Only 04 - Only Love

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
    R ENO 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 loving smile. But most telling of all to Reno was their physical ease with one another.
    Shannon and Whip had become lovers. Reno had no doubt of it. If the radiance of Shannon’s eyes hadn’t told Reno, the shadows in Whip’s would have.
    Reno touched the rim of his hat to Shannon in silent greeting.
    “Shannon,” Whip said, “this is my brother Matt Moran, but we all call him Reno. Reno, this is Shannon Conner Smith.”
    My woman.
    Though the words weren’t said aloud, Reno sensed them very clearly.
    So did Shannon. Red tinged her cheekbones for a few moments. She held out her hand and searched Reno’s vivid green eyes anxiously, wondering if he would condemn her.
    Reno’s hard fingers lifted Shannon’s hand to hislips. He bowed as elegantly as though he were in a Paris ballroom rather than in a wild