Cassie wouldn’t allow it.
She had to hold on to that thought, believe in it as Cassie had always sworn she could.
Somehow, her friend had to have suspected what Mica was doing over the years, because she had promised her that no matter how angry a situation made her, she could always trust in her friendship and in her father’s.
She had to trust in it now, because it was the only way she was going to force Navarro’s animal out into the open. Wolf Breeds were incredibly protective, so much so that a mate’s pain could drive the Breed to violence simply because the animal genetics they carried inside went haywire.
Rather than hiding her pain, she was going to have to release it. She was going to have to force the animal inside him to tear free rather than attempting to convince Navarro to let it be free.
As she watched him, he turned slowly, his black eyes looking up at her from the rims of the dark sunglasses he wore.
Slowly, teasingly, he winked, surprising her at the flirtatiousness of the gesture, but also, the challenge.
Narrowing her eyes on him she let her tongue run slowly over her upper lip, dampening it, wondering if it would affect him as that little wink had her.
And it did.
She saw his expression before he cleared it.
She watched the slow shift of his body as her gaze dropped to the proof of his erection behind the denim of his jeans.
She felt her heart rate double, her stomach clench and a feeling of breathlessness sweep through her as she fought to hold back the rush of her juices, failing horribly.
Her pu**y creamed furiously, heated, her clit swelling with a force that had her aching to moan with the need for release.
Just that fast. He could do it to her just that fast.
There wasn’t a hope in hell of being able to survive without his touch, and Mica didn’t even bother to tell herself she could. Staring back at him, watching him, awaiting him, she could only hope that she could one day own half as much of his heart as he held of hers.
He could feel her.
Navarro hadn’t imagined he could feel so much from one person with the distance that existed between him and Mica. As though they were connected in a way he’d hadn’t imagined possible.
He felt her heart break, and there were no words, no way to tell her how much he regretted that pain, how he would ease it if he could.
He felt her arousal, her need for touch, her hunger for something, though he knew figuring that one out was something he hadn’t quite managed yet. He’d been trying to figure out that hunger for years and hadn’t managed it.
But he knew why she hurt, and he knew he was the cause.
She should have protected her feelings, he thought. He’d tried to convince her of that from the beginning. She needed enough of an emotional distance that the distance he kept himself wouldn’t hurt her. That it wouldn’t break her heart.
It had hurt her anyway though, and knowing that somehow the mating hormone wasn’t as strong in his system as it was in hers, hurt even worse. Hell if he knew why. Dr. Armani had her ideas on it just as Ely did, and strangely, they were closely related.
He refused to let his emotions free.
Dr. Armani had gone even further to say that the reason was because his animal was recessed inside him. And unlike Dash Sinclair, he refused to allow that sleeping animal inside him to be free. Or perhaps, it wasn’t that he refused. Maybe the animal simply didn’t exist inside him as it had inside Dash. There was always the chance that his genetics weren’t actually recessed, but non-existent. It could be that he truly was simply human, with a few advanced senses.
Those advanced senses hadn’t helped him to save his brother’s life though. Not his brother’s nor his brother’s mate and unborn child.
Slashing, white hot pain seared his chest as the thought of Randal and Sophia.
So close.
Fuck, he’d come so close to saving them.
One day. Twenty-two f**king hours and twelve minutes.
The scientists had had the Coyote soldiers drag Randal and Sophia away exactly twenty-two hours and twelve minutes before the rescue of the Omega lab began.