Red Hot Candy (22 All-New Delicious Romance Books by Best-Selling Authors about Alpha Males, Billionaires, Cowboys, and More for Your Summer Reading) (Red Hot Boxed Sets)

by Dani Dundee

  “I think it’s going to eat that giant pie next,” Celia Brooks laughed. “I should put this on YouTube. It’s going to just swim in that pie. It’s going to be so dang cute.”

  “Mother,” Mina said through gritted teeth. “That is my wedding pie.”

  “Where’s the cake?”

  “We’re having pie.”

  “You can’t have pie. People eat cake at weddings. Giant, towering cakes of fondant all white and pink, with a little maquette on top. I watch all the baking shows. I know the rules.”

  “Do you like eating fondant, mother? How many wedding cakes have you tasted that were actually good?”

  “Well, Angela Johnson had a great one. It was chocolate with this vanilla fudge icing.”

  “That’s one cake. And she got married when I was five. You’ve been to like a hundred weddings.”

  “I don’t care if it tastes bad, a cake is tradition!”

  “If we followed every tradition, mother, there would be nothing for us to decide or do at our wedding except show up, eat, dance and leave.”

  “Traditions are important. They let you focus on the important things. Like did you see how that man of yours looked at you?”

  “This is my wedding. I get to do it once and only once, so it is going to be the way I want.” The bear cub was going to eat her pie and Mina was sitting on so much sexual frustration that she was sure it was some sort of secret recipe for turning her into a shifter. A bridezilla shifter. Her skin would turn green, she’d breathe fire and stomp all over Bearfield. “If that bear eats my pie, this argument will be moot.” She dialed Michael and was shocked when he answered on the first ring.

  “Morrissey and Sons Towing,” he said, his voice chipper. Ever since Michael had found his mate in Alison, he’d been a different man. More responsible, more engaged, more dressed. If the townsfolk were overjoyed at Matt finding a mate, they went positively mental when Michael found his as well. Eyes were on Marcus now, who was too busy running everything as the Alpha to give a damn.

  “Michael, Mina here.”

  “Happy wedding day!” he said. “Do I get to call you sister now, or do I have to wait until later?”

  “There’s a bear in my bakery, Michael.” Her voice was a taut wire, ready to snap.

  “Is it Matt?” he asked. “No one really expected him to fast all month. If the guy cheats on his diet a little, I’m sure the elders will forgive him.”

  “No, it’s not Matt,” she growled, but being a mortal woman the effect was less impressive than when one of the shifter boys did it. “It’s a bear. A real bear. Get over here quick.”

  Celia Brooks was laughing, holding up her phone to take a video of the bear cub slipping around on the floor in a mass of fur and butter.

  “That is freshly churned organic locally sourced butter. It took me hours to churn that,” Mina whined.

  “Getting some practice for your wedding night?”

  “Mother!”

  Celia Brooks laughed riotously and Mina tried to relax. If the cub ate the pie, it wouldn’t be the end of things. They just wouldn’t have any dessert. At a wedding reception full of sweet-toothed shifters. It would totally be a disaster.

  “Can you bake another one? It’s Grandma Sweet’s recipe, yeah?”

  “I still have to shower and get my hair done and do like a hundred little things before the wedding. And every second is either rushing by or lasting too long.”

  “You never were good about letting your mother help,” Celia Brooks said. “I’ll tell you what, if that little bear eats your special apple pie, I’ll get in there and bake you a new one. I don’t have anything I need to do before the wedding except steam out the wrinkles in my dress. Give me the recipe, send someone over to help, and I’ll take care of it, dear. I haven’t baked in a good long while, but I still know my way around a kitchen.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Mina said, tears welling up in her eyes.

  There were so many things she wanted to tell her mother, but couldn’t. Not just about the Morrissey brothers being bear shifters, but also about Harker trying to kill her, about her fears over raising bear shifter children. About the mating ceremony, and how it might change her. There was a chance—a slim chance—that the mating could kill her or turn her into a bear herself. Usually it just strengthened a mate, gave her the bear’s endurance, his robust health, his long life span. Marrying Matt meant not just joining the community of Bearfield, it meant giving up her mortality for something different. The Bearfielders called them kinfolk, or bear-blooded. It’s what most of the townsfolk were, even if they didn’t know it. They had shifter blood somewhere in their family trees. Would Mina be the same afterwards? Would she be a different person? If a ceremony changed you so profoundly, and you were different after, wasn’t it kind of like the present-you was being killed?

