PrimalFlavor (19 page)

She hadn’t neglected him, by any means, but his childhood
hurts had been treated as a lesson in how to hunt, how to avoid being injured
and any number of life lessons she felt he needed to survive. He was glad she
hadn’t babied him, except he would’ve enjoyed a hug now and then just because.
The way he had a feeling Colette would treat any cubs he gave her. She’d be a
tough mother, but she’d also fiercely protect her children and baby them when
she could get away with it.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled into his chest, her breath washing
across his bare skin.

Up until that moment, Zach had been able to repress his
desires. They hadn’t been important when faced with her fear. Now though, the
danger had passed. They were in a gently rocking boat in the middle of nowhere
and his keen ears and nose detected nothing suspicious. His hold on Colette
turned from protective to hungry, his lips trailing down her silky hair to
nuzzle the hollow behind her ear.

Her breath caught and her movements to get away stilled.
“Zach?”

The soft scent of her arousal wafted to him the more he
lapped at and nibbled on her neck, his tiger’s purrs growing louder. “I had a
near-death experience,” he rumbled against her skin. “I think there’s a chance
I need to do the reaffirmation of life thing.”

Colette looked up at him suspiciously, her eyes narrowing on
him even as the pupils expanded when he rubbed his swiftly swelling cock
against her stomach. “Oh really?”

“Mm-hm,” he purred and smoothed his hands down her lean back
to cup her ass. “Really. Do you mind?”

She was silent so long, Zach lifted his face from where he’d
been nuzzling her cleavage through her shirt. She was biting her lip, a
thoughtful expression on her face, but there was no mistaking the aroma of her
cream filling the air around him.

“I think I need to make sure you’re not really hurt,” she
finally said, her hands sliding around to his front where she made short work
on the button of his jeans.

Zach couldn’t have stopped himself from smiling, even if the
warden held that gun to his head again, and let his mate have her way. Right
there in the boat that added a little more motion to their lovemaking.

* * * * *

“Holy hell, where did all this stuff from? Did you win the
lottery?”

Colette looked up from where she was adding markings to the
crab traps to see her dad and uncles looking at the bounty Zach had brought
her. A secret smile threatened to overtake her face, but she swallowed it down
when they looked at her again.

“No, I didn’t win the lottery.” She dropped her gaze to the
ropes she tied to her traps.

She didn’t say anything else, but heard her relatives
exclaiming over the traps, over the new equipment. She wasn’t entirely sure
what she’d tell them. If she were honest with them, telling them Zach had
bought them, they’d immediately jump to the conclusion that he was trying to
buy her affections.

A familiar pair of boots appeared in her vision. She kept
her head down and tied a knot before placing that trap on the side and reaching
for the next. Except her dad’s hand caught hers.

“
Cher
, why you don’t tell me where you got this from,
hanh
?”

Stifling a sigh and knowing she couldn’t lie to her dad,
Colette finally looked up at him. “Zach gave them to me to replace the ones he
broke.”

It was sad, really, but she actually enjoyed the look of
shock on his face. Her dad hadn’t held back his opinion of Zach while he helped
her clean up, had been quite vocal about how he didn’t like the tiger shifter.
But now he looked stunned.

“
Co faire?
” he asked, his face darkening. “This cat
thinks he can buy you?”

Colette sighed deeply and put the trap aside. “No, Dad. He
felt bad for breaking the others and for uh,” she glanced at her uncles, who
were watching them with rapt attention, “for marking the rest of my equipment.”
That didn’t seem to go over well with her dad, his face growing redder by the
second. “Look, he wanted to make amends and I needed the equipment so I
accepted it.” Her dad opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “I’m planning to
pay him back as soon as I can set my traps.”

His nostrils flared and he exchanged a dark look with his
brothers that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

She leapt to her feet. “No,” she shouted. “No. Whatever
y’all are planning, better stop now.”

