PrimalFlavor (15 page)

He had to figure out a way to tell Colette he cared about
her. Cared, not loved. He might know he loved her, but he wasn’t ready to tell
her. He didn’t think she’d laugh in his face or anything. She didn’t seem the
type, but he’d never shared feelings with anyone. The last time he’d ever told
a woman he loved her, she’d left him.

Pausing well short of the house, Zach closed his eyes and
tried to wipe that memory from his mind. But of course, because he wanted
differently, his brain latched on to something that happened so long ago he
shouldn’t have been able to remember it, except he did.

“I love you, Mama!” he cried as his grandmother held him
still to keep him from running after his mom. “I’ll be good, I promise!”

She trembled, her thin frame swaying as though she were a
tree in a storm. He waited for her to snap the way their porch had in the house
they’d been living in with one of Mama’s boyfriends, but she didn’t. She shook
herself and smiled, showing a lot of teeth, her gold eyes weird and bright.

“Not this time, Z-Man,” she said with a little laugh. “Mama’s
got things to do and you can’t come with me.”

“Myra, don’t do this,” Mamaw said in a sharp voice, her
fingers squeezing Zach’s wrist enough to make him wince, but she didn’t seem to
notice. “You know you’re always welcome here. Both of you.”

Mama shrugged and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah,
and it’s so exciting here. I need more than this. I always have.”

“What about your son? He needs you.”

Zach stopped fighting his grandmother’s hold because he
wanted to know the answer as well. But Mama didn’t even look at him again. A
horn honked outside the bakery. It was Darryl, her newest boyfriend, a jackal
shifter who gave Zach the creeps. Mama turned to the door.

“I gotta go. Zach, be good for your Mamaw, okay?”

“Mom!” he screamed, kicking at the older woman holding
him in a tight grip. He began to cry, not even caring that he was acting like a
big baby. “Mommy, don’t leave me!”

The door closed behind her and his voice bounced off it.
All the strength left his body and he sagged to the floor, staring through the
glass window as the beat-up Trans Am tore off down the street with a squeal of
tires. He didn’t scream anymore. It wouldn’t have done any good because she was
gone. Gone, gone, gone. The words echoed around his head as tears dripped down
his face like rain.

It was the cold drops of rain sliding down his cheeks,
mimicking that long-ago day he’d mostly forgotten that dragged him out of the
memory. Yeah, he hadn’t cried since that day, not even when his grandmother
died. He’d mourned her, but he hadn’t shed a tear. And he’d never told her how
much he loved her. His throat tightened with regret, but he swallowed the lump
down. It was too late to do anything about his grandmother other than pray that
she understood his heart better than he had.

But the woman in the cabin he walked toward would be only
the second person he ever told he loved. When he was ready to do it. Not today,
and maybe not tomorrow. One day soon, though, he’d tell her he loved her with
every fiber of his being. And hopefully she’d respond in kind. Hopefully, she’d
tell him she loved him first, freeing him to repeat the vow. Yeah, that sounded
better.

With a little bounce in his step and a lighter heart, Zach
climbed the stairs of the porch and opened the door. “I got the coffee and your
bag—”

Both items hit the floor, the thermos rolled somewhere under
the cot and the bag just flopped next to his feet. His jaw was down there with
both things and he wasn’t even sure he could pick it up because the one thing
he hadn’t expected when he opened that door was to see Colette sprawled on the
cot, gloriously nude. Not naked since that just implied a lack of clothing. No,
she was definitely nude because with her hair floating around her shoulders,
one leg bent at the knee and the other hanging off the cot with her foot flat
on the floor, she was sex personified.

Sweet vanilla musk and the scent that was all Colette filled
the air. His dick leapt for joy. Or it seemed as though it had, the room in his
jeans suddenly disappearing as his hard-on roared back to painful life. Painful
because if he didn’t unzip his pants soon, he’d have zipper tracks on the
underside of his cock for the rest of his life. But despite the danger to his
favorite body part, he couldn’t look away from her.

