she moaned, wanting more.
Whip felt the difference in the tension of Shannon’s body and knew that he had awakened her into ecstasy. He could feel its heat all around him and taste its sultry mystery. When he caressed her again, he sensed the rhythmic pulses deep within her.
Sweat bathed Whip from his forehead to the soles of his feet. He wanted to be within Shannon’s ecstasy so much that he felt as though he were being torn apart.
He didn’t know that he had called her name in his need, until her hands buried themselves in his hair and tugged at him, pulling him back up her body. As he moved, her hands went to his shirt, his pants, unfastening everything, seeking him blindly.
Whip captured Shannon’s hands beneath one of his own, holding them against the rigid ache of his arousal.
«Whip…?» she murmured questioningly, moving her hips, trying to capture him.
«No, honey girl. Not that way.»
«Why?» she murmured, eyes closed.
«I don’t trust myself not to get you pregnant.»
Shannon shivered and threw off the last of her sultry dreams. But reality was no less hot. She could feel the hard beating of Whip’s pulse beneath her captive hands.
«Yesterday and the day before —» she began.
«And the day before that,» Whip interrupted tautly. «Each day is closer to the time when you’re fertile.»
«But from what you said, it should be safe for at least five days, maybe more.»
Whip’s breath hissed out through his teeth.
«Should be isn’t good enough,» he said flatly. «You’re too damned addictive, honey girl. Each time I slide into you I want you more. Deeper. Hotter. Harder. I can’t trust myself to hold back long enough to protect you. Hell, I’m all but out of control right now, just thinking about how it is when we’re locked together.»
Shannon looked at the smoky silver of Whip’s eyes. They gleamed like a cat’s in the rising light of dawn. She lifted her mouth to Whip’s, tasted him and herself and passion, and let out a long, broken sigh.
«I love feeling your pleasure so deep inside me,» she said, moving slowly against him. «I love feeling the weight and strength of you. I love the feel of your hunger in my hands, in my body.»
«Shannon,» Whip whispered. «I —»
Then he could say no more, for she had moved suddenly. His hot, sensitive flesh was sliding against the entrance to her sultry core.
«I love you, Whip. Love me in the only way you can, for whatever time we have left.»
With a sound of a man in torment, Whip allowed Shannon to take him. The hot, slick ease of the joining almost undid him. He clenched his whole body, fighting for control.
Then Whip felt the butterfly wings of Shannon’s ecstasy caressing him. He cried out as the exquisite, delicate touches hurled him into a pleasure so great he could only surrender himself to it, and to the woman whose cries echoed his.
* * *
THE second time Shannon woke up, Whip was watching her with haunted gray eyes. He was fully dressed and held a rifle in his hands. Prettyface was dancing impatiently around Shannon’s bedroll, eager to be off hunting.
«I’m going up to see how Reno is doing,» Whip said tightly. «Then I’ll go with you back to the cabin.»
«And then?» Shannon asked, uneasy at what she saw in Whip’s eyes.
«Then I’ll come back and help Reno.»
«He didn’t look like he needed any help.»
«The sooner he finds gold, the safer you’ll be,» Whip said.
«Safer?»
«The sooner I leave, the less chance there is of making you pregnant,» Whip said savagely.
«I see.»
«I shouldn’t have taken you!»
«You didn’t,» she retorted. «I took you.»
Whip’s mouth flattened. «Either way, honey girl, only one of us will get pregnant.»
«Do tell.»
«I’m trying, but you aren’t listening. I can’t keep my pants fastened around you and I’m damned if I’ll be tied down, so —»
«You’ll leave as soon as you can,» Shannon interrupted, her voice as flat as the line of Whip’s mouth. Though tears stood in her eyes, her voice was steady. «Old territory, Whip. We’ve been over it fifty times by now. Tell me something I don’t know.»
«Be ready to leave by the time the sun is full overhead,» Whip said.
He turned and stalked off. Prettyface followed, only to be sent back to Shannon with a curt word.
Whip took the trail to Rifle Sight claim with long, punishing strides. He hoped it would take the starch out of his relentless hunger for the girl with autumn hair and eyes as deep as the mountain sky.
But he knew it wouldn’t.
Nothing could compete with Shannon except the sunrise he hadn’t seen — the vast distance calling his name, promising him the freedom of the world and the mysteries of a thousand Edens.
And Whip had just thought of a way to be certain of keeping that promise.
By the time Whip reached the claim, he was somewhat calmer. Even so, Reno gave his brother a wary look when he saw Whip waiting for him just beyond the entrance to the mine. The look in Whip’s eyes would have done credit to a trapped wolf.
«Lose something?» Reno asked mildly.
«No. I found it.»
Reno’s green eyes asked a silent question.
«Gold,» Whip said succinctly.
«Where?»
«In your corral.»
«If I wait long enough, I suppose I’ll hear something that makes sense,» Reno said.
«How much chance do you think there is of finding gold on Silent John’s claims?»
«Real gold? The kind that buys bacon and beans and freedom for dumb yondering men?»
«Yes,» Whip said savagely.
«About a snowball’s chance in hell.»
«That much?» Whip retorted. «I would have put the odds a lot lower, myself.»
Reno smiled despite his irritation with his thickheaded brother.
«I was trying to let you down easy,» Reno said.
«Truth is, horseshit has more gold in it than this mine.»
Whip gave a crack of laughter that was almost painful.
«Yeah, that’s what I thought,» Whip said. «Yet Shannon talked about Silent John bringing pieces of ore down the mountain that were so rotten with gold they came apart in your hands.»
«Then Silent John must have had God’s own claim. But it isn’t on Avalanche Creek,» Reno added with certainty.
«Shannon doesn’t know that.»
«She will when I tell her.»
«Don’t.» Whip’s voice was curt, final.
Reno waited.
«Do you still have nuggets and dust stashed around from your old claims?» Whip asked.
Reno nodded.
«Dig up one of those ingots of Spanish gold Eve gave me,» Whip said. «Swap it for nuggets and dust.»
«Hold it. I don’t have that much loose stuff.»
«Make up the difference with my gold. Shave it or melt it and pour it into the dust or put dynamite under it
