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  Was it honor? She touched the swollen tissue of her bottom lip, remembering how he’d nipped at it, his tongue soothing the tiny hurt, that purr rumbling in the back of his throat. She wasn’t going to ever get him out of her mind or her heart. Despite all the warnings she’d given herself, the warnings her father had given her, Zach was on the fast track to winning her completely whether he wanted to or not. And maybe that was his worry. That she’d fall madly in love with him and stalk him the way that woman had earlier in the year.

  Oh yeah, just because Colette didn’t live in Maison Rouge and wasn’t friends with everyone in it, didn’t mean she hadn’t heard the story of the raven shifter who stalked two cat shifters like a big game hunter. The Robicheaux women had been scandalized and amused, even as they admitted Zach was worth stalking. She’d kept her mouth shut, but part of her, the jealous, possessive Robicheaux half, had wanted to go raven hunting. And wouldn’t that have made Zach happy? To have two women fighting over him? One of whom he hadn’t even talked to.

  Yeah, she’d pined a long time for him, so it was no surprise she was falling for him. Her impossible crush was growing into a love she knew would haunt her for the rest of her life and the man kept running from her as though she had the plague.

  Before today, she would’ve suspected he wasn’t interested in her, but that kiss, that sizzling, dangerous kiss had told her the real story. He wanted her a lot. And for some reason he was holding back. Her gaze narrowed on his broad-shouldered frame as he climbed out of the boat and began strolling back to the cabin. Why was he holding back? Was it to drive her insane? Because she was halfway there. Sex was all she could really think about. Making love with Zach was all she wanted right now. The fire in her blood burned her from the inside out, clawing at her to do something about it, something naughty and out of character.

  They were alone in the woods, on land no shifter would dare approach without a hell of a lot of friends. He was bringing a bag filled with condoms to her. A smile tugged at her lips as she figured out the easiest way to break through whatever strange blocks he’d thrown up between what he thought he was doing and what she wanted to do.

  The walk in the rain helped clear his head. The freezing-cold drops along with the sharp wind helped to reduce the swelling in his dick. It was as good as a shower sans heat. He was finally able to think again once the blood that had pooled in his groin returned to his brain.

  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.

  And then he started purring again, the sound vibrating through her body, rattling her to her v
ery core. Her pussy wept with want and she eagerly wrapped her legs around his hips, his cock coming to rest against the parted lips of her cunt. Zach caught Colette’s gasp with his mouth, growling as he began to stroke the length of his erection through her folds. She tried to form a thought, tried to think of why this seemed strange, but when the rounded head of his cock rubbed against her erect clit, a sizzling bolt of lightning shot through her, evaporating all logic and rationality.

  She arched her hips, wanting more, her hands fighting to be free of his hold, but he held on to her, moving faster, using the lubrication from her cunt to glide along her sex. Her heart pounded with each pass, the air in her lungs getting trapped somewhere in her throat as bolt after bolt of pleasure zapped her, leaving her a quivering puddle of need. She hooked her heels into his jeans, forcing them down his thighs. He hadn’t gotten undressed, was still fully clothed except for his bare ass and dick. For some reason, the thought made her cream, her inner muscles tensing.

  He kissed her again, his tongue thrusting, pumping into her mouth in the same rhythm of his cock sliding along her slickness. She sucked on his tongue, anchoring her ankles behind his tight ass to hold him in place, arching her back so every thrust made his shirt scrape over her tight nipples. Wet. Hot. Slick. Colette moaned into his mouth. She was so close. So ready for him to stop humping her and come inside her. She needed it. Needed to feel his broad shaft stretching her muscles, rubbing every inch of her—

  Zach circled his hips, grinding down on her clit hard and she exploded, shock and pleasure combing into a keening cry that erupted when he lifted his head. Colette had faint impressions of his tense face slick with sweat, gold eyes glittering dangerously, sharp fangs sinking into his bottom lip, but he slammed his cock against her clit again and she burst into flames.