Caramel-tinted skin stretched over smooth, lean muscles, her
supine position giving her sweet valleys he couldn’t wait to explore with his
hands and mouth. With her legs parted just a little, not enough to be porn-star
naughty, but somewhat modestly, he could see the slick lips of her pussy. His
balls ached, backed up from not coming once in over twenty-four hours.

Without meaning to, forgetting all his thoughts of seducing
Colette into loving him, he took a step forward. Then another. Each footstep
slamming into the floor as though he’d lost all coordination. Her pale hair
teased him, hiding most of her breasts except for the very peaks, which were
tight and berry-colored. Her eyes glittered with hunger and knowledge, feminine
knowledge.

But they didn’t have anything to protect her. Nothing to
keep her from becoming pregnant. His tiger roared with approval. It wanted to
plant its seed in her no doubt fertile belly and watch her swell with his cubs.
He’d keep her that way, and make sure she enjoyed it. The cat even swore it
wouldn’t mind baking and cooking all day if it kept its mate pregnant and
happy.

Yet Zach didn’t take another step, overriding the tiger’s
instinctive need to spread its seed. “Colette.” His voice sounded as though it
were coming from a pit, the blood rushing through his body making it difficult
to hear himself speak. “We can’t.” He licked his lips. He hadn’t closed his
mouth once yet. If he wasn’t careful, he’d start drooling like a dog. “I want
to,” he said with heartfelt regret. “God I want to, but we can’t.”

She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the cot, her
knees several inches apart. Zach bit back a whimper of want. Oh, he wanted to
crawl to her, to burrow his head between her thighs and lap his way to heaven.
He’d done it once, had adored every slick second, but he didn’t have that
control. Not right now. The only thing keeping him from tearing into her and
marking her was the knowledge that it had to be her decision. She thought this
was just sex, just a little fun while they killed time. If it had been any
other woman and if it had been before he met Colette Marie, Zach would have
been on board with that plan. Now though, it was just her. Just this woman
crooking her finger at him with a knowing smile.

“Come here, Zach,” she said in her rich, husky contralto.

“No. We can’t, Colette. I…you.” He shook his head. “Just,
no.”

Instead of being insulted, of clamming up and being
embarrassed, she pouted. Her bottom lip turned down and he was a goner, unable
to refuse that feminine moue. He shuffled closer, every footstep making his
heart pound harder and his balls tighten more. If the wind changed direction,
he wouldn’t even need to touch her to go off like a Roman candle. The tingling
at the base of his spine warned him how close he was to hitting the end of his
rope. And that’s when he’d tear his clothes off and fuck her until they both
screamed “uncle”.

He stopped a couple feet away, close enough that if she
wanted to whisper some dreaded secret like “I really just wanted to see if I
could make you come with one finger” or just sit there looking like his every
dream come to life, he could without a problem. But Colette, the dangerous,
insane woman, obviously didn’t think he was close enough. She reached out
quicker than he could react, hooking her fingers into the waistband of his jeans,
and tugged him forward with a sharp jerk.

Zach nearly fell into her, only his excellent balance
keeping him from toppling them both over, but while he was occupied trying not
to hurt her, she was busy unfastening his jeans. There was instant relief when
his cock burst free of the material. He looked down at the sexy woman sitting
on the bed, intending to tell her they didn’t have any condoms, when she lapped
at the slick crown bobbing in front of her face as if it were a decadent
lollipop.

“Fuck!”

He’d been far too close to the edge to last for long before
she even touched him. His hands gripped the thick waves of her hair, holding
her as his hips instinctively thrust. She opened her mouth, enveloping him in
instant wet heat until he hit the back of her throat. He needed to stop, but
instead he pumped into her mouth, the soft friction of her tongue rubbing the
underside of his dick with just the right amount of pressure to tease. After
that, he fucked her mouth in short thrusts to keep from gagging her, but still
pleasing himself.

The tingling at the base of his spine grew stronger, like
the faint rumbling of a volcano warning of an upcoming eruption. Colette was
too hot, too sexy. He wouldn’t be able to hold off much longer. He really did
need to stop, a voice said in the back of his mind. Using her like a sex doll
would not endear him to her, but the scent of her lust grew stronger, sharper.
Then her hands slid into his pants as she worked him with her mouth, her lean
fingers finding and gripping his ass as though to help him thrust.

