by Shannon West
The damn boy was so beautiful it made Hawke ache for him. Mine, his cat roared at him, and he bent his head to take Jace’s lips in a hungry kiss. He thrust his tongue inside Jace’s mouth, holding his face with both hands. His boy responded with a soft little whimper in the back of his throat, and Hawke felt Jace’s tongue come up to tangle sweetly with his own.
After several minutes, feeling almost drunk on Jace’s kisses, Hawke made himself pull away. He would have him, but not on the side of the damned road. His mate deserved better than that. At least his kisses seemed to have shut Jace up for a while. His eyes were dazed and he sagged into Hawke, resting his forehead against his chest and trying to catch his breath.
“Okay then,” Hawke said, feeling weak in the knees. “Now please shut up. I’m begging you.” He picked him up in his arms, unable to resist dropping a kiss on the side of his neck and put him in the back seat again. He rubbed a big hand over his face and climbed back into the driver’s seat.
The rest of the trip up the mountain was quieter, at least, with probably both of them feeling those kisses. At least he hoped Jace was feeling the same rush he was, and from the little looks Jace kept shooting him when their eyes met in the rear view mirror, he thought he must have been.
Hawke pulled up in front of the office and helped Jace out of the back. Jace raised a questioning face to him, but he pulled him along behind him and past a startled Bart, who took his feet down from the desk in a hurry as they walked in.
“I see things are quiet,” Hawke said as he passed by his desk.
“Uh, yes sir. Nothing much going on.” His eyes never left Jace’s face, and he stepped forward to take hold of him. It was usually Barton’s job to book in the prisoners, so he looked shocked when Hawke blocked him with his body.
“Oh, is this like a mate thing? Should I give you two some privacy?”
Hawke’s eyebrows came down in a furious glare. “Hell no, Barton, don’t be stupid. I’m putting Jace in a cell for safekeeping until I can get him home. I have some things to take care of, and he needs to get some rest.” Jace looked up mutinously, his earlier cooperation gone. “You’re not drugging me.”
“No, I never planned to. Damn it, where do you get your ideas?”
“The orange juice this morning.”
“I was drinking it too!”
“Oh. Well, I thought you were going to.”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Look, you’re right. There are things going on here in town. Things I can’t tell you right this moment, but I swear I will. I’m putting you here for your own safety, and you have to trust me.” He held up a hand to stop Jace from talking. “I know. I haven’t given you any reason to so far, but please cooperate with me. I promise I’ll tell you everything if you will.”
Barton gazed at Jace with wide eyes, the idea of talking back to a member of the pride probably completely foreign to him, considering who his mate was. The few times Melinda had come in the office to see him, Bart had practically knelt at her feet. That idea took Hawke to a place in his mind he didn’t want to go, so he pulled Jace behind him to the nearest cell and put him inside, unlocking the cuffs.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Just stay here for now while I make some calls. I’ll be back in later.”
“I hate you for this,” Jace sputtered out. “I don’t care if I never see you again!”
Hawke smiled and kissed the tip of his nose, letting his hand rest on the bulge in Jace’s jeans. “I’m sorry you feel that way. If there was any other way around this, I’d take it. Unfortunately, I don’t have any choice.”
Jace turned his head angrily to the side, and Hawke left the cell, locking it behind him.
“Watch him,” he said to Barton. “I’ll be in my office.”
Hawke spent the next hour or so inside his office with the door closed, calling Jace’s boss to let him know that his employee had run into some difficulties and would be a bit longer. Jace’s supervisor, whose name was Jenkins, seemed concerned, if a little vague on exactly who Jace was at first. He had a lot of temporary field employees, he said, but he did ask if there was anything he could do to help. Hawke assured him it was under control and they ended the call. Hawke promised he’d send the man the completed census forms in the next few days.
Taking the census forms from his desk, he went out and threw them down on Barton’s desk. “Call these idiots to come in and fill these out, and tell them I said that this better be the last time something like this happens. They know better than to draw attention to us like this.”
