PrimalFlavor (4 page)

The attractive flush on her cheeks darkened even more
despite the glower she sent him. “I just don’t want the responsibility of
feeding you to the alligators.”

Oh yeah, his tiger liked her a lot. Spicy, tough and strong.
She might not be able to claw at him and bite back the way a tigress would, but
he had no doubt she’d make the mating dance fun. Whoa, wait. Mating dance? Zach
put the brakes on his tiger’s erratic thoughts. They’d always agreed neither of
them wanted a mate, or the mess of being tied down to one female. And it wasn’t
as though this human was possible mate material anyway. He just wanted her for
fucking. A few times. At the very least half a dozen times, didn’t he? The
tiger sent the word mate to him with a hopeful purr, completely forgetting its
former resistance to the idea. The fucking traitor. Zach slammed the door shut
on the idiot feline’s thoughts, unwilling to even entertain them. Not now when
his cock and balls ached with unfulfilled desire. He’d heard a lot of men do
something they later regretted, like getting mated before they wanted, because
they were desperate to come. He refused to be one of those unfortunate
bastards.

The crashing grew closer and Colette’s arousal dissipated
beneath a wave of panic that smelled like burnt sugar. His tiger surfaced
enough to let Zach know he didn’t like it at all. He rolled to his feet,
unwilling to cause her further anxiety. For now. He needed to get away from her
for a little while anyway, get his body and his cat back under control. But
that didn’t mean he’d let this little Cajun off the hook. He glanced over at
her just in time to see her gaze stray to his erection. He bit back a
triumphant grin even as the betraying organ strained toward her.

“I’ll see you around, Colette,” he said, her name rolling
off his tongue as though it was meant to be there.

Gah.
The fucking cat was rubbing off on him, getting
him all sentimental and shit. But he didn’t show her how unsettled that left
him. He surveyed her again, taking in the tough stance, the pert tits and those
lips. Too bad she had that baseball hat on her head. He wouldn’t mind seeing if
she had brown hair to match her eyebrows or something else. Next time, he
promised himself.

“Not if I can help it, Monsieur Pussy Cat,” she shot back
with a halfhearted snarl that was kind of ruined by her puffy lips, beard-burned
cheeks and the heady scent surrounding her like perfume. “And stay off
Robicheaux land.”

Zach chuckled at her fierce tone, enjoying her
Tom &
Jerry
reference, which would’ve pissed him off if it had come from anyone
else. He gave into his tiger’s need to shift, the change coming over him as
naturally as breathing. Once complete, he gave a full-body shake to settle his
fur properly, his keen ears catching Colette’s soft gasp. He looked at her with
the tiger’s eyes, finding her even more exotic than before now that he’d had a
little taste of her lips, knew her scent and flavor. She held her gun in a
loose grip, the muzzle pointed at the ground, her eyes wide and her puffy lips
relaxed.

He preened a bit for her viewing pleasure, satisfied that he’d
left a little mark on her. It wouldn’t last long, but he’d be back. He chuffed
at her before he turned and began jogging in the direction of town. Zach had a
lot of work to do if he was going to make time to find out more about his
future lover. He didn’t even realize he’d moved her from one-night fuck
category to something a little more intimate. His human mind was too focused on
information, but his tiger purred at the unnoticed slip.

* * * * *

“Colette!”

She jumped, dragging her gaze away from the palmetto leaves
that still swayed from the tiger’s passing. Her heart beat so fast she thought
it might leap out of her chest. Not from fear or panic, but from unadulterated
lust. And wouldn’t that be a sight for her relatives. They’d never seen her
flustered over a man. Not even Pierre Dubois who’d asked her to share his duck
blind with him a couple years ago. She’d politely turned him down and ignored
the teasing from the others. They’d have a field day if they knew she was on
the verge of fanning herself over a man, a shifter who kissed like he wanted to
eat her alive. Her heart gave another leap, more moisture soaking her already
wet panties.

Her gaze fell to the perfect outline of Zach’s big paw
prints in the soil and she hurriedly began kicking dirt over them. She didn’t
need her relatives to know she’d just had the most erotic experience in her
life with a shifter. They’d shit a brick.

They weren’t prejudiced against shifters, not with some of
their own family members turning furry whenever the urge struck them. No, they
were prejudiced against men who might try to despoil her. If she hadn’t gone to
college, she’d probably still be a virgin. And since she’d never been stupid
enough to bring any of her lovers home with her, her family most likely thought
she was on the verge of becoming an old maid, but what they didn’t know about
her wouldn’t hurt them or anyone else.

