I woke without opening my eyes. The first thing I realized was that I was not dead. Good start. Thoughts were slow and fuzzy, but I at least knew I was alive.

What next? I took a deep breath, and a dull ache echoed through my nose, forehead, and cheeks. Okay, in pain. Not as much as before. This was also good.

I took a gentler breath, and the scents of a summer barbecue filled my nose and generated images of back yards and sunny days. I could practically feel the heat of the sun burning my skin. I opened my eyes.

This was definitely not someone’s back yard. I lay in a half-reclined position, a cold, sharp fluorescent light glowing above me, bouncing off the white ceiling, white walls, white counters, white everything. My other senses slowly came online as the light forced me from my half-sleeping state to fully awake. A soft beep to my left drew my eyes to the machine standing next to me, monitoring my heart rate, if I was reading it right. A hanging bag of fluids was placed next to it, and I followed the line down to where its needle was inserted and taped to my skin. My arm lay across the body of a gray wolf.

Alpha. Shifter. My analytical side immediately started categorizing him. He was the source of my summer-scented fantasy. Man, he smelled good. The scent made me crave a steak. A giant, juicy, perfectly grilled steak.

My stomach grumbled.

The wolf picked his head up and looked over his shoulder at me, wagging his tail and jostling my arm before he slid off the bed to the floor. When he stood, he was a naked man. A very lean yet muscled, hot, naked man, wearing only dog tags.

Okay, maybe I wanted to eat a steak… and maybe I just wanted to eat him…

“Sorry,” he said, his voice quiet. “I didn’t mean to crowd you. You were whimpering in your sleep last night, but you calmed down when I lay next to you.”

“Mate?” The word came out hoarsely, and I cleared my throat.

He took my hand in his and nodded. “My name is Jonah.”

“I’m Matthew,” I said, shivering at his touch. At least my voice sounded more like my own. Heat raced from the joining of our hands up my arm.

“You’re flushed,” Jonah said. “Let me go get a nurse—”

“Stay,” I said. “What—how long has it been?”

“Since we rescued you?” He checked his watch. “About sixteen hours. It’s five a.m. now.”

“Can I… can I get some water?”

“Of course!”

I let Jonah drop my hand this time, and he grabbed a cylinder container, pulling out a wipe before going to the sink, wiping down a glass thoroughly, and then filling it with water and bringing it to me, tossing the wipe in the trash.

“What’s that?” I nodded to the cylinder.

“Bleach wipes. I wasn’t excited about them bringing you here—hospitals and clinics are the worst when it comes to germs—but you needed help.”

The water felt ice-cold on my tongue, even though it had just come from the tap. “I’m feeling better,” I said. That was an understatement. Yes, my nose was still broken, and I couldn’t even imagine what I’d look like in a mirror, but I shifted my chest a little, and my ribs didn’t scream too loudly at me. I was already healing, though slowly.

“Once you can shift, you’ll feel even better,” Jonah said.

There was a soft knock at the door and then a nurse walked in, looking at her clipboard. She gave a shriek, tossing the board and all its papers as she looked up and saw Jonah standing next to me in all his naked glory.

“Visitors are not to be naked!” she fussed, turning to pull something out of a cupboard near the door. She tossed a piece of folded fabric at Jonah. “At least put that on!”

He shook it out and revealed a plain hospital gown before donning it obediently. I held back a snicker—that still hurt too much—when he turned around. The open-backed gown didn’t cover his ass.

The nurse grumbled under her breath as she recovered her clipboard and checked my monitors, making some marks before nodding to me. “I’ll let the doctor know you’ve woken when he arrives.”

She was gone before I could ask for food or just any kind of sustenance not delivered through an IV.

Jonah dragged a chair over to sit next to me, carefully wiping down the metal arms and even the fabric with his wipes.

“Are you up for shifting?”

I rolled my shoulders, reaching inside me and feeling my connection to my wolf. I had been undercover for so long, it was like recovering an amputated limb. Without answering, I initiated my shift, feeling the wounds and breaks of my human body bind and fade as whatever power that allowed me to change my form made me whole again. The IV needle slipped from my skin and I shook the tape loose, sending it clattering to the floor.

This shift wasn’t comfortable. It was downright painful. But with the last snap of broken bone joining, I breathed a sigh of relief. The lack of pain was almost euphoric. I kicked and shook off the sheet they had laid over my body, leaving my own hospital gown underneath me on the bed. I lay quietly for a few minutes, recovering from the intensity of the change and healing, while Jonah buried his fingers in my fur and massaged my muscles.

Oh, that felt so good.

As wonderful as it was to be back in wolf form, however, I had just met my mate. I’d been rescued from death or a fate worse than it. I needed my human form, my human mouth. I needed to speak.

I shifted back as Jonah was scratching the sensitive spot right at the end of my spine, at the base of my tail, leaving him scratching my lower back, right at the edge of my ass crack. He snatched his hand away with a blink of surprise.

“You could have kept going,” I said, surprising myself with the shift in my hunger. His touch made me want things other than food.

“Just because you’ve healed the greatest part of the injuries doesn’t mean you’re healed,” Jonah said, his back stiff.

I didn’t just want his touch… I craved it. I needed it.

“What does that have to do with you not touching me?” I rolled halfway up and over to grab his hand, pulling him toward me. I collapsed back inelegantly—the movement had taken more energy than I had to offer.

He lurched forward, throwing his hands out to brace himself on the bed over the top of me. His eyes trailed down my body and I stirred, preening, stretching for his enjoyment.

His eyes flashed back to mine. “You’re in heat,” he said, starting to pull away. “Let me go get a nurse. They can give you a sedative, ease you through this—”

I grabbed his arms and wouldn’t let go. “You feel and sense the same as me, don’t you? We are mates?”

