PrimalFlavor (5 page)

The hesitancy in her gaze disappeared when she saw him, replaced
by the same hunger and determination he’d seen on her face that day in the
swamp. “Daddy,” she said to the man standing in front of her. “I know Mama said
she wanted that special cake from here, but I don’t think she meant you had to
go in the kitchen to get it.” She flicked a curious glance around his spotless,
busy workspace, sniffing the air curiously, and wrinkled her nose. Then she
settled a decidedly disinterested look on him. “I don’t see what the big deal
is though. A cake’s a cake.” But her gaze said she was talking about him.

The dismissal in her voice set his tiger to pacing in
agitation. He didn’t know what infuriated him more, that she didn’t see
anything special about him, or his cakes. People came from all over the country
to entice him to bake for them. Women fell over themselves to get his attention
even if they smelled as though they were scared when they had it. Was she
insinuating that any man would do? Or did she really mean she didn’t think his
cake was anything to write home about? Both thoughts agitated him, stirred up
his tiger and his pride until he was nearly crazed.

Zach forced himself to calm and studied her closely. There
was no way she meant it. She had to be downplaying her interest in him, and his
food, so her father didn’t have an aneurysm. Then she looked away with a yawn.
Zach had to remind himself—and his animal—that she was human. They were stupid
sometimes. Maybe she hadn’t gotten a good look at him in the swamp, didn’t
realize his peak physical condition, the size of his cock, the muscles that
would ensure he could protect and tend to her as needed. He had to fight the
urge to strip out of his “uniform” of chef’s coat and cargo pants to show her
now.

Instead, he waited until she glanced his way again and shot
her a look so heated and hungry her cheeks turned dark pink and her pretty,
kissable lips parted on a silent breath. There. That’s what he wanted to see.
The reminder that they’d shared a kiss so intense it’d left him with an
obsession over her mouth. The tiger was satisfied she finally recalled how good
they were together. The chef still wasn’t satisfied, but he began devising ways
to bring her around to his point of view.

As for her relatives? Her father and the uncles she was so
worried about, the ones who’d invaded Zach’s territory and thought to keep him
from doing what he wanted with her? They bristled at the look. Her daddy
reached for the bulge on his side with a muttered curse.

Things were just about to get very interesting.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. After a week of
working herself to the bone in an effort to fall asleep without having to
masturbate like a horny teenager, she was standing right where she’d sworn she
wouldn’t go. Colette had made a promise to herself after telling her daddy and
uncle an abbreviated story about her meeting with the tiger that she would have
nothing to do with him ever again. She’d even sworn to go on a diet, forgoing
her Trahan’s Bakery desserts as a way to cut off contact with him permanently.
It would kill her to stop having her treats shipped to her post office box, but
she’d do it if it meant staying off the radar.

But word had come to Bayou Ange about a shifter, a big,
arrogant bastard of a cat asking about the lone female Robicheaux. Everyone in
her family and extended family had gathered at her Papaw Blue’s house for a
discussion that had resulted in five fights, the consumption of a whole roasted
pig, several cases of beer and shouts of revolution. Thankfully Colette had
managed to wrestle the sniper rifle out of her grandfather’s hands and
prevented him from going on a big-game hunt.

Everything would have blown over if her mama hadn’t decided
she absolutely needed a cake from Trahan’s bakery. Colette had argued for a
solid twenty minutes with her mother about that damn cake, drowning in a miasma
of exasperation over her mom’s stubbornness and an intense need for the Trahan
Triple Decadence Chocolate cake. Feeling herself weaken with the
envie
to have that cake and eye Zach’s fine body, she’d promised to bake one for her
mom if she just let it go, forgetting for a moment that she was a complete
disaster in the kitchen. The silence that followed this stunning revelation was
when they both heard the unmistakable roar of her dad’s truck.

Her mom hadn’t even seemed surprised when Colette ran out
the door and hopped in her own truck to go after him. No, her mom’s hysterical
laughter and rapid French told her that Laurette-Marie was on the phone with
her aunt, the two of them getting a kick out of the excitement happening in
Bayou Ange.

