A Christmas Kiss

SIX

Hawke was in agony.

The next morning he slid slowly from the bed, grimacing at the violent sensitivity of his dick as he eased away from Jessica’s warm, naked body.

She was sleeping deeply, one arm thrown over her head, the silken, tangled mass of red-gold hair spilling around her face to her shoulders.

Fiery lashes feathered her cheeks. A light flush suffused her face and her soft pink lips were parted as she breathed in and out slowly.

Perfectly curved ripe breasts lifted and fell with each breath and, God knew, they tempted him almost past bearing. It would take so very little to begin the mating heat right now. He could lower his head, take one of her soft nipples into his mouth and suckle her slow and sweet, never waking her.

The mating hormone would lave the sensitive flesh, sink into it and slowly enter her system. Twelve to twenty-four hours and she would need his touch like she needed the air she was now breathing.

As much as he wanted her, as much as he needed her, he couldn’t do that to her.

Shaking his head, he turned and moved to the bathroom. A cold shower wouldn’t help his hard dick, and he knew it. The spray of the water would only torment already sensitive flesh, but he needed to get ready for the day ahead.

He stepped under the spray and almost moaned at the feel of the water over the flesh. Hell, he was going to have to make this the quickest shower on record.

Grabbing the bottle of liquid soap, he quickly lathered his hair and rinsed it before soaping a rag and going to work on his body.

The quick, hard strokes of the rag were torture to his aroused body. The silky slid of suds over his cock and down his thighs were hell.

He rinsed quickly and gave a sigh of relief as he turned off the shower, grabbed a dry towel and grimaced at the thought of drying. Damn, no man should have to go through this, he thought. But neither should a female. He knew what Jessica would suffer once the mating heat started. A sensitivity of flesh that wouldn’t allow for the lightest touch of anything but his hands, his body, his possession.

It was harder for their women, and so far, Breed males were very aware of this. They were selective in their choice of lovers, ensuring that when they went out in public they paid attention to even the smallest signs that mating heat could occur. Enough had been forced on them; they had no desire to force the sometimes painful arousals on a female, whether she was Breed or not.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, he pulled the shower doors back and came face-to-face with Jessica from where she sat on the bathroom counter, watching him.

Her somber blue eyes regarded him quizzically as her gaze flicked to the obvious arousal beneath the cotton.

“You were hard all night,” she said softly.

Glancing away from her, Hawke paced to the sink, where he’d placed a clean change of clothes.

“No answer?” she asked.

“What does it matter, Jess?” He let himself watch her in the mirror, saw the suspicion in her face and almost groaned at the next question.

“The mating heat affects you anyway, doesn’t it?” There was a knowing tone to her voice, an edge of regret.

“It’s not as bad for me as it would be for you.” He shrugged as though it didn’t matter, when he knew damned good and well that the need was eating him alive. Like acid in his gut, it was tearing at the very fiber of his control.

“Because you were trained to endure pain.” That wasn’t a question. It was an observation, and more or less the truth.

“Pretty much.” He cast her a look of self-mockery. Hell, he might as well try to laugh about it, since raging over it would only make it worse. “We were trained to endure a lot of things. Maybe it’s just second nature now.”

She ducked her head for a moment before looking to the shower as though desperately seeking a way to change the subject.

“Will it hurt me?” When she lifted her head there was a hint of nervousness in her gaze. “Hope, Faith and Charity didn’t say anything about pain.”

He’d cut off his own dick before he’d hurt her.

“It’s the lack of sex that hurts, Jess,” he promised her. “Once mating heat starts with you, I’ll ensure you never have to worry about hurting.” He shot her a teasing wink as he tried to lighten the information for her.

It didn’t work.

Her head lowered as she stared at the pretty ceramic floor of the bathroom.

“Hey.” He nudged at her arm with his. “It’s Christmas Eve, you know.”

She looked up, nibbling at her lower lip as she watched him.

“Wolfe and Hope are throwing a Christmas party for Haven in the community center this evening. Lots of good food, some dancing, a little bit of drinking.” He waggled his brows at her. “Want to go with me?”

“I’d like that.” A slow, blooming smile lit her face. “I’d really like that, Hawke.”

He bent, kissed the crown of her head and then pulled back quickly. “Good. Then we’ll leave here about six. Until then, get some warm clothes on. I have some things I need to do today and I thought you might enjoy going with me.”