Unless they found out what she’d been doing. If they knew Zach
had just…what? Rolled around on the ground with her, kissing her as though it were
his mission in life? Her cheeks heated again. She flipped the safety on her
rifle and cradled it in one arm to press her free hand to her cheeks one at a
time in an effort to cool them. God, she hadn’t been this giddy since she left
home at eighteen. She wasn’t a kid though. She shouldn’t be on the verge of
giggling to herself. The man was insane. She’d shot at him, for crying out
loud. And he’d kissed her in, what? Retaliation? Was that the appropriate
response for shooting at a man though?

Then her thoughts centered. Oh. Shit.

Colette’s mind abruptly shifted gears from giggling
schoolgirl to possible future inmate. She’d shot at someone. Well, it wasn’t
exactly the first time. Three weeks before she’d found the slaughtered
carcasses of doe, which were extremely out of season, and tracked the kills
back to a couple of shifters. Antoine and Vernon Schumacher, idiotic brothers
who lived in Germantown, had tried to intimidate her into forgetting about
their little foray into bloodlust. A well-aimed bullet had caused them to turn
tail and run. She hadn’t seen them since then, but she had reported them to
Wildlife and Fisheries. She shook her head. She was babbling in her brain. And
it didn’t matter anyway. The Schumacher brothers didn’t count since they were
idiots and everyone wanted to shoot them.

Zach was a respected member of Pointe-Aux-Chat society. He
could go back to Maison Rouge and tell Sheriff Picou what she’d done. What the
hell kind of defense could she summon? He turned me on so I was trying to get
rid of him. No, that wouldn’t work. She was certain taking potshots at the
opposite sex as a means of social interaction was frowned upon. She doubted
anyone would believe her anyway. They’d think she was crazy. Which was a way to
avoid going to prison, but then she’d end up institutionalized.

The crashing footsteps of her menfolk arriving had her
spinning around. Her dad, two of her uncles and five of her cousins stumbled
into the clearing, faces relaxing when they saw her. She knew they had faith in
her abilities. They’d trained her well, but that wouldn’t stop them from
worrying about her. For once though, she was glad they hadn’t waited for her to
send them her all-clear signal. They’d prevented her from doing something
stupid. Like stripping naked and taking a ride on Zach Trahan’s joystick, a
ride many women before her had taken. Her heart dropped as cold reality and
jealousy reared their ugly heads.

He could say whatever he wanted to. Zach wasn’t coming back.
He wouldn’t brave the possible anger of a united Bayou Ange to see her again.
Why would he? He could have any woman in the tri-parish area and had, if the
gossips were correct. The chances of her ever going to Maison Rouge were slim
to none. If her inner schoolgirl threw a tantrum over never seeing him again,
Colette ignored the whiny
putain
. Zach wasn’t the kind of shifter who’d
have anything to do with her. More than likely he’d just been trying to charm
her out of shooting anything sensitive. And to her ever-lovin’ shame, it’d
worked.

Then her family crowded around her, marveling at the hog,
chastising her for not answering them, slapping her on the back for a good hunt
and basically distracting her from thoughts of a very naked and aroused Zach
Trahan. But Colette knew images of the sexy shifter would visit her at night
when she was home alone and trying to sleep. She knew it as surely as she knew
her dad would quiz her on what had her so distracted.

She read it in his eyes, recognized the interrogation to
come because he didn’t miss a thing. While her cousins began preparing the hog
for transport out of the swamp, her dad studied the ground around the kill.
Colette knew the instant he realized a bigger animal had been in the area. His
body tensed, his shoulders going rigid as he caught sight of Zach’s bare, human
footprints mixed with the tiger’s paw prints. He studied the ground more, his
sharp gaze following the tracks away from her, his LED lantern granting him a
better view of the area. His lips thinned when he saw the furrowed gash her
bullet had left in the ground and its proximity to Zach’s footprints.

Colette cursed herself for not doing a better job of
clearing the area, even as she realized she’d been distracted by her pussy. She
lowered her eyes when her dad looked her way, pretending to be interested in
what Cotton and Beau were saying. She wasn’t sure she was ready to answer any
questions he had for her and prayed he would wait until they were alone before
he began to grill her.

“He’s got to weigh a good three-twenty,” Cotton said with
obvious pride in Colette’s abilities. “And she got him with a clean shot.”

Beau gave him a shove before leaning over to truss the hog’s
legs together. “Of course she did. I taught her everything she knows.”

That caused everyone in the group to laugh, earning Beau
some good-natured ribbing since he consistently shot three inches higher or
lower than where he aimed. Colette was thankful for the distraction, laughing
along with them. Once the hog was ready for the drag back to the trucks, her
bigger cousins each grabbed a rope and began to pull the kill along the ground.

