Navarro's Promise (17 page)

Because she didn’t think she had the patience to be social much longer.

“Your father is threatening to arrive at Sanctuary,” Merinus said then. “I need to know, Mica, if he arrives, will you be able to suppress your own anger, or any emotions that would upset him, long enough to reassure him and keep him from feeling the need to take you from Navarro at the moment? We both know how dangerous that could be.”

Oh yes, she knew exactly how male Breeds could be where their mates were concerned. She’d seen it for years; each time one mated, the possessiveness, the dominance and the pure overprotectiveness.

They were more overprotective than her father.

Mica turned her head away before shaking it slowly. “You need to convince Dad to stay away,” she stated as she turned back to the other woman. “I don’t know if I can deal with his overprotectiveness as well as Navarro’s at the moment.”

And he was overprotective. So much so that Mica often felt smothered in his presence. Growing up around him had been almost impossible. If he could, he would have kept her a child for the rest of her life.

She wouldn’t have had her first lover, let alone a chance to allow a Breed to actually mate her, if her father had had his way. And if he arrived here and had to face Navarro sleeping in her bed without the benefit of marriage, then he was likely to do something stupid. As Merinus feared, there was a very high chance he would indeed attempt to force her back to the ranch, or to Haven.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to be an adult.

He wanted her to marry a man he believed to be the kind of man she needed. He wanted her to settle down in a nice little house and have babies and be bored out of her mind.

He didn’t consider a Breed acceptable, and not because he disliked them, not because he was prejudiced. But because he knew the danger that came with being a Breed’s mate.

“Mica, I can help you.”

She paused at the kitchen doorway before turning back to Merinus. “Have you found a cure for mating heat?”

“You know we haven’t,” Merinus said softly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you through this. I’m always here, Mica. All you have to do is tell me what you need. I’m your advocate here.”

“Until a cure is found to mating heat or male dominance, then I’m screwed, and we both know it,” she said bitterly.

“And is mating heat so abominable?” Merinus asked. “Is Navarro such an unworthy mate, or lover?”

“He would have been a perfect lover,” Mica answered truthfully. “But I wasn’t looking for a mate, Merinus. I wasn’t looking to confine myself to Sanctuary or Haven for a man that doesn’t even love me. One that doesn’t even want me but for mating heat.”

With those words she left the kitchen, unwilling to hear any more arguments for mating heat or Breeds as mates. She sure as hell didn’t want to see the acknowledgment in Merinus’s eyes that she was right.

The only reason Navarro would stay with her now was because of the heat, not because he was willing to fall in love with her. Not because he wanted to love her. But because of some biological reaction. Because something had matched in their hormones, their pheromones or some other bodily element that now bound them together.

She rather doubted though that it was as Cassie had always claimed, that their bodies knew what their hearts weren’t yet willing to accept.

She couldn’t accept that excuse, despite the arguments Cassie had to back up her theory. The fact that all Breed mates, all pairings had ended up being perfectly matched. That they loved. That they were devoted partners. That not once in all the years that mating heat and mates had been recorded had nature ever created a less than perfect couple.

There was always a first time for everything. And mating heat didn’t release the couple. It created a sexual pleasure that became addictive, as Mica understood it. An addict would never betray the addiction, especially if it was approved by the surgeon general, she thought sarcastically. And mating heat was definitely approved by both the Breeds as well as the humans who were aware of it. A much higher endorsement than the surgeon general’s, Cassie had once told her with a laugh.

Moving to the front entrance, Mica dragged a heavy jacket from inside the nearby closet and pulled it on quickly before leaving the house. She expected at any minute for the Breed watching silently to stop her, or for Merinus to come from the kitchen and call her back, which would have the guard moving to stop her.

Fortunately neither of them seemed to care, and Mica wasn’t in the mood to be told no.

Wrapping the overly large quilted jacket around her, Mica ducked her head against the chilly wind whipping from the mountains.

Sanctuary was one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen in her life, summer or winter. The old, heavy pine trees looked even more gorgeous at this time than at any other.

They were laden with a heavy covering of snow from the night before, which glistened in the cold air, and pine needles lying on the ground beneath them cushioned Mica’s footsteps, while the silence that surrounded her seemed almost eerie.

