Navarro's Promise - Lora Leigh [33]
That wouldn’t help her father though. She was his only child, his daughter, his princess as he called her. He wouldn’t trust anyone to protect her unless he was there himself.
“It’s a good thing Cassie and I wear the same size clothing then,” she sighed. “At least I’ll have something to wear while I’m here.”
“I’m sorry about this, Mica,” Merinus expressed gently. “But at least you won’t feel too homesick. Jonas has ordered Navarro to stay as well. It seems you’ve acquired a Wolf Breed bodyguard that does more than follow you at a distance. This one was told to stay as close as possible to your ass, if I heard Jonas correctly.”
She’d been raised around Breeds, she knew to hold back her reactions, but Mica consoled herself with the fact that everyone slipped sometimes. If the look on Merinus’s face was anything to go by as Mica’s head jerked up from her coffee, then she had definitely slipped.
Merinus’s brow arched. Mica felt herself flush in awareness that she’d been well and truly caught.
Then Merinus smiled. Mica had known the other woman for more than twelve years. Like Cassie, she’d spent vacations at Sanctuary, been hidden there during times of danger, and had gotten to know this family as well as she knew Wolfe and Hope Gunnar, the pack leader and lupina at Haven.
And she knew Merinus could smell interest. And that was all it took to get her matchmaking instincts shifting into overdrive.
“Well, perhaps your visit will be more exciting than we anticipated.”
And that was the one thing Mica was both terrified of, as well as looking forward to.
CHAPTER 5
Breeds were trained from childhood to exist on little sleep, to take power naps, eyes open if necessary. Outside of training, they had learned how to set an internal clock while leaving their primal senses open, in order to slip into a deep, healing sleep for as long as possible.
Eight hours. It had been a long time since Navarro had found the time, the ability or the awareness of external security to actually sleep for more than three to four hours.
He was rarely at Haven long enough to lock himself into his small home and simply sleep, and the rest of the time he was either off base on a mission or tracking down the remnants of the Omega lab and the remnants of the Genetics Council now working with the pure blood societies to find a way to destroy the Breeds.
It had been fourteen years since the Breeds had revealed themselves, and still there were those who believed they had no place in the world and no right to be there. That because of their creation, because they were created rather than born, they had no rights to their freedom.
So many years since the revelation of their existence, and still they were fighting that battle.
It was a battle Navarro feared they would never win. A battle he feared would end up seeing them once again in hiding and fighting to simply survive.
Now he was showered and dressing in the fine cotton khaki pants, dress shirt and the comfortable leather boots he preferred when not on mission.
Stylish.
He brushed back the thick, straight black strands of his hair before striding from the large bathroom and through the bedroom, coming to a slow, cautious stop.
His head lifted, his nostrils flaring, as the scent of her reached him, sliding across his senses like the softest caress. Like the stroke of her fingers.
His cock hardened, and damn, just that fast he was so hard it was fucking painful.
He smothered a groan, his hands running through his hair as a hard grimace tightened his lips. This wasn’t his day. It wasn’t his week, that was obvious. That today—he gave his head a hard shake before quickly running his tongue over his lower teeth.
Okay, no swollen glands.
He wasn’t snarling for sex, just on the verge of growling for it.
Not mating. Yet.
Gripping the back of his neck, he wondered what the hell was going on here, but he couldn’t seem to stop hungering for her. His ability to take another woman had even dimmed. All interest in having any female but Mica in his bed had deserted