Shannon made a ragged sound as she felt Whip’s palm nestling deeper and deeper between her legs, rubbing over her while pleasure coiled and coiled and coiled until it burst and spilled hotly over his caressing hand.

«I didn’t mean — I’m sorry — I don’t — I can’t — help it —» Shannon said jerkily.

«Help what?»

His hand moved and satin fire pooled again in his palm.

Shannon moaned as pleasure coiled even more deeply for having known just a small release.

«That,» she said raggedly.

Whip smiled despite the need raking him. He stroked Shannon again, pressing against the satin knot that stood out from her lush flesh. She shivered and heat licked over him in sultry caress.

«That,» Whip said huskily, «is the purest kind of honey.»

Shannon looked down and saw Whip’s hand moving inside her loose trousers, between her legs, touching her as she had never been touched.

«I shouldn’t — let you.»

«We’re just playing, honey girl. Men and women do this all the time. It’s a way of finding out if you want to play for real.»

Slick fingertips circled the knot Whip had drawn from Shannon’s softness. Instantly she stiffened and shuddered and cried out with surprise.

«Am I hurting you?» Whip asked.

«No,» she said, her voice ragged. «It feels — strange.»

«Strange bad or strange good?»

As Whip asked, he plucked and felt the hot rush of Shannon’s response spilling over his hand.

«Your body says that it feels good,» he said, biting her neck. «Damned good.»

Shannon’s only answer was a whimper and a jerk of her hips with each deft motion of his hand. Pressure coiled and coiled and coiled, driving her toward something she had never known.

«Whip! I can’t — stop! Stop! I’m scared!»

«It’s all right, honey girl. You’re nearly there. Lie back against me and let me take you the rest of the way.»

Shannon tried to answer, but Whip was caressing the lush, soft flesh between her legs. She whimpered as pleasure clenched tightly, summoned by his fingers and the pressure of his teeth at the nape of her neck. Helplessly her hips rocked and lifted, seeking something she couldn’t name.

Whip knew what Shannon sought. He circled the knot of her passion, caressing her with fingers slick from her wild response. He heard her whimpers come more quickly, felt the tension drawing her body until it was rigid, shaking.

Shannon’s breath fragmented over Whip’s name and she convulsed with a pleasure that was beyond anything she had eve imagined. Helpless in the grip of ecstasy, she called his name again and again.

It took an act of will for Whip to stop caressing the honey and silk between Shannon’s legs. He wanted to sheathe himself in the fire of her body, to feel her softness caress him with every sweet surge of her release.

And then he wanted to spend himself in her fire until he couldn’t remember what it was like to go hungry, aching with each breath, each heartbeat.

Shannon made a broken sound and moved against his hand. Heat pulsed between their skin. The air beneath the tarpaulin was steamy, mysterious, exciting beyond anything Whip had ever known.

«You’re everything your walk hinted you were,» he said roughly. «Honey and fire.»

Whip set his jaw against the temptation offered by the girl lying so seductively between his legs, her body open to his hand. Slowly, feeling as though he were tearing off his own skin, he forced himself to release the sultry, honeyed flesh.

He wasn’t nearly so slow about getting out from under the steamy intimacy of the tarpaulin. A few swift, savage motions of his hands tucked the tarpaulin around Shannon, protecting her from the violent weather.

«Stay here until the storm’s over,» Whip said.

«What about you?» asked a muffled voice.

«I’m hot enough to burn ice.»

Hail beat on Whip’s body as he went to check on the horses. Grimly he hoped it would put out the fire.

It didn’t.

10

«Any better luck?» Shannon asked, looking up from the campfire.

«Same as yesterday,» Whip said, bending to scratch Prettyface’s ears.

Afraid that Whip would see her fear, Shannon looked away from him to Grizzly Meadow where the two horses and the mule were grazing, their tails lazily swatting flies. Golden, slanting light spilled over the land, infusing it with the first rush of true summer heat.

Six days.

For six days Whip had gone up to the Rifle Sight claim while she stayed in the camp. For six days he had hammered with pickax and determination on the stone shoulder of the mountain.

For six days all Whip had found was the sweat dripping down his nose.

«Tomorrow,» Shannon said. «It will be better tomorrow. Or the day after.»

Whip didn’t say anything. He simply slid his big hand under Prettyface’s chin and rubbed until the dog’s eyes glazed over with pleasure.

When Shannon turned back to Whip, she saw the dark smudges beneath his eyes and the trails perspiration had made through the rock dust coating his entire body. Each afternoon she washed in a basin and rinsed in the stream before he came back. Then she heated more water for Whip’s bath. Each night she washed his clothes, and the following day they came back to her stiff with sweat and grit.

Whip had protested that he could work in dirty clothes. Shannon had simply shaken her head and scrubbed harder. It was all she could do to make his work easier. She wished she could do more.

«You should take a day off,» Shannon said softly. «You look tired. You work too hard. All day. Every day. You hardly even take time to eat.»

«It makes me sleep well at night.»

That was true, as far as it went. But it said nothing about how often Whip woke up during the night, sweating from forehead to heels, aching, his body rigid with a kind of hunger he had never known.

Whip wondered if Shannon felt the same.

He wondered, but he didn’t ask. Six days ago he had shown her what passion was all about. If she didn’t want more, he wasn’t going to push himself on her.

It was Shannon’s turn to do the asking, and to do it plainly. Blushes and longing looks were for virgins who didn’t know what they were asking for, much less how to ask for it. Pretty widows who had just had their first taste of pleasure knew enough about men and sex to recognize the signs of male hunger.