Colette spent the thirty-minute drive to Maison Rouge
imagining all kinds of horrific scenarios. She’d pictured her daddy shooting
Zach dead and winding up in prison. She’d pictured Zach mauling her daddy and
ending up in prison. Yet entering the bakery with the scent of delicious sweets
permeating the air to see her daddy and uncles standing shoulder-to-shoulder
facing a relaxed and almost indolent Zach hadn’t appeared in any of her
imaginings.

The stupid tiger didn’t seem to realize he was in danger.
She tried to ignore the heat that flared in her lower abdomen when she saw him
again, especially when he looked a million times yummier than the desserts
lining the showcases of his shop. The aura of his power seemed to seep from
every inch of the shiny, modern appliances and worktables. He looked like a
king and seeing him in the light reminded her of just how beautiful he was. A
bandana covered most of his head, but she could see the strands of black, gold
and white peeking out the back. It gave him a piratical appearance, which was
only compounded by his sensual topaz eyes.

Then he sent her that look. It was a look she’d never been
the focus of before and it nearly buckled her knees. The heat and intent in
that gaze said he had plans for her and they didn’t involve playing cards. It
was the kind of stare her body recognized as a silent promise, reminding her of
how well he kissed, how easily he made her forget everything. Heat and moisture
flooded her pussy even as her nipples hardened into sharp, throbbing peaks. His
eyelids lowered even farther in a blatant come-hither glance that had her feet
moving before she realized it, obeying his silent command without thought. Only
the solid wall of her relatives in front of her kept her from making a complete
fool of herself.

And that’s when her daddy reached for his gun. Colette
nearly had a heart attack, but luckily her Uncle Tudu was a little less rash
and caught his brother’s arm, stopping him. “Jail time, Willis. You promised Mama
you wouldn’t shoot anyone.”

Her dad stopped trying to whip out his gun and levered one
finger at the tiger shifter who didn’t seem to realize how close he’d just come
to being murdered in his own kitchen. In a voice that would’ve made an
evangelical preacher jealous, he thundered, “You stay away from my daughter, y’hear?
She doesn’t need trouble like you.”

God, please strike me dead.
But of course He didn’t.
Colette had to suffer through the pitying and amused looks from everyone in the
damn building. How many women her age had to put up with an overprotective
father who seemed ready to go to prison over his daughter? She wasn’t sure she
wanted an answer to that question. She only wanted the embarrassment and
humiliation to end.

She shot Zach an agonized look. He didn’t seem as relaxed
now. If anything, he appeared highly pissed off. Either he didn’t like being
threatened, or he didn’t like anyone implying that he would want anything to do
with a human in the first place. The fury on his face was enough to make Colette
glad she wasn’t the focus of that look, even though she didn’t want her dad to
be the target either.

To prevent anyone from spilling first blood, Colette touched
her dad’s tense shoulder. She cast a quick glance around the bakery, trying to
judge the audience. Since the chances of anyone knowing Cajun French were low,
she addressed him in that language to give them a little privacy. “He doesn’t
really want me. He’s just trying to get you riled up.”

It didn’t seem to help her dad’s tension much, but at least
he seemed less likely to go for Zach’s throat. She glanced over at the tiger,
who apparently wanted to be the victim of a homicide case. He stared back at
her, his gaze thoughtful, as though he were trying to see inside her mind. That
was definitely a place she didn’t need him or anyone else and she broke eye
contact with him immediately.

“C’mon, Dad. We don’t need one of those cakes. Let’s just
get back to the office. We have a group coming in two hours and we still have
to get the boats ready if we’re going to fill our tags, yeah?” If there was one
way she could distract her dad, it was by mentioning hunting. The only thing
that made Willis Robicheaux as happy as being with his beloved Laurette-Marie
was hunting, pitting his wits against his prey. “And I’m sure Mom could
probably use some help getting the bait ready. You know how she sometimes doesn’t
use enough sauce.”

