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.