“Colette,
bébé
, he’s good for nothing,
bon rien
.
He only wants—”

“Willis,” Uncle Tudu cut in sharply and turned to Colette.
“Your dad is just worried,
cher
. This cat, we’ve heard of him many
times. You don’t go to town as much as we do.
Cet homme est beaucoup
amoureux.
”

She glared at her uncles. “He is
not
a womanizer!”
Much.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what you say, okay?” Sucking in a deep
breath for courage, she met her dad’s eyes with her own. “I love him.”

His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. He didn’t seem to be
breathing and after a moment, Colette reached out to him, but he slammed a hand
to his chest. “
C’est pas vrai
,” he gasped.

She wanted to roll her eyes at his dramatics. “Yes, it’s
true. I love him and I’ve loved him for a long time.” The sheer shock on his
face told her he still didn’t get it and her shoulders slumped. She lifted a
hand to rub her forehead. “I know the chances of us having a future together
are slim. I’m aware, but the heart goes where it wants, yeah? And my heart
wants Zach Trahan. Even if it’s just for a little while.”

Something shifted in his eyes, the shock fading a little
beneath understanding, but he didn’t relax his stance for a long time. Colette
didn’t try to defend herself or Zach. Her dad would come to either love him as
much as she did, or hate him for any number of offenses. One of which would
become a broken heart if things didn’t work out between them. She shook the
negative thought away. Zach cared. How much, she couldn’t say and wouldn’t
hazard to guess. Not yet anyway.

Finally, her Uncle Frog broke the tension between Colette
and her dad with a, “Is that a new pair of waders?” He pushed past his older
brother as he went to admire them.

Her dad gave her a stern look. “You tell me if he hurts you
in any way, yeah? I’ll take care of it.”

Colette blew out a hard sigh and smiled a little. “If he
hurts me, do you think there’d be anything left for you to take care of?”

Her dad and Uncle Tudu let out nearly identical laughs,
slapping her on the back as the tension faded completely. When her dad pressed
a hard kiss to her forehead, she knew he’d let her handle this thing with Zach
on her own. He wouldn’t be happy about it, but he’d trust her judgment. Of
course, if things went sour, she’d have to make sure to hide all the guns in
case her dad decided to seek retribution the Robicheaux way.

* * * * *

Zach hurried through his shower, having slipped up the
stairs to his apartment to avoid running into any of his employees. He was
dying to sleep, but knew he only had so much time before Colette showed up at
his apartment. Saying he was a little excited to cook for her was an
understatement. But he knew that wasn’t the only reason he was happy. She was
coming to his territory. His dick hardened at the thought of having her here,
in his home, her sweet scent clinging to his furniture. His tiger purred with
contentment.

That last time, in the boat with the sun shining on them,
Zach had come very close to sinking fang in her and keeping her without her consent.
As he pounded into her, rocking the boat, his fangs had burst out of his gums.
Only lifting himself away from the tempting curve of her neck had kept him from
doing something she’d later regret.

His cock deflated at the thought of Colette hating him for
marking her. He growled and fisted his hands against the shower tile. He hated
being uncertain about anything, but his mate left him feeling as shaky as a cub
learning to shift for the first time. It wasn’t like him, except there was no
denying his skittishness. So he tried logic.

On one hand, he was certain she felt something beyond lust
for him. She wouldn’t have clung to him the way she had if it was just sex. And
when she’d looked him over for injuries, she’d really studied him, pressing at
bruises forming with a frown furrowing her brow. She did care. That was proof
positive.

But she didn’t look at him with starry-eyes the way he’d
seen Daisy or Kitty look at their mates. Colette’s eyes were shuttered when she
didn’t look at him as though she could eat him. Or when she was eyeing him as
though she were measuring him for a fur rug. He winced. Okay, maybe he
irritated her a little much, but she hadn’t shot at him again and that was a
major plus.

Banging sounded on his door, drawing him away from thoughts
of his favorite torment. Zach stuck his head out of the shower and bellowed,
“I’ll be down in a fucking minute, Emily!”

“You’d better be, dammit,” she shouted right back.