Colette followed behind with her uncles and dad, who were
congratulating themselves on a good hunt. Each group had taken down one of the
nuisance hogs, which would provide them all with plenty of food. With alligator
season starting in a couple of weeks, they’d needed some meat for their
freezers since none of them would have time for a hunt before then. She felt
her dad’s eyes on her several times, but he didn’t approach her until they
finished the two-mile trek to the trucks. It took nearly the entire group
heaving and pulling to get the hog in the back of her Uncle Tudu’s pickup.

“We’ll see y’all at the house,” her dad’s youngest brother
called out as his sons piled into the cab. “Good job, Collie girl. We’ll have
this pig butchered before you get there.”

He tore out of the clearing, spitting dirt behind him to his
sons’ laughter. She waved after them, determined to pretend everything was
normal. But as soon as the taillights disappeared down the trail, a tense
silence fell over the clearing. She’d ridden to the hunt with her dad and her
Uncle Frog, the eldest Robicheaux brother, something she now regretted. It
would’ve been nice to tell them “see y’all in a bit” and take off in her truck
instead of riding back with them.

When her dad cleared his throat, she flinched.

“Colette, what the hell is goin’ on out here?” he asked in a
tone that clearly said he expected a rational explanation.

Ugh. This was not going to be pretty because she had no
rational explanation to give him.

Zach glared at the roux he was stirring, the sounds of his
junior chefs bustling around the kitchen barely a blip on his radar. He hadn’t
been able to find out jack shit about Colette Robicheaux other than rumor and
gossip, neither of which he gave much credence to. He seriously doubted her
Haitian-descended mother had conducted a voodoo ritual just so she could have a
daughter. Nor did he believe she was the anti-Christ, or a mutant, or a
foundling.

He shook his head and added more flour to his roux. Even
Father Bryan, a rational man who’d been known to give sound advice to any and
all who approached St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, hadn’t been able to shed much
light on the people of Bayou Ange. Zach hadn’t even known priests could swear
that way, but apparently Father Bryan had been told very firmly and politely
that they didn’t require his services. The very small, family-built chapel
called Our Lady of Angels had its own deacon, who happened to come from one of
the founding families of Bayou Ange.

It was as though they were taboo, which was weird.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to make a trip to Germantown since he met
Colette. Between dinner parties he had to cater and a sudden surge in birthday
parties and weddings he had to bake cakes for, he hadn’t had time to do more than
jerk off to fantasies of having her on her knees, ready to take everything he
had to give, all because memories of her kiss haunted him.

His research had taken him to the one place he’d wanted to
avoid at all costs, but the need to know about her had him sucking back his
pride and common sense to approach the Pointe-Aux-Chat Parish Sheriff’s
Department. He’d had to know exactly where Colette lived and that information
sure as hell hadn’t been in the phone book or on the internet. The only address
he could find for any Robicheauxs in Bayou Ange had been for Bayou Ange Swamp
Tours. And the tour company was run by Colette’s family. Something he’d found
out by bribing the very cranky, pregnant deputy Daisy Reinhardt with a box of
beignets.

He frowned down at his roux as he remembered that meeting.
He’d have to start being more of a badass and less of a sap for pregnant
females because she’d been rude. Of course, when he’d arrived she’d just been
escorting some Orleans Parish Sheriff Detectives out of her cubical. He’d
overheard them talking despite the noisiness of the station and their attempts
to speak quietly. It seemed they were extending professional courtesy by
sharing information about a woman who went missing a couple of weeks before.

Daisy hadn’t been in the best mood after that and when he
voiced his question she’d stared at him for several long minutes.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” she’d asked, even as she
snatched the box of beignets out of his hands.

Left with nothing to hide behind, not that he was hiding per
se, Zach had stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I just want to…” Drive to
Colette’s house as a man instead of sneaking in like some kind of stray. “I’m
thinking about offering them a business proposal for the tourists who take
their swamp tours.”

That hadn’t been on his mind at all, but now that he thought
about it, his tiger liked the idea. It would get his foot in the door. If,
however, things didn’t work out the way he wanted, Zach wasn’t opposed to
sneaking in the back door. Nothing, but nothing was going to come between him
and finishing what he and Colette had started in the woods that day.

Daisy had squinted up at him over a fluffy, powdery mound of
beignet, giving him the cop look, but Zach wasn’t worried about Daisy even if
she was the most miserable pregnant woman he’d ever had the misfortune to know.
She’d put her beignet down, not seeming to care that she had a powdered-sugar
mustache, and pulled herself closer to her desk. He’d barely kept himself from
asking if she needed a wireless keyboard since her large beach ball-sized baby
bump meant she had to strain her arms to reach it.

