by Lora Leigh
The taste of the kiss was as erotic as hell. It was the feel of the kiss, his hand pushing beneath her clothes, the feel of his erection beneath her rear, his tongue stroking against hers. Sensual, sexual. The feel of his body heating against hers, the feel of his heart racing in his chest, his heavy breathing, the deep, dark groan of male need.
It all combined and mesmerized her even before the mating hormone sizzled into her system. She was captivated, arching to him, aching for him even before the sizzle and the heated flames of mating heat began to overtake her.
And then things really got interesting.
SEVEN
Jessica wasn’t certain how they made it into the house. J She remembered him carrying her, his lips on hers, deep, desperate kisses filled with the spicy taste of the mating hormone and the even hotter hunger that had been flaring between them since the day they met.
Love at first sight. And second. And third. And on and on. As though a part of her had known that they were meant to be together, that they were meant for this moment.
She didn’t see much of the house. There were stairs. Most of the cabins were single story; this one was two. The upper story was a loft, she thought. In the center of it was a huge bed covered with a dark, quilted spread. A thick, heavy blanket that cushioned her back as he laid her against it.
She could look at the house later, she told herself. Hopefully much later.
Lying back, she watched as he rose from the bed, his expression dark and drawn with lust as he got to his feet.
His boots were the first to go. He reach down, pulled them off, one after the other, and never took his eyes from her.
Golden eyes locked with hers, eyes filled with promise and passion.
His shirt came next. The buttons were undone quickly, efficiently, revealing his impressive chest as Jessica felt her heart rate increase.
Her entire body was burning now. That was the mating hormone, that burn just under her flesh that only his touch, his kiss, would ease. It was a touch and a kiss that would soon be hers. All hers.
Her heart raced harder at the thought. Blood pounded, rushed through her veins, surging through her system with tidal force as it spread the mating hormone through her system.
When his fingers went to the heavy leather belt around his pants, loosening it before pulling at the metal buttons of his jeans, she swore she lost the ability to breathe for long, precious seconds.
He pushed the denim past his hips, working it over the thick, heavy erection jutting out from his body. The wide crest of the dark shaft glistened damply as pre-come pearled at the tip. The flared head throbbed, spilled more of the dampness and had her lifting her hand as she rose from the bed.
The urge to touch him, to taste him, was nearly overwhelming. She was going to blame it on the mating heat, though she knew the fantasies that had sizzled through her veins for more than a year.
This was one of the fantasies.
There was no need to be shy. No need to draw back or to hold back. He belonged to her now, just as she belonged to him. She could touch him, could taste him as she pleased.
And this would so please her.
“Jesus! Jess.” His hands speared into her hair as her tongue swiped over the head.
The same spicy heat that filled his kiss was a subtle flavor on his cock. It exploded over her tongue as a little moan passed her lips, causing his hips to jerk at the feel of the sound against his cock.
His fingers tightened in her hair as his thighs bunched and tightened while her tongue licked and laved over the heavy crest.
She felt intoxicated, a feeling she knew couldn’t yet be attributed to the mating heat. Later, perhaps, but not right now. Not yet.
Right now, it was her. Her need, her hunger, her fantasies, and she wanted every last second of them to last forever.
Parting her lips, she enveloped the engorged head, her tongue stroking over the heated flesh as she felt the spill of his pre-come against her tongue.
Lubricating and heated, the fall of liquid had a purpose, and it wasn’t just the taste of the hormone or its arousing qualities.
Breed males were very well endowed, especially in the width department. The pre-come that spilled from them had a special hormone, one that relaxed and eased delicate feminine tissue during mating heat to ensure that there was no pain.
“God, Jess. Enough.” He pulled her away just when she was beginning to really enjoy the taste, the feel of him.
Eyes narrowed, she rose more fully to her knees, gripped the hem of her sweater and undershirt and pulled them free before tossing them to the floor.