“What kind of things?” She tilted her head, staring back at him with a natural curiosity he’d always been drawn to.

“Oh. Things.” He shrugged as he spanned her waist with his hands and lifted her from the counter. “Now get out of here and let me get dressed. When I’m done you can get in here and shower while I fix breakfast.”

He guided her to the bathroom door, pushed her through the opening and then closed it firmly. He almost locked it. Son of a bitch. If he wasn’t careful, then there would be no way in hell for him to be able to give her the time she needed to decide if this mating was what she truly wanted.

It was all he could do to keep from kissing her now. To keep from taking her. The glands beneath his tongue were so swollen with the mating hormone that it was painful. His dick was as hard as stone and his flesh felt scorched each time he touched her.

Some days it simply sucked to be a Breed.

Jessica showered while Hawke fixed breakfast. Standing beneath the warmth of the spray, she let her hands travel over her body, remembering Hawke’s touch from the night before.

He’d been gentle. There had been an air of desperate hunger that surrounded him, but never once had he done anything to start the mating heat that she knew he was craving.

Not once had his lips touched hers, or touched bare skin, period. He hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t licked her. And she’d been dying for it.

Dressed in jeans, an undershirt and a sweater, Jessica moved back to her bedroom where she sat on the bed and pulled on thick, heavy socks.

Colorado winters had been particularly hard in the past few years. There was already a foot of snow on the ground from the night before and another foot predicted before the end of the night. And it was Christmas Eve. She had missed Christmas since leaving home at eighteen. Even before that, Christmas had lacked something. A sincerity, a sense of pure affection when the family had come together. During her years in the Army she had stayed in the barracks over the holidays, preferring the solitude to the fake laughter and endless parties her family had forced her to endure.

She wondered if spending Christmas with the Breeds would be any better. She’d heard of the joyous celebrations of Christmases past. The presents the alpha and his mate, Hope, gave out, and the exchange of gifts that the other Breeds participated in.

The Breeds had never had Christmas in the labs, so celebrating it now, as Hope had once told her, was an affirmation that they were indeed free to celebrate, to laugh, to love and to live.

Slipping her feet into hiking boots, she tied them snugly before standing and moving to the closed door.

Breakfast with Hawke wasn’t stilted, nor did she feel the old anger rising inside her that she had experienced over the past year.

They ate a simple meal. Eggs, lots of bacon for Hawke, toast and her beloved caffeine-rich coffee. After the dishes were cleared away, he helped her into her coat and they left the house.

There were Breeds with shovels clearing driveways around the compound. Others were stringing more lights. There was always something going on at Haven and there were always willing hands to help.

There was never trash on the grounds, there was never disorderliness. The Breeds were oftentimes much neater than their human cousins, and had a much greater sense of cleanliness.

The frigid winter morning was held at bay by the thermal lining of her coat, and if that hadn’t kept her warm there was always Hawke’s arm around her waist as he escorted her to the waiting Range Rover, which had been started with the remote ignition from the house.

Helping her into the all-terrain vehicle, Hawke closed the door before loping to the driver’s side and sliding behind the wheel.

She noticed he wasn’t wearing a coat. Thin leather gloves covered his hands, but other than that he wore only jeans, boots and a dark blue flannel shirt with a T-shirt beneath it.

Breeds didn’t get as cold as easily as their human cousins either, she thought with a twinge of envy.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he shifted the vehicle into reverse to turn around and head out of the driveway onto the main thoroughfare that led through the Wolf Breed Compound.

“I’ll show you.” He flashed her a wicked grin before moving one hand from the steering wheel to grip her hand where it lay on her thigh.

Jessica stared at his leather-gloved fingers as they covered hers and wondered at the warmth that she could feel through the gloves.

It shouldn’t be like this, she thought. After a year without him, a year confined to a cool, boring little cell where she hadn’t seen him, hadn’t heard from him, it shouldn’t be like this. She shouldn’t feel these emotions shifting through her, racing in her bloodstream and heating her pussy like an internal fire she couldn’t put out.

“You could just tell me.” Her heart was beating hard in her chest and she had no doubt he could scent the arousal burning inside her.

“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” There was that smile again. A crooked upturn of his lips, his golden eyes filled with promise.

She was reminded of those days before the attack on Haven over a year ago, when he would tease her with surprise lunches in the small park behind the communications shed, or with sweets to tease her taste buds.

