mouth, I’m going to slide in you so deep you won’t know where I end and you begin.»
Shannon’s glance traveled down Whip’s powerful body to the place where they were almost joined. She moved again, testing him and herself at the same time.
«I don’t think so,» she said.
Disappointment sleeted through Whip. His body tightened in savage rebellion at being denied what it needed more than breath.
«We’re already as close as we can get,» Shannon said. «I push and it feels good but we don’t get any, um, closer.»
Whip let out a long, breaking breath as he realized that Shannon wasn’t turning away from him. She just didn’t understand how to accomplish the deeper interlocking that their bodies desired.
«Do you want to join with me, Shannon?» Whip asked softly. «Do you want to get as close to me as a woman can get to a man?»
Shannon looked up into Whip’s eyes and felt her heart turn over with love.
«Yes,» she said huskily. «I want that. I wantyou.»
Slowly Whip shifted until he was lying between Shannon’s legs once more.
Shannon’s breath broke. She could feel him more clearly now. The sensation was delicious. Bubbles of pleasure expanded through her. When they burst, they caressed him with loving warmth.
Whip smiled and fought against the harsh urgency that was driving him. He hadn’t expected Shannon to want him after he had given her one kind of fulfillment.
But she did want him. The honeyed proof of it was licking over him right now, calling to him, telling him how easy it would be to push into her untried body.
And how hot.
«Wrap your legs around my hips,» he said huskily.
When Shannon did, her breath broke. She felt Whip between her legs with stark clarity. It was disturbing… and profoundly arousing.
A shudder of pleasure and anticipation rippled through her.
«All right?» Whip asked.
«Yes,» she whispered.
Whip pressed into Shannon until he knew he would forever change her if he went any farther. He retreated, then returned, then retreated.
«Still all right?» he asked, his voice strained.
Shannon didn’t notice the roughness of Whip’s voice or the sweat standing on his skin. She was consumed by sensations that taunted her as much as they pleasured her. She twisted hungrily beneath his powerful body, seeking to increase the sensuous pressure of his presence within her.
Whip froze.
«Is it too much?» he asked, withdrawing.
«I want more, not less,» Shannon said raggedly. «I want everything you have to give me!»
Whip’s eyelids lowered for an instant as a shudder racked his body and soul. Then he looked straight into Shannon’s eyes and began rocking slowly, carefully. Her hips lifted insistently, demanding a more thorough kind of movement.
«Not yet,» Whip said, laughing, retreating.
«When…?» she cried.
«When your body is shivering and you’re all around me like hot, wild honey. Then I’ll take you, Shannon. And we’ll both scream with the pleasure of it.»
One of Whip’s hands moved down Shannon’s body, caressing her breasts and belly and hips. Then he found the satin knot of her desire once more. It was the same as she was — hot, slick, hungry. He teased her until she cried out and sought him even more urgently, her body coiling beneath his as forerunners of ecstasy raked through her.
Whip’s hand slid beneath Shannon’s hips, testing and caressing her resilient flesh. Then his arm moved fully around her bottom and he dragged her upward, lifting her, opening her completely to him, wondering if she would like it that way.
She did. He knew, because he felt the sultry pulses of her pleasure caressing his hungry flesh. The world darkened around him as desire coiled violently, pulling him down into the hot center of Shannon’s being.
«Shannon,» Whip said urgently. «Look at me!»
Dazed, shivering, Shannon opened her eyes. Whip was poised above her, his face dark with passion and his eyes like twin silver flames, burning.
«Now, honey girl. Now.»
He took her with a smooth, powerful thrust, not stopping until their bodies were as deeply joined as it was possible for a man and woman to be.
Shannon stiffened and gave a keening cry. Instantly Whip froze, hoping that her body would adjust to his presence if he didn’t move.
Then he felt the secret, deep pulses within Shannon and knew that she was transfixed by pleasure rather than pain. With a hoarse sound he began moving, no longer fighting the dark, elemental passion that called to him from her body. He drove into her tight satin depths, felt the honeyed kisses of her climax licking over him, and pulled her hips even more tightly against him.
Whip’s last thought was that he hoped Shannon meant what she had said about wanting everything he had to give, because he had just discovered it was too late for him to hold back anything at all. Life had become a hot, radiant darkness with neither beginning nor end; and its heartbeat was the hard, silken pulses of his release spilling into her welcoming body.
19
Reno rode up to Shannon’s cabin in a blaze of summer heat that made the snowstorm of three days ago seem impossible. Pearly wisps of clouds trailed from the highest peaks. The rest of the sky was as clear and blue as Shannon’s eyes. The smell of evergreens and meadow grass gave the air an extraordinary savor.
But whatever birdsongs the meadow and forest might have had to offer were being drowned out by Prettyface’s savage barking.
«That’s enough, Prettyface!» Whip said, walking out of the cabin. «Reno is a friend. Friend!»
Prettyface didn’t think so, but he subsided into snarls and then a grumbling kind of silence.
Reno’s green eyes looked at the dog with deceptive laziness. His left hand wasn’t exactly on the butt of his revolver, but it wasn’t very far away, either.
«Real sociable type,» Reno said dryly.
«He’ll warm to you,» Whip said.
«I’ll hold you to that.»
«Just don’t try to come here when I’m gone.»
«When will that be?» Reno asked coolly.
Whip didn’t answer.
Reno glanced from Prettyface to his brother, wondering if Whip was any closer to solving the problem of his conflicting passions for a distant sunrise and a pretty widow lady.
Then the cabin door opened and a woman with a walk as sultry as the summer day came toward Reno.
«Judas Priest,» Reno said beneath his breath as he dismounted in a fluid rush. «No wonder you’re between a rock and a hard place.»
Whip said nothing, simply watched Shannon with haunted, quicksilver eyes. Then he held out his hand to her and smiled gently. When she laced her fingers through his, he pulled her close, tucking her against his body.
Reno watched all of it, his brother’s tender smile and sheltering arm, Shannon’s loving blue eyes and equally
