Only 04 - Only Love

did you camp over here instead of by the fire with me?” she asked.
    “This is close enough to hear you if you need me, and far enough that I don’t lie awake listening to you breathe, listening to you move, listening to the blankets slide over you the way I want to.”
    Shannon tried to speak but couldn’t. The look in Whip’s eyes stole her breath and made heat glitter through the center of her body.
    “You couldn’t sleep either?” she managed to whisper.
    “Passion is a two-way street. Didn’t you know?”
    She shook her head.
    Whip opened his mouth to say something about Silent John’s limitations as a lover, but thought better of it. Right now Whip didn’t want to think about Silent John.
    And he sure as hell didn’t want Shannon thinking about Silent John, either.
    “Tell me again,” Whip said almost roughly. “Tell me that you want me.”
    “Yes,” Shannon whispered. “Oh, yes. I didn’t know this kind of wanting existed.”
    Her words aroused Whip fiercely, yet gave him more self-control than he had had since he first saw Shannon’s hips swinging gently as she walked past him in Holler Creek.
    The waiting was finally over. She was going to be his lover. Nothing could stop it now.
    “It’s going to be good, honey girl,” Whip said, lowering Shannon to his bedroll. “It’s going to be so damned good.”
    “As good as before?”
    “Better.”
    “I think I’ll die of it, then.”
    Whip’s smile was as sensuous as his lips brushing over Shannon’s mouth.
    “Lie still for me,” he whispered against hermouth. “I’ve been dreaming about how it would be to undress you, look at you, touch you. Now I won’t have to live on dreams anymore.”
    A shiver that was part nervousness and part delicious anticipation went through Shannon. With half-closed eyes, she watched Whip kneel at her feet and remove her boots. He peeled away her much-darned socks and wrapped his hands around her slender feet.
    “You’re always as clean as sunshine,” Whip said.
    “The hot spring,” she said, and could say no more.
    “The Culpeppers ride by hot springs every day, and those boys are dirtier than any Comanchero.”
    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