She hadn’t realized at the time that he had been courting her, and now she wondered how she could have missed it.

“Close your eyes for me.”

She turned to stare at him in surprise as he made the sudden request.

“Close my eyes?” She was actually starting to have fun. “Why?”

“So I can have my way with you?” He waggled his brows suggestively before chuckling, the sound a dark, erotic stroke against her senses. “Just close your eyes, Jess. I promise, you’ll like this.”

She closed her eyes. She resisted the urge to peek, because she loved surprises. She always had.

“What are you up to, Hawke?” she asked again as she felt the Range Rover make several turns. While she had once been pretty certain that she knew where they were, now she wasn’t so sure.

“Just a few more minutes,” he urged her.

With her eyes closed it seemed she could hear a more subtle nuance in his voice. Almost a sense of nervousness. She had to be hearing wrong, she decided. Hawke was never nervous. He was always confident and in charge, never anything less.

“I’ve been working on something over the past year.” He finally cleared his throat as the Rover began to slow down. “While you were confined, when I had spare time, there was something I wanted, something I needed, to do.”

The Rover came to a stop.

“Hawke?” She whispered his name breathlessly.

“Not yet.” His fingers touched her eyes with the utmost gentleness. “I knew you were my mate, Jess. I know it’s hard to forgive me for staying away. I know you’ve been angry, and I don’t blame you.”

She parted her lips to speak, but his fingertips landed on them.

“Just a minute, baby,” he urged her. “It was the only way to prove you were no traitor. I knew you weren’t. I believed in you, Jess, but I knew you’d never be accepted by the packs that are a part of Haven if you weren’t proven innocent.”

That made sense. A part of her had even known that, struggled with the idea of it over the months that she had been in the cell.

“I made certain you were comfortable.”

She had been. She’d had warm blankets, home-cooked meals, warm clothes.

“I made certain you weren’t too bored.”

Magazines, books and a television had been brought to her. But even more, sketch pads, pencils and watercolors. Jess loved to sketch and draw, and the tools for that hobby had been brought to her.

“I made certain everyone understood that I’d stand between you and any punishment of death.”

She hadn’t known that.

“I wanted to give you more though.” His voice softened further. “You can open your eyes now, Jess.”

She opened her eyes. Her lips parted in shock. There, by the edge of a mountain lake that she had always loved to sketch beside, sat the vision of a house she had sketched so many times.

The house wasn’t large. It wasn’t ostentatious like the one her parents had once possessed. The cabin-style home blended well with the other cabins in the compound, but with a few noticeable differences.

There was a red tin roof rather than plain aluminum. It was a little larger, three bedrooms rather than one. For the children she had dreamed of having with Hawke. She’d dreamed of two. A boy and a girl. It was exactly as she had described it to him, as she had drawn it so many times.

There was a porch swing on the front porch and areas for flowers along the edge of the porch, and it had been built between the gorgeous oak and pine trees that bordered the lake.

It was breathtaking. Just as she had always envisioned it.

“Hawke.” She turned to him, her lips trembling with emotion.

“I didn’t just know you were my mate, Jessica.” His leather covered hand framed her face. “I knew I loved you. Just as I still love you.”

And he had. Everything he had done, every sacrifice he had made, proved he loved her.

“I never stopped loving you,” she whispered as a tear fell from her eye.

She leaned forward, an irrevocable decision made, one she knew she couldn’t regret, would never regret. This was Hawke. She belonged to him. He belonged to her.

Her lips touched his as his hands gripped her arms in surprise. Her tongue touched his lips as a flare of fear tore through her. What if this wasn’t what he wanted? What he meant?

But it had to be. She couldn’t accept losing him now. She couldn’t accept never having taken this chance.

She licked over his lips with her tongue. As they parted she turned her head, controlling the kiss with experimental passion, her tongue stroking tentatively against his, the spicy-sweet taste of wild lust and desperate hunger exploding against her tongue.

As though the taste of him against her tongue exploded inside him as well, she felt his hand at the back of her head, his tongue pushing against hers as he groaned against her lips and pure erotic need began flashing between them.

Within seconds he had pushed his seat back, pulled her across his lap and taken control of the kiss. His tongue pressed between her lips as she closed them around it, sucking it into her mouth. Her tongue stroked against his, the narcotic taste of him whipping through her system, sizzling through her senses.

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.