Whip looked at Shannon’s long, shiny braids and creamy skin.
«At first I thought you bathed so often because you wanted to be pleasing to me. Then I realized it was just your way. Spearmint and fresh water, honey and cream.»
Whip’s hands shifted, caressing the sensitive soles of Shannon’s feet. She made a throttled sound as her feet arched in sensual reflex.
«Ticklish?» he asked.
«Not…quite.»
«How about this?»
Whip bent his head and smoothed his mouth over the arch of her foot. Just at the point it would have tickled, he sank his teeth delicately into her skin.
Shannon gasped as she discovered how deliciously sensitive the arch of her foot was.
«Am I tickling you?» Whip asked.
«No,» she whispered, staring at him with wide, luminous eyes. «I just didn’t know that men kissed women there.»
«Did you like it?»
«Yes…»
She shivered and made a low sound of pleasure as Whip caressed her other foot. Her response sent an answering tremor through his powerful body.
«There’s so much of loving you don’t know about,» Whip said, looking at Shannon hungrily. «All the sweet tastes and hidden textures of passion. I’m going to know every last one of yours, honey girl. And when we’re too tired to breathe, I’m going to fall asleep deep inside you and wake up with the taste of you on my tongue and then we’ll begin all over again, touching and tasting and knowing, being alive in each other.»
Shannon didn’t understand most of what Whip was saying, but she didn’t care. The sensual blaze of his eyes and the gentleness of his big hands told her everything that mattered.
No matter how great Whip’s strength, no matter how fierce his hunger, she was safe with him.
Watching with curious, hungry eyes, Shannon allowed Whip to unfasten her shirt and ease it down her arms. Her breasts peaked before he touched them, for she had seen the smoky approval in his glance. Then his head bent, his mouth opened, and he shocked her to her toes by taking the tip of one breast into his mouth.
«Whip.»
He made a hungry, questioning sound, swirled his tongue around the hardened nipple, and drew her deep into his mouth.
The rhythmic movements of Whip’s mouth sent pleasure stabbing through Shannon, arching her back even as her fingers blindly raked through his hair, holding him close. She had no breath, no thought, nothing but the changing pressures and textures of his mouth as he suckled her, shaping and hardening the nipple even more with each stab of his tongue.
By the time Whip lifted his head, Shannon was twisting slowly beneath him and whimpering softly, feverishly. He looked at her breast, taut and glistening from his mouth, and he let out a ragged breath.
«I’ve been around the world three times,» Whip said in a husky voice, «and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you all shiny and proud from my loving.»
«I — didn’t — know,» she said raggedly.
«You’ve never been kissed like that?»
Shannon shook her head even as she watched Whip’s mouth with shocked, curious eyes.
«Does it matter that I’m as naive as an egg?» she whispered.
«No,» Whip said. «Teaching you, watching you respond…it gives me a kind of pleasure I’ve never known.»
Whip bent down to Shannon again, and again he taught her something about pleasure. She learned that it could build and build until her body was burning with a need so great she pleaded helplessly with him to end the sweet torment.
He laughed softly and refused to be drawn closer.
«Not yet, honey girl. There are a whole lot of ways of touching and kissing left to explore.»
Shannon’s eyes opened in disbelief.
Smiling, Whip raked his teeth lightly over one proud breast, then the other. Then he sheathed his teeth with his lips and tested the velvet tension of her nipple.
Pleasure lashed Shannon, making her gasp.
«Whip?»
The husky voice licked over him like fire.
«What?» he asked.
«I can’t — take it.»
«If I can, you can.»
«But I’m not kissing you.»
«Not this time. I’m way too hungry for that. Next time, though. Next time I’ll teach you how to make me sweat and shake with need of you.»
Whip’s hands moved with the quickness that was as much a part of him as his fallen angel smile. Shannon felt the rest of her clothes sliding down her legs. Unease went through her, but far stronger was the memory of pleasure she had once known at his hands.
«That’s what you’re going to be doing before I’m through,» Whip said in a low voice. «Sweating and shaking with need of me.»
Slowly he ran the back of his fingers up between her legs from her ankles to the dark mahogany cloud just above her thighs. His big hands shifted, circling the top of her thighs, flexing deeply, urging her legs farther and farther apart even as he caressed them.
Then Whip became very still but for the quickness of his breathing.
«I thought nothing could be more beautiful than your breasts,» Whip said finally. «I was wrong.»
Shannon followed his glance down her body and made a startled sound. She was sprawled wantonly, wholly naked to his eyes, his touch. Reflexively she moved to cover herself, but found that impossible. Whip was kneeling between her thighs, bracing them apart with his knees while he caught both of her hands in one of his own. He was holding her in a gentle, immovable vise.
«Too late, honey girl,» he said huskily. «You set free something in me that no other woman has. I don’t know what it is, but I’m damned sure I’m going to find out.»
One of Whip’s fingertips circled the lush flower that had opened for him. Shannon trembled and made a broken sound.
«Tell me again that you want me,» Whip said thickly.
As he spoke, he parted the flushed petals with two fingertips, seeking the honey within.
«Yes,» she said huskily. «Yes.»
Shannon’s hips moved as she cried out, and his fingertips knew the hot, silky kiss of her desire.
«Honey girl,» he whispered. «God, I love feeling your pleasure.»
She started to speak, but her breath wedged in her throat as she felt Whip’s caress slowly deepen. The feeling of having him within her even by so small a measure was as unexpected as it was extraordinary. Heat swept through her, leaving her skin flushed, sultry, exquisitely sensitive.
But nothing was as sensitive as the flesh Whip was softly stretching even as he caressed her. Pleasure coiled relentlessly inside Shannon, twisted, redoubled, and then held her arched and quivering on a rack of need.
Shannon moaned and moved her hips in a reflex as old as desire, seeking to draw Whip more deeply inside her body.
Instead, Whip’s touch lessened as he forced himself to withdraw all but his fingertips.
«Not yet,» Whip said, his voice hoarse with fierce restraint. «You’re not ready. You’re so tight, honey girl. And I’m not as small as your husband was. We’ll have to take this slow and gentle for a little longer. Like this.»
Shannon moaned as pressure and pleasure built inside her once more, pushing her toward the shivering culmination she had known once before at Whip’s hands. Yet before she could touch that sweet ecstasy, he began
