When she felt her pu**y stretching more, felt the explosion of his se**n 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 made 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.