“And if nature is taking that out of my hands?” He felt as though he were numb from the inside out. The mocking laugh was more a grim sound of disapproval than anything resembling amusement.
“She’s loved you since she was sixteen years old,” Dash stated. “We’ve all sensed it, Navarro, we’ve all known it. All but you. You’ve ignored it, just as she ignored it every time you came around. Letting her go won’t change what’s going to happen, or what has already happened. You’re changing, just as she is. Your genetics are becoming active rather than recessed, and denying it, or fighting it, will only end up hurting both of you in the end.”
“It happened to you.” It had to have. There was no way the other man could have known all this if it hadn’t.
“It happened,” Dash admitted. “And it had the potential to steal my mate from me. I felt, at the time, that I could make the choice, Navarro. I could be unencumbered; I could accept what my heart was longing for, what my soul needed to survive, or I could let that part of me die forever. Are you willing to lose the only person that could mean anything to you?”
“The question is, am I willing to destroy her?” he asked.
He definitely wasn’t willing to stand here arguing it, not when he could smell Josiah nearing, sense the other Breed going to Mica.
As though the bastard could take his place.
A growl definitely rumbled in his chest this time. A low, dangerous sound that would have shocked him, would have had him pulling back in a desperate attempt to rein in the animal he could feel surging forward.
But it was too late.
Just that fast, he went from recessed genetics to full, raging beast, in the blink of an eye.
The door was jerked open hard enough that it bounced against the wall as he released it. The resulting crash was loud enough that as he stalked from the room, several doors opened along the hall.
Taber Williams stepped from the suite he shared with his mated wife, his broad chest bare, his jeans obviously hastily pulled on.
Behind him, his wife, Roni, stared into the hall in surprise, her fingers gripping the robe tight at the top of her neck as her disheveled hair fell around her delicate face.
“Problem, Wolf?” Taber drawled, his green Jaguar eyes knowing as Navarro moved past him without speaking.
He would get to Mica’s door before Josiah, but the other Breed would be there before Navarro could get inside her room.
Perhaps.
As he made his way to her, the most intriguing scent met his senses. A dark hint of a raging storm as it rolled in across the ocean. A taste of honey, a hint of cinnamon and spices. And heat. Pure wild heat so addictive he wondered how he’d survived the past hours without tasting her.
His tongue became sensitive, swollen. He could taste the hint of spicy sweetness in his own mouth, feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins, raging through his body.
He’d felt it that last night he’d taken her as well though. Then the next evening it was as though the mating had never happened, as though it had never existed.
Until now.
It was flames tearing through his senses. It was a rush of heat, of hunger; it was being infused by the lush, earthy scent of her and the determination rocking through him.
He couldn’t even say he was himself at the moment. Hell, he knew he wasn’t himself. He was a creature bent on one thing and one thing only.
A mate.
His mate.
CHAPTER 13
A cold shower didn’t help.
A hot shower didn’t help.
And she wasn’t even about to try masturbation, no matter how badly she needed to.
Walking from the bathroom, a robe wrapped around her, no one could have been more shocked than she was when the door was shoved open, the panel crashing against the wall as she froze and stared at Navarro in shock.
He stepped in and slammed the door closed before turning the lock.
Mica blinked.
He looked . . . different.
The sensual Asian features of his face were suddenly sharper, his eyes darker and gleaming with surprising, shocking hunger. A physical need that matched her own, that could even threaten to surpass it.
Staring across the room at him, her gaze locked by his, held by it, Mica found herself unable to break that invisible line, the hold those deep black eyes had on her.
She could feel that touch inside her. It wrapped around her clit, tightened her womb and the tender tips of her nipples. A ghostly caress raced up her arms, stroked across her swollen breasts. It was like being wrapped in the most incredible heat. For the first time since the mating had begun, Mica actually felt as though there was more flowing between them than just his lust and the love she had fought to keep hidden for so long.
“What do you want?” She shook her head as she tried to shake off the dazed, drugging hunger flowing through her now. Before, it had just been heat. It had been lust. Now it was something more.
Something had changed. She could see it in his face, in the ink black of his eyes and the violent tension raging in his body.
Her breathing escalated, her breasts rising and falling heavily as the blood began pumping hot and wild through her body.
“Mica, are you okay?” Her gaze jerked to the door as the sound of Josiah’s concerned voice came through the panel. “Just say something, baby. I’ll get Callan and Dane, Mica. You don’t have to let him touch you.”
Mica blinked again, shock resounding through her at not just the tone of Josiah’s overly familiar words, but also the offer and the suggestion that Navarro would somehow demand something she wasn’t willing to give.
For a moment, she wondered when she had managed to step outside reality into this perverse ”almost” world and the Breeds she was facing now because of it.
“Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” she asked as Navarro’s head turned, his teeth snapping at the closed door in a completely un-recessed-Breed-like way.
What had happened to the icy, determined-to-walkaway Breed she had seen that morning?
“Josiah wants to die.” Navarro turned back to her, a tight smile curving his lips as his eyes narrowed on her. “I hope he wrote out his will. I heard he had some impressive art hidden away.” This time, the smile showed teeth. “He even offered me a piece if he died. He didn’t say how he had to die, and I think I’m ready to collect.”
“Not a chance, Navarro,” Josiah snapped from the other side.
Mica licked her lips nervously, then her breath caught at the expression that appeared on his face. If the savagery reflected there was anything to go by, then Navarro was definitely going to attempt to collect that piece of art.
“I want that hot little tongue on my body,” his voice grumbled. “I want to feel it stroking my dick, Mica. Licking it like a favorite treat as you go down on me.”
So explicit, and so sexually exciting she nearly orgasmed where she stood.
Her gaze went down; the bulge at his thighs, heavy and engorged beneath his jeans, was impossible to miss. The effect of his words and the image implanted in her mind were impossible to resist.
His cock was so thick it would fill her mouth. It would be hot, throbbing against her tongue, rubbing against it as he fucked past her lips. Would it be hard thrusts? Would he do it with deliberate, controlled strokes? How much more could he make her want him?
She had a feeling it would be a hell of a lot more.
“That sounds interesting,” she whispered breathlessly, refusing to allow herself to melt beneath the power of the arousal rushing through her. At least, not quite yet. “Do I get the same in return?”
She wanted that and so much more. His tongue on her pussy, stroking over her flesh.
Her stomach tightened, sensation clenching spasmodically at the sudden thought of his tongue thrusting inside her, stroking inside the aching center of her body.