Only 04 - Only Love

fingertips.
    “Not yet,” Whip said, his voice hoarse with fierce restraint. “You’re not ready. You’re so tight, honey girl. And I’m not as small as your husbandwas. We’ll have to take this slow and gentle for a little longer. Like this.”
    Shannon moaned as pressure and pleasure built inside her once more, pushing her toward the shivering culmination she had known once before at Whip’s hands. Yet before she could touch that sweet ecstasy, he began withdrawing again, leaving her aching, restless. Then he returned, bringing pleasure with him, a hot teasing that promised heaven and delivered only a bittersweet kind of hell.
    Sweating, shaking, Shannon begged him to end her torment. Whip closed his eyes as sweat broke over his whole body. He couldn’t look at her, touch her, hear her pleas, and not take her.
    “Hold on, honey girl,” he said hoarsely. “Just a little more. You’re so damned tight. And so hot. Just a little deeper and—”
    Whip’s words stopped as though cut by an ax. He stared at Shannon in fury and disbelief.
    “ You’re a virgin. ”
    Shannon simply looked at him, not understanding what had made him so angry.
    Whip shot to his feet and stood over Shannon.
    “Naïve, huh?” he said savagely. “Ha! You’re naïve like a fox, pretty little window lady. You figured I would give you a wedding ring if you could tease me into taking your maidenhood.”
    Dazed, trembling, Shannon understood only that the culmination she desperately needed had been yanked away from her without warning. She wanted to weep and scream and rail at Whip, but she had no breath.
    Whip didn’t have the same problem with breathing. And talking. He had never been morefurious—or more frustrated—in his entire wandering life.
    “What kind of twisted marriage did you have with that old man-hunter?” Whip demanded.
    “I don’t understand,” she said shakily.
    “The hell you don’t. Silent John was a piss-poor gold prospector, but he was first-class when it came to tracking down men and killing them where he found them, then collecting rewards for their sorry hides.”
    Shock widened Shannon’s eyes.
    “He never said—” she began.
    “Hell,” Whip interrupted savagely. “He never said anything, right? Silent John. Silent as a tombstone. And that was what some folks called him. Tombstone John. He earned that moniker, too.”
    Whip’s glance raked Shannon from forehead to heels. Shame flooded her as she looked at her own nakedness. Her groping fingers found her shirt. She pulled it on and fastened it with shaking hands.
    “That man must have had ice water in his veins,” Whip said through clenched teeth, watching as Shannon’s beautiful breasts vanished beneath worn, faded fabric. “He had you for seven years and barely touched you.”
    “He never touched me.”
    “Never?” Whip laughed harshly, not believing a word of it. “Even an old killer like him must have liked undressing you and—”
    “Silent John was my great-uncle!” Shannon cried, cutting across Whip’s words. “He never touched me! Not ever! Not a handshake when I brought down my first deer. Not a quick tug on my braids when he passed my chair. Not even a pat on the head when I learned to make biscuitsthe way he liked. Nobody has touched me in a tender way since Mama died!”
    Blindly Shannon pulled one of Whip’s blankets over her hips, shielding her nakedness from him.
    “And then you cam with your hungry eyes and fallen angel smile and gently hands,” she whispered.
    Shannon closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of Whip’s face hard with anger and contempt.
    “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?” Whip asked, his voice flat.
    “I did.”
    “Horseshit.”
    “Go to hell, yondering man. Go Soon. ”
    Whip looked at the girl huddled in a crookedly buttoned shirt with part of his bedroll drawn up over her hips. There was nothing of the hot temptress about her now. She wasn’t pleading for his mouth, his hands, his body locked with hers in primal ecstasy.
    Whip drew a quick, sawing breath and fought for self-control. Shannon didn’t know what she was missing.
    But, by God, he did.
    “When did you tell me you were a virgin?” Whip asked less harshly.
    “When we were talking about me not having a baby.”
    He thought about it, frowned, and shook his head.
    “The subject of virginity didn’t come up,” Whip said.
    Shannon threw him a glittering glance. Her eyes were as brilliant as sapphires.
    And