Barton nodded and picked up the phone to start calling. Going back to his office, he made a quick call down to the impound lot in Huntsville and arranged for Jace’s truck to be brought back up the mountain.
Hoping he had everything handled and under control, he figured he had one job left—convincing Jace to be his mate and stay here with him in Blackwater Falls. That would be the hardest job of all. He’d run a background check on Jace over the last few days, and he knew Jace had dropped out of school in his senior year, but got his GED equivalency diploma and even started taking college courses in Horticulture, of all things.
He’d never been in any real trouble, though he’d had a few run-ins with the law—nothing serious, and mostly drunk charges. He’d had none of them for the past couple of years. It seemed to Hawke that Jace had nothing much to go back to Birmingham for, and he was thankful for that, though he hated the idea that Jace’s life had been so hard the last few years. No wonder he had such a smart mouth. It was undoubtedly a defense mechanism and one he used to great advantage.
He went into the cell then to get Jace. Told Barton he was going home if he needed him and probably wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. Bart nodded knowingly, and Hawke remembered that when Melinda had brought Barton home with her, neither of them were seen for over a week. Just about the time, Hawke thought he might ought to go check and see if Melinda had eaten him, they emerged hand in hand, with Barton looking dazed but very happy.
He didn’t bother with the cuffs this time. Jace seemed just as hostile but quieter. Hawke started for home, thinking about how he might fix them a nice dinner and, over a glass of wine, he would try to explain things. He was trying to frame the words in his head as he drove, when he heard a suspicious sound in the back seat. Looking in the rear view mirror, he saw Jace fighting back tears. As he watched him, one tear brimmed over and trailed down his cheek.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned and pulled over on the side of the road. Coming around to the back, he opened the door, climbed inside and sat beside Jace, who turned his face away, staring out the window.
“Jace,” he said quietly. “Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” he said, his voice tight with tears.
“Hell, yes, you are, baby. I promise I’ll explain everything to you if you’ll give me a chance.”
“Don’t call me that. I just want to go home. And I want my truck. It’s all I have, and they took it.”
“It’s in the impound lot. I’ve already sent after it, and it’ll be here soon. It’s as good as new. I promise.”
He didn’t say anything more, but he wouldn’t look at Hawke either. “You know I won’t let anybody hurt you, right?”
“I don’t know anything, because nobody will tell me anything. And I’m not worried about you hurting me. I’m not scared of you or anybody else.”
“I know.”
“Well…good. Because I’m not.”
“Okay. So you’re okay for me to drive again?”
“I never stopped you in the first place.”
“You kind of did, because I don’t like to see you crying.”
“I wasn’t crying. But if I had been, then tough shit. You caused it.”
Hawke sighed and patted his knee, just wanting to touch him and try to reassure him in some small way. Jace still wouldn’t look at him, though, so he climbed back out and went back to the driver’s seat, feeling like shit. He started the car and drove ba
ck to his cabin, parking in the front.
“What?” came a sarcastic voice from the back seat. “You’re not taking me somewhere to kill me to shut me up? Or are you just going to do it here and bury my body in your backyard?”
“Jace,” Hawke said tiredly. “Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Let’s get out of the car and go in. I’ll make you some dinner and tell you the whole story.”
“I don’t want any damn dinner.”
“Well, I fucking do!” he said sharply, and then regretted it right away as Jace turned his head away again and bit his bottom lip. He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Jace got out of the car though when he opened the back door and walked toward the house.
When they got inside, Jace stood awkwardly in the kitchen, his arms folded, as if he were cold or pissed. He was probably both, Hawke noted, since he hadn’t turned on any heat before he left and the evening had turned chilly. He flipped on the heat and motioned for Jace to take a seat at the counter.
“Please, Jace. Sit down?”
