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.

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.