Zach rinsed off and stepped out of the shower, drying
himself off with brisk efficiency, his mind turning to matters that would
normally have distracted him from Colette. Except she wasn’t the kind of woman
he could easily dismiss. Even as he dressed and thought about everything Emily
would no doubt want to talk with him about, his mind churned with ways to make
Colette see him as a mate. The meal he planned to make for her tonight wouldn’t
be pretentious. No, he planned to make her something familiar and obviously
home cooked. Comfort food as a main meal and then he’d dazzle her with his
desserts.

Zach didn’t bother shaving. Emily didn’t sound as though she
had patience, which was strange since his coyote shifter assistant was patience
personified. Yet when he opened his apartment door, she growled at him, her
eyes pale yellow as her canine rose to the surface.

“You took long enough,” she accused as she stepped over the
threshold and surveyed him from his wet hair to his bare feet. “What the hell
is going on with you? First you tell me to handle the McElroy wedding. Then you
leave a message on my phone at three this morning saying you aren’t coming in?
To just handle things as I see fit?” She planted her hands on her hips and
glared up at him. “Are you on drugs?”

His tiger found the entire conversation boring and curled
into a ball to get the sleep Zach so desperately wanted, leaving him to handle
his irate assistant. He stifled a sigh and tried to think of a rational
explanation for his sudden absence at the business he’d lived and breathed for
years.

Emily’s eyes widened and she staggered back a step. “You’re
in love!”

The shock in her voice had Zach frowning at her. “Why do you
say it like that? I’m not a machine.”

“Really? You’re going to say that when I’ve worked for you
since you took over the bakery?” She snorted and ran a hand through her short
hair. “You remember when Dwayne asked you for the weekend off?”

Zach waved her story away and turned to his kitchen. It
wasn’t nearly as big as the one he had downstairs, but the appliances were top
of the line, the stainless-steel worktable doubled as his kitchen table and he
had enough room to work. This was where he spent a lot of time experimenting
with new dishes before he brought them downstairs to the bigger work area.

“He was having his mating ceremony,” Emily continued,
undeterred by his dismissal. He really needed to do something about her
impertinence, but she was a decent baker and he always worried he’d have a hard
time replacing her. “You asked him if that was something he really wanted to
do. In front of his mate.”

Zach hunched his shoulders because he did remember saying
that to the chef who acted as his assistant on the catering side of things. “He
only knew the woman two days. I was only looking out for him.”

“And exactly how long have you known the human hunter? A
week?” she scoffed.

Okay, she had a point, but he was taking the time to get to
know his mate better. That had to count, right? He hadn’t just rushed out and
bit her as if he were playing tag or something. He was giving her a chance to
learn more about him, to fall in love with him the way he’d fallen for her.
Humans weren’t like shifters. They needed the whole courting thing before they
committed to each other. Dwayne’s mate had been a cougar shifter just like
Dwayne. It was perfectly fine and acceptable for shifters to meet and know they
were instantly connected. It was normal. Humans, though, were an entirely
different matter and Zach worried they were too different for Colette to see
him as someone she wanted to spend her life with.

Ignoring Emily’s expectant silence, Zach began to take out
the ingredients he needed to make a meal suitable for his female. “I’m going to
be relying on you a lot in the upcoming weeks,” he told her without turning
around. “Don’t fuck up.”

There was a beat of silence. “Are you serious?”

Thinking back to the conversation he and Colette had as they
took their time returning to the landing, Zach knew this was the right time to
do this. The advice she gave him the night before in the guise of talking about
her family business had helped him realize he was killing himself trying to run
two companies alone.

She’d done it all innocent-like, as though she just so
happened to think about it while they were unloading the boat. He hadn’t missed
Colette’s big, honking hint to learn how to delegate responsibilities. And now
was the time to put them into motion.

All because Colette had so casually mentioned how well their
company ran because the burden was shared. Willis handled the swamp tours, her
Uncle Frog took care of maintaining all the vehicles and promotions for the
business, while her Uncle Tudu did the finances. They weren’t rich, but they
were well content with the way things were going. Colette was being groomed for
the tours, had been working them with her father since she graduated from college,
while her cousins Cotton and Beau would split the finances and other duties. It
was a family business they wanted to stay in the family forever, but not run
the family the way Zach’s baker and catering service had run his life.