WARRIOR

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Nevada looked at Eden for a long time, memorizing the picture her breasts made. Then his burning glance moved down her body and he shivered with an eagerness he had never known and could barely control. When he spoke his voice was thick, rasping, as caressing as his hungry mouth had been.

  "Stand up, fairy-tale girl."

  Eden made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a protest. "I can't."

  With a quick motion Nevada swept off Eden's top, freeing her arms. His warm hands slid down her body and his shoulder muscles bunched as he lifted Eden to her feet.

  "Brace your hands on my shoulders," he said.

  Eden obeyed. Moments later she felt her long ski underwear sliding down her legs, leaving her naked but for the soft scarlet cloth pooled at her ankles. Nevada's hair gleamed blackly as he lifted her right foot free of the cloth, caressed the high arch lovingly with his fingertips and brushed a kiss over her inner thigh. Slowly he released her foot as he rubbed his beard against the warmth and resilience of her thigh. When he reached for her other foot, his beard smoothed over her flesh once more.

  "I love your beard," Eden said with a broken sigh of pleasure.

  "I'm glad."

  Nevada's voice was like his beard, a soft, silken rasp of sensation that made Eden melt. She shivered again as he lifted her other foot, slid off the hast of the cloth, caressed her foot and released it.

  "Do you like this, too?" he asked.

  Eden felt the brush of his beard against her inner thigh, the hot touch of his tongue, and the sweet heat of his lips. For long moments Nevada's mouth moved over her thighs, sliding higher, shifting her subtly, parting her legs a bit more with each gentle kiss. The sight of his dark head against the creamy smoothness of her own skin sent rippling sensations throughout Eden's body, echoing of the supple dance of firelight.

  "Nevada?"

  Her husky whisper sent a tremor through Nevada. The kiss he was giving her changed, becoming a claiming that was just short of pain and simultaneously a pleasure so intense that it made her moan. Eden gasped. For an instant he froze, afraid that he had hurt her; then he felt the melting heat of her response. His hand shifted, skimming the burning gold delta at the apex of her thighs, seeking her softness, finding it, sliding into her with a caress that made her gasp.

  The sight of Nevada touching her so intimately made passion and embarrassment twist hotly through Eden. She pushed against his shoulders, silently asking to be released. It was like pushing against sun-warmed stone. His fingers skimmed her again, gliding in and withdrawing slowly, dragging a ragged moan of pleasure from her that was both his name and a protest. Slowly his head turned up to her until she could see the blazing silver green of his eyes.

  "Did I hurt you?" Nevada asked huskily.

  Eden shook her head and started to speak, but seeing his mouth so close to her hungry flesh scattered her thoughts. "Watching you – you were looking at me – watching me while you—" Her voice broke on a sensual shudder that she couldn't control.

  "Did it embarrass you?" Nevada asked.

  She nodded and whispered, "A little."

  "Any other objections?"

  She bit her lips and shook her head.

  "Did you like it?" he asked softly.

  "Yes," Eden said, her voice low. "I liked it so much I—"

  Her voice shattered into a moan as Nevada stole once more into the shadowed softness only he had ever touched.

  "Then close your eyes, fairy-tale girl," he said, gently biting the soft skin of her belly, "or what you're going to see will make you blush to the soles of your perfect feet."

  "I don't understand," she whispered.

  "Neither do I," Nevada admitted, brushing his bearded cheek against the hot golden curls that so tempted him. "I've never wanted a woman the way I want you. I want all of you. Everything. Every way there is."

  His hand moved again, gliding up between Eden's smooth thighs, silently asking that she open herself to his caresses. The slow advance and retreat of his touch tantalized her, making her hungry for more. Compelled by Nevada's gentle seduction of her senses, she shifted her stance with each of his caresses until she was trembling and breathing brokenly, her eyes heavy lidded, almost closed, and her body was open to whatever caress he wanted to give.