He turned his attention to a bulletin board boasting easily
two dozen pictures of women, all young and human, bolted to the wall. Nothing
tied the women together as far as his untrained eye could tell, except their
human status. They had disappeared from different parts of south Louisiana,
worked different jobs and ranged in ages from eighteen to thirty-eight. That
was all. And yet they’d all disappeared, one a month for the past two years.

Daisy mumbled to herself, her fingers tapping at her
keyboard. When he had time, which wasn’t often anymore, Zach liked to watch
cold criminal case shows and documentaries about prolific criminals. If what
he’d learned on television was correct, the women all disappeared before or
during a full moon. He glanced at the calendar to see the next one was in a
couple of weeks. He filed the thought away as Daisy’s printer began to churn.

Zach snatched the page off the printer to see she’d printed
Colette Marie Robicheaux’s house address. Thanking her, he’d left without a
backward glance. If the black bear deputy had known he was planning to go to
Bayou Ange to possibly start World War III, she would’ve taken the beignets and
locked him up for his own safety. Because he might not know a lot about the
Robicheaux’s, but he’d gotten the gist of their protectiveness toward their
women.

Words like “crazy”, “possessive” and “jealous bastards” had
been thrown around with wild abandon by more than one male. It seemed the
Robicheaux men made some shifter males look like slackers when it came to
taking care of what they considered theirs. And Colette, as the only born
Robicheaux female, was definitely theirs. Sticking his nose in Bayou Ange
because of a kiss seemed like a stupid thing to do. It was just too bad he
couldn’t forget about her or that kiss.

He scowled at the perfectly golden roux at the bottom of his
pot, absently reaching for the “Holy Trinity” of seasonings—chopped onions, bell
peppers and green onions, dumping them into the pot. He stirred, trying to
ignore the hard-on that threatened to desecrate his kitchen. He’d tried to stop
thinking about Colette, about her using that little rosebud of a mouth on his
dick or running the slick crown across her pert tits before he came all over
them. Zach cursed under his breath, glad his heavy chef’s coat hid his
erection. He’d damn well done his best to put her to the back of his mind while
at work, but thoughts of her invaded when he least expected it. Like now. He’d
already traumatized half his junior chefs with his bad temper. He didn’t want
to make the rest faint like the maiden aunts he didn’t have.

Casting a dark glare over his shoulder at the younger chefs
he could practically feel watching him, he sent them back to work without a
single word. They jumped back into the fray, preparing the food on the menu for
a wedding the following day. He muttered under his breath and added water to
his roux. Once he’d filled the pot as much as needed, he threw in the crab
claws, boiled crawfish tails and stepped back.

He turned his attention to the poor sucker who’d lost the
toss to work as his personal assistant for the day. He would’ve much preferred
to have Dwayne, his catering assistant, on the gumbo, but the man was too
valuable to waste on something so easy. “Let this come to a full boil before
you add the shrimp, then add more water and let it come to another boil.” He
pointed to the combination of seasonings he’d carefully measured out before he
began the roux. “Then, and only then, do you add the seasonings. And if you so
much as think about adding your own flavors, I’ll break your fingers. Got it?”

The shaking, quaking fox shifter nodded, the stench of his
fear filling Zach’s nose. His tiger let out a rumble of discontent. It didn’t
want to be around these shifters who were so scared of him they couldn’t look
him in the face without nearly pissing themselves. It amazed him how Colette
managed to do that and make it seem completely natural. Most females, even the
ones who had only enough bravery to approach him for sex, never went toe-to-toe
with him the way a fragile human had. The way one elusive, sexy gun-toting
Cajun woman had.

His dick gave an eager lurch, ready for them to indulge in
yet another naked-Colette-being-fucked fantasy. He bit back an annoyed groan
and marched away from the catering prep area of his kitchen to the bakery at
the front of the building. His workers here, while more seasoned and familiar
with him than his catering crew, refused to look at him as well. Okay, so maybe
he shouldn’t have thrown that whole wedding cake out, but what good was it
being a chef if he couldn’t throw an artistic tantrum now and then?

Even Emily, his baking assistant, refused to look his way and
she’d been with him almost from the time he took over the business after his
grandmother’s passing. He bit back an annoyed sigh and made a mental note to
foot the bill for yet another night out for his kitchen crews in apology for
his bad temper.
Some people are so goddamn sensitive.

