Stopping in front of her, his hands lifted to cup her face as he held her still for his kiss. A long, slow kiss. His tongue touched hers, licked at it, mated with it.
The mating hormone wasn't filling the glands, it wasn't flavoring the kiss, but still, Jonas felt his hunger for her clear to the soles of his feet.
She was his woman. She was his life. Hell, he wondered if he had even had a life before her. Before he saw the innocence and clarity in her eyes, before he'd learned the gentleness and courage that filled her soul.
As he felt her fingers at his neck, sliding around, gripping the strands of hair that grew low along his nape, Jonas knew he had never known a moment's peace until Rachel.
She had the p
ower to humble him, to still his rage, but she also had the power to weaken him.
His knees were nearly shaking at the thought of the pleasure to come as he lifted her against him and moved back to the fireplace.
The flames were blazing, devouring the heavy logs Jonas had placed in the pit, licking greedily at the fuel, consuming it slowly despite the heat pouring from it.
The heavy, incredibly soft fake fur rug spread across the hardwood floor awaited them. He'd had dreams of taking her in front of this fire. Dreams of watching her transform from cool, collected female to the heated, hungry mate he had fantasized about for so long.
She was the perfect mate for him. Strong where he was often weak, understanding of emotions when he had trouble just accepting them. She would keep him warm, keep his heart steady.
He was passing warm now though. As her kiss began to fire the unique Breed mating heat inside him, Jonas felt his cock throbbing in urgent demand.
He was always hard for her, always hungry for her. He swore there hadn't been a day since she had walked into his office that he hadn't been hard for her.
Smoothing his hands down her back, Jonas gripped his mate's hips and pulled her to him, lifting her, finding a ready seat for the brutally hard length of his cock.
"You make me crazy to fuck you," he growled. "There's not a minute of my day that I don't want to be inside you."
His fingers bunched in the short length of the skirt she had worn. She was always dressed so ladylike, so damned buttoned down and proper. The above-the-knee dark skirt was at once conservative and provocative.
He jerked it to her hips, just as it provoked him to do.
The white, long-sleeved black cardigan she wore over the white silk blouse was dropped to the floor. It was all he could do not to rip the blouse from her body.
The sweet swells of her breasts were an enticement; the tight, cherry nipples topping them created a hunger inside him that was both pleasure and pain.
"Leave the shoes on," he ordered, his voice rough as she moved to step from them. "Are you wearing stockings again?"
A siren's smile tipped her honeyed lips. "Would I wear anything else for you, Jonas?"
Something clenched in his gut, some emotion, some overriding sense of rightness.
"So you wear them for me?" Leaving the shirt hanging from her shoulders, her breasts swelling over the cups of her lacy bra, Jonas went to work on his own clothing.
"I wear them for you," she agreed as her fingers moved to help with the buttons of his shirt. "I never wore stockings until I began working for you."
That was no lie. He could smell the truth of her statement. "And this." He rubbed his finger over the soft scalloped lace edge of her bra.
"For you," she breathed out, her breathing growing harder, deeper, as the last button released from his shirt.
Jonas shrugged the material from his shoulders as her fingers went to the closure of his slacks. He could see the hunger heating inside her, smell it burning deeper, brighter, with each passing second.
As his slacks loosened he pushed his shoes from his feet, his fingers still rubbing against the lace of her bra, moving from the scalloped edge to the tight peak of her nipple beneath.
He could feel the heated warmth of her, the throb of blood pounding through her body and echoing in his cock. She was the pinnacle of hunger and need.
The slacks slid down his legs, releasing the torturous length of his cock as his head lowered to her breast, his suddenly sensitive tongue probing at the hard tip.
She stiffened in his arms, her hands going to his shoulders, her fingers gripping tight as he allowed his teeth to rasp the sensitive peak.