Only 03 - Only You

now, isn’t it?”
    She muttered agreement, took a secret breath, and opened the journal to the first page. The words wouldn’t come into focus. All she could think of was the feel of Reno’s body against her back, her hips, her thighs.
    Long arms reached around Eve as Reno took the journal from her hands and opened it.
    “Read aloud,” he said.
    His voice was as casual as though he spent every night with a girl in his lap reading books.
    Maybe he does , Eve thought.
    “I should point out,” Reno drawled, “that if what I hear doesn’t interest me, I can always find something else to do that does interest me.”
    The sensual threat in his voice was unmistakable.
    “In the twenty-first day of the year fifteen…’” Eve said quickly, hoping Reno didn’t hear the unevenness of her voice. “It’s blotched there. I can’t tell if the year is…is…”
    Her voice fragmented as she felt the collar of her jacket tugged down in back. The warmth of Reno’s breath on her neck made her shiver.
    “What are you doing?” she asked.
    “Keep reading.”
    “It just says who authorized…”
    The brush of his mustache against Eve’s nape took her breath away.
    “Read.”
    “I can’t. You’re distracting me.”
    “You’ll get used to it. Read.”
    “…who authorized the expedition, and howmany men and what arms and…”
    Eve’s words stopped as Reno’s teeth tested the softness of her skin with ravishing delicacy.
    “Go on,” he whispered.
    “…and what the purpose was.”
    The tip of his tongue circled her nape. He felt the tremor that went through her and wondered whether it was fear or anticipation.
    “What was the purpose?” he asked.
    Eve reminded herself that a bargain was a bargain. She had agreed to let Reno try seducing her.
    She hadn’t agreed to his success.
    “Gold, of course,” she said curtly. “Isn’t that what the Spanish always wanted?”
    “I don’t know. You’ve got the journal. Read to me.”
    “That wasn’t part of our bargain.”
    The heat of Reno’s mouth on Eve’s nape made her heart turn over. The hot suction and fine edges of his teeth sent wildfire through her nerves.
    Reno felt the shudder that went through Eve, and wondered once more whether fear or sensuality moved her, for he had seen both in her topaz eyes as she watched him through the long days on the trail.
    There was no doubt whether fear or sensuality ruled Reno. The taste of Eve’s naked skin and the feel of her hips snug between his thighs was a pleasure hot enough to burn. He shifted slightly, increasing the sweet pressure against his rapidly hardening flesh.
    “They—the Spanish were supposed to baptize Indians, too,” Eve said hurriedly.
    She tried squirming off Reno’s lap. Each movement she made only served to increase the intimate contact.
    She became very still.
    “Were they?” he asked in a lazy voice.
    “Yes. It says so right here.”
    “Show me.”
    Eve tried to find the page, but her fingers were clumsy, and Reno was holding the journal in such a way that she couldn’t turn more than one or two pages.
    “Your thumb is in the way,” she said.
    Reno made a throaty, questioning sound that ruffled her nerves almost as much as a physical touch.
    “I can’t turn the pages,” she explained.
    The rest of Eve’s words were lost in a stifled gasp as Reno’s mustache moved like a silk brush along her hairline. Goose bumps coursed up and down her arms.
    “Then you hold the journal,” he said in a deep voice. “But if you try climbing off my lap again, I’ll lay you out on the ground, instead.”
    Eve took the journal from Reno’s hands and began turning pages as though her life depended on finding out what the rest of the royal instructions to the Cristbbal Leon expedition had been.
    Reno’s long, deft fingers began unbuttoning her jacket.
    “Saving souls,” she said quickly. “They were trying to save souls.”
    “I believe you mentioned that already.”
    The jacket began to open, allowing the cool night air to wash Eve’s throat. She dosed her eyes and tried to breathe past her heart, which was lodged halfway up her throat.
    “Somewhere he…he writes about seeking an overland route to the Spanish missions in California,” she said.
    “Exploration,” Reno said deeply. “Man after my own heart. Go on, gata, read to me about undiscoveredterritory and treasures hidden within darkness.”
    “They started up from New Spain and…”
    Eve gasped softly as the last