She would have teased him further, but before she had time he pushed her back to the bed, gripped one leg and quickly unlaced a boot before drawing it from her. The second followed just as efficiently.
She hadn’t drawn a breath before his hands were at the snap and zip of her jeans. Those were peeled down her legs within seconds, leaving her naked before him.
She felt the flush that suffused her body as his gaze roved over her. From her face to the tips of her toes, he stared at her as though he could consume her.
Hawke had never seen anything, anyone, as lovely as Jessica. Slender and compact, her breasts full and swollen, dark pink nipples tight and hard.
Like candy he thought. Her nipples looked like the sweetest candy.
Letting his gaze move lower, he tracked the pale perfection of her rounded belly, the smooth, pale thighs sprinkled with freckles and then the sweet, lush mound between them.
Her clit peaked out from the swollen, glistening folds. Throbbing and damp, it tempted his lips, his tongue. He’d dreamed of tasting her, of burying his lips between her legs and taking her with his tongue.
The realization that she was finally his, finally here for him to pleasure, had his cock throbbing, the rich essence of his pre-come dampening the shaft as he lowered his body alongside hers.
God, he wanted to touch her all at once. Taste her all at once. His tongue licked over her nipples before he drew one into his mouth and sucked at it hungrily. The tight little bud grew harder, tighter, hotter between his lips before he moved to the other. Its reaction was the same.
He loved them. He suckled at them with delicate sips of his lips, then with the rougher draws of his mouth. One at a time, pleasuring them as she writhed beneath him, her hands spearing into his hair, tightening in the strands as though to hold him to her.
As he drew back, gazing down at the tightened nipples, the sweet, exotic scent of her pussy drew his attention down her body. The lightest layer of syrup glistened against the soft curls that covered her mound, gleaming like dew and tempting his taste buds.
A hard groan left his lips as his head lowered. His lips whispered down her body and his tongue licked over her stomach as he urged her higher onto the bed and moved between her thighs.
She was abandoned, losing herself to him with a trust and innate passion that at once humbled him and left him shaking with lust.
Pressing her legs farther apart, he watched her face as he let his tongue lick through the narrow slit of her pussy. The taste of her ambrosia. It was sweet and wild, causing him to groan with a rumbled growl at the intoxicating essence.
She was like nothing he had ever tasted before. A narcotic he couldn’t deny himself. A sweet, powerful drug. Drawing his tongue through the rich juices, he let it circle the hard little nub of her clit. He licked over it, flicking his tongue against it as she jerked and shuddered in pleasure beneath him.
Shattered little moans tore from her lips as she watched him. Her gaze was heavy lidded, her blue eyes almost neon as she panted for air beneath the lash of his tongue.
How long he had waited for her, he thought. And it was worth every agonizing month. It was worth the endless nights to have her now, wet and wild beneath him as he tasted her.
Drawing the tight little bud of her clit into his mouth, he sucked it gently, firmly. She bucked beneath the caress, her hips arching as her hands burie
d in his hair again.
With his hands beneath her knees he urged her legs higher, groaning in pleasure when her small feet rested against his shoulders. It left her open to him, defenseless. His tongue moved lower, circled the fluttering, snug entrance to her pussy before he tunneled inside it with a hard, hungry thrust.
Her juices spilled against his tongue as the tender muscles of her pussy clenched around the invader. A high, desperate cry spilled from her lips and he forced himself to remain still, just for a second, just until the impending orgasm eased inside her.
Then he licked her. With his tongue working slow and easy inside the gripping opening, he licked at the sweetness, drew ragged cries from her lips and tasted paradise.
The more he had of her, the more he wanted. As she began to tighten, to burn for orgasm, he pushed her higher, harder. His tongue thrust inside her as his fingers gripped her rear, parting the curves as his fingers slid inside the narrow crevice and found the tiny, sensitive entrance there.
He didn’t breach it. He massaged it, rubbed it. His tongue fucked inside her pussy with lightning strokes as he stimulated the nerve-laden area beyond.