  A screeching siren neared and the city’s lone police officer, Sheriff Pete, clambered out of the car. He was wearing a tux that was two sizes too big, with his mirrored glasses and Smokey-the-Bear flat brim hat on top.

  Mina’s mother stepped forward, “We’re just watching this, officer. We had nothing to do with it.”

  “You must be Mina’s ma,” Sheriff Pete said. “Damn glad to meet ya. Y’know, I was the first person in Bearfield to meet Mina. I was the one who found her when she flipped her car on that mountain road.”

  “You flipped your car?” Celia Brooks said, eyes narrowing.

  “Pete, can you do anything about this?” Mina nodded at her bakery window, where the butter-slick cub was trying and failing to climb onto the central table holding the pie.

  “Oh man, I should put this on YouTube,” he said with delight. Then stiffened, “I mean, Michael is on his way. He called me and sent me over to see if I could help.” The sheriff slowly eased the phone from his pocket and then lifted it to the window, chuckling under his mustache.

  A crashing sound echoed from behind the bakery, like trees being bowled over by a wrecking ball. Then, through the window, Mina and her mother and Sheriff Pete watched as an enormously large bear entered from the rear of the establishment. It was golden brown and larger than a car.

  “Is that the mother?” Celia Brooks asked.

  It was Michael, but Mina didn’t know how to say that. She was more concerned about his big bear butt knocking over her pie.

  Michael-the-bear gruffed and barked, scolding the cub. He padded forward, squeezing himself between the wall and the table, tipping the pie up and up and up. Mina watched with held breath as the heavy dish scooted forward, edging towards the precipice between table and floor. But then Michael’s bulk was past the table and it plopped back down onto four sturdy legs, the pie still intact and whole and perfect.

  Michael picked up the bear cub by the scruff of its neck in his teeth and waddled to the front door.

  Mina stepped forward, fumbling in her pocket for the keys.

  “What are you doing?” her mother yelled. “Don’t let that thing out here. It’s enormous! That’s the biggest damn bear in the world.”

  “Marcus is bigger,” Pete added, absentmindedly.

  “It’s okay, Mom. I know this bear.” Mina unlocked the double doors and Michael squeezed through them, his flesh a very tight fit in the space.

  Once outside, Michael put the bear cub down and licked the little guy’s forehead. The cub gazed up at Mina with adoring eyes, half-drunk on sugar. The cub’s flesh blurred and then, where the baby bear had been, was an eight-year-old boy. He was naked, covered in flour and sugar and jam and berries and cream. He had a blissful smile on his face and brown hair the same exact shade as Matt’s.

  Celia Brooks gasped.

  Sheriff Pete sighed in exasperation.

  Michael then shifted, too, into his shockingly handsome man form. “So hey, I guess we don’t need to keep quiet about this anymore.” He reached out to shake Celia’s hand. “I’m Michael, your future son-in-law’s younger brother. And this,” he poked the boy with a toe. “This is
our cousin’s kid, Cal. Say hi, Cal.”

  The boy gazed up at Mina with adoration in his eyes. “Did you really make all those things?”

  “The tarts and muffins and rolls and stuff?”

  “Yeah,” the boy sighed, licking locally sourced organic hand-churned butter off his face.

  “I made all those things,” she said, smiling at him. If she and Matt had a boy, would he be like this? Like a giant puppy, eager and full of life?

  “Can you make more?” Cal’s eyes went wide with the question.

  “Don’t fall for his act,” Michael said. “He knows how cute he is.”

  “The bear turned into a boy,” Celia Brooks said. “And the other one is a naked man.”

  Mina hugged her mother tightly. “Welcome to Bearfield, Mom.”