  The touch of Nevada's tongue astonished and unraveled Eden in the same wild instant. His name was torn from her lips as her nails dug into the flexed power of his shoulders. His response to the sensuous bite of her fingernails was a low sound of pleasure and hunger and anticipation. His big hands shifted quickly and closed around her hips until he held her in a passionate vise. Unerringly his mouth found the satin nub his caresses had teased from her softness. With a tenderness that was all the more shattering for its restraint, he caught her delicately between his teeth, holding her hotly captive while his caressing tongue stripped away all thought of embarrassment or inhibition.

  Eden shuddered heavily and made a ragged sound of surprise and pleasure, holding on to Nevada for balance as her own deserted her. The steamy intimacy of Nevada's mouth was a delicious assault against which she had no defense. Nor did she want any, for she trusted the warrior who held her within his grasp, his elemental male sensuality a lesson and a lure to her own feminine response. A searing spiral of sensation whirled around her, driving her higher and higher with each caress until she twisted like fire within Nevada's grasp.

  And like fire, Eden burned.

  The wild, broken sounds of her ecstasy shivered through Nevada. He caressed her again and again, hungry to hear more of her pleasure, unwilling to release the softness and passionate response of the woman he had only begun to explore. Reluctantly he lowered Eden to the bedding, but even then he could not release her, not completely. His hand curled possessively around the golden nest of curls as he kissed her navel, her breasts, the pulse beating frantically in her neck.

  Eden tried to speak but could not. Nevada's palm was against her violently sensitive flesh, rubbing lightly, pressing, and a long finger was dipping into her as though he were sipping her secrets one by one. His name came from her throat in a husky moan as ecstasy speared through her unexpectedly once more, convulsing her secretly – but she had no secrets from Nevada anymore. He was inside her, sipping at her, touching her delicately, sharing her pleasure, watching her. His caress redoubled, deepened, and so did her response.

  "Nevada?" Eden whispered, not understanding why he still withheld himself from the passion he had brought to her.

  But Nevada understood. "That was one way, fairy-tale girl. This is another." His voice was low, dark, and he spoke without looking away from the picture made by his hand and the smooth, creamy curves of Eden's body. "I want them all. Every last one. There's no tomorrow, no yesterday. There's only the night and the storm and the fire, you and me and … this."

  Nevada's hand had moved again, taking the world from beneath her body, sending her spinning. She gasped his name and was rewarded by another hot caress.

  "Look at me," Eden said huskily.

  "I am. I never knew a woman could be so beautiful."

  Nevada bent down and traced her satin nub with the tip of his tongue. The sight of him caressing her so intimately sent shock waves through Eden's mind and body. She felt cherished, threatened, protected, wanton, a woman locked within storm and fire and night, and the essence of all three was the warrior with the haunted silver-green eyes and gentle hands.

  "I love you," Eden said raggedly. "I love you so much I can't—"

  Ecstasy burst, breaking her voice.

  "I don't want love," Nevada said, his voice as dark as the shadows pooled in his eyes. With a swift, powerful movement he lay between her legs, poised at the very entrance to the inviting Eden he had made his own. "All I want is this. But I shouldn't take you. Unprotected. Undefended." A harsh shudder went the length of his body as he fought against himself, against her. "Damn you, Eden, you're tearing me apart."

  "Take me," Eden whispered, reaching for Nevada, to
uching the hot, hard flesh that she desired, loving all of him. "And I'll take you, all of you, lover and warrior and man, everything you want to give, every way there is, no recriminations and no regrets. That's what love is, Nevada, and I'll love you until I die."

  With a tearing sound that was both pain and pleasure, Nevada thrust into Eden's silken warmth, joining with her in a union that was both savage and sublime. When he could go no deeper he held himself completely still but for the shudders that racked him as his untamed hunger sought to escape the restraints of his discipline.

  Eden wrapped herself around Nevada and held him, feeling each tremor of need that tugged at his control. Her fingertips probed through his hair and then down the rigid muscles of his back and hips, wanting to touch all of him at once, to surround him with loving warmth.

  When Eden's slender fingers discovered the shadow cleft between his lean hips and the tight, shockingly sensitive flesh below, Nevada's whole body jerked. Making soft sounds of discovery and pleasure, Eden explored the changing textures of his need. Groaning, Nevada drove even more deeply into her, all defenses stripped away, held lovingly in the palm of Eden's hand.

