Lifting his head, Hawke stared into her lovely face. She was flushed, perspiration standing out on her forehead as the tracks of her tears dampened her cheeks.

“My precious Jess,” he whispered, leaning closer, pressing himself deeper inside her and moved to steal a kiss. “My beloved Jess.”

“My heart.” She sobbed against his lip, and he lost it.

The hitched, breathless quality of her voice tore through him. The devotion, the love in her soft whisper, destroyed him.

Groaning her name, he began to thrust inside her. Heavy, probing thrusts that worked inside her, stroking him past pleasure, past ecstasy. He was surging through sensations that he didn’t have time to make sense of, sensations he had never known before.

His mate. His woman.

She cried out his name and his thrusts increased and he shafted inside her as he held her hip with one hand and braced himself above her on an elbow. His lips moved over her jaw, her neck.

He could feel the intensity rising inside her as well. Her orgasm was coming closer, the sweet scent of it was wrapping around him, urging him to take her fast, to fuck inside her harder. Nothing mattered but taking her, marking her, blending their scents until they were one, until they were bound so irrevocably that they could never be parted.

Gasping moans fell from her lips as his kiss moved to her neck, her shoulder. So close. She was tightening around him. Her legs lifted, wrapped around his hips, her pussy tightened, the muscles convulsing around his thrusting cock.

One thrust. Two. And she exploded. He felt it. Like an eruption of fire clenching around his dick she clamped on him as she cried out his name.

Hawke felt his own release follow hers. His teeth locked in her shoulder, the mark of their mating, as he thrust inside her again and let sensation tear through him.

A growl tore from his throat as he felt his semen jetting from him, filling her. The fierce swelling in the center of his cock locked him inside her, creating another pleasure, another violent edge of sensation that rocked them both.

Hawke fought to hold on to just enough of his senses to relish this, to memorize it, to know every emotion, every sensation that erupted around him. His and hers. Her pleasure, rising so hard and swift she lost her own senses. Her screams of ecstasy, his growls. The lick of fire across his flesh, the feel of her teeth in his shoulder.

Shock almost tore away that last edge of control. She was biting him as he bit her. Two little canines pierced his flesh and she held on for dear life, just as he held on to her.

Held on until the last pulses of pure rapture tore through their bodies then left them to float back to Earth on a peaceful, comforting cloud.

They were fighting for breath. Holding on to each other like the survivors of a storm. Sweat damped their bodies, their hearts raced and Hawke could feel her, heart and soul, wrapping around him.

Lifting his head from her shoulder, he opened his eyes and stared down at her. She was lax beneath him, her breasts rising and falling with hard breaths as her lashes fluttered open.

“You’re my soul, Jess,” he stated simply. He knew no other way to say it. “I lose you, I lose all that I am.”

Her hand lifted, touched his cheek, before her finger fluttered over his lips.

“You’re every breath I take, Hawke,” she said, her voice drowsy but echoing with such love that he felt humbled. “Every breath I take, you’re a part of it.”

They were a part of each other.

Moving to her side, he dragged her coat over them for warmth, pulled her against his chest and let himself believe.

It was Christmas morning, and he held his gift in his arms.

Looking at the angel with the broken wing, he knew that next year there would be another. A perfect one to represent her perfect love. But this one was even more precious for the wing that had been shattered. This one had survived. Just as his own angel had. Survived and still retained its beauty and the essence of what it was meant to be. A reflection of love. Not always perfect, not without trials. But always there, surviving and enduring.

Just as his Jess had survived, endured and loved.

His own Christmas Angel, and he held her in his arms, knew her taste, the feel of her heartbeat, the touch of her body against his.

A true gift from the heavens. His Jess.

His mate.

Always.