Within seconds he felt her orgasm blooming. Her body tightened. High, tight little cries tore from her lips and then she jerked, shuddered, and he felt her explode.
Jessica swore she was dying. Pleasure exploded inside her in a wave of light and heat that rushed through her mind and over her nerve endings to detonate in her womb. Like fingers of electric energy it sped through her system, throwing her into the burning center of a sun that she couldn’t escape, that exploded on and on until she felt as though she were no more than fragments drifting on a wild wind.
And still, Hawke wasn’t finished. As she fought to catch her breath his lips lifted from her sex and he was dragging his body along hers as her legs fell to his hips.
The head of his cock tucked against the tender opening of her pussy as a whimper of impending ecstasy passed her lips.
“Sweet Jess,” he groaned as he bent above her, his lips feathering over hers as the head of his cock pressed inside her. “Sweet love. Sweet mate.” The last words seemed torn from him as the head of his erection forged inside her, drawing a hard, surprised cry from her lips.
It was pleasure and pain. A mix of sensations so violent, so lightning swift, that her nails dug into his shoulders as she fought to make sense of them.
“Hawke.” There was a hint of fear. She heard it in her voice, felt it edge at her mind. She had never experienced anything like this. She had never known that pleasure could be so intense, so white hot.
“Hold on to me, baby.” His lips lifted from hers after a sweet, gentle kiss. “Just hold on. It’s going to be okay.”
It would be okay.
She felt his lips move to her neck. There, he kissed, licked, rasped his teeth against the sensitive flesh and drove her insane with the sensations racing through her.
As he pleasured her there, his cock began to work inside her. Back and forth, slow and easy, burying inside her until he came to the shield of virginity that she had never quite been able to rid herself of.
She heard the growl at her neck a second before he drew back, the tip of his cock pausing at the tight entrance of her sex before he surged inside.
Jessica screamed. Pleasure and pain erupted inside her and he broke that last veil of innocence. Still, he wasn’t fully inside her. He stroked back, drove forward. The wide crest of his cock caressed nerve endings so sensitive, so responsive, that she couldn’t help but arch her hips, driving him deeper even as a lance of fire streaked up her spine.
It was so good. Oh God, nothing had ever been as good as this. So hot. So much pleasure.
She was screaming out his name, trying to scream, the word was shattered, throttled as she fought to breathe, to accept the heavy, stiff flesh he was penetrating her with.
Writhing beneath him, she cried out, clenched her thighs on his hips and then threw her head back with a hard, silent cry as he finally thrust fully inside her.
“Sweet Jess.” His groan was a harsh growl. “My sweet Jess. My mate.”
He was moving then. Hard, heavy thrusts tunneled inside her, parting her, stretching her until she burned, ached and yet begged for more. Nothing seemed enough. She wanted him harder, faster. She wanted his teeth raking her neck more, she wanted air to breathe and she wanted to die in his arms, just like this, immersed forever in pleasure.
The deep, driving strokes were making her insane. Her orgasm was so close she could feel it, ached to dive into it. Her legs tightened around his thrusting hips as he fucked inside her with heavy shafting strokes.
Each desperate thrust pushed her higher, pushed her harder, until Jess swore she met the sun. She exploded with such an intensity of ecstasy that when his teeth pierced her shoulder and she felt him thrust inside her with one last hard, deep stroke, she screamed.
When she felt her pussy stretching more, felt the explosion of his semen inside her and the thick, hard swelling in the middle of his cock, she forgot the meaning of rapture. She didn’t just orgasm; she became pleasure.
The rush of sensations that tore through her nerve endings was pure ecstasy. They were white hot, electrical, charged with such feeling, so much pleasure, that Jess felt as though she were flying beyond herself, sinking into an ocean of sensation that had no beginning and no end.
