with you, everything, heaven and hell and the rainbow burning between."

With a low sound, Nevada bent and took Eden's mouth, giving her his own in return. When the warmth of her tongue touched his, Nevada's arms tightened, lifting her, bringing her whole body into the embrace. His hips moved slowly against her once, twice, and then he shuddered and eased her down until she was standing on her own feet once more. Holding her tightly, fighting to control his wild response, Nevada tried to end the kiss, but the pleasure of sliding his tongue into Eden's satin sweetness was too great to deny himself.

Just once more. Then I'll stop and catch my breath. Just once…

The hungry, gliding return of Nevada's tongue drew a soft moan from Eden. Slowly he took complete possession of her mouth once more, then began to retreat from her. But she didn't want the kiss to end. She needed more of his taste, his caresses, his elemental male passion. Instinctively her teeth closed on his tongue, silently demanding that he stay within her.

When Eden felt the response that ripped through Nevada at the unexpected caress of her teeth, she would have smiled, but his hands had shifted on her body, finding and stroking her breasts, sending burst after burst of pleasure through her. Her teeth released him as her breath came in with a sound of surprise and passion and she shuddered all the way to her core.

Hard, searching, hungry, Nevada's tongue claimed Eden once more, stroking the sultry softness of her mouth with rhythms of penetration and retreat. His hands moved over her breasts, long fingers stroking, kneading, teasing her until her nipples became a velvet hardness. When he plucked softly at them, the bursts of sensation that had been rippling through Eden merged into hot currents of pleasure that turned her bones to honey.

"Nevada, I can't stand up," Eden said raggedly as she clung to his arms, dizzy with the violence of her own response.

"Don't even try. I can hold you, Eden," Nevada said almost roughly, watching her, feeling her knees sag and at the same time feeling his own strength pouring through his body like a river of fire. "I could hold you in one hand. And I will, but not yet. There are other things I want to do first. A hundred of them. A thousand… oh, God, Eden, what are you doing to me?"

Eden opened her eyes, saw Nevada watching her, and wondered how she had ever thought his eyes bleak or cold. They were hot, burning, as hungry as his kiss had been.

"Put your arms around my neck," Nevada said, moving Eden's hands even as he spoke. "Hold on to me."

His hands moved once more, stroking her from hips to shoulders and back again, pressing her closer and closer to his body until she felt the urgency of his arousal. Her response was an instinctive, supple movement of her hips that dragged a groan from deep within him. His arms tightened, locking their bodies together while he moved against her once, twice, three times, and each time he promised himself it would be the last.

And each time it was not.

"Open your mouth and kiss me," Nevada said hoarsely, bending down to Eden. "I have to be inside you and that's the only way. Kiss me."

Eden gave Nevada what he wanted, needing the urgent joining as much as he did. When the world shifted and spun beneath her feet she simply clung more tightly to him, her arms fierce around his neck. He held her close and hard even after he lowered her to his camp mattress and deepened the hungry melding of mouths. He wanted her with a force that he no longer questioned, for thought was impossible. It was all he could do to control himself.

After a long time Nevada shuddered and slowly, reluctantly, ended the kiss. He lifted his head and let breath hiss out between his teeth. Nothing had ever tempted him the way Eden did at that instant, lying warm and undefended in his arms, wanting him until she trembled with it.

"I should have taken that bath in ice water," Nevada said, his eyes closed and his voice rough with his own arousal. When his eyes opened he looked from Eden's mouth to the pulse beating in her throat and the taut nipples pressing up against the green cotton of her blouse. "But it wouldn't have done any good." "It wouldn't?" Eden asked huskily. "I thought a cold bath always worked."

Nevada shook his head as be bent down to her breasts. "When you throw a bucket of water on a wildfire, all you get is steam."

His teeth closed delicately around one of her nipples, drawing a ragged gasp of surprise from Eden as pleasure streaked through her body, arching her against Nevada in sensual reflex.

"Wildfire," Nevada said thickly, arching into Eden in return. "Clean and beautiful and hotter than hell. Are you going to let me undress you or do you want to play it safe?"

"I'm always safe with you, Nevada. No matter what. I knew that the first time I saw you."

