“It’s going to be fine,” I assure him. “This place looks like a whole new lodge even after a few weeks. Imagine what it will look like when we finish everything after the interview is over.”

“What sort of things is he going to ask me, you think?”

“It’s a short piece,” I promise. “Just a little bit about you and the lodge and prime times to visit. Nothing major.”

He nods his head as he breathes deep in relief. “I can handle that.”

“Don’t worry,” I soothe. “He’s going to love this place. You don’t see rustic little places like this where I’m from. It’s practically alien.”

He leans back to fiddle with the curtains, opening them slightly until he’s content with their placement on the rod. “Jeannie is going to be so smug about this.”

“I really hope I’m around for that conversation.”

Hunter makes an indignant sound. “I’ll bet.” He steps down from the stepladder to assess his work. “Does that look straight?”

“Well, considering you obsessed over that level for at least fifteen minutes…”

He shoots me a disgruntled look as he steps around the table to my side, still looking at the curtains. “I just want to make sure it looks right.”

“You are nervous.” I turn toward him on the bench, leaning on one elbow to prop my cheek against my fist. “That’s so cute.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Cute?”

“Even big, scary lumberjacks can be cute,” I tell him seriously.

“I can definitively say you’re the only person on the planet who has ever called me ‘cute,’ ” he snorts.

“Really? Not even during your streaking days? I bet someone thought you were very cute when you went out there butt na—”

It takes him no time at all to cross the minimal distance to tower over me, his hands coming to rest on either side of my body as they brace against the table behind me and effectively trap me below him where I sit. He leans down to press his lips firmly to mine, and my lashes flutter.

I’m a little short of breath when he pulls away, his mouth only inches from mine. “Did you just shut me up by kissing me?”

“It worked,” he murmurs.

“That’s not very nice of you, Mr. Barrett.”

He makes some sound in his chest, one that makes me press my legs together. “I really don’t think that should do what it does to me.”

“Oh?” My hands come to rest on either side of his denim-clad hips, my fingers hooking in the loops as I pull him a little closer. “So does that mean you want me to stop, Mr. Barrett?”

“Tess,” he groans.

I let my hand wander until I can palm him through the now-straining zipper, feeling exactly what my teasing is doing to him. I know my scent is still thicker than normal; I know that because he told me in a sort of a groan only an hour ago while we were eating lunch. “Because it kind of seems like you don’t want me to stop.”

His lips brush along my cheek, his mouth parted and slack—his breath catching when I pop open the button at his fly. His head lowers to watch as I drag his zipper down slowly, his cock already pressing insistently against the cotton of his boxer briefs as if he really doesn’t want me to stop.

“Tess,” he says again, his voice sort of choked this time. “You must be tired. You don’t have to—”

I don’t hear the rest of his protest, and honestly, I’d be willing to bet he forgets what he was going to say altogether when I tug down the elastic of his underwear to free him. Despite his imperviousness to the chill in the room that comes from lack of power, I can say definitively that I have no such resistance to it. Maybe it’s something that will come the more I settle into my new omega designation. I know my hands have to be cold when they circle him. Maybe that’s why he hisses through his teeth as my fingers curl around the hot, hard length of him—or maybe it’s simply that I’m touching him. I like that thought better.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve ever particularly enjoyed oral. I mean, I was getting nothing from it in the past except a sore jaw well before I was acquainted with the enormity that is Hunter Barrett—but something about the way his breath seems to come unsteadily now, the way his fingers find their way to fist gently in my hair in an almost unconscious way…I find myself enjoying the effects of what I’m doing to him very much.

I know before I even start that actually fitting all of him in my mouth is going to be impossible, but I’m going for sexy here. Even in my limited experience with this, I doubt gagging will be a particularly attractive move. Last time was so rushed, so frantic—I didn’t have time to properly enjoy everything I was doing to him. Now I let my fist slide down the velvety firmness of his cock, leaning in to press the flat of my tongue just under the head before I close my lips around it to suck.

“Fuck,” he grunts.

If I turn up my eyes, I can see the way he’s watching me; there’s something wild in his expression that only spurs me on. I hold his gaze when I take as much as I’m able to, letting him push deeper into my mouth, keeping a tight pressure with my lips so that I can feel every inch of him as he moves over my tongue.

I doubt I can even get half of him in my mouth, I think distantly.

His hips jerk when I suck softly, making a wet sound that feels a little obscene. I tease the end with the tip of my tongue before swirling it all around the thick head, and the groan that tumbles out of his mouth when I dip it into the slit seems almost pained. His taste makes me dizzy, stirring up the ghost of that same need I felt when I was fully in my heat, making this just as enjoyable for me as it is for him, I think.

“Tess. Tess.”

I push my lips down the length of him slowly, looking up at him as innocently as I can manage while my mouth is so full. “Hmm?”

“I’m going to come,” he warns me, sounding completely regretful. “I’m going to come in your mouth if you keep doing that.”

I pull off him with another exaggerated sound, only because it seems to really rile him up. “You can,” I tell him. “If you want to.”

I’m lifted off the bench so fast I don’t even know what’s happening at first. Suddenly his hands are under my arms and he’s tugging me upward to bring me right off my seat, plopping me down on the table as his mouth slants across mine roughly. His tongue slips inside to pet at mine as his hand tugs my hair a little less gently to angle me into the kiss, and all I can do is wind my arms around his neck to hold on.

“That’s not where I want to come,” he breathes against my mouth between kisses.

I’m surprised I can even make words, my voice sounding hardly like my own with the way it rasps out of me. “What’s the alternative, Mr. Barrett?”

“Hmm.” He gives me another slow kiss that has me leaning into it. “Aren’t you cold?”

I don’t tell him that my sweater and my fleece-lined leggings feel a little sweltering now, shaking my head instead. “Getting warmer by the second.”

“Really?” For a moment, I’m actually put out by the way his fingers untangle themselves from my hair—until he reaches for the waistband of my leggings. “Then lift up.”

I drop my hands to brace myself against the tabletop, lifting my hips to let him start peeling my leggings along my thighs and down my legs, with my underwear in tow. They slide over my wool socks to flutter to the floor and leave me in nothing else from the waist down, and I briefly wonder if I look ridiculous, half-naked in socks on a dining room table.

Not that Hunter seems to mind. He shoves the bench seat under the table with one swift movement of his foot, and then he’s kissing me again, stepping between my legs and stealing my breath with both his tongue and the sudden sensation of his very warm, very hard length slotting at my core. He tilts his hips to let himself slide through my wet folds as if to coat himself in them, bumping my clit so that I shiver against him.