When he had him there, sitting stiffly and not making any eye contact, he started some water to boil to make spaghetti and opened a bottle of wine. When the spaghetti was done and drained, he got out a jar of sauce and dumped it in, stirring it up, and then put it in a bowl and found some French rolls in his cupboard. He set the bowl of spaghetti and the rolls on the counter along with the bottle of wine and slid onto the stool beside Jace.
“I’m going to tell you everything now, and I want you to pay close attention. It’s going to sound unbelievable. Hell, it’s hard for me to believe it sometimes. But let me finish, and then you can say anything you want to, okay?”
Jace moved his head a fraction of an inch downward, and back up, which Hawke took as a nod.
“Shit, Jace, stop acting like an outraged virgin, will you? Man up, damn it.”
“Man up? Did you just tell me to man up?” Jace turned a face full of outrage toward him and without warning, he swung at Hawke. Hawke dodged his fist but fell off his stool.
Jace stood over him and pointed his finger in his face. “You fucking man up! Have the goddamn guts to tell me what the hell you want with me! I’ve been attacked in the road, knocked in the head, locked up, lied to and thrown in jail twice in the last three days, and those were just the good parts! Excuse the fuck out of me if I’m feeling a little sorry for myself.”
Chapter Seven
Jace started to storm out the door, but Hawke grabbed his ankle and pulled him down to the floor. He crashed down on top of Hawke and lay there for a moment, getting his breath back. He scrambled off Hawke’s lap and just sat there, not sure what to do next. He looked up to see Hawke kneeling beside him, looming over him, and holding out a big hand.
“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have said that, and I don’t want to fight with you. Settle down, please.”
Jace struck out as hard as he could with his fist and felt gratified to hear a little soft grunt of pain as his elbow connected with Hawke’s stomach. Hawke reached for him, holding on tight. Jace struggled with him, but couldn’t budge his hands. Damn, how could he be so strong?
Jace might not be as large as Hawke, but he worked out regularly and considered himself to be pretty fit. Hawke effortlessly held onto him with hands like bands of steel, controlling him easily. Jace felt like his head was about to explode with rage. That particular charge Hawke had leveled at him—that he wasn’t a man and needed to act more macho or whatever—had been sneered at him before. He always told people that the last interaction he’d had with his parents was when he came home and found his suitcase packed and put out on the front steps, but that wasn’t true. The actual last time was something he didn’t like to think about.
Months after he’d been put out of the only home he’d ever known, he’d seen his mother and father walking in a huge mall in Birmingham. He’d known his mother shopped there, but still what kind of crazy coincidence would have brought them together face to face on a Saturday afternoon in front of Sears?
It was three days before his eighteenth birthday, and he’d actually been thrilled to see them. It had been two months since he’d last seen either of them and he missed them, especially his mom. He could feel a huge smile wreathing his face as he took a quick step toward them. What had he been thinking? Maybe that they’d give him a hug—ask how he was doing, maybe even offer him some money. He was sleeping on a friend’s couch at the time, though the boy’s parents were already not too subtly implying they wanted him to leave. He was in the mall that day looking for some kind of a job just so he could pay for food, thinking that might appease the boy’s parents.
He’d already opened his arms to hug his mom when his father spotted him and pulled her away. He put himself between them, and stood looking Jace up and down with contempt. Jace was suddenly hyper-aware of his too tight, straight leg jeans, his earring, and the piercing in his eyebrow. Worst of all, he was wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed him to be “Too Cute to be Straight,” and it had a huge rainbow on the front.
His dad took it all in, gave him that look again and said, “Look at you. You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re not fit to be with decent people. I raised my son to be a man, not a joke.” With that, he turned away and pulled Jace’s mother with him. Neither of them even looked back at him as they hurried away down the mall, leaving Jace standing alone.
“Was that supposed to be a shot to the heart?” he yelled after his father. “Was it, Dad? Because if it was, it missed the mark.” He hoped they’d turn around and fight, or yell at him, or spit on him, or hell, something—anything besides leaving him standing there all alone. And the worst thing? It had been a shot to the heart, and his dad had scored a direct hit.