Sanctuary always seemed to have an otherworldly feel to it, but now even more so.

As though the world itself was awaiting the moment that the warmth of spring would finally show its face and melt the cold around it.

“You shouldn’t run off like that, not someone letting someone know where you’re heading and when you’ll be back.”

Mica swung around at the sound of Navarro’s dark voice, glaring back at him at the reminder that there was no way to hide in this damned place. There was especially no way to hide from him now.

“Reporting my possible activities wasn’t high on my list of priorities.”

“It should have been.” There was something about the look on his face, the set of his expression, that had her watching him warily.

She knew Breeds, and she knew this one wasn’t pleased.

“Fine, the next time I’ll sign out like a good little girl before I leave the house. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to enjoy a little peace and quiet for a change.” Her gaze flicked back toward the estate house in silent invitation.

She didn’t want him around her right now. She needed a chance to clear her head rather than giving her body a chance to grow even hotter. And it was. As though simply having him around her was enough to make her pussy begin weeping in arousal and her heart begin racing in excitement.

She needed him.

She wanted him, but that was really nothing unusual, she had been wanting him for years now, but she hadn’t wanted him like this. Forced. Bound to her by a hormonal reaction he couldn’t control any more than she could.

She pulled the jacket tighter around her as she felt her body sensitizing further, nerve endings and erogenous zones growing in interest by the second.

“Trade me jackets.” He shrugged the leather jacket he wore from his shoulders, revealing a black silk shirt tucked into well-worn jeans.

Jeans that were filled out exceptionally well by the heavy erection beneath them.

Flames suddenly licked over her skin as she concentrated on the jacket he was holding out to her and tightened her fingers on the one she was wearing.

“I like the one I’m wearing just fine.” She’d seen Merinus wear this one before, earlier in the fall when she had been there with Cassie for a weekend.

“As much as I like Callan, I don’t like the scent of him on my mate,” he suddenly growled.

Mica rolled her eyes, lips parting, teeth clenching in irritation, but she jerked the jacket off, barely feeling the chill in the air as she extended it to him.

But rather than taking the jacket he extended to her, she stalked away instead, heading back to the house and hopefully as far away from him as possible. And as quickly as possible. She would absolutely love it if she could get far enough away, fast enough, that the heat building in her body would simply evaporate.

She just didn’t need this.

But that didn’t seem to matter, because he moved in beside her as though her quickened stride were no problem to keep up with at all.

“We can’t run away from it,” he stated, his voice dark, heavy as she came to a stop, turned and stared back at him warily, angrily.

“And who ran from it this morning?” she questioned heatedly, wishing she were cold rather than steaming in arousal, because that steam was beginning to build to a full roiling boil.

She could feel it taking over, cell by cell, inciting not just a physical, but also an emotional response she had no hope of defeating.

The problem was, she’d wanted him before mating heat. She’d been close to falling in love with him before that first kiss. But for him, there was nothing more involved than the physical, and now more of that than he wanted too.

“I’m not running.” His eyes seemed to burn with black fire.

“And I’m not a
wham bam thank you ma’am
kind of woman, and I’m sure as hell not a few one-night stands that you can slip out on the next morning.” She sneered. “I’ll tell you what, Navarro, when you’re ready to ask for more than a nice little fuck, then let me know. I’ll see what I can do for you then. Until then, I think I’d prefer the hell of mating heat for company.”

Stalking away, Mica cursed her tongue, her temper and Breeds in particular as she stomped toward the main house, determined to get away from him before she ended up begging. Begging him to fuck her. Begging him to love her.

“It’s not that easy.”

Before she could even imagine he would try to stop her, his fingers wrapped around her upper arm, pulling her to a halt and, before she could stop him, pressing her firmly against the wide trunk of a bare tree.

His warmth seemed to blanket her as he pressed against her, the heavy length of his cock imprinting against her lower stomach through their clothing.

It was cold around them, she knew it was, but she couldn’t feel it. All she felt was the flush of need as it began to overflow through her, saturating her pussy, hardening her nipples and sensitizing her skin.

All she felt was the irrevocable need she couldn’t resist any more than he could.

“It’s just that easy.” She was breathing heavily, her voice much too weak to be as commanding as she wished she could be.

