Etienne (The Shifters of Shotgun Row Book 1)(29)

Justice was right. Loic was running his fucking mouth a hundred miles an hour, but Tansy’s eyes were on me. I looked down to follow the trail of her gaze. I had grease all over my stomach.

“What?” I mouthed to her, teasing her from afar.

“Sexy.” She nodded toward my shirtless torso.

I waggled my eyebrows at her.

“I’m gonna gag. Can you two take that elsewhere? Fuck.”

I wiped off what I could of the grease and threw a Johnny Cash T-shirt on before walking over to her. “You like the view?” I asked in her ear, making her giggle.

“Very much. Did you give up?” She ticked her head at her car.

“I think her time is up. I’m sorry. I know she was Marie’s. You can use my truck until you get another. I can drive the cruiser.”

“You don’t have to do that.” She bent over, reached into the ice chest, and grabbed a Budweiser. My gator forced me to look around, making sure no one was looking at her.

Possessive bastard.

“Here.” She lifted a bit of the bottom of her skirt and screwed the top off. It was sexy as fuck.

She tried to hand me the beer, but I couldn’t look away from where she’d just flashed me a bit of thigh.

“Hey, eyes up here.” She thrust the beer into my hand and with her crooked finger made my chin rise.

“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”

She laughed. “Well, at least try. Loic here was just telling me this is mystery meat jambalaya, and it would be best not to ask what the mystery meat was.”

It was raccoon. Nasty little beast, but in jambalaya, it was like the best pork.

“Better we don’t tell you.”

She shook her head and took another swig of her beer, the last one.

“Another?”

“That depends. Am I driving? Is there somewhere I can spend the night?”

Fuuuucccckkkkk…. “Not if you don’t want to. Ladies’ choice.” It was nearly impossible to stay cool around this female. She did things to me that turned me into a horny teenager.

“I’ll take another one, please. And what the hell does Coonass mean?”

Loic choked on his drink. “It’s like the name we call ourselves. We don’t go around asking Grandma to give us her Cajun recipes. We ask her for the Coonass recipe. When someone puts mustard in their grits, they are a Coonass, not a Cajun. Does that make any sense at all?”

“Kind of.”





Tansy

I’d not laughed like that in so long. Who knew eating mystery meat jambalaya outside with the guys, drinking local beer, and watching them razz each other could be so fun.

Not that they had me fooled on the meat. I was a trained chef. I knew pork when I tasted it.

When I basically announced I was spending the night, like no respectable woman should, I felt freer than I had in ages. No pressure as to what was coming next, no “I should be leaving” or watch checking. And with the drinking, sex was off the table. Etienne was no doubt less than an angel, but he’d never take advantage of a drinking woman. It just wasn’t in his makeup.

The guys were so crass and bold and naughty, everything I wasn’t. I envied them a little. They unabashedly said what went through their minds. In a way, they almost felt like brothers.

We didn’t talk about their animals or my ghosts, if they even knew about them. We talked politics and movies and told all the dirty jokes I thought were ever written.

“I think I need a blood transfusion after tonight,” I grumbled as I scratched a bite on my leg when we finally said good night to the other guys and went inside.

“The bugs will eventually start ignoring you.” He held a bottle of vinegar and a cotton ball out, “May I?”

“May you what?” I looked to his hands again.

“Cold white vinegar takes out the itch.”

I nodded, and he proceeded to pat the vinegar on all my bites.

“If they ignore ya after a while, why do you have the vinegar?” I challenged.

“For salads?” He shrugged. I pictured him as a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Thinking of him sitting there making his own salad dressing was shockingly hot. Who knew basic domestic skills did it for me?

“I’m not havin’ sex with you tonight,” I blurted, out of nowhere and for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom. It wasn’t like he even asked. Or hinted. Or made out with me. Dying right then and there wasn’t a bad plan.

“Of course not. We’ve been drinking,” he announced, getting up and putting the vinegar away as if I hadn’t just blurted something so completely embarrassing.

“Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

“Because you didn’t want there to be misunderstandings.” He was beside me faster than I thought possible, but he was part animal, so maybe that was a thing. “Always say what needs sayin’. That’s the only way this’ll work.”

“I’m afraid.” Because, apparently, I was saying all the things tonight. I wasn’t even drunk. I’d had three beers over the course of hours. But out the words came.

“Because you have been hurt before,” he clarified before taking my hand as I leaned into him. This was nice, just being near him, snuggling into him, our secrets in the air. Well, most of them, and now felt like the time to share my last one, the one that could scare him away.