Thick, black lashes swept down, concealing the smoldering green of Nevada's eyes. Eden's hands stroked his hair, his beard, his mustache, and she smiled as she gently kissed him.

"Undress me, Nevada," she whispered, touching the tip of her tongue to his lips. "I've wanted to feel your beard on my skin for so long. I have to… feel you."

His hands moved from Eden's throat to her waist. Cloth fell away, revealing the creamy feminine curves of her breasts. Being bared to the waist was new to her. She blushed until she saw the look in Nevada's eyes. The passion and appreciation in his glance made her forget that she had never given herself in this way before.

The necklace with its tiny ring of braided gold gleamed softly against Eden's throat. Nevada bent and brushed the small ring with his lips, then pierced the golden circle with the tip of his tongue, touching the warm skin beneath. The intimacy of the instant made pain and pleasure twist deeply inside him, foretaste of what would happen if he let control slip from him.

Nevada knew he should stop now, leaving Eden as untouched as he had found her; and he knew he would not, could not walk away. Not yet. She was too beautiful, too warm, and he had been too long without warmth and beauty.

His hands moved, skimming the curves and peaks of Eden's bare breasts. She gasped as something deep within her shimmered and burst into fire. With a combination of hunger and anticipation, Nevada watched her rosy nipples tighten beneath his touch until they pouted and begged for his mouth. But he had seen Eden's first blush, sensed the instant of uncertainty when her breasts were bared to his eyes, his hands.

"I could hold you down and devour you," Nevada said huskily, aching to taste all the shades of pink and cream, to know all the feminine textures of Eden's body. "And you know it, don't you? Would you mind my mouth on you? Talk to me, Eden. I don't want to shock you or frighten you?"

Eden tried to speak just as Nevada's fingertips delicately squeezed one pink crown. A shivering, hot sensation raced through her. She pressed his hands more closely to her breasts and looked into his eyes.

"I'm not frightened, Nevada. I know that you'll never use your strength against me, and that's all that matters."

Eden lifted one hand and ran her fingertips over Nevada's beard, over his mustache, over his lips, then dipped into the sultry heat of his mouth in a sensuous foray that made his breath break. She laughed softly at his surprise.

"As for shocking me," Eden whispered, "some of the thoughts I'm having right now just might shock you. I'm inexperienced, not frightened or repelled. Touch me however you want to. Teach me how you want to be touched. Because I want to touch you, Nevada. I want to give you what you want, what you need, everything you ever dreamed. I want… everything."

For long moments Nevada fought a pitched battle for self-control. Eden couldn't know what she was doing to him, what she was offering him, what he wanted so fiercely since he had seen her walking toward him in West Fork and heard summer call to him in a husky voice.

Eden was a gift he shouldn't take.

She was a gift he couldn't refuse.

"Eden…"

Nevada tried to say more. No words came that equaled his need. What did come was a silent vow that he would unwrap her gift gently, using the discipline learned in war to bring pleasure rather than pain to the woman who was watching him with all the colors of life in her eyes, all the passions of living in her voice, every emotion he had vowed never to feel whispering to him, promising him… everything.

Heaven and hell and the rainbow burning between.

Nevada curled his tongue around Eden's caressing finger, sucked, bit gently, and released her.

"Does that mean you won't mind if I take off your shoes and socks?" he asked softly.

Eden smiled.

With a swift motion Nevada shifted until he was kneeling at her feet. Before Eden could take a deep breath he had slipped off her shoes and slid his index fingers beneath the top of her socks, circling her ankles, stroking her, making her gasp at the unexpected sensitivity of her own skin. With a smooth movement he stripped her socks away, leaving her feet naked. He fitted a palm against the arch of each foot, rubbed slowly, and watched unexpected pleasure transform Eden's expression.

"You know my body better than I do," she said. "Your hands are so warm and hard. I love your hands, Nevada."

He turned and rubbed his beard against her instep, heard her breath break, felt her shiver. His teeth closed gently while the tip of his tongue drew a line of fire beneath her arch. Her toes curled and she made a breathless sound. Slowly he released her feet. His hands stroked from her ankles up the length of her legs and then on to the waistband of her jeans. There he stopped and looked into her eyes.

"Whatever you want," Eden said, huskily. "Just tell me what to do, Nevada. Tell me how to please you, too."