He shot her a wry look over his shoulder, one that said he
knew she’d cooked that half-assed story up as a way to draw him away from his
goal for the day. But he didn’t fight her. He glanced back at Zach, who hadn’t
taken his gaze off Colette.

“Just stay away from her, yeah? There are places we could
leave you where no one would ever find you.”

Colette swallowed a groan and made a mental note to send her
mom a text saying to expect Sheriff Picou sometime today. She had no doubt
someone would call him, or was in the process of calling him to let him know
that one of the crazy Robicheauxs had just threatened Pointe-Aux-Chat Parish’s
beloved baker. Which meant Father Bryan would make yet another futile attempt
to coax them into attending St. Patrick’s services.

Joy.

“C’mon, y’all, we got work to do,” she urged, hoping the
reminder that alligator season was starting the following day would motivate
the older men to vacate the building.

It did, but it was like herding cats. None of them wanted to
turn their backs on the real feline standing on the other side of the room.
There was a lot of bumping into each other and the door, snarling at each other
and muttered curses until Colette managed to drag her daddy and uncles out of
the bakery, the crowd in the lobby parting for them like the Red Sea.

The smothering heat should have made it impossible for her
to feel anything except misery, but when she turned around with her family in
tow, it was to see nearly the entire town of Maison Rouge blatantly staring at
them. As if they were freaks in a circus. If her face got any hotter, she’d
probably burst into flame, yet she didn’t lower her gaze from the curious eyes
staring at them.

Nothing to see here, people. Just the parish misfits
visiting. Carry on.

Colette kept her head high, leading the way through the
throng of respectable Maison Rougians to the trucks parked down the street. Her
mother was going to have a cow when she told her about this and it was all Zach
Trahan’s fault. She kept chanting that in the back of her mind as she walked
toward her truck, her dad and uncles talking behind her. They’d already moved
on to what concerned them now, the upcoming gator season, but Colette was left
stewing in embarrassment and regret.

She didn’t know what bothered her more, Zach’s silence when
he was threatened by her dad, or that she cared at all. She was an idiot for
worrying over it. He’d given her that look to remind her of the kiss to stir up
trouble. She knew enough about Zach to know he was one for finding mischief. He
fought with Monk Badeaux on a regular basis and everyone in the parish knew
Monk was the most easygoing man ever. So yeah, she knew he’d only looked at her
so provocatively to make her dad angry. Which he was.

Mission accomplished. But her stupid heart ached anyway.

Glowering at the crowd around her, she stepped up to her
truck and looked back to make sure her dad and uncles were doing the same when
her gaze collided with a pair of ice-blue eyes. The hair on the back of her
neck stood straight up as she performed a quick analysis of the man staring at
her so blatantly. Handsome in a pretty-boy way, swarthy skin with perfectly
cut, russet-brown hair, he was tall and lean, his strength evident despite his
rangy build. The gray uniform he wore was as familiar as her face in the
mirror.

“Game warden,” Uncle Frog spat out under his breath, but
loudly enough for her to hear several feet away.

Colette broke off her staring contest with the stranger,
noting he stood with the Schumacher boys. Her skin pebbled as a case of the
frissons
erupted. There was something very wrong about seeing a member of the Wildlife
and Fisheries Strike Force hanging with two of the shifters responsible for
slaughtering doe out of season. Especially since there was a weird unity about
the trio, as though they were friends. That shouldn’t have been the case after
her call to the LDWF. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but the whole
picture unsettled her.

“Let’s go,” her dad called out, rousing Colette from her
uneasy musings. A glance in his direction showed he appeared just as uncomfortable
as she felt. Somehow though, she didn’t think it was his usual distrust of the
people who wore the gray uniform. “We’ll follow behind you.”

She nodded and climbed into her truck. She no longer cared
about the crowds of onlookers staring at and gossiping about her family. No,
there was something really weird going on. She felt the sudden need to gather
her family close to protect them and herself. It was an instinct that went
beyond a hunter’s unease for game wardens. This was something instinctive, like
primitive knowledge that a storm was coming. How and when it would hit, though,
was anyone’s guess.