She knew what it was. The swelling in the middle of his cock, locking him inside her, positioning the head of his erection flush against her womb, ensuring the maximum chance of his seed spilling to fertile ground.
Knowing what it was and experiencing it were two different things. Experiencing it was fear, ecstasy, a rush of rapturous pleasure. A bonding. A melding of emotion, sensation and knowledge.
She belonged to him, just as he was hers. She had known that before. But now . . . Now Jess felt it clear to her soul. And now she knew why Hawke had warned her that there was no going back. It wasn’t just the mating heat. It was this. A pleasure that would become addictive. A need she would never escape. A man she would love until her dying breath.
EIGHT
Hours and one hormone capsule later, Jessica took a deep breath before smoothing her hands over her hips, luxuriating in the feel of the lightweight dark blue velvet dress she had chosen for the Christmas Eve party.
The long, fluid lines of the garment flowed to the tips of the matching high heels she wore and the color brought out the blue in her eyes.
She piled her hair on her head, held it in place with clips that glittered with crystal gems and applied a light application of makeup that Hawke had retrieved from the other cabin, along with her clothes.
She hadn’t imagined attending the party, even though she had prepared for it. There was a small bag of gifts that she’d ordered over the Internet and wrapped carefully. On the stove in the kitchen sat the rolls, delicate breads and sweets that Hawke had had flown in earlier.
She felt excited, flushed and filled with anticipation. She had always heard her mother say that Christmas was for kids, and Jessica had wondered as she grew older if that wasn’t the truth.
Until tonight. She no longer wondered. The sense of excitement and anticipation that she could feel emanating from Haven was infectious.
Moving from the bathroom, she walked across the bedroom to the wide windows that looked out over the front lawn and the cabins across the small paved road.
There were two Breed soldiers standing at the side of the road, laughing with two others who had walked out of the cabin directly across from her and Hawke’s.
There weren’t a lot of cabins in Haven’s small community. Perhaps two dozen, some one bedroom, some two. Many of the cabins were inhabited by two or more Breeds though. The pack mentality had survived outside the labs. Males and females often inhabited the same cabin, non-sexually, for the closeness it provided them.
Strength in numbers, Dr. Armani had told her once. The Breeds so believed in strength in numbers that they ma
de certain they were in packs or pairs at all times. Just as they were in the wild.
Touching her hand to the glass, she watched as the soldiers lifted their hands in farewell, each moving away to whatever called them back. Two headed along the street, obviously on patrol, while the other two moved back into the cabin.
Snow was still heaped along the streets, spread out in a pristine cloak around the compound where it seemed the Breeds hesitated to step except where necessary. Yards held no snowmen, the snow was largely untrampled, and she had yet to see a snowball fight. For what it lacked it did nothing to dim a Christmas spirit that Jessica hadn’t expected. She could have sworn she had even heard Christmas carols earlier.
Shaking her head at the thought of some of the stern-faced Breeds singing Christmas carols she collected the small velvet purse from the bed, pulled a tiny five-shot .22 derringer from the duffel bag Hawke had brought from her cabin with the other items, and secured it inside the purse.
The Breeds knew she had the derringer. At least, a few of them did. The tiny gun had been collected along with her other belongings when she was taken into custody.
It was little more than a powerful peashooter, but at close range it could do some serious damage. She wasn’t allowed a regular weapon any longer, or at least, her military issue weapon hadn’t been returned to her, so she assumed, for the moment, it wasn’t allowed.
For the moment. She had all intentions of making certain her weapon was returned, along with her job. Once Dr. Armani was certain there was no chance that the drug she had been given was still in her system, then she would request her post back.
Until then, she had a home to decorate and furnish. Hawke had the basics. A large mattress and box spring, but no true bed. A closet to hang their clothes in, bar stools at the bar. The house was largely empty, and already she was coming up with ideas on how to fill it.
“Damn, you look like an angel.”
She turned around, feeling the skirt of the gown as it flared around her feet, to stare back at Hawke in surprise.
