Navarro's Promise (6 page)

It went to the bone. No doubt, the bone itself was bruised as well, but nothing was broken, merely excruciatingly tender, and with very little additional pressure, something would break in a second.

“He did a good job on you,” Navarro growled, the sound that rumbled in his throat surprising him. “Was it Loki?”

Farce’s younger brother was a hothead, despite his exceptional training in the genetics labs. Still, as Navarro heard it, Loki hadn’t been happy that his brother had been killed, and he blamed the Wolf Breeds for the death.

Mica shook her head as she slowly drew the robe back on and held it together rather than belting it. “I haven’t seen Loki. No, it was Marx. And he wasn’t happy.”

Navarro nodded shortly, when he wanted nothing more than to snarl in rage. He would kill Marx himself for that bruise, and the scent of pain mixed with the scent of wounded flesh, once he got his hands on him. Truth be told though, there were a lot of Breeds eager to get their hands on the Coyote Breed.

Hatred was an emotion he tried to never feel. Strong emotion denoted even stronger trouble. What he was beginning to feel for this woman would have been worrisome if it weren’t for the fact that he had shown none of the signs of mating heat after kissing her weeks before.

She paced, or rather walked gingerly, to the other side of the room before turning to face him once again. “Is there another bed?” She gestured to the bed he stood beside.

“Sorry, baby, this is it.” He grinned back at her. “But don’t worry, we shouldn’t be here long. Jonas and Stygian are working on a route out of the city straight to Sanctuary. There, we’ll have a heli-jet arriving to take us to Haven.”

“The heli-jet can’t come after us now?”

“They’re all on a mission, including Jonas,” he answered in an unconcerned voice. “Don’t worry, Mica, you’ll be protected. Didn’t I promise you I’d keep you from harm?”

Mica felt her heart crash in her chest. A quick, hard bounce of emotion that flooded her body with sensitivity and tightened her throat with the strength of it.

“You promised.” It was all she could do to whisper the words as the memory of that night washed over her.

Staring back at him, her lips parted, the memory of that kiss sent a wash of furious need shuddering through her.

“You remember that kiss.” His voice dropped to a rough rasp, the black of his eyes growing impossibly darker. “You’ve distanced yourself from it. Why?”

Mica inhaled sharply. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

To retreat as he paced closer would have been the same as admitting fear. She’d learned in the years she had been raised around Breeds to never show fear.

It wasn’t fear, though. Trepidation maybe.

He stepped closer, his broad chest nearly touching her breasts where the robe covered them. It made her want to breathe deeper, to draw in enough oxygen to clear her senses, enough to make the material covering her breasts press against the hard, muscular contours of his chest as his hand cupped her cheek, his thumb finding the curves of her lips.

Mica froze. Standing still beneath his touch, she felt the rasp of the calloused pad of his thumb against her sensitive lips.

“Silk or satin?” His voice was a hard, graveled tone. “There wasn’t enough time to determine before.”

“There was enough time for you to shove your tongue in my mouth.” She wanted to cap her hand over her mouth, to hold back the words that had already slipped past.

She could feel a flush of embarrassment, a sense of mortification rolling through her. But not enough to pull back or to break his touch.

“Ah now, that sweet tongue is another story. Definitely velvet and silk. Just enough rasp to tempt a man’s imagination.” His voice dropped as a wash of sexual intent seemed to spread over his expression. “Or a Breed’s libido.”

Weakness flooded her limbs, a sensual, highly sexual weakness that threatened to steal even her ability to breathe. The heated flood of her juices spilled along the inner walls of her sex, lubricating her, preparing her for him.

For a Wolf Breed. A man whose humanity was so closely related to the animal whose genetics he shared that one day, one woman would become more than his soul.

One day, he would find his mate.

And nature had proven she wasn’t his mate.

She tried to remind herself there was no future here, with this man, this Breed. As his thumb pressed against her lips, parting them, the memory of that fact seemed hazier by the second.

Pleasure swirled through her system, heating her, drawing her deeper into a chaotic world of sensations.

“Please, Navarro.” Finding the strength to deny what she sensed awaited her was harder than she had ever imagined it would be. “I know what you are. I know what mating heat is. I know what I will never be to you, and it isn’t fair to tempt me to care for you.”

She wasn’t going to love him. She couldn’t allow herself to love him, but she knew it wouldn’t take much, it would take very little to cause her to lose every part of her woman’s soul to him.

