It was a scent that was just almost there, a knowledge the animal inside him was awakening to yet hadn’t yet managed to decipher.
“I’m fine.” She swallowed tightly, averting her expression from him as she continued straightening her clothing. “I think you’re right though, it’s time I return to the house.”
To hide.
He knew what she was trying to do, what her uppermost desire at the moment was, now that the sexual needs had been sated. She just wanted to hide.
He had noticed that about her years before, when she was younger. Mica tended to hide whenever she was in Sanctuary. Though that had been wise of her in the past years; otherwise, this mating would have occurred long before now.
“I was going to invite you to go into town with me.” The words slipped from his lips before he could call them back, causing him to clench his teeth in self-disgust.
That was no way to place any distance between them, he told himself sourly.
She gave her head another hard shake, causing the dark blond strands of her hair to ripple around her.
“Not today. I’ll just return to my room.”
“Our room.”
He could tell she didn’t think much of his comment, by the stiffening of her body and the frown that creased her forehead.
“I am not moving into your room.” Fiery stubbornness gleamed in her eyes now.
Navarro tilted his head in acknowledgment. “I assumed you would want to keep your bed. That’s the reason I had my belongings moved to your suite instead.”
He laid his fingers over her lips in warning as they parted, and for once, her scent was unmistakable.
Pure feminine outrage.
“You can argue until hell freezes over,” he warned her, his tone darker than he would have liked, as though instinct were giving her the only response he was capable of. “But the plain and simple fact of the matter is that I’m not sleeping without my mate. You can deal with that however you like.”
Possessiveness wasn’t a part of him, he’d always assured himself. He was dominant. He knew what he wanted. But he’d learned long ago to never be possessive. It was far too easy to have what he thought belonged to him taken away.
Until now.
The possessiveness rose from within, surprising him with the fact that it had been so carefully hidden until now. She belonged to him, and he’d be damned if he’d allow her to hold herself back from him.
He couldn’t keep her, and he knew it.
But he also couldn’t let her go, couldn’t remain distant from her, no matter how hard he tried.
“We’ll see about this.” Lips thinned, teeth clenched, Mica swung away from him and began marching furiously down the incline that led from the pine thicket to the main house.
He let her go this time. Chasing after her would only incite both their tempers, and he knew exactly where that would lead. With his dick buried deep and hard inside the velvet heat of her pu**y for the third time that day.
He grimaced, fixed his own clothing, then raked his fingers through his hair before moving back toward the main house himself.
He had work today. There were any number of projects that he should be working on while he was at Sanctuary. This wasn’t a vacation for him, though he clearly didn’t have his head where it should be in regards to his job.
A job he should have taken care of years before, he admitted, as he headed back to the labs and the files awaiting him on the horrors of the Omega Project. A project Phillip Brandenmore had funded and overseen.
The project that had killed Navarro’s brother, Randal, and the mate Randal had adored. The project that had inspired the vow Navarro had made to ensure Brandenmore died at his hand.
Ely moved among the equipment in the lab, her gaze studying with a frown the readings that came through, as the steel doors slid open and her personal irritant and bodyguard, Jackal, entered the room once again.
In his hands he carried a heavy tray filled with what was obviously lunch.
Her favorite.