withdrawing again, leaving her aching, restless. Then he returned, bringing pleasure with him, a hot teasing that promised heaven and delivered only a bittersweet kind of hell.
Sweating, shaking, Shannon begged him to end her torment. Whip closed his eyes as sweat broke over his whole body. He couldn’t look at her, touch her, hear her pleas, and not take her.
«Hold on, honey girl,» he said hoarsely. «Just a little more. You’re so damned tight. And so hot. Just a little deeper and —»
Whip’s words stopped as though cut by an ax. He stared at Shannon in fury and disbelief.
«You’re a virgin.»
Shannon simply looked at him, not understanding what had made him so angry.
Whip shot to his feet and stood over Shannon.
«Naive, huh?» he said savagely. «Ha! You’re naive like a fox, pretty littlewindowlady. You figured I would give you a wedding ring if you could tease me into taking your maidenhood.»
Dazed, trembling, Shannon understood only that the culmination she desperately needed had been yanked away from her without warning. She wanted to weep and scream and rail at Whip, but she had no breath.
Whip didn’t have the same problem with breathing. And talking. He had never been more furious — or more frustrated — in his entire wandering life.
«What kind of twisted marriage did you have with that old man-hunter?» Whip demanded.
«I don’t understand,» she said shakily.
«The hell you don’t. Silent John was a piss-poor gold prospector, but he was first-class when it came to tracking down men and killing them where he found them, then collecting rewards for their sorry hides.»
Shock widened Shannon’s eyes.
«He never said —» she began.
«Hell,» Whip interrupted savagely. «He never said anything, right? Silent John. Silent as a tombstone. And that was what some folks called him. Tombstone John. He earned that moniker, too.»
Whip’s glance raked Shannon from forehead to heels. Shame flooded her as she looked at her own nakedness. Her groping fingers found her shirt. She pulled it on and fastened it with shaking hands.
«That man must have had ice water in his veins,» Whip said through clenched teeth, watching as Shannon’s beautiful breasts vanished beneath worn, faded fabric. «He had you for seven years and barely touched you.»
«Henevertouched me.»
«Never?» Whip laughed harshly, not believing a word of it. «Even an old killer like him must have liked undressing you and —»
«Silent John was my great-uncle!» Shannon cried, cutting across Whip’s words. «He never touched me! Not ever! Not a handshake when I brought down my first deer. Not a quick tug on my braids when he passed my chair. Not even a pat on the head when I learned to make biscuits the way he liked. Nobody has touched me in a tender way since Mama died!»
Blindly Shannon pulled one of Whip’s blankets over her hips, shielding her nakedness from him.
«And then you cam with your hungry eyes and fallen angel smile and gently hands,» she whispered.
Shannon closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of Whip’s face hard with anger and contempt.
«Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?» Whip asked, his voice flat.
«I did.»
«Horseshit.»
«Go to hell, yondering man. Go Soon.»
Whip looked at the girl huddled in a crookedly buttoned shirt with part of his bedroll drawn up over her hips. There was nothing of the hot temptress about her now. She wasn’t pleading for his mouth, his hands, his body locked with hers in primal ecstasy.
Whip drew a quick, sawing breath and fought for self-control. Shannon didn’t know what she was missing.
But, by God, he did.
«When did you tell me you were a virgin?» Whip asked less harshly.
«When we were talking about me not having a baby.»
He thought about it, frowned, and shook his head.
«The subject of virginity didn’t come up,» Whip said.
Shannon threw him a glittering glance. Her eyes were as brilliant as sapphires.
And twice as cold.
«I asked how you could be sure that you didn’t leave any bastards behind,» Shannon said flatly. «You said the same way Silent John knew how not to get me pregnant. Well, the way Silent John used was —»
«He never touched you,» Whip interrupted, finally understanding, believing. «You’ve really never been touched at all. My God.»
«Hallelujah,» Shannon said sarcastically. «If I repeat something often enough, even a gray-eyed yondering man finally learns.»
Whip opened his mouth, closed it, and stared at the virgin widow who had turned to honey and melted all over him at a touch.
«My God,» Whip repeated. «I —» He shook his head as though coming out of deep water. «It never occurred to me that Silent John and you had’t been truly man and wife.»
«No more than it occurred to me that you didn’t understand why I didn’t get pregnant,» she shot back.
«Chastity. The oldest way of all. Judas H. Priest.»
Shannon’s anger drained away as she saw how shocked Whip was. In the wake of anger came a fatigue so great that she wanted to put her head on her knees and cry. It was all too much to take in — the grizzly and her fear for Whip and his rage that she had come running up, then the heady sensuality of his touch, and then his fury.
«Shannon?»
«What.»
«What did you think would happen after I had you?»
«Think?Think?Yondering man, when you touch me I can’t think worth a handful of cold spit.»
«You weren’t trying to trap me into marriage?»
Shannon lifted her head. Between the grizzly and the lovemaking, her braids had come mostly undone. Long, dark strands slid over her cheeks and down over her breasts. Her eyes were dark, unreadable.
«Why on earth would I want to do that?» she asked.
For the second time Shannon had managed to shock Whip speechless.
«What possible use is a man who puts a baby in you and then flits off around the earth until it’s time to come back and put another baby in?» she asked.
«I’d never get you pregnant and then leave you,» Whip said coldly. «You know me well enough to know that.»
Reluctantly Shannon nodded. «You’re not the kind to run out on your responsibilities.»
«Is that what you were counting on? Getting pregnant so I would’t leave?»
Anger stirred in Shannon, but she was too tired to sustain it.
«I’m naive about sex, but I’m not stupid about life,» she said wearily.
«What does that mean?»
«Pregnant or not, I will never marry a man who wants me less than he wants a sunrise he’s never seen.»
Whip flinched at the conflicting emotions in Shannon’s voice, in her eyes, in her hands clenching the blanket over her nakedness.
«But you would have given yourself to me,» Whip said, angry for no reason.
A shiver of memory and desire went through Shannon.
«Yes,» she said.
«Why?»
«Why do you care?»
«Because I’m afraid you’re naive enough to believe you love me,» Whip said bluntly.
Shannon gave Whip a shuttered glance.
