Only 04 - Only Love

blindly raked through his hair, holding him close. She had no breath, no thought, nothing but the changing pressures andtextures of his mouth as he suckled her, shaping and hardening the nipple even more with each stab of his tongue.
    By the time Whip lifted his head, Shannon was twisting slowly beneath him and whimpering softly, feverishly. He looked at her breast, taut and glistening from his mouth, and he let out a ragged breath.
    “I’ve been around the world three times,” Whip said in a husky voice, “and I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you all shiny and proud from my loving.”
    “I—didn’t—know,” she said raggedly.
    “You’ve never been kissed like that?”
    Shannon shook her head even as she watched Whip’s mouth with shocked, curious eyes.
    “Does it matter that I’m as naive as an egg?” she whispered.
    “No,” Whip said. “Teaching you, watching you respond…it gives me a kind of pleasure I’ve never known.”
    Whip bent down to Shannon again, and again he taught her something about pleasure. She learned that it could build and build until her body was burning with a need so great she pleaded helplessly with him to end the sweet torment.
    He laughed softly and refused to be drawn closer.
    “Not yet, honey girl. There are a whole lot of ways of touching and kissing left to explore.”
    Shannon’s eyes opened in disbelief.
    Smiling, Whip raked his teeth lightly over one proud breast, then the other. Then he sheathed his teeth with his lips and tested the velvet tension of her nipple.
    Pleasure lashed Shannon, making her gasp.
    “Whip?”
    The husky voice licked over him like fire.
    “What?” he asked.
    “I can’t—take it.”
    “If I can, you can.”
    “But I’m not kissing you.”
    “Not this time. I’m way too hungry for that. Next time, though. Next time I’ll teach you how to make me sweat and shake with need of you.”
    Whip’s hands moved with the quickness that was as much a part of him as his fallen angel smile. Shannon felt the rest of her clothes sliding down her legs. Unease went through her, but far stronger was the memory of pleasure she had once known at his hands.
    “That’s what you’re going to be doing before I’m through,” Whip said in a low voice. “Sweating and shaking with need of me.”
    Slowly he ran the back of his fingers up between her legs from her ankles to the dark mahogany cloud just above her thighs. His big hands shifted, circling the top of her thighs, flexing deeply, urging her legs farther and farther apart even as he caressed them.
    Then Whip became very still but for the quickness of his breathing.
    “I thought nothing could be more beautiful than your breasts,” Whip said finally. “I was wrong.”
    Shannon followed his glance down her body and made a startled sound. She was sprawled wantonly, wholly naked to his eyes, his touch. Reflexively she moved to cover herself, but found that impossible. Whip was kneeling between her thighs, bracing them apart with his knees while he caught both of her hands in one of his own. He was holding her in a gentle, immovable vise.
    “Too late, honey girl,” he said huskily. “You set free something in me that no other woman has. I don’t know what it is, but I’m damned sure I’m going to find out.”
    One of Whip’s fingertips circled the lush flower that had opened for him. Shannon trembled and made a broken sound.
    “Tell me again that you want me,” Whip said thickly.
    As he spoke, he parted the flushed petals with two fingertips, seeking the honey within.
    “Yes,” she said huskily. “ Yes. ”
    Shannon’s hips moved as she cried out, and his fingertips knew the hot, silky kiss of her desire.
    “Honey girl,” he whispered. “God, I love feeling your pleasure.”
    She started to speak, but her breath wedged in her throat as she felt Whip’s caress slowly deepen. The feeling of having him within her even by so small a measure was as unexpected as it was extraordinary. Heat swept through her, leaving her skin flushed, sultry, exquisitely sensitive.
    But nothing was as sensitive as the flesh Whip was softly stretching even as he caressed her. Pleasure coiled relentlessly inside Shannon, twisted, redoubled, and then held her arched and quivering on a rack of need.
    Shannon moaned and moved her hips in a reflex as old as desire, seeking to draw Whip more deeply inside her body.
    Instead, Whip’s touch lessened as he forced himself to withdraw all but his