Her breasts were rising and falling harshly, her hard nipples raking against her sweater where his chest pressed tight against her.

“Is it, Mica?” he asked, his hand lifting, fingers brushing back the heavy strands of hair that had fallen across her face.

The touch was so gentle, the stroke of his fingers along her cheek causing her breath to catch at the need that was so much more than physical, so much more than simply the need to fuck.

“Do you really want to run?”

She did. She wanted to run. She wanted to breathe. She wanted . . .

She just wanted to hold as much of him as he held of her.

She wanted more than just his body.

CHAPTER 10

Navarro stared down at her, wondering if she knew how the walls around her emotions were slipping. There had been a time when he couldn’t have cracked those walls in any way. When she could have tucked those emotions so far out of sight that he wouldn’t have had a chance of scenting them.

The intriguing mix of subtle scents that emanated from Mica were like an ambrosia to him. Even the scent of her disappointment, her anger and her emotional pain were slight enough that they only blended with those of heated rosemary, a field of wildflowers, a hint of brown sugar. All the sweet, soft scents of the compassionate, honest woman she was. Scents of her arousal, and a hunger that went far beyond the physical, were like a soft, sweet hint of a coming day.

She wanted more than the physical pleasure that came with the mating heat. The hunger that raged inside her was for far more than just the sex.

Mica wanted love, commitment. She wanted a man whose affection would warm more than just her body. And he’d sworn long ago he’d never let himself step into the treacherous waters of emotion.

Even for his mate.

“I would run if I could,” she finally answered. “You ensured that wasn’t possible when you mated me.”

He cupped the side of her face with his palm, amazed at the silky softness of her skin even as a twinge of amusement filtered through the arousal, and the irritation with that arousal, and had him restraining the tug of a grin that would have pulled at his lips.

“I could say the mating was more your fault,” he stated. “I wasn’t having a problem with any other woman until you.”

“That is such a screwed argument.” The dark frown she angled up at him was accompanied by the disbelief that glittered in her gaze. “Only a Breed would say something so asinine. Sorry, Navarro, but only Breeds have the ability to mate. That cancels me out.”

She had him there. But he noticed the confrontation was increasing that hint of a summer rain as her pussy grew wetter, hotter.

The remembered taste of that soft flesh had the glands beneath his tongue swelling further, the mating hormone spilling to his mouth in increments as he fought the need to kiss her.

Not yet. He wasn’t ready yet.

“Amaya, you are never canceled out,” he assured her. “I believe perhaps it’s a two-way street if we’re placing blame. Because as I understand it, only you could have awakened that ability within me.”

“Go ahead, pawn the blame off.” Her hands flattened against his stomach above the silk of his shirt. “You’re good at that Navarro. I’ve noticed you never take the blame for anything.”

“But, Amaya, there’s so many so very capable of taking the blame,” he drawled.

Amaya. Night rain. This was what she reminded him of. A soft, sultry summer night’s rain. Soft, warm, caressing. Stroking not just the flesh but also the senses.

“I’m not one of them.” Her lashes drifted over her eyes as her expression softened and her face flushed with the pleasure rising inside her.

Stroking his fingertips down her neck, he came to the loose neckline of the sweater and hated the clothing covering her nakedness from him.

He wanted her here, and he wanted her now.

“I followed you when you left the house,” he told her. “As you walked here, I could smell the sweetest hint of summer in the air.”

The rush of dampness between her thighs teased his senses.

“That’s enough,” she whispered. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me ache like this, Navarro.”

“Should I ache alone then?” Trailing his fingers over her breast, down, he tracked a path to the hem of her sweater as he watched the rise and fall of the soft mounds increase.

Pushing his hand beneath her sweater, he fought soft, feminine flesh.

He could take her here, he told himself. Turn her, press her to the trunk of the tree. He could push inside her and warm them both with the heat of her need.

Her pussy would milk him in, suck at the head of his dick until he found himself fully seated inside her.

The thought of it was enough to have his cock throbbing beneath his jeans. Or rather, throbbing harder. He’d never lost the hard-on he’d been packing before he fucked her earlier. Hell, he’d come like he was dying as he was locked inside her, and still the erection hadn’t abated.

“See, this is why Breeds were on my ‘no date’ list.” She was huffing with charming irritation. “You never pay attention.”