«Sit down on that log,» Shannon said. «I heated enough water so that you could take a basin bath.»

«Are you saying I smell like old Razorback?»

Shannon ducked her head and looked at Whip from beneath her eyelashes, trying to decide if he was teasing her or simply asking a question. Since the hailstorm, her relationship with Whip had changed in ways she didn’t understand. He rarely teased her anymore.

And he never kissed her, held her, caressed her until the world came apart around her and she cried out with pleasure.

«You always smell good to me,» Shannon said hesitantly. «I just know that rock dust is uncomfortable.»

«Another thing Silent John told you?»

She shook her head. «I learned it the same way you did, at the dumb end of a pickax.»

Whip’s mouth opened but no words came out. He simply stared at Shannon, unable to believe that her slender arms had ever swung a pickax.

«Well, don’t look so shocked,» Shannon said. «I’m not nearly as helpless as you think.»

He grunted. «You’re not nearly as skillful asyouthink.»

«I can’t swing an ax or a pick like you,» she said tartly, «but I can get a job done if I stay with it, and getting the job done is what matters.»

With that, Shannon turned back to the fire. Irritation prickled through her. It had become a common sensation in the past few days. She was forever balanced on the razor edge of her temper…and she didn’t know why.

«Did you find any gold while you were swinging that pick?» Whip asked Shannon.

«No, but I was working a landslide that covered most of the Chute. Rifle Sight is richer.»

«According to Silent John.»

«I’ve seen some of the ore he brought back,» Shannon said. «There was so much gold in the quartz that the chunks came apart in your hands. He called it jewelry rock.»

«He must have cleaned out that vein. From what I’ve seen, you could work all summer in Rifle Sight and not find enough gold to pay for your supplies.»

Fear breathed coolly down Shannon’s spine. The gold claims were her freedom. Without them, she was at the mercy of strangers.

«The gold is there,» she said tightly.

Whip grunted.

From the corner of her eyes, Shannon watched Whip stretch his arms and shoulders, loosening muscles drawn tight from hour after hour of hard labor. The shirt he wore was dark with sweat, and it clung to every powerful line of his body.

Lord, but that is one beautiful man, Shannon thought. Just looking at him makes me all edgy and short of breath. When I think of him touching me again…

A delicious sensation cascaded through Shannon’s body at the memory of what had happened beneath the tarpaulin. She hadn’t imagined that pleasure like that existed short of paradise.

At first the experience had left her feeling shy with Whip. The fact that he hadn’t spoken about it in any way since then, or even so much as touched her in passing, had only increased her shyness.

And her irritation.

She didn’t understand what had happened when Whip touched her so intimately. She only knew that she wanted it to happen again. Soon.

But obviously Whip didn’t feel the same way. He hadn’t touched her.

Maybe I should try touching him.

«Would you like me to wash your hair?» Shannon asked. «I know how awkward it is to do in a basin.»

The thought of how good her fingers would feel rubbing over his scalp made Whip’s body tighten despite the punishing hours of labor he had just finished. His own relentless sexual response to Shannon made his mouth flatten into a harsh line. He didn’t like wanting a woman to the point that his body wasn’t his own anymore, no matter how hard he worked to exhaust himself.

«No,» Whip said curtly. «I’ve managed my whole grown life without a handmaid. No point in taking up such foolishness now.»

«Well, do go and eat some wasps,» Shannon retorted. «It will make your tongue seem sweet by comparison.»

Whip grabbed the basin of hot water and stalked off toward a nearby grove of aspen trees, where there was an icy creek to use for rinsing off soap. Prettyface followed, leaping and prancing like a puppy. He loved playing tag with shots of water from Whip’s quick hands.

«That’s it, Prettyface,» Shannon called after them. «Desert me! Go follow the yondering man who smiles like a fallen angel and has a temper fully suited to hell!»

Both males ignored Shannon.

With a frustrated sound, she turned back to camp, looking for something to vent her irritability on. All that came to hand was the pickax leaning against the log next to her shotgun.

«I’m not mad enough to hammer stone…yet,» she muttered.

She tested the water in the bucket, which was hanging from a cast-iron tripod over the fire. The water was lukewarm. Barely.

«Go ahead, take all day to heat up,» Shannon muttered. «I’ve got nothing better to do than stand around sticking my finger in cold water.»

She hovered around the campfire, feeding fuel into it, testing the water, and wondering if fire burned colder in the high mountains. Surely it didn’t take this long to heat water at the cabin.

«I’ve got the hot spring at the cabin,» Shannon reminded herself. «It takes no time at all to get a bucket of hot water for washing clothes.»

Sighing, Shannon tested the water for the fifteenth time. It was passably warm.

«Finally. Now I can do the wash. Thunder and blazes, I can see why folks run around in dirty clothes a Comanchero would be ashamed to wear. Heating water for baths and such could make a body crazy.»

Just as Shannon bent to take the bucket from the tripod, Prettyface broke into a savage kind of barking that was more a snarling howl of rage than anything else.

A shot rang out.

Water sloshed as Shannon slammed the bucket handle back over the tripod and ran for the shotgun. The sound of another shot overwhelmed the dog’s furious sounds.

Whip’s shout came as Shannon broke into a run, heading for the aspen thicket. As she ran, she understood what her ears had been trying to tell her — the «shots» she was hearing were the sounds of a bullwhip at work, not a rifle.