Kiss of Snow

“I’m so glad you’re a stubborn bastard.” Inés’s thin arms hugged him tight before she leaned over to brush the hair off Simran’s face with fingers that were exquisitely tender.

Riordan, when Hawke glanced into the novice soldier’s room, remained in a sedated sleep, but Elias had regained consciousness, his hand on his mate’s head as she pressed it to his uninjured side. Thank God. Figuring Lara would forgive him for not waking her up since it was good news, he was about to leave the couple in privacy when Sienna brushed past him and into the room. “Here,” she said, putting a warmed-up cup of soup in Yuki’s hand. “Drink it or you know he’ll keep fussing.”

“I don’t fuss.” Rasped-out words. “Now drink it.”

Deep shadows lingered beneath the liquid dark of Yuki’s expressive eyes, the lids swollen and red, as was the tip of her nose, but there was no lack of energy in the face she made at her mate. “Bossy man.”

“You’re stuck with me.”

“Yeah.” A smile so intimate, it felt wrong to witness it. “For the next century, at least.”

Lara appeared in the doorway beside Hawke right then, her cheek bearing marks of sleep. “What’s the ruckus?” she asked with a beaming smile before shooing both Hawke and Sienna away. “Get rested in case I need you tomorrow.”

Seeing that Walker had returned to the infirmary, Hawke acquiesced. “I want to grab some fresh air,” he said to Sienna.

“Good idea.”

It wasn’t until they were outside, with her leaning up against a gentle knoll in the White Zone, that she said, “It must be nice, don’t you think?”

He braced one arm on the grassy surface beside her head, his wolf strangely content in spite of the skin hunger that continued to be a constant ache at the back of his mind. “What?” Twining a strand of her hair around his finger, he rubbed it between fingertip and thumb.

“To have a hundred years with someone.” Her voice held such haunted need it shook him. “I never imagined that was possible before I came here.”

“Most folks live at least three decades beyond a hundred,” Hawke said, stepping close enough that one of his thighs brushed hers, “so it’s not unusual.”

Sienna didn’t pull away, the scent of her an unintended caress across his senses. “But together . . . imagine how deeply you’d know someone after all that time, how very complex the love would be between the two of you.”

It was time, he thought, to lay things out into the open. “No hypotheticals, Sienna. Me and you. Is that what you want?”

“I’ve made that pretty clear.” An acerbic reply accompanied by arms folded across her chest.

His wolf liked the bite of her, but he had to be certain she understood the implications of being with him. All of them. Fisting a hand into her hair, he pressed in close until she had to unfold her arms, her hands landing on his waist. “Do you know what it would mean for you if I take you as mine?”

Though her pulse was a frantic beat he wanted to lick, she stood her ground.

“No matter what, I can’t give you the mati—” he began, because he would not lie to her.

“I know,” she interrupted. “I heard . . . I put things together.”

Of course she had, his smart Psy. But that wasn’t the only thing he had to say. “No more flirtations with boys your own age,” he said, gripping that stubborn jaw with his fingers. “No more dancing with any male but me. No more time to learn who you are before you have to hold that personality against mine. No more freedom to explore your sensuality before I own it.”

Right at that moment, face-to-face with the dominant force of his personality, Sienna realized exactly how much Hawke had been holding back, and part of her hesitated. The fact was, while she was intelligent and off the charts when it came to psychic strength, she had no true knowledge of how to deal with males . . . no, with this male. He was the only one who’d sliced through her every shield to impact the very core of her, the part she’d protected with single-minded determination even as the rest of her turned Silent.

“Scared?” Hawke’s smile held no humor. “You should be, baby.” Then he kissed her, and it was no tender exploration, no playful tease. This was the kiss of a man who knew precisely what he wanted and had no compunctions about getting it. Using his grip on her jaw to angle her how he wanted, he nipped at her lower lip hard enough that she gasped, opened her mouth.

Making a deep sound low in his throat, he swept in, tasting her with a proprietary thoroughness that caused a tremor to shiver through her frame. Instead of easing up on the kiss, he pressed deeper into her, letting her feel every hard inch of him as he licked and tasted and demanded. Never had she realized how soft her body was in comparison to his, how much hotter he burned.

It was a lesson, and when it was over, she had kiss-swollen lips, a body so sensitized to his touch that it burned a craving across every inch of her . . . and a sudden awareness that maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t thought this out as well as she’d believed.





Chapter 22