“The world was exploding around us and all I could do was taste you,” he growled, his voice rough. “My pack leader could have been in danger, only my mate’s safety can supersede his. I never gave him a thought. All I could focus on was your kiss. My genetics are recessed, Mica. Perhaps so recessed that I’ll never know what mating is. But I’ll be damned if I can walk away from the pleasure I know awaits in your kiss.”

Mica stared back at him in shock. A Breed was judged by his loyalty to his mate first. With no mate, he was then judged by his loyalty to his pack, and/or his pack leader, as the two were considered interwoven.

To know he had ignored that basic rule, one that seemed almost genetically coded into the Breeds, for a single kiss, was almost more than she could believe. It was considered worse than a crime in the Breed world, a taboo he had committed for a woman that was not a mate.

He hadn’t raced to his pack leader’s side to ensure his safety as well as the safety of the leader’s mate, the one person whose death would destroy his pack leader and thereby possibly weaken the pack as a whole. And he had done this for a woman he wasn’t mated to.

Lips parted, her breathing shallow, Mica stared up at him as he dragged his thumb back from her lips and lowered his head.

It was coming. She could feel it beginning to burn the air around her. She knew what his kiss felt like. What it tasted like. Just that little hint of honey.

His lips brushed against her. A heated rasp of sensation, a precursor to an exquisite pleasure that she knew would capture all her senses.

She felt snagged, bound, unable to fight the pleasure as his lips brushed against hers.

It was insane. She could feel the cautious, wary part of her mind screaming in denial. She should be fighting. She should be pushing away from him. It wasn’t as though it could go anywhere, despite his excuses to the contrary where a lack of mating heat was concerned.

She wasn’t his mate.

But she could be his lover.

She could experience what she knew for a fact no other female at Haven had experienced. She could be the woman to share his bed. If only for tonight.

His tongue brushed against her lips, probing, easing against the narrow part as he sipped at them, easing her slowly into the exquisite sensations building between them. That subtle hint of honey teased at her senses as he slipped past, his tongue licking against hers.

Mating heat was often described as a taste of cinnamon, or spice. Sometimes it had been referred to as the taste of a summer storm. She’d never heard it described as anything more, even among the Feline Breeds.

This wasn’t cinnamon, spice, or a warm rain. It was all male, dark and filled with pleasure. It didn’t taste any different than any other kiss she’d ever had, except for that tease of sweetness.

And it was drawing her in.

Her hands flattened against his chest, above the silk of his shirt, before pushing slowly upward, easing around his neck before pushing into the heavy strands of silken hair and holding on tight.

She needed.

She’d ached for him in the past weeks until she’d felt as though she would go insane from the need.

Fantasies kept her distracted. Sleeplessness plagued her.

For this.

A low, throttled moan escaped her throat, where she’d hoped to keep it trapped.

As she arched closer, his arm eased around her unbruised side as his lips and tongue tasted and teased her with unbridled hunger.

The reserve he kept wrapped around himself was easing, breaking away as the fingers of his other hand moved to the front tie of the robe she wore and loosened it easily.

The edges of the thick, soft cloth fell apart, allowing a wash of cool air to ease across her overheated flesh.

A whimpering cry of pleasure filled the air around them as his hand flatted against her belly and with exquisite gentleness began to caress up her torso, until it curved beneath the swollen mound of her breast.

The kiss intensified, growing in heat and in pleasure as the pad of his thumb stroked over the tight, hard bud of her nipple.

Mica jerked her head back, desperate to breathe now, to think, just for a moment.

But he had no intentions of allowing her to find her common sense once again.

Navarro took the opportunity to lower his head to her breast, to swipe his tongue over the painfully sensitive bud.

She hadn’t noticed the rough rasp of his tongue as he kissed her. Not this time, not the time before. But as he licked her nipple like a favored treat, she felt it.

Not as rough as a cat’s tongue, just a hint of an unusual raspiness over the painfully hard tip that had the hunger for more suddenly tearing through her.

“Navarro. Again.” She wanted that lick. She wanted the feel of that roughness against her nipple one more time.

He licked again. Slow, easy, his tongue rubbing against the nerve-laden flesh as the muscles in her stomach tightened and her clit began to throb furiously.

As she arched against his mouth, the press of the steel-hard contour of his thigh inserting itself caused her teeth to clench.

To hold back the pleas.

She wanted to beg him to suck her nipple.

God, would begging help? Would he just do it then? Just part his lips and suck her inside . . .