His voice had been pitched low, dark with longing, with an element of need that seemed to cascade through her system.
Dressed in dark jeans, black shirt and boots, with his hair still damp from the shower and brushed back, he looked like a dark angel himself. Sensual, sexual and wicked. A being so erotic that he made grown women melt in shameless hunger.
She had seen that melting more than once. Breeds and non-Breeds alike, women took one look at Hawke’s roughly handsome face, corded muscular body and deep golden eyes, and they wept in need.
“You look damn fine yourself.” She smiled, suddenly nervous, feeling her palms dampen as a surge of sensation seemed to erupt between her thighs.
Wow. The hormonal treatment Dr. Armani had worked up for her evidently didn’t do the job the way it should. One look at Hawke and every feminine hormone in her body went nuts. It was a chaotic mixture of arousal, trepidation and pure excitement.
She couldn’t blame it all on the mating heat. She’d felt this way before he’d ever touched her, before he’d ever kissed her.
She’d talked to Dr. Armani in depth over the past year about mating heat, and she was beginning to wonder if the heat wasn’t just an advanced arousal. An advanced tie. If nature hadn’t simply ensured that those who fell in love were pushed together faster, held together more firmly, to guarantee the survival of this species.
“Ready?” He held his hand out to her. A large, capable, strong hand. Calloused and dark, as though his entire body was permanently tanned.
Jessica moved to him slowly, let him envelop her hand in his and draw her to the bedroom door.
“Did you put the presents in the Rover?” she asked, trying to tone down the nervousness. She hadn’t been to a party in years. Not since her father had finally stopped forcing her to attend the boring little functions he and his friends had staged several times a year.
“The presents are in the Rover,” he promised her. “The breads and desserts are packed snugly in the backseat alongside them.”
“Good.” She swallowed tightly as they moved down the natural wood stairs to the foyer. “You’re certain I should go?”
She wasn’t so certain. She was known as a traitor, no matter the reason. How could any of the Breeds trust her now?
“I’m absolutely certain you should go.” He drew to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, collected the long dark blue and black cloak that went with her dress and drew it over her shoulders. “You’re worrying too much, Jess. Everything is going to be fine.”
“Easy for you to say.” She licked her lips before raking the lower one with her teeth and staring up at him as worry began to tighten her chest. “I couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting me there, Hawke. You didn’t force this, did you?”
The faint smile at his lips was chastising, and just a bit amused. “I can’t force something like this, mate,” he promised her. “If Wolfe didn’t trust you to be there, then you wouldn’t be.”
That was true. She inhaled tightly before straightening her shoulders and forcing in courage for the evening ahead.
She knew Hope, Wolfe’s mate. Just as she knew Faith and Charity, the mates of his closest friends. She also knew Amanda Bear, a former president’s daughter and mate to a Coyote Breed. She’d met Anya Delgado several times, mate to the Coyote Breed alpha. She knew the mates of those who were influential in this world. She had thought they might even be friends.
“You’re worrying too much,” he promised her as they left the house and stepped into the cold night air.
Hawke held on to her as he moved her quickly to the Rover, helped her in and then loped around to the driver’s side. Jessica kept her fingers laced tightly together and held in her lap.
She knew Hawke could sense her nervousness; it wasn’t something she could help. She had always been denied acceptance until she had come here two years ago. During the year she had spent working with the Breeds she had thought she had begun to find that acceptance. Until she had unwillingly, unwittingly, given her father the information he had needed to attack Haven in the worst ways. She had given the location of the alpha’s home, as well as the homes of his second-in-command and his head of security. Locations that were kept hidden for a reason: because their lives were in such danger.
The drive to the entrance of the community center was quick. Hawke drew the Rover to a stop at the large double doors where a young Breed stepped outside and moved to the driver’s side as Hawke stepped out of the vehicle and walked quickly to Jessica’s door.
She took his h
