she’d led in Bayou Ange, Colette had gone to
college just like her male cousins and she’d done her fair share of crazy
things, had unfurled her wings as a young woman and taken a couple of lovers.
But none of them had been built like this. She suddenly felt cheated, even as
she acknowledged if her first lover had been as big as Zach Trahan, she would’ve
been walking bow-legged for months. The tiger-shifter had a bibette that
would make a horse look twice. Realizing she was staring at it as though he were
a snake charmer, her gaze shot up his gorgeous, muscled torso to tangle with
sultry yellow eyes.
Thanking God she was downwind and he couldn’t smell the
hungry musk between her legs, she pretended she was facing a game warden and
let her “I don’t know anything” mask fall in place. The sexy twist to his lips
was almost a smirk and it told her that he knew better. Damn.
She tightened her hold on the rifle. “What are you doing on
my family’s land?” she demanded.
Instead of answering, he stretched, lifting his arms over
his head and elongating his body. She told herself it was a natural reaction to
let her gaze skim over him again. And it was perfectly normal for her stare to
linger on his impressive groin. What would something that size feel like moving
inside her? What kind of lover was he? Did he like to take his time, or did he
like it fast and hard? Her nipples tightened. A quick glance up at his face
showed he’d definitely noticed her body’s reaction since his eyes had dropped
to her chest.
Good Lord. “What are you doing here?”
He dropped his arms to his sides, adopting a relaxed pose
that should have looked ridiculous since he was buck naked, but Zach Trahan
seemed as composed as he would if he were fully clothed. Colette bit back a
snarl of envy. She avoided looking in mirrors unless she absolutely had to, and
never when she was naked. Yet in her twenty-eight years, one thing she’d
learned about men from watching her cousins was that they had absolutely no
shame.
How many times had they whipped it out to pee when she was
on the hunt with them? As far as they were concerned, she was one of the guys
even if she had to squat to pee. But that wasn’t all. Getting drunk and
streaking around the swamps on their all-weekend hunts was nothing to them. She
knew from growing up with all boys that most men were oblivious to the little
thing called modesty. However, she’d think being buck naked in front of a
stranger would affect them somehow.
But there was no self-consciousness in Zach’s gaze and his
impressive dick didn’t wilt beneath her study. If anything, it seemed to grow
another inch. And she was staring at it again. Have to stop staring at his
junk. Her mama would beat her ass if she knew she was gawking at a naked
man’s groin, no matter how sexy he was. Her mama would cluck and find something
for him to wear. But the last thing Colette wanted to do was cover up a single
inch of naked Zach.
“I was hunting,” he said after a few more seconds, his voice
dragging her gaze from his cock. She hadn’t realized she’d been looking. Again.
“And you stole my kill.”
Colette was as hot-tempered as any Robicheaux over certain
things. She hated cruelty in any form, having been known to take down men twice
her size if she caught them abusing an animal. She hated bullies. She also took
her sense of honor very seriously. No one called her a liar or a cheat, or a
thief in this case. Ever. Having the man she’d been openly infatuated with for
nearly a year say she stole anything from him was like having a bucket of ice
water thrown over her during a heat wave.
The rifle went back up, her ire lending her tiring arms
renewed strength. She wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long though. She
either had to shoot him or send him on his way. And after that accusation she
was leaning more toward the former. “A kill you tried to make on private
property,” she told him in a cold voice that