  When they broke their hug off, Michael stepped forward and offered his arm to Celia. “I know Mina has a million things to do still, but as best man I am luxuriously free for the whole afternoon. Could I show you around town and answer any questions you might have?” He laid the charm on thick, but it worked.

  Celia looped her arm through Michael’s. “Are you going to put pants on first?”

  Michael scoffed, “This is Bearfield. Who needs pants?”

  Sheriff Pete popped open his trunk and fished out a tote bag with the name Michael Morrissey on it. He threw it to the shifter. “I’ll get Cal to his folks at the Lodge, you put some pants on and try to be a gentleman.”

  Michael grinned at Celia. “Let’s start at the beginning,” and he began to tell her the story of the great bear spirit as they wandered off toward downtown. Sheriff Pete helped Mina lift the massive pie into the rear of the Jeep, but not before locking Cal in the back of his cruiser. The boy had a gleam in his eye now that he’d tasted Mina’s baking. She’d have to post a guard at the reception to defend her pie’s honor.

  With the pie loaded, the cub contained, and Michael busy charming the socks off her mother, Mina could finally get down to the business of getting married.

  ***

  CHAPTER THREE

  The wedding went off without a hitch. Mina didn’t even see Matt again, until she walked down the aisle in the clearing behind her home they’d sculpted into an outdoor cathedral. Michael’s mate, Alison, had a way with plants and she chosen just the perfect trees and flowers, so that around the glen where the ceremony was held, towering bamboo mixed with the redwoods and sequoias to form walls and at the base of the walls, massive white flowers thrived. Matt’s bees had gone positively insane for the flowers and they’d had to take two weeks off from landscaping just to give the little buzzing devils a chance to do their business in the flowers.

  But when Mina walked down the aisle of trees, winding down the hill from her home, through a welcoming gauntlet of friends and family all holding candles to light her way, all the stress of the wedding fell away. It was happening. It was here. All of the weird herbal shakes she’d drank, the moonlit ceremonies pledging herself to the people of Bearfield, and the dozens of nonsensical superstitious acts Shawna Killdeer had her perform—like walking the circumference of downtown with a silver coin in each shoe—all of that had led her here to family, to love, to Matt.

  She walked down the aisle, head held high, trying her damnedest not to cry. But the weeping, blubbering, nose-blowing women of Bearfield didn’t make it easy. She just focused on their candles, drawing her on through the setting sun, towards her man, her mate. Matt stood at the end of the aisle, with Shawna Killdeer positively minuscule next to him as the officiant. When Matt saw her, met her eyes, his glowed with a fierce gold pulse. She knew what that meant—the bear inside him was roaring with approval. She fought not to walk too fast down the path, but the fire inside her cried out for her man. After a month of abstinence, being this close to him and so close to having him again, was torture. What if she just sprinted the length, screamed “I do!” and then ran back into her home, to the bedroom? What could anyone do?

  But she held on.

  The ceremony was not short. There’d been traditions they cold set aside—like the wedding cake or a champagne toast—and traditions they explicitly rejected, but the ceremony of Matt’s people was special. As Shawna Killdeer began to speak, Matt reached out and took Mina’s hands in his. An electric shock moved through Mina, suggesting again that she strip naked and get taken by her mate right there in the front of everyone. But she managed to wait. She even remembered to say her vows.

  What followed after was regarded by everyone as the best wedding party they’d ever been to.

  Oh sure, everyone cried when Marcus gave a speech about how much he wished their father could be there and how proud he was of his little brothers for being good enough men that amazing women like Mina and Alison would deign to marry them. And Cal used his little sister as a distraction to lure Pete away from the pie long enough to sneak a handful of it, munching it in bear form under the tablecloth. Celia spent the night laughing uproariously, happier than Mina had ever seen her. All of the old feuds and grudges were forgotten for one night. She’d seen Mina’s home and seen that it was a good home. There’d be no more pressure about moving back to Chicago, no more entreaties to find the right man. She had. Now it was Mina’s turn to pressure her mom to give up on city life and come out to Bearfield. It wouldn’t work, but she’d try.