“I would pay more attention if you weren’t rubbing your pussy against my thigh, Amaya.”

Her eyes widened as surprise glittered in the golden green depths. Her hips paused; the sensual little motions she’d been making against his leg had been about to drive him insane. The heat of her pussy had been like a brand against his thigh. He missed the feel of it grinding against him and the invitation inherent in the motions.

She inhaled slowly, deeply, as his knees dipped, placing his cock against the juncture of her thighs as his hands gripped her hips, lifted her just enough and notched his cock against the sweet pad beneath her jeans.

“I could take your jeans down, lift you and let you ride me.” He swore his cock thickened impossibly at the very thought of it. “Or I could turn you and just ease your jeans to your thighs and take you from behind. Do you think, Mica, that the chill of the air would ease the heat that will burn inside us?”

He didn’t think it possible that anything could ease the heat torturing him at the moment, or the rain of liquid fire he knew was spilling between her thighs.

Her head fell back against the trunk, her breathing short and jerky as she stared back at him.

“I think this is a very bad idea,” she answered, her voice weak as his finger moved to the snap of her jeans.

“I’ve decided what I would prefer,” he told her as his head lowered to her lips, brushing against them, “I’d prefer to have you ride me, Amaya. To have your hot, snug pussy lifting and falling on my dick as you work yourself on it.”

His fingers moved to the snap and zipper of her jeans, releasing them as he allowed her to settle on her feet once again.

They were secure here in the shelter of the pine forest. No eyes could see, and the chances of anyone slipping up on them were next to zero.

He’d been seen following his mate, and Breed security would ensure they were protected. Not that he trusted anyone else with her life.

“Ah, Mica.” His hand slid into the opening of the fabric, pressing in to find the soft, swollen folds and saturated curls of her pussy.

With one hand he pushed the jeans down over her legs to her ankles, halting their journey as he wrapped his arm around her hips.

Lifting her, Navarro stared down at her, then he jerked her sweater above her breasts and guided her knees to his hips, as he released his cock and felt the engorged head pressing against the hot curves of her pussy.

“Ah fuck!” Heat surrounded the very tip of his cock, blazing, an inferno of lush, slick juice easing his way as he began to press inside her.

Turning, he braced his back against the tree and lowered his head to catch the ripe fullness of her nipple between his lips to suck. To draw the overly sensitive bud between his lips and tongue it erotically.

She shifted in his grip, the image of her face, delicate and flushed with need, imprinting into his brain as she began to work her pussy against the thick, heavy length of his cock pressed inside her.

There wasn’t enough foreplay, he knew there wasn’t. For some reason the seminal fluid that usually came with Wolf Breed matings, to ease the female mate’s clenched muscles, hadn’t developed. But still, he could feel her taking him. Her juices were thick and heavy, coating his cock and allowing her to work it inside her as a tremulous cry pierced the silence of the trees surrounding them.

He was only barely aware of the snow that had begun to fall outside the stand of pine. A thick, heavy fall of fluffy white enclosed them in their own wonderland, one of sensuality and erotic promise.

Her hands clawed at his chest as she tried to get closer, her cry turning to a heavy, hungry moan as she moved against him.

His lips surrounded her nipple, sucking at it, drawing her deeper into his mouth as his tongue lashed at the tender peak.

Navarro could hear his own growls rumbling in his chest as he pierced and parted the tender flesh of her pussy with his cock, separating the clenched tissue and easing forward as she worked her hips against him, slowly, with peaking pleasure. He was forced to pull his head back from the tender nipple to clench his teeth in agonizing ecstasy.

“Ah fuck, sweet Mica,” he groaned, his hands gripping her ass, palming it, parting the delicate curves with greedy hands as he helped her move on him. “I could stay inside you forever, just feeling you fuck me like this, rising and falling against me.”

After that first, wild cry, she began to restrain the sounds, as though she were frightened of being heard.

Being heard was the least of her problems, but he allowed her the illusion, at least for now.

How could he not? Her nails were biting into his shoulders, her head thrown back in ecstasy, and she was giving him more pleasure than he had ever known in his life as he took her.

