As she came to her knees before him, he eased his fingers deeply into the fragrant silk of her hair, tipped her face up to his hungry lips and locked their mouths in a searing kiss. It wasn't enough. No matter how wild, how sweet, how deep, he couldn't get close enough to her with just a kiss. He couldn't touch her completely. He couldn't bathe in her fire.

"Eden," Nevada said hoarsely, tightening his hands in her hair. "Eden… let me…"

"Yes," she whispered, not even waiting to find out what he was asking of her.

A shudder rippled through Nevada. His eyes opened. They smoldered with reflected flames as he looked at Eden kneeling in front of him, watching him, wanting him.

"Lift your arms, fairy-tale girl," Nevada said huskily.

As Eden raised her arms, the graceful motion reminded Nevada of the shadows he had seen on the curtains as she bathed. His hands slid from her hair down to the hem of her soft ski top, and then beneath. Watching her at every instant, he slowly eased the scarlet top up her body until the cloth was at her elbows and her breasts were completely bare. Abandoning the cloth still tangled around her elbows, he stroked her upper arms and shoulders, caressing the sensitive skin of her inner arm.

"When I saw your shadow moving while you bathed," Nevada said, bending down to Eden's breasts, "I was so damned jealous of the washcloth I thought I would go crazy. I wanted to be the one rubbing over you, getting you wet, making your skin shine in the firelight."

The satin heat of Nevada's mouth rubbed warmth and dampness over first one of Eden's breasts, then the other, making her tremble. When she would have cast aside her top and lowered her arms to hold him, he moved swiftly, holding her as she had been with her back elegantly arched and her breasts utterly defenseless against his mouth. His tongue circled one nipple, his teeth gently raked, and she gasped with pleasure. Before she could catch her breath, he was softly, completely devouring her.

The sweet, changing pressures of Nevada's mouth on her breasts sent fire streaming through her blood. Eden shivered and his name broke on her lips. His answer was the renewed tugging of his mouth, the sweet stabbing of his tongue, pleasure gathering and bursting until she cried out and he made a low sound of satisfaction and triumph. For long, shivering minutes he pleasured her, holding her suspended between firelight and his hungry mouth. When he finally lifted his head, her breasts were taut, flushed, full, and they shone in the firelight.

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, touching 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.