Mica rolled her eyes mockingly. “Let me guess, you smell it?”
He actually chuckled, a dark, deep sound that played across her senses with a stroke of pleasure.
“You’re actually rather good at hiding it, but my sense of smell isn’t the same as other Breeds. I imagine it has something to do with the recessed genetics.”
Her brows arched. “You can’t smell things as the other Breeds do?”
“Your fear was rather sharp tonight, as was your pain . . .”
“No kidding. I should have guessed. Cassie’s dad’s sense of smell wasn’t very good either because of his recessed genetics.” There was a sense of relief so sudden she barely held it in.
She hadn’t expected recessed senses as well, though she knew she should have. Cassie’s father, Dash, had had recessed senses until he mated Cassie’s mother, Elizabeth. His sense of sight, hearing and smell had been better than normal, but they hadn’t been at Breed level.
With that knowledge came another, relieving thought.
Perhaps Navarro couldn’t sense her arousal.
He couldn’t smell the liquid heat gathering between her thighs.
This was good. This was actually much better, she thought. If he couldn’t smell it or sense it, then perhaps she could pretend it didn’t exist.
Yep, that was her, the ostrich.
“I don’t think it makes you any less effective though.” A sense of hope cheered her a little. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about every emotion, every want or need revealed to him as easily as Cassie seemed to pick it up. “And really, you don’t have to be able to smell a person’s emotions. I think it’s highly unfair that Breeds have those senses anyway.”
Perhaps, just maybe, because of that, she could defend herself against this attraction, this fascination rapidly spiraling out of control.
Navarro knew he should feel at least a shade of remorse for not completing his sentence and assuring her his sense of smell was actually more advanced, despite his recessed genetics, than most Breeds.
After all, she couldn’t smell his lie as he could hers. She couldn’t smell his hunger for her, as he could smell hers. And she hungered. She was lightning hot, flaring with peaks of arousal and making him insane each time she flared.
His genetics were recessed; therefore, most humans and Breeds alike assumed his senses weren’t as heightened as other Breeds’. The opposite was actually the truth. His senses were stronger, sharper, more advanced than 90 percent of the Breeds created.
Recessed genetics, in his case, did not mean recessed senses.
They simply meant his animal genetics hadn’t yet showed up on a scan. They hadn’t found a variable yet that would pinpoint whatever slight anomaly had to be in the genetic string to identify the recessed DNA.
For now he was safe.
Other Breeds could smell nothing but his human genetics, and humans could find nothing but normal Asian-American DNA. He couldn’t hide his scent, but he could alter his scent easily. So far, he hadn’t mated a female, but he’d learned young exactly how to please them.
Still, the race to run this woman to ground and have her admit that desire seemed to be the only battle he couldn’t find a positive weapon for.
“Does it make you uncomfortable, being different among the Breeds?” she asked as her head tilted inquisitively to the side, the scent of her arousal suddenly peaking with a strength that had him clenching his back teeth. Damn her, had any woman ever grown so hot, so quickly for him?
Watching her with a bit of a crooked smile, Navarro debated for a second telling her the truth. Damn, the decision was one he simply couldn’t make.
“Doesn’t it make all of us uncomfortable sometimes? When we’re different from those around us?” he asked her. And that wasn’t a lie. He was different, far different than other Breeds, or humans.
“You’re not answering my questions, you’re just asking more,” she pointed out. “Why do you do that?”
So he wouldn’t have to lie to her.
Brushing his fingers over the bruise, his touch light as air, he probed the flesh, feeling the delicacy of it, the internal temperature of the bruise and the mottled feel of the blood beneath the skin.
It went to the bone. No doubt, the bone itself was bruised as well, but nothing was broken, merely excruciatingly tender, and with very little additional pressure, something would break in a second.
“He did a good job on you,” Navarro growled, the sound that rumbled in his throat surprising him.
“Was it Loki?”
Farce’s younger brother was a hothead, despite his exceptional training in the genetics labs. Still, as Navarro heard it, Loki hadn’t been happy that his brother had been killed, and he blamed the Wolf Breeds for the death.
Mica shook her head as she slowly drew the robe back on and held it together rather than belting it. “I haven’t seen Loki. No, it was Marx. And he wasn’t happy.”
Navarro nodded shortly, when he wanted nothing more than to snarl in rage. He would kill Marx himself for that bruise, and the scent of pain mixed with the scent of wounded flesh, once he got his hands on him. Truth be told though, there were a lot of Breeds eager to get their hands on the Coyote Breed.
Hatred was an emotion he tried to never feel. Strong emotion denoted even stronger trouble. What he was beginning to feel for this woman would have been worrisome if it weren’t for the fact that he had shown none of the signs of mating heat after kissing her weeks before.