  With a new understanding she felt the primal, shivering pulses of Nevada's release, heard her name breaking again and again on his lips, and whispered her own love against his open mouth. After the last tremors finally faded, Eden felt Nevada's body shift. Remembering the time when he had made love to her and then walked away without a word, she tightened her arms around him.

  "Don't leave me," she whispered. "Not yet."

  "I won't." Nevada made a harsh sound. "I can't."

  She looked into his eyes and saw the savage leap of reflected fire. Before she could speak, he was talking again, his voice raw.

  "You asked for all of me. I hope you meant it, fairy-tale girl, because you're going to get what you asked for. Every damn bit of it, everything I have to give."

  Nevada's lean hips moved and Eden's breath rushed in at the sensations streaking up from their joined bodes.

  "I just had you," Nevada said harshly, his voice as savage as his eyes, "and I'm ready for you again. That's why I walked out on you before. I knew I would take you again and again until finally I didn't even have the strength to lick my lips – and then I would still want you. It's never been like that for me with a woman. You're in my blood like fever and my body is on fire. I'm going to do the same thing to you that you're doing to me, fairy-tale girl. I'm going to burn you alive."

  Nevada bent and took Eden's mouth, opening it with a quick twist of his head, searching her softness even as he pinned her beneath the hard weight of his body. One powerful arm slipped beneath her hips, pulling her even closer, holding her so tightly that he could feel her bones beneath her soft flesh and she could feel his. Then he began moving, driving into her, taking all of her again and again, hot skin sliding against hot skin until the sweet friction ignited her soft flesh with an intensity that shocked her.

  She called his name wildly and saw his eyes blaze with response. He rocked hard against her and then harder still, fanning the passionate fire, driving into her until sweat gleamed on both their bodies and she cried out as ecstasy raked her with incandescent claws.

  And still there was no end, no peace, no safety, for he was still moving inside her in a rhythm as relentless as it was savage, driving her higher and yet higher until Eden felt as though she were going to die, as though she had been ripped from one world and thrust into another and in this one she was on fire. With a wrenching moan she arched into Nevada, burning fiercely, needing even more of him, telling him what she needed with words that also burned.

  "You're feeling it now, aren't you?" Nevada said darkly as his teeth scored Eden's ear. "This is what you did to me the first time I saw you, before I ever even touched you, a burning all the way to the marrow of my bones. And then I had you and still it wasn't enough, it's never enough, because there's always more and it's always just out of reach, a rainbow on fire against a black sky, untouchable and so damned perfect it tears at your soul until you bleed but it doesn't make any difference because your blood is on fire, too, and you just keep burning."

  Twisting, burning, caught between heaven and hell, hearing Nevada's dark voice and fiery words, Eden fought for the embrace, for the fulfillment she knew blazed just beyond her reach. Nevada bent down to her, holding her motionless while he caught her mouth with his own. She drank his wild hunger, matched it, demanded more and yet more of him until he drove into her, pinning her beneath him, grinding against her as though he would become a part of her or die.

  Impaled on ecstasy, consumed by wildfire, Eden would have screamed but she had no breath, no voice, no being. She felt Nevada shuddering beneath rapture's savage blows, heard him cry out as though in torment, but she could not help him for she was him and he was her and together they were the rainbow stretched between heaven and hell, burning.

  When the searing fire finally released Eden, she lay spent beneath Nevada, stunned by the passion that had consumed both of them, feeling their bodies fight for breath, for reality. When their breathing finally slowed, Nevada eased himself from Eden's body, caught her face between his hands and looked down into the many colors of her dazed hazel eyes.

  "All the colors of life," Nevada whispered, brushing Eden's lips with his own.

  As one person, they felt his heartbeat deepen as he quickened against her body once more.

  "Nevada?" Eden whispered.

  "I can't stop it. I don't even want to try. It's as new to me as it is to you. Fairy-tale girl, all sweet golden fire," he whispered. "Burn with me, fairy-tale girl."

