Slowly Whip eased beneath the blankets, breathing deeply of warm, woman-scented air.

I would love to kiss those sweet breasts, but I shouldn’t wake her.

Even as Whip told himself that Shannon needed sleep more than she needed loving, his hands were moving over her old, painfully clean shirt.

Silk and lace lay warmly beneath, shocking in their femininity after the man’s shirt.

What the hell…! Where did she get this?

Long fingers untied silk bows one by one. But it was Whip’s mouth rather than his hands that moved the silk aside, discovering the even softer silk of Shannon’s skin.

Shannon murmured and sighed and shifted, lifting herself to his kisses.

Whip hesitated and asked very softly. «Shannon?»

Her only answer was a sigh. Except for the subtle tightening of her nipples beneath his lips, her body was still completely relaxed, trusting him in a way no one ever had.

Even himself.

Honey girl, how am I going to live without you?

His tongue touched the tip of each breast. The velvety hardness of Shannon’s nipples teased his lips, silently asking for another kind of caress. He gave it to her softly, delicately, holding her within his warmth even as he tugged her nipples to hard peaks with his mouth.

Shannon’s body moved languidly, held between the heat of Whip’s caresses and the growing heat of her dreams.

Don’t wake up yet, sweet woman. Let me taste your dreams.

Long fingers found and unfastened Shannon’s pants, pushing the loose fabric down her legs and over her feet. She stirred restlessly, then calmed when Whip held her close.

«It’s just me, honey girl,» he murmured against her ear.

Shannon made a sleepy sound and cuddled even more closely against Whip.

He lay very still, trying to slow the savage hammering of his heart that had begun when his fingers encountered the silky underwear. He wanted to look at Shannon wearing only that bit of softness and lace. He wanted it until sweat gathered in the small of his back.

But he wanted to touch her sleeping dreams even more.

Whip knew if he cast off the covers so that the swelling light of dawn could bathe Shannon, she would awaken. So he held her until she lay relaxed in his arms once more. Then he eased slowly down her body beneath the blankets, his mouth following the opening in the chemise, tracing the margin between silk underwear and satin skin.

Shannon stirred as heat flushed her body, a seething warmth that was summoned by Whip’s slow, thorough loving. She sighed and her hips moved in the languid rhythms of his caresses.

Her sensuous response consumed Whip as softly and completely as he was consuming her. The world became infused with heat and the elemental perfume of a woman’s desire.

Honey girl, Whip groaned silently. God, I could die trying to get enough of you.

A tiny, shuddering sound escaped Shannon’s lips. It was Whip’s name, called as much in dream as in waking.

He answered with a silky movement of his mouth and her name whispered into the seething darkness beneath the blankets.

For a time Shannon could find no difference between her dream and the hot awakening that flushed her skin. Then pleasure speared softly through her, stopping her breath. When the sweet, pulsing sensations passed, she moaned, wanting more.

Whip felt the difference in the tension of Shannon’s body and knew that he had awakened her into ecstasy. He could feel its heat all around him and taste its sultry mystery. When he caressed her again, he sensed the rhythmic pulses deep within her.

Sweat bathed Whip from his forehead to the soles of his feet. He wanted to be within Shannon’s ecstasy so much that he felt as though he were being torn apart.

He didn’t know that he had called her name in his need, until her hands buried themselves in his hair and tugged at him, pulling him back up her body. As he moved, her hands went to his shirt, his pants, unfastening everything, seeking him blindly.

Whip captured Shannon’s hands beneath one of his own, holding them against the rigid ache of his arousal.

«Whip…?» she murmured questioningly, moving her hips, trying to capture him.

«No, honey girl. Not that way.»

«Why?» she murmured, eyes closed.

«I don’t trust myself not to get you pregnant.»

Shannon shivered and threw off the last of her sultry dreams. But reality was no less hot. She could feel the hard beating of Whip’s pulse beneath her captive hands.

«Yesterday and the day before —» she began.

«And the day before that,» Whip interrupted tautly. «Each day is closer to the time when you’re fertile.»

«But from what you said, it should be safe for at least five days, maybe more.»

Whip’s breath hissed out through his teeth.

«Should be isn’t good enough,» he said flatly. «You’re too damned addictive, honey girl. Each time I slide into you I want you more. Deeper. Hotter. Harder. I can’t trust myself to hold back long enough to protect you. Hell, I’m all but out of control right now, just thinking about how it is when we’re locked together.»

Shannon looked at the smoky silver of Whip’s eyes. They gleamed like a cat’s in the rising light of dawn. She lifted her mouth to Whip’s, tasted him and herself and passion, and let out a long, broken sigh.

«I love feeling your pleasure so deep inside me,» she said, moving slowly against him. «I love feeling the weight and strength of you. I love the feel of your hunger in my hands, in my body.»

«Shannon,» Whip whispered. «I —»

Then he could say no more, for she had moved suddenly. His hot, sensitive flesh was sliding against the entrance to her sultry core.

«I love you, Whip. Love me in the only way you can, for whatever time we have left.»

With a sound of a man in torment, Whip allowed Shannon to take him. The hot, slick ease of the joining almost undid him. He clenched his whole body, fighting for control.

Then Whip felt the butterfly wings of Shannon’s ecstasy caressing him. He cried out as the exquisite, delicate touches hurled him into a pleasure so great he could only surrender himself to it, and to the woman whose cries echoed his.

* * *

THE second time Shannon woke up, Whip was watching her with haunted gray eyes. He was fully dressed and held a rifle in his hands. Prettyface was dancing impatiently around Shannon’s bedroll, eager to be off hunting.

«I’m going up to see how Reno is doing,» Whip said tightly. «Then I’ll go with you back to the cabin.»

«And then?» Shannon asked, uneasy at what she saw in Whip’s eyes.

«Then I’ll come back and help Reno.»

«He didn’t look like he needed any help.»

«The sooner he finds gold, the safer you’ll be,» Whip said.

«Safer?»

«The sooner I leave, the less chance there is of making you pregnant,» Whip said savagely.

«I see.»

«I shouldn’t have taken you!»

«You didn’t,» she retorted. «I took you.»

Whip’s mouth flattened. «Either way, honey girl, only one of us will get pregnant.»

«Do tell.»

«I’m trying, but you aren’t listening. I can’t keep my pants fastened around you and I’m damned if I’ll be tied down, so —»

«You’ll leave as soon as you can,» Shannon interrupted, her voice as flat as the line of Whip’s mouth. Though tears stood in her eyes, her voice was steady. «Old territory, Whip. We’ve been over it fifty times by now. Tell me something I don’t know.»

«Be ready to leave by the time the sun is full overhead,» Whip said.

He turned and stalked off. Prettyface followed, only to be sent back to Shannon with a curt word.

Whip took the trail to Rifle Sight claim with long, punishing strides. He hoped it would take the starch out of his relentless hunger for the girl with autumn hair and eyes as deep as the mountain sky.

But he knew it wouldn’t.

Nothing could compete with Shannon except the sunrise he hadn’t seen — the vast distance calling his name, promising him the freedom of the world and the mysteries of a thousand Edens.