So lying there with Hawke on top of him, Jace took all the rage, all the heartbreak and fury he’d felt not only from his father’s scorn and contempt, but from all the people over the years who’d implied that because he preferred men sexually, he was somehow less masculine, less than a real man. He put all of it into one loud scream, and he screamed it as loud as he could as Hawke held him there on the floor. He screamed so loud he thought he felt something tear in his throat, and then he went limp and closed his eyes.
When he came back to himself, he was clasped tightly in Hawke’s arms, his face buried in his throat, because at some point, Hawke had moved them to a sitting position and Hawke was leaning back against the bar. Jace was wrapped tightly in his arms, and Hawke was rubbing little circles on his back.
He lifted his head and stared into Hawke’s eyes and Hawke whispered to him. “I’m so sorry, Jace.” He lowered his head and took Jace’s lips in a fierce, hungry kiss. Jace kissed him back eagerly, his tongue pushing into Hawke’s hot mouth, the taste of him exploding on his tongue. Hawke ran his hands down his arms, moving on to tug Jace’s shirt out of his jeans.
“I want you so much, Jace. I’ve wanted you since the first minute I saw you.”
“I-I wanted you too, but I never thought…I never expected…”
Desperate to touch Hawke, Jace was almost tearing at his clothes. Hawke kept his eyes fastened on Jace as he quickly took off his own. Trembling, Jace shoved down his jeans and underpants and almost ripped off his t-shirt in his haste. As soon as Hawke had his jeans down past his hips, Jace slid down and tried to fasten his lips over Hawke’s huge cock, but Hawke pulled him back up, putting his lips gently against Jace’s, licking at them until they fell open and then easing his tongue inside, gently exploring him.
He pulled back, his dark eyes sparkling into Jace’s and whispered fiercely against his lips, “You’re mine.”
Hawke’s hand was strong and sure as he wrapped one hand around Jace’s flesh and gently squeezed, while the other big hand pressed against his backside, pulling him in close. Jace strained against him, surging upward into his hand. His hips moved violently forward and back, over and over, he rocked himself into that hand again and again. He felt Hawke nuzzle gently into his neck
and the pleasure increased. He wouldn’t be able to take this much longer. Hawke’s touch felt so amazing, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was about to come. Even as the thought flashed across his mind, his orgasm slammed into him and Jace yelled out his pleasure as Hawke increased the tempo and pressure on his cock.
His spunk spurted from him, and Hawke growled as the scent of it hit the air.
“Hawke,” he gasped. “Oh God…”
Hawke took his lips again, tugging him in close and pressing Jace’s softening cock against Hawke’s warm stomach. He pushed his tongue back into Jace’s mouth, giving him no respite, no time to regather his breath or his strength. Sweeping his tongue over the inside of Jace’s mouth, he made sure Jace tasted him, breathed him in.
Hawke surged to his feet and reached down for Jace, pulling him up to his chest. He strode in the bedroom with him and laid him on the bed. Jace moaned and reached for him and he came willingly after him, wrapping his hand around the back of his neck and holding Jace’s lips to his. “You’re my mate,” Hawke murmured to him. “We mate for life, Jace. Make no mistake about this. You’ll belong to me.”
Jace had little idea what he was talking about, but he understood the tone and the words. Belong to him. For life. Yes, please. Jace trembled all over, humping at Hawke’s leg as Hawke smiled down at him. “Something you want, Jace?”
“You. I want you,” Jace said. Hawke was stretched out over him and he could feel how hard and hot Hawke’s cock was against his groin. He felt that cock slide over his stomach as Hawke moved, reaching into the bedside drawer for lube. “I’m going to make love to you, Jace.”
“Oh…okay.”
Hawke looked down at him and smiled, his eyes flashing with heat. “Just okay?”
“I-I’ve never…never done this exactly. Just-just blow jobs and stuff.”
Hawke growled and licked the tender skin of Jace’s neck. “Good.”