The desperation that filled her scented the air with a unique, delicate scent as it blended with the arousal and the varied emotions that raged through her. The unique scent it created was an aphrodisiac to his senses. It filled his head, made him high, made his dick harder, his heart race, his body dampen with perspiration as he fought to hold on to enough control to allow her to set this pace.

Until he could figure out why the seminal fluid wasn’t present, the slick, sensitizing, muscle-relaxing fluid that was ejected into the vagina from the tip of the Wolf Breed’s cock and eased the mate’s flesh for penetration. He couldn’t risk hurting her.

Wolf Breeds were taught from their first sexual instruction that the unique design of their cocks could be either an instrument of pleasure or one of pain.

And his Mica deserved nothing but pleasure. Nothing but the sweet cries of hunger that spilled from her lips as he felt the walls of her cunt grip and flex around the head of his dick as it penetrated her fully and began to make way for the heavy shaft.

Thick and pulsing, the heavy veins standing out in stark relief beneath the darkened flesh, his cock ached like a wound. It was all he could do to keep from taking over, to keep from taking her fully and pounding into her.

The need for just that was ripping through him as she’d barely taken two inches of the length.

“Navarro. Oh God. I need you. I need you so much,” she whispered, barely able to speak, let alone breathe as he finally slid inside her halfway, stretching her until she felt on fire, burning with the rippling pleasure surging through her.

She could feel her cunt flexing, rippling with need as instinct had the muscles rippling around him, sucking him in deeper as though desperate to milk every inch of his cock inside her.

“Take me, Mica,” he groaned against her, his head lowering as Mica stared unseeing at the canopy of evergreens above them.

She felt secure, so heated and warm. The engorged strength of his erection penetrated her by slow degrees as Navarro allowed her to take him at her leisure, at her pleasure.

His body strained, the tension evident in the corded strength of his muscles against her as she felt the wicked nip of his teeth against her shoulder, then a slow, erotic lick over the mark he had left on the flesh between her neck and shoulder earlier.

Each rasp of his tongue over the abrasion had her jerking in his hold, her hips writhing against the impalement of his cock as streaks of sensation whipped from the bite mark to her womb, clenching it violently.

Tension rose inside her. The need to feel him thrusting hard and deep inside her obliterated any other thought that may have threatened to penetrate the ecstatic pleasure surrounding her.

Whimpering with rising need, Mica fought the jeans at her ankles until one leg slipped over her ankle, pushing her shoe from her foot, allowing her to part her legs farther, to wrap them around his hips and find the position needed to allow her to take him more fully.

It was like climbing through flames to reach the explosive center of the sun. She was burning, on fire from a pleasure so intensive, so extreme it was nearly unbearable.

Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, using his hips as leverage, she lifted, rising along the stiff stalk as incoherent whimpers left her lips. His hands clenched on her ass, helping her lift as rapid-fire ecstasy began to throb in her womb, her clit.

Poised at the crest, Mica opened her eyes, her lips parting at the savage pleasure in Navarro’s expression. Black eyes narrowed and glittering with wild intensity, lips pulled back from his teeth in a feral grimace.

“Slow,” he growled as she fought against his hold, desperate to feel him shoving inside her, taking her with the fierce, hard strokes she was beginning to crave.

“No. Harder,” she demanded fiercely, but she was willing to beg.

A hard growl tore from his chest as his head jerked forward and lowered, his teeth biting into the shoulder he bared by stretching the loose neckline to the side.

Mica shuddered violently as she bore down on the heated erection piercing the entrance to her pussy. Pleasure raced through her like a wildfire fever. It pierced her womb, her clit, the sensations racing up her spine and spreading through her body with a rush of heat intense enough to steam the air around them.

Her pussy clenched on the engorged head of his cock, the width of it stretching her with a shock of fiery sensation that was both pleasure and pain.

Bit by bit, he allowed her more. Inch by inch, slipping inside her, as Mica felt her flesh giving beneath the iron-hard erection pushing into her.

She struggled against him, needing more, and needing it harder. She wanted those desperate hard thrusts that would send each surge of pleasure tearing across her nerve endings.

Crying out with the need, with the sensation of his teeth biting into her neck, his tongue laving the mark he had left earlier, Mica tightened the inner muscles of her pussy on the thick wedge of his cock as her hips writhed, her knees digging into his hard hips as she bore down, struggling against the hold he had on the cheeks of her ass.