  Gently Nevada joined his mouth with Eden's, caressing her sweetly, drinking her with the slow, shared rhythms of remembered hunger and release. The kiss was like his heartbeat, deep and unhurried, certain. Urgency was a distant echo, pleasure a shimmering companion, and their breath whispered as softly as flames in the hearth.

  The kiss ended as gently as it had begun, drawing a murmured protest from Eden, for she didn't want it to end. Nevada's lips brushed hers once more, stilling her with a gentle caress that promised things he had no words to say, only a certainty whispering deep inside him, shimmering with pleasures as yet untouched, unknown, unnamed, waiting for them, ecstasy burning as softly as his kisses.

  The brush of Nevada's lips closed Eden's eyelids. She sighed as the moist tip of his tongue traced her eyelashes, her hairline, her temples, and his breath caressed her sensitive skin. His words sank gently into her as his teeth and tongue caressed her earlobes, the soft line of her neck, the hollow of her throat, tasting her, sipping her, discovering her. His mouth moved slowly from her shoulders to her fingertips, her breasts, her belly, then down her long legs to the soles of her feet.

  Nevada was a warmth moving over Eden, his caresses telling her that she was more beautiful than life, more perfect than fire. The velvet warmth of his tongue was heightened by tiny bites so gentle they made her softly moan. When he knelt between her legs, touched her, cherished her, she wept and gave him what he asked for, opening for him like a flower. He whispered her name and her beauty against her skin, asking for yet another gift, and she gave him that, too, softly bathing him in her fire.

  With a gentleness that made Eden tremble, Nevada kissed her, slid his hands beneath her knees and slowly raised her legs, moving them apart with soft pressures and whispered words. Then he lifted his head and looked into Eden's eyes, asking that she trust him in this as she had trusted him in so much already.

  The contrast between the heavenly gentleness of Nevada's hands and the shadowy hell in his eyes tore at Eden's heart. She trembled and gave her body to his keeping, heard her name wrapped in the dark velvet of his voice as he gently curled her legs back upon her, leaving nothing secret from him.

  There was no embarrassment in Eden this time when Nevada looked at her, kissed her once, twice, and then brought himself to her undefended gate, watching the union as he pressed into her. The taking was so gentl
e, so slow, his eyes so black, so wild, that Eden unraveled in shivering ecstasy. She saw her undoing echoed in the shudder that rippled through Nevada, but his slow claiming of her softness did not speed up in the least. He took Eden the way dawn takes the night, moment by moment, breath by breath, leaving nothing unclaimed, nothing hidden.

  And when he filled her, all of her, sealing their bodies while she watched, she softly moaned at the completion. Tiny convulsions stole through her to him as she shimmered and burst soundlessly into fire. He rocked slowly against her, his movements as gentle and overwhelming as her body unraveling, bathing him in soft flames, rocking, rocking, and she wept and still ecstasy came to her, repeatedly, and each time the gentle rocking, rocking of Nevada's body breathed life into her once more.

  And still he rocked gently, filling her, bathing in her fire as they gave themselves to one another in secret molten pulses, burning away the world, leaving only their interlocked bodies and an incandescent ecstasy that had no ending, only beginnings, renewing and consuming and burning until finally they fell asleep, still intimately joined, their interlocked bodies gleaming in the firelight.

  Yet even in sleep, Eden wept, for she had seen the darkness in Nevada's eyes and knew she would wake alone.

  ~ 12 ~

  Baby found Nevada's tracks at the base of the ridge that overlooked the cougar's den. The realization that Nevada had been so close to Eden and hadn't so much as said hello drove black splinters of pain into her. Even as Eden looked frantically around, hoping to find Nevada, she knew it would be futile. If he had wanted to talk to her, he would have. He hadn't. He had been very careful not to alert her to his presence, avoiding the keen edge of Baby's senses.

  Eden looked at Nevada's tracks and fought not to cry out with loneliness. It had been two weeks since Nevada had come in from one kind of storm, only to create another in the cabin's firelit intimacy. The memories of being joined with Nevada haunted Eden, bringing tears to her eyes even as her body shivered with remembered ecstasy. Blindly she looked at the indentations Nevada's boots had left in the newly fertile earth, then tilted her head back and called into the wind.