“Oh yes.” The hiss should have shocked her. She was certain it would later, once the cold light of day and reality intruded upon her once again.

For now, there was only the most exquisite pleasure in the world.

Looking down, she watched. She couldn’t help but watch. His black eyes stared up at her, narrowed and glittering with sexual heat as his lips parted and covered the small bud.

A shudder rippled through her body as her fingers clenched in his hair tighter, holding him to her as his tongue swiped over the tip and he began to suck.

“Navarro. Oh God. Yes. Suck me. Suck me harder.”

Where had those desperate words come from? The plea, filled with desperation, couldn’t have been more shocking. But still, it wasn’t shocking enough to pull her out of the heated maelstrom she was being drawn into. A vortex of incredible rapture she was loath to lose.

She couldn’t lose it. She wanted more and more.

The feel of his tongue stroking over her nipple with quick little licks had sharp flares of sensation shooting to her womb. His thigh pressed harder against the swollen flesh of her pussy, the hard muscle clenching, the tiny flex against her clit spiking the pleasure rushing through her.

More. She just wanted more.

A throttled groan rasped in his chest as she felt his hand stroking from the curve of her breast to her hip. Sucking her nipple deeper, harder, lighting flares of explosive through each nerve ending, he let his fingers caress from her hip to her thigh.

Mica froze. She could feel it. The threat of a growing, out-of-control rush of sensations began to build inside her.

She could feel it. It was an unending crash and surge of pleasure so intense there was no hope of escaping. No hope of wanting to escape.

Hell no, she wanted more.

“No. Don’t stop.” She jerked in his arms as his head lifted, his expression so sexually tight now that she wondered why she wasn’t feeling fear.

She should be damned scared. She should be fighting tooth and nail to make herself jerk out of his embrace.

She didn’t want a broken heart.

She didn’t need a broken heart.

“Navarro.” She moaned his name again as she felt his hand stroke to her thigh, his fingertips, calloused and heated, caressing over her sensitive flesh as his hand drew closer to the saturated folds of her pussy.

Oh God, she was so wet. She could feel the slick wetness beginning to spread to her inner thighs.

Slick. Hot.

And if he didn’t touch her soon, if he didn’t do something, anything to ease the ache, then she just might not be able to survive it.

CHAPTER 3

“I’m not about to stop.” The dark, rich male sex in his voice had her trembling with arousal as the stroke of his fingertips against her thighs had her hips shifting forward, desperate for his touch between her legs.

“No,” she whispered again as his fingers eased back.

In the same second his head lowered, that slight rasp on his tongue rubbing against her other nipple, making her realize how neglected it had been, as he began to ease back toward the bed.

“Navarro . . .” She didn’t know if she was protesting or begging for more as she stepped with him.

Was she really ready for this? She was dying for it, but could she handle the aftermath?

His gaze lifted as he delivered as gentle, sensation-rich kiss to her nipple and turned her slowly, easing her knees back against the bed.

“I’m not . . .” She couldn’t force the words out as he stared back at her.

She wasn’t sure of this. She didn’t know if this was the right time. If she was ready for it.

She didn’t know if she could bear it if he stopped touching her.

Her eyes met his, the conflict raging in her, shaking through her body as she fought to decide which she could bear the least—letting him go or facing the morning if she didn’t.

“It’s okay, Amaya.” The endearment rolled off his lips, a soft, dark drawl that stroked over the indecision tearing her apart. “Just tell me when to stop, when to go slow, whichever you need. It’s all for you. Just this.” His head lowered, his lips stroking against hers gently. “Just for you.”

Her lips parted.

His tongue eased inside, and she welcomed it with a low, breathless moan as she submitted once more to the incredible veil of sensuality he’d wrapped around her.

His lips worked over hers as his fingers returned to her thigh. Petting, stroking, his fingertips rubbed against her flesh as though he knew instinctively that her juices were rushing from her pussy, easing to her thighs, eager to meet him.

Her body was no longer her own. She felt as though it had been overtaken, possessed, her senses now controlled by the slightest touch of his body against her.

His lips moved to her neck, sensual, destructive little flicks of his tongue, his fingertips moving steadily closer to the slick, hot essence of her juices where they collected on the sensitive lips of her pussy.

Weakening, submissive arousal continued to grow inside her. She couldn’t make sense of so many sensations or the fact that she couldn’t fight them.

