Only 04 - Only Love

her tongue. She made a small sound in response and lifted herself toward Whip’s kiss, giving her mouth to him with a hot sensual honesty that made him ache.
    Whip pushed deeper and deeper into Shannon’s sweet mouth, wanting all of her, wanting it here and now, hot and wild, burning him all the way to his soul. The sounds she made deep in her throat, the eager glide of her tongue against his, and the hungry arc of her body pressed against his erect flesh all told Whip that Shannon wanted him the same way he wanted her; hot and wild, here and now, no promises and no regrets, nothing but the driving rhythms of their bodies locked together in elemental hunger…honey and ecstasy and flames twisting together, burning.
    With a low cry Whip tore his mouth free of Shannon’s, knowing that kissing her any more was like throwing alcohol on a raging fire. But it was too late to stop the blaze that had been ignited. Already he was stretched upon a white-hot rack of desire. He was shaking, burning, control slipping from his grasp one savage heartbeat at a time.
    “God, woman,” Whip said roughly, muffling his voice against Shannon’s neck. “You’re driving me crazy.”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    “I know,” he interrupted, his voice raw and low. “My fault. I should know by now that kissing you only makes it hurt worse. But when I’m not kissing you I can’t believe that anything can hurt worse than that.”
    Shannon felt the raking shudder that went through Whip. She caught his tormented face between her hands and kissed him lightly, gently, repeatedly, wanting to take the pain and darkness from his face, from his body.
    Whip shuddered again, fighting for control.
    “Every time I look across the room and see your eyes watching me,” he said in a low, uneven voice, “I know what you’re thinking, what you’re remembering, what you’re feeling. Your eyes tell me that you would lie down and hold out your arms and give me everything I need. And I need you, Shannon. I need you until I wake up sweating and hard and aching from forehead to heels. But I can’t take you and I can’t stop wanting you and I’m on fire!”
    “Hush,” Shannon murmured between tender kisses. “It’s all right, yondering man. It’s all right. You can take me and end the aching and not have to give up the sunrise you’ve never seen.”
    Shannon’s brushing kisses, like her words, were both gentle and deeply beautiful to Whip, astark temptation and an equally stark admission of her love. He knew he should stop the words and the kisses and the promises that could not, must not, be kept.
    But Whip could no more turn away from the gentle, terrifying beauty of Shannon’s caresses than he could turn away from a sunrise softly condensing out of winter’s longest night, radiance calling his name in all the colors of love.
    “Shannon,” Whip whispered. “Honey girl. Stop. You’re tearing me apart .”
    “Then tell me what to do. I want to ease you, not hurt you more. Please, Whip. Tell me. Teach me.”
    The thought of it almost brought Whip to his knees. A bolt of violent desire transfixed his body and dragged a raw sound from deep in his chest. He closed his eyes and grappled with a kind of hunger he had never felt for a woman. Like Shannon’s words and kisses, the depth of his hunger was an unimaginable lure and a shocking warning of his own frail hold on self-control.
    “Whip?” Shannon whispered. “Please. Teach me.”
    With his last shreds of restraint, Whip reminded himself that he was in the living room of his sister’s home. It was full daylight. Willow could awaken from her nap at any time and walk into the room.
    “No,” Whip said roughly, setting Shannon abruptly away from him. “Don’t ask me. Don’t tempt me. Don’t—”
    “But you were the one who—”
    “—tell me that you would let me open those men’s trousers of yours and put my hand between your legs and feel your honey pooling in my hand like silky fire. Don’t tell me it would be all right tounfasten my pants and push all my need and my aching and my hunger deep into you. Don’t tell me you would let me take your maidenhead.”
    Shannon tried to speak but couldn’t. The thought of having Whip so much a part of her made her feel hot and cold and shaking with a need she couldn’t name.
    And Whip saw it, all of it, the hunger and the need.
    “Hell, you would beg me,” he said, “because I can make you ache as much as I do right now. I can