She giggled as his muttered “Have mercy,” reached her. The sound was filled with hunger, admiration, and warmth. That warmth was what stole her heart. It wasn’t just lust. It was something that was just right.

Reaching the small balcony that surrounded the treehouse, Emerson stood and stared out around the forest beneath them. God, it was beautiful here, quiet and peaceful, sultry and warming. She loved it.

“Let’s go inside.” Pulling up beside her, Macey ducked into the opening and drew her in, and her heart stopped in her chest.

A queen-sized mattress was laid out on the floor, surrounded by tapered candles. An ice chest sat in the back corner, but the mattress held her attention.

It wasn’t an air mattress. It was a deep, old-fashioned feather mattress covered with quilts and heaped with pillows.

“You did this?”

“You wanted a treehouse to sleep in.” He looked around the small area in satisfaction. “My brothers and I built this when we were teenagers. I wanted to share it with you.”

She lifted her hand to her lips as tears filled her eyes. He was giving her so much. So many dreams, so much happiness, and now, he was giving her one of the things she’d longed for as a child. A treehouse.

“I love you, Emerson,” he whispered, pulling her to the mattress and kneeling beside her. “I love you until sometimes I think I’m going to go insane if I don’t hold you.”

She shook her head, a tear falling as she stared into his face. This big tough guy, rough and ready to fight, and here he was kneeling in front of her, love shining in his dark eyes and tough face.

He lifted her hand and she stared down in shock as he slid the ring on her finger. The Ring. She knew what it was. The garnet, her birthstone, gleamed fiery burgundy and curved into a rich, lustrous emerald. Macey’s birthstone was emerald.

“They fit,” he whispered, his thumb smoothing over the stones inset in the gold band and curving into each other. “Like we fit. Fit me forever, Em. Belong with me forever.”

Her lips trembled, and tears fell from her eyes. “I like forever.” Her voice shook as she met his eyes and saw all the love, all the hope and joy she could have ever prayed for. “Forever suits us.”

“Belonging suits us.” His head lowered, his lips taking hers with a hunger that she knew should have shocked her, but instead, it met her own.

She laid back on the mattress, their hands tearing at each other’s clothes. Their lips, teeth and tongues devoured every drop of passion and pleasure they could find.

Clothes were discarded. Naked flesh met naked flesh as desperate moans mingled and hungry hands stroked. Sweat built on their flesh, making her breasts slick, heated as his lips slid over them. When his lips covered a nipple and sucked it deep and hard, her back arched in pleasure.

She pressed the mounds together as his lips began to devour both nipples. Sucking and licking as she writhed beneath him in passion.

“I’m hungry for the taste of you,” he moaned, moving from her breasts down her body.

His tongue stroked through the narrow slit of her pussy, and before Emerson could make sense of anything else she was drawn into a world of sensual hunger, heat and longing that only built and rose until she was screaming with her orgasm and begging for more. Begging for his cock rather than his lips and tongue, pleading for him to fill her.

When he filled her, he took her with long, slow strokes, worked the pleasure to a crescendo that flung her into the heavens in a burst of brilliant, fiery waves.

It was like this with Macey. Sometimes hard and hot, sometimes slow and hot, but always hot, always building, and always drawing her deeper into the magic of his touch.

Later, as the sun began to cool and shadows began to draw deeper into the treehouse, Macey moved. Champagne and two glasses were lifted from the ice chest along with a platter of cold finger foods.

They fed each other. Drank from one glass, and as darkness descended they loved again. Loved for hours until Emerson knew where she belonged, where her heart lay, and trusted in tomorrow.

In Macey’s arms.

DESERT

HEAT

CINDY

GERARD

ONE

“IT’S FOR A GOOD cause. It’s for a good cause. It’s for a good cause.” That was Assistant DA Elena Martinez’s mantra and she was sticking to it.