His teeth raked against the side of her neck, drawing a startled, surprised cry of pleasure from her. One hand stroked her back, trailed along her spine, then moved to the back of her thigh, to mere inches from the clenched rise of her ass.

The hand at her thigh moved steadily closer to its ultimate goal as she felt the heated moisture moving lower.

“Navarro, it feels too good,” she gasped as her own body betrayed her further.

Her hips jerked forward, the hollow ache clenching the muscles of her sex as her clit throbbed in eager anticipation of his touch.

The ache centered between her thighs was becoming tortured. Her clit was so swollen the ache was painful, the need for touch dragging muted, needy whimpers from her lips that she knew would have her flushing in shame once morning came.

“Can it feel too good, babe?” His tongue licked over her nipple again before he sucked it quickly into his mouth, the immediate, hard suction and firm rasp of his tongue across the nerve-laden bundle causing her nails to bite into his shoulders as she jerked against him.

Oh no, it couldn’t feel too good. The pleasure was destroying her though.

Where his touch had been slow and gentle before, the leashed quality of each caress apparent in the tension tightening his body, it was now as though a measure of that restraint had escaped.

Closely clipped, blunt nails scoured a sensually heated trail along her thighs before moving back. Hesitancy was replaced by male hunger, and when his fingers met the thick, slick essence of the juices spreading along the folds of her pussy, Mica lost what little restraint had been holding her back as well.

His thumb raked around the swollen bud of her clit as his head lifted. Black eyes narrowed, his lips appearing swollen, he stared down at her, his expression tight with hunger.

“Say no,” he growled. “When you want it to stop, Mica. If you become afraid. If you change your mind at any point, you’ve only to tell me.”

Her lips trembled. She couldn’t change her mind. She didn’t have the strength.

“I can’t. Help me, Navarro.” Because she knew this was a mistake, she could feel it, that edge of warning burning in the back of her senses.

His lips tightened as a growl suddenly rumbled hard and deep in his chest.

“Your choice. Not mine.”

His fingers slid through the saturated slit of her pussy, the roughened caress further exciting the sensitive nerve endings that lay beneath the swollen folds as he went to his knees in front of her.

She couldn’t stand.

As though his kneeling before her, hard hands gripping her hips, his lips brushing against her lower belly, were too much, Mica felt the strength leave her legs.

She eased back, at first only sitting on the bed, her fingers moving to his head, playing with the long, dark strands of his hair as his tongue ran over the swollen mounds of her breasts once again.

“Lie back for me, Mica.” His head lifting, his hands gripping her hips to pull her to the edge of the bed, Navarro eased back slowly. “I just want to taste you, sweetheart.”

A punch of sensation, hard and vibrant hot, slammed into her womb at the huskily spoken words.

Just taste her?

She eased back, feeling his lips stroke across her abdomen as his hands pressed against her inner thighs in a silent prompt to part them.

Staring down her body, Mica watched. The way his long hair framed his face, his black eyes, onyx bright as he parted the curl-soaked folds with his hands before his head lowered. Then, with a low, desperate moan, she watched as his head lowered and he delivered a firm, suckling kiss to the tortured, silky wet bud of her clitoris.

A sizzling, erotic firestorm seemed to whip through her, jerking her hips upward, her knees lifting to grip his hips as she arched, desperate to drive her pussy closer to the suckling heat of his mouth.

Burying her hands in his hair as though she could hold him to her, force him to end the torturous pleasure raging through her.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this without mating heat, was it?

“Like melted sugar,” he spoke against the ultrasensitive, throbbing bundle of nerves he’d held captive. “I knew your pussy would taste this sweet, Mica.”

She tasted sweet? Was that a good thing? Did she really care? Did anything matter but easing the burning need raging through her?

His gaze lifted, the jewel-bright black glittering in his bronze face.

As she watched, her eyes locked with his, his head lowered once again, and then Navarro got serious about the pleasure. Wicked, confident and experienced, his tongue raked in an erotic circular motion around her clit as one hand lifted, the thumb tucking between the soaked folds of flesh to find the entrance to her clenched vagina.

He pressed against the fragile opening, rotated his thumb and his lips covered her clit.

Mica jerked, completely unbalanced by the sensation whipping through her and the tension building inside her. There was no way to stop it, no way to catch her breath or her control.

Her hips arched; the need to get closer, for more, to find the end to the delicious pressure building behind her clit drove her.

Hunger was like a fever raging inside her. She couldn’t get enough of him. Enough of his touch, enough of the pressure barely pressing into her pussy, enough of his tongue flickering in ever tightening circles against her clit.