Annoyed, horny and frustrated beyond belief, Zach was about
to enter his office to return the five million fucking messages left for him
when a sudden hush throughout the building made him pause with his foot in
midair. He glanced at his workers, who weren’t even looking at him, but had
their stares fixated on the doorway leading to the customer area.

He hadn’t seen them look that attentive at the last shop
meeting. Wondering what could possibly hold their attention so thoroughly, he
glanced over his shoulder and nearly lost his balance. Cold violet eyes in
triplicate glared at him from leathery faces lined by the sun and time. Three
men, brothers he assume, by their close resemblance and the almost exact same
shade of silver hair covering their heads, stood in the doorway to his kitchen
as though they belonged there.

Even over the sweet tang of various fruits, the slightly
bitter scent of chocolate and the underlying mouthwatering smells of gumbo,
jambalaya and stew cooking, Zach could make out the acrid scent of gun oil and
metal. The men were packing, which might have accounted for the sudden dearth
of activity in the entire building, but somehow he didn’t think his people or
customers were worried about weapons. No, it was the cold, menacing look on the
humans’ faces that had his workers smelling as though they were about to run
for cover.

His tiger roused itself from a boredom-induced sleep long
enough to figure out which one was his female’s father. The one in the middle.
There was an unholy fire burning in his eyes that could only come from the
father of a woman he feared was about to be completely defiled. And he had
every right to be scared because Zach planned to thoroughly enjoy Colette’s
body from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet. Several times because
once wouldn’t be enough.

Zach turned to face the man, who until that fateful day in
the swamps had been the most important man in Colette’s life, studying him
carefully. Time hadn’t bowed her father’s shoulders or curled his back. He
stood straight and proud, his sharp eyes missing nothing. Zach and the older
man studied each other like opponents, which Zach supposed they were since they
wanted different things for the same woman.

“Mr. Robicheaux,” he greeted Colette’s father politely and
glanced at the men on either side of him, acknowledging them as well. “Can I
help you with something?”

The man in the center opened his mouth, but before he could
say anything the front door of the bakery slammed open and a familiar female
voice shouted, “Daddy!”

Zach’s tiger went from mildly interested to eager, tail-twitching
excitement. His eyes went to the empty space behind the men, his senses
expanding as though he could feel her approach. He caught a scent carried in by
a sultry breeze from outside that made his tiger purr and his cock threaten to
leap out of his jeans. The luscious scent that haunted his dreams, making him
come all over his sheets like a teenager for nearly a full week, preceded Colette’s
reentrance into his life.

And then she appeared behind her relatives. Sort of. He saw
the top a white-blonde head over the middle man’s shoulder before a pair of
anxious violet eyes peeked over it, searching out and finding his. Since this
was his first time seeing her without the shadows of the swamp or her baseball
hat, Zach felt as though someone had just slammed him right between the eyes
with a two-by-four.

She wasn’t pretty. Not in a classical, or even in a
girl-next-door way. She was so much more than that. She looked exotic and wild,
the features and colors that made up Colette Robicheaux appealing to his tiger
on a visceral level. It started with her unusual eye color combined with her
darker skin and ended with the shock of white-blonde hair she had pulled into a
sloppy ponytail. The silkiness of the strands straggling down the sides of her
face and along her slender neck told him it was her natural color. He’d seen
plenty of women who’d bleached their hair to get the same color only to end up
with strands with the consistency of straw.

There was no way Colette Robicheaux would ever pass for drop-dead
gorgeous by society’s standards, but then Zach had never followed the herd. If
he had, he would’ve done like every other male tiger shifter he’d ever met and
set out for a nomadic lifestyle. Instead, he returned to his hometown and became
a chef, a very domestic career choice for a cat species known for wandering far
and wide. And he was fine with that. He enjoyed his career, enjoyed being his
own man and not following trends. It was what made him a good chef. He did what
he wanted, not what current fashion or trends demanded.

Colette was not the kind of woman who’d ever grace a
magazine unless it was about women and guns or hunting. She wouldn’t prance
around in a bikini or spend hours looking for the perfect pair of shoes to go
with a purse. When her dad shifted to the side, allowing Zach a better look at
her, he almost smiled. She was a fashionista’s nightmare and if his friend
Kitty saw the human in her current getup, she’d probably faint dead away. The
woman who’d been haunting Zach’s dreams for the last week wore a sleeveless
t-shirt with the acronym B.A.S.T. on the front, another pair of tattered jeans
and boots that belonged on a construction site. It was over a hundred degrees
outside and sweat clung to her skin, giving it a glittery quality that left him
with a sudden hunger to treat her like a salt lick, yet she didn’t seem fazed
in the least by the heat.