  But mostly, Matt was amazing. First he’d been her advocate, then her protector. First her boyfriend and now her husband. He was everything she wanted. She’d gotten mostly used to having a gorgeous man in her life, doting on her, laughing at her jokes but seeing him in his tux was a whole new level of hotness. It was a good thing it wasn’t a rental. She’d need to find more reasons for him to wear it, if only so she could take it off him afterwards. He grinned his way through the ceremony, danced his way through the reception, and when the last guest drunkenly stumbled home, he swept Mina up in his arms and carried her off to bed.

  “I still haven’t decided,” Mina said as Matt walked with a predator’s patience up the stairs to their bedroom. “Will I be Mina Morrissey? Mina Morrissey-Brooks? Or will I keep my own name? Which name do you prefer, Mister Mina Brooks?”

  “Mine,” he said with a bone-vibrating growl, his eyes glowing gorgeously, his bear right under his skin now.

  “Is that to be my name now?”

  “Mine,” Matt said again, carrying her through the doorway to their king-sized bed.

  Her body ached for him in ways she couldn’t believe. The heat she’d felt since the day they met had become a part of her, so present she couldn’t remember a time before it. But now, responding to Matt’s presence and the arcane rituals they’d undergone, it deepened. Liquid fire poured through her, an ecstasy of arousal. Wet didn’t even begin to describe the state of her. It’d be like calling the ocean “a little moist” or a mountain “somewhat large.”

  “Is this the mating frenzy?” Mina asked, her mouth struggling to form words. She wanted to bite Matt, to sink her teeth into him. To open herself to him.

  In response, her husband grasped the front of her wedding dress and ripped it in two, revealing her white bra and panties and stockings underneath. She should have been pissed. She’d spent ages shopping for the dress, trying to find one that hugged her curves in all the right places. But when she opened her mouth, all she said was, “Mine.”

  Mina fell back on the bed, nearly naked. And then Matt was on top of her, kissing her like they’d been separated for a thousand years. His cock strained at his pants, pressing thick against her thigh. Reaching down, Mina tried to undo his pants but instead found herself tearing them open as if they were tissue. A strength pulsed in her limbs that hadn’t been there minutes ago. Mina trembled uncontrollably as Matt kissed his way down her neck, his breath scorchingly hot on her skin. Her legs parted and she couldn’t resist bucking her hips up against him, rubbing her hungry sex against his hardness still constrained by his briefs.

  “Mine,” Matt said, as he leaned over and nuzzled his face
between her breasts. She felt a sharpness, like teeth on her skin, and then a sudden moment of release as her bra fell away and her breasts felt freedom. He’d chewed through her bra—it it right in half.

  Matt’s searching mouth found her nipple, took it between his teeth and lapped it lazily, swirling and teasing, rough and soft. This foreplay stuff was for humans, for mortals, she wanted to be taken right then, to mate and mate and mate until their pounding bodies crashed through the bed, through the floor, and split the earth open. And then they’d mate some more.

  “Mine,” Mina gasped, her hands gripping the back of his head tightly, like she was afraid she’d fall away. Her breath came in a rush of squeaks and moans, the only word she could say emerging from her lips in a trembling moan. Matt spent minutes teasing her nipple and breast, before popping off and moving to the other, which was even more sensitive. Mina couldn’t take any more. Dipping into the newfound strength that flowed through her, she pushed Matt up and off her, flipping him over. He weighed hundreds of pounds, and she pushed him like he was a pillow.

  The man’s eyes went wide with shock as he flipped over, but then Mina was on top of him. She ripped his briefs off, scooting down to sit astride his thighs. There was no one stopping them now. No reason to wait. No more sexual embargoes or traditions to honor. He was all hers, and she wanted to ride him like a horse. Mina wrapped her hands around his cock.

  “Mine,” she said. Matt, meeting her eyes, nodded. But then when she opened her mouth and licked the tip of his cock, lapping at the wetness there, he whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut. She savored the taste of him in her mouth, the feel of his length filling her hot and hard on her tongue. The big man moaned under her ministrations, his hands gently stroking her head as she slid him slowly in and out of her lips. Her pussy fluttered with the need to be filled, but she pushed the desire back for a little bit longer. This man was hers, he was her mate, and now that she was on top and in control she wanted to take her time with him.