“Colette,” he groaned, every muscle in his body tight with
the effort of holding back. “Fuck, baby, I can’t…I’m gonna come.”

The hot, wet torture of her mouth continued, her tongue a
sweet friction against his dick that made his balls draw up tight and the
tingling at the base of his spine sharpen. Zach wanted to come and it seemed
she wanted him to, yet there was more than just pleasure he planned to take
care of today. He had to mark her. The primal, urgent need to leave some kind
of imprint on her that would tell every male she belonged to him was stronger
than his pleasure.

With that in mind, he pulled away from her, something he
found more difficult to do than he would have liked to admit. Colette
protested, her fingers digging into his ass, fighting him, but he won in the
end by grabbing her wrists. He leaned forward, using his chest to ease her down
to the mattress, straddling her hips. Her hair fanned out around her like a
white cloud, tempting him with its softness.

They stared at each other, separated only by a few inches.
Zach’s cock pulsed and twitched, leaving a damp trail over her smooth stomach.
He imagined rubbing that slick trace of his scent into her skin, imprinting her
with it, except he wanted it all over her. The thought excited the man and the
tiger, his balls tighter than ever, but he didn’t want to come alone. Without
condoms, he’d have to get creative and the image in his mind had his dick
leaking like a faucet.

“I want to scent-mark you,” he whispered, his gaze
memorizing every inch of her face. “I want to come all over you, Colette, and
leave my scent in your skin so no man will go near you.”

Even if he hadn’t smelled how much she liked the idea by the
sudden increase in her arousal, he would’ve felt it because her heart picked up
speed and her body heated, a flush flowing upward from her chest until her
cheeks were bright pink. Her pupils dilated, leaving a very thin circle of
violet behind.

“You…” She stopped to wet her lips, but she didn’t try to
get away. “You want to mark me?”

His dick leapt at her use of the word mark, as though eager
to get on with it and his gums itched with the need to release his fangs. He
wanted to mark her in more than one way, but this was the only one he’d be able
to do right now. Until he knew exactly where her feelings lay, he wasn’t going
to leave a permanent sign of possession. His tiger roared at him, scraping at
his mind in a fierce temper tantrum, but Zach refused to budge. He’d already
had one woman he loved reject him. He wasn’t going to allow it to happen again
if he could help it.

“I want to put my scent on you,” he told her, skirting a
permanent marking. He leaned down, running his lips along her jawline, the
silken skin drawing him. “I want to come all over you and rub it in like
lotion.”

Her breath caught, a soft gasping sound that was all the
agreement he needed. Still, he waited until he heard the words he needed.
“Yes,” she sighed against his cheek when he lifted his head to look at her.
“Yes.”

Colette would’ve never thought the idea of having a man come
on her skin would be sexy, but Zach made her very open to things she would’ve
balked at with her old boyfriends. Of course none of them had made her as hot
as Zach did. He made her want to push her own limits, to explore every decadent
pleasure he was willing to share with her. Before him, she would’ve never
attempted a sixty-nine like they’d done on her kitchen table. Her cheeks heated
at the memory, her thighs growing slicker than ever as her pussy ached for Zach.

Then she didn’t need memory at all because the real thing
was trailing his mouth over her jaw, the stubble on his cheeks scraping at her
skin gently, marking her. Her heart leapt at the use of that term. Colette had
heard stories from Kanda about the mysterious marking males left on their
females. Her aunt had a scar on the back of her neck where Colette’s Uncle Sun
had marked her when they mated. She’d never heard of a shifter male coming on
the skin as a way of marking, but figured it was probably something her aunt
and cousin would’ve died rather than mention. While she had a good open
relationship with Kanda, there were some things she’d rather not hear and this
would’ve been one of them.

Yet when Zach’s mouth found hers, kissing her with all the
heat and aggression she’d wanted to feel earlier, Colette forgot about markings
and just felt. Slowly, as though to test her, he eased his legs between hers,
one by one until his hips were snug against the apex of her thighs. She wanted
to tell him about the bag, but she couldn’t get enough air and really, who gave
a fuck about condoms when she was being kissed as though Zach’s life depended
on it.