Jonah nodded, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire though his muscles were stiff under my grip.

“Then why are you running away?”

“You still need to heal. Just sitting up then drained you. You’re not up to dealing with this.”

I kept my grip firm, unwilling to give him more proof of my exhaustion that would take him away from me. He was right, my heat was overtaking me, but it wasn’t bad yet. And if he’d just listen to me, it wouldn’t get bad at all. “An unmated heat will drain me even more. If I barely have the energy to sit up now, imagine what I’ll be like after my body is thrown into heat for three days. Three days where we won’t be able to see each other. If I’m going into heat, you’re going into rut. What are you going to have them do? Knock you out too?”

Jonah gritted his teeth. “If I must.”

I loosened one hand and drew it down his arm in a caress. One nice thing about being on this last assignment was the lack of heats—I’d been through unassisted and assisted heats before, and I wasn’t going through an unassisted one right now. Not with my mate right in front of me. “But you don’t.”

“You’re not in your right mind,” Jonah bit out, but he didn’t draw away.

“I’m an experienced agent of the FBI. I have been trained to think through high-intensity situations. The beginnings of heat are no more stressful than a hostage negotiation. I think I’m in a much better mind to choose this than you are. Your skin is flushed. Your eyes are dilated. Your heart rate is increasing.”

“So is yours,” Jonah said.

“And I am trained to use those signals to fuel my thoughts, not to give in to them. But you, Jonah—” he shivered as my tongue caressed his name “—should have no qualms about giving in. I need this. I need you.”

Those last words seemed to be what I needed to unlock him. He didn’t rush me in a fit of passion like I expected, though. He leaned in close for a soft, yearning kiss, awakening an aching hole deep inside my soul, one I hadn’t realized was there.

He half lay on me as he deepened the kiss, the only thing separating us the thin fabric of his gown. His cock pressed firmly against my thigh, burning through the fabric, while squeezing mine between our stomachs. I jumped when the bed started moving, but quickly realized Jonah had hit the button to return the bed to a flat position.

As soon as the bed stopped moving, he pulled away, shucking the gown. “Lay on your side. Please.”

So polite, my alpha.

I shivered. My alpha. The feeling of belonging to him went bone deep, igniting my instincts to submit and claim, regardless of what I had told him about my ability to use my passion to think more clearly.

I turned, and he slid into the bed behind me, spooning me, laying kisses down my neck and shoulder, prompting a soft groan from me.

“You’re beautiful,” Jonah whispered into my ear. “I’m sorry about your hair.”

I hadn’t even noticed anything about my hair, and I didn’t care. All I cared about were his hands on me, his cock pressed between the cheeks of my ass, though not where I wanted it.

“Just take me, Jonah,” I growled.

“Not yet, Matthew.”

It was the first time he’d said my name. I felt a sudden coolness between my legs as my slick leaked from my hole, preparing me to take him.

“Yes, I want you. But no matter how badly I want you, nothing will convince me to abuse you on purpose or by accident. You’re still weak, and as much as I would like to give in to my basest level and just let what happens happen, I will not. I will ease you through this heat. I will knot you. But I will do it my way, without risking you harm.”

Tears of need and frustration leaked from my eyes. “Please,” I begged.

“Gently,” he said, but I shuddered in relief as he repositioned and placed his cock at my entrance, sliding slowly in.

I gasped at the stretch, but it wasn’t painful. The heat had readied my body, and I felt nothing but pleasure and impatience. He slid in deeply and fully on the first slow thrust, and I wiggled, trying to get even more of him. I tried to reach one arm back to grab something of him, anything, but he pinned my arm to my chest with his own, and pulled back just as slowly as he had entered me.

I tried moving my hips to encourage him to go faster, harder, but he simply pulled away until my exhaustion took me, then slid back in at the same damn pace as before.

I didn’t know it was possible for someone to be fucked so thoroughly but so slowly. I was used to the frenzy and strength of a passion-induced coupling. This gentle care and deep concern was new to me. His patience was godlike as he thrust into me with the steadiness of a clock, a near-constant tease, building me up to the edge of need, and then forcing me higher and higher. His knot began to bulge and tug at my entrance as he slid in and out.

“I can’t… come… like this,” I panted. “I need… more.”

Jonah kissed my shoulder. “Do you?”

I felt some satisfaction in the ragged quality of his voice.

“I’m so close, Matthew, and I think you are too.”

“You’re a bas—” I started to cuss him out, but just then, he thrust into me, no more slowly or quickly than before, but as his knot tugged against my sensitive entrance, I fell over the edge of ecstasy into an orgasm that seemed never-ending as he froze inside me, his release filling me, his cock throbbing and twitching with power. His fingers had locked around my wrist, holding me close to him. I felt as if electricity sparked between us wherever skin touched, which was almost everywhere.

I finally went limp, the pleasure leaking from me clear down to my toes, giving way to comfort as his knot locked inside me, tying me to my mate.

“Was that so terrible?” Jonah asked.

“You’re a bastard,” I mumbled, finishing the accusation my orgasm had interrupted.

“But I didn’t hurt you, and now your heat is eased.” He yawned. “I may take a quick nap before the nurse comes back and yells at me for being naked again.”

My eyes drooped. “Me too.”

As tired as I was, my thoughts were still racing. It had been so long since I’d enjoyed the comfort of another’s arms, and this was my mate—my Jonah. I didn’t know him yet, but he was mine and I was his. Even though—I realized this just as my mind shifted from waking to dreaming—we hadn’t mated.

I’d always thought that the first time I had sex with my mate, that we would claim each other at once.

I was hoping I might convince Jonah for a round two when two men entered the room.