The building, pulsating waves began to burn, to flame, her stomach tightening, her womb clenching as her breath caught.

She could feel the edge, so close, pulling her over, looming like a specter of ecstasy, when suddenly, it was gone.

In a single breath Navarro was off her, the comforter flipping over her even as he jerked her from the bed to the floor.

She wasn’t stupid. She’d learned, trained with the Breeds in how to protect herself and how to help any Breed bodyguard in her protection.

Without being ordered to do so, Mica rolled to the side of the wall, flipped the comforter back from her face, and stared at the scene before her in shock.

Mica crouched, the large, laser-powered handgun clenched in his hand as the bedroom door flew open.

Cougar stood in the doorway, his gaze narrowed on the room, obviously taking in the fact that she and Navarro had been doing a hell of a lot more than discussing the weather.

“We have company,” he growled. “We have a vehicle waiting for us outside the fire entrance, but we have only seconds to get there before our friends show up. Let’s roll.”

Before she could move to extricate herself from the comforter, Navarro was jerking it from around her, even as he shoved the thick robe into her hands and grabbed the packs of weapons and supplies he’d thrown to the floor earlier.

Having jerked the robe on, Mica was tying it quickly as Navarro grabbed her hand and began pulling her through the door that opened from the bedroom portion of the suite into the empty hallway.

“Jonas has feelers out in the city,” Cougar stated, voice hard as they pushed through the stairwell. “Word came through minutes ago that they’d located us, the name of the hotel and the suite you were in.”

“And how the fuck did they find us?” Danger thickened Navarro’s voice.

“He hasn’t learned anything further.” Cougar pushed communications headsets into both their hands as they moved quickly down the stairs.

Mica had trained with them, but she wasn’t as good as even the lowest, youngest Breed. She couldn’t put that damned headset on and activate it as they rushed down the stairs.

She was aware of Navarro doing it, his hard voice rumbling as he requested Jonas.

The night wasn’t over, she thought. It was going to be wet out. Wet and cold, and she didn’t have shoes or clothes. She had no defenses, nothing but Navarro to protect her.

And it looked as though whoever was after her was damned serious. They were going against Breeds to take her.

“Get her out of town. We’ll cover the hotel once you leave and attempt to neutralize them, but we’re working blind. We have no idea where they are, what they know, or who they are,” Jonas stated as Navarro pulled Mica behind him down the stairwell to the vehicle waiting outside the doors.

“Stygian will follow you until you pass the tunnel, after that you’ll be on your own. Get to base two, that’s the closest point of safety for her. As soon as we can, we’ll have a heli-jet out to you.”

Base two being Sanctuary. As Jonas stated, it was the closest, safest point.

“Navarro out.” He cut the transmission as they hit the final floor and Cougar moved carefully to the exit door.

Pulling Mica against the wall, Navarro waited, his weapon ready as the door was eased open.

“Clear.” A dark, low snarl in the dark.

A Breed’s anger was typified by a snarl, a growl, or a rumble of danger. For a Cougar Breed, though, to show any of the three meant the situation had already passed the point of pissing him off.

The door was open just enough to allow them to pass through, and a second later Mica was pushed into the back of the dark SUV, lying full length along the back while Navarro sat imperiously in the upright seat beside her.

“This is ridiculous,” she stated as the vehicle pulled away from the hotel in a sedate, unhurried manner. “It would look much better if a couple were sitting up front.”

How the hell she had become stuck lying down while he sat like the reigning Breed prince, she hadn’t quite figured out.

Navarro snorted at the statement. “The impression is one of wealth,” he informed her. “A driver and his employer in the back. The impression is less suspicious than a couple, especially when they’re looking for a woman.”

Her lips thinned. “Is Jonas still on link?” She hadn’t bothered to pull the communications set on or activate it.

Navarro gave a quick shake of his head. “We’re on communication blackout until we reach Sanctuary, except for emergency. Bitching about the riding conditions doesn’t constitute an emergency.”

She rolled to her side and stared back at him. For all appearances, he wasn’t the same Breed that had been between her thighs driving her crazy with pleasure minutes before. And she was obviously not the same woman, because she hadn’t so much as ached as she strained toward him. Now her ribs were simply giving her hell. As were the questions that had raged through her mind earlier.

“Why?” she suddenly asked. “Why would they want me so bad they’d risk going against Breeds to capture me?”