"Your trust…" Nevada's eyes closed, then opened brilliant with an emotion that was as great as his passion and as deep as his pain. "Fairy-tale girl, having you give yourself to me is more pleasure than I've ever known."

Nevada bent and brushed his mouth over Eden's lips, the tiny ring lying in the hollow of her throat, the taut velvet tips of her breasts. Soft sounds came from her, sighs like flames rippling higher as her jeans were smoothed caressingly down her body by Nevada's hard and gentle hands. When Eden realized that she was naked and he was looking at her, she trembled. He fitted his palm over her pale, soft triangle of curls and eased his long fingers between her legs, holding her in one hand, covering her vulnerable softness completely.

"It's all right," Nevada whispered against Eden's mouth. "You're not naked anymore."

His hand moved gently, rocking against flesh that was already humid, sensitized. Her breath broke, caught, broke again as something shimmered and burst softly, repeatedly, inside her, melting her against his hand. He felt the unmistakable heat of her response and groaned even as he searched through the hot curls.

"Kiss me, Eden. Let me inside you."

Eden parted her lips and felt the hot, gliding penetration of Nevada's tongue and his finger at the same time. The startled sound she made was transformed into a throaty cry of passion that he drank as he deepened the twin caresses, exploring and pleasuring her with the same slow movements. The repeated sensual forays sent more shimmering waves expanding through her, melting her around him.

All thought of shyness fled Eden, leaving her in the grip of enthralling passion. When Nevada's touch redoubled, filling her, Eden shivered and cried out. He drank that cry, too, and his caresses deepened as his thumb slid over the sleek hard nub of desire he had called from her softness.

Sensual lightning searched through every cell in Eden's body, drawing a surprised cry from her. Deliberately Nevada closed his teeth on her neck, both distracting her and paradoxically increasing the intensity of her body's response to the hot, intimate movements of his hand. His thumb returned again and again, spreading the liquid fire of her response, teasing her, inciting her, urging her higher and higher, drawing the sensual tension in her tighter and tighter until finally her breath stopped and pleasure burst, drenching her with sweet fire.

Gently Nevada withdrew his touch. He gathered Eden against himself and held her, trying to ignore the violence of his own unsatisfied need. It was impossible. Every breath he took was spiced with her fragrance, infused with her warmth, and the soft weight of her body against his made him burn.

After several minutes Eden sighed, stirred, and said softly, "You were right. My hands aren't shaking anymore." She kissed the base of Nevada's neck and felt the instant speeding of his pulse and the shiver that went through his body. "But yours still are."

"I'll live," he said tightly.

"I'm glad to hear that, because I'm going to need your help." She slid from Nevada's arms and went to work on the laces of his walking boots.

"Eden, what are you doing?"

"Taking off your boots."

"I can see that," he said roughly.

She smiled. "I thought you could." She pulled off one boot and sock, then the other. "Watch closely and you can see me taking off your jeans, too."

Nevada's hands flashed out, grabbing Eden's wrists as she reached for his waistband. Smoldering green eyes searched her face.

"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."

Slowly he pressed into Eden again, filling her, feeling her cling to him with tiny, hot movements that were as involuntary as the wild beating of her heart. He withdrew even more slowly, and once again could not force himself to leave her entirely. Fists clenched, eyes tightly shut, skin gleaming with sweat, Nevada fought to make his body obey the demands of his mind.

Then Eden moaned and the wild, sensual rain of her release bathed Nevada in fire, burning through all possibility of control. With an anguished sound he thrust into her once more, filling her, giving himself to her with each elemental surge of his body until the gift was finally complete.

And then Nevada lay spent on Eden's breast, felt their hearts beating together, tasted their mingled breaths, and understood the full extent of his self-betrayal.

My God, how could I be such a fool?

The only answer was as bitter as it was true. The self-discipline that had been the very core of Nevada's survival had been breached at the same instant as the frail barrier of Eden's innocence. He could not have been more foolish. She could not have wounded him more savagely if she had slid a knife between his ribs into his heart.

Silently Nevada withdrew from Eden, dressed swiftly and walked away. With each step he prayed he would have the strength to build his defenses once more, and this time build them so high and so deep that he would never again be touched by the devastation of Eden's sweet and fatal fire.