Chapter 4
August
“Welcome to the Bountiful Baking Experience. They specialize in offering a trio of different breakfast sandwiches every day of the week, as well as every type of bread and pastry you can dream up, and a few they dreamed up themselves, as a twist on old favorites,”
I said as we stepped inside my family’s bakery.
“What do you do, write their advertisements for them?”
Gregor asked, but there was no heat to his voice, only amusement.
“Write them, no, but I rave about them whenever possible because my aunts and cousins own and run the place.”
I didn’t tell him about owning the candy shop, just left it at what I’d said on the beach. That I made candy. Even when his eyes darted toward the closed door with all the colorful confections on the other side, I kept quiet. I watched his eyes widen, then the sea salt and driftwood scent of him got another layer.
Arousal.
Sweet candy gods from on high, when Olly said Gregor had a sweet tooth, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would go so far. My shorts suddenly felt damp as my face heated up at the realization that my body had started producing slick in response to his change in scent.
“You smell like sex and candy,”
he snarled, drawing me out of my thoughts by the rough, near wrecked sound of his voice.
I hadn’t even done anything.
His eyes had narrowed, his bushy eyebrows drawn into a pinched frown as he studied me. He looked pissed. My gut clenched at the fierceness of that look and the slick I’d been producing immediately dried up.
Holy shit, he looked upset.
“I-I don’t mean to.”
“Fuck mean to, it’s the best scent I’ve ever smelled.”
Wait.
What?
That wasn’t his pissed off face?
Holy shit, if that wasn’t fury, I was scared to think about what anger would look like on that grumpy face because damn. He inhaled deeply, sighed and flashed a hint of a fanged grin just as my Aunty Clara came over to take our orders.
“So, this is why you’re not back there in your kitchen dreaming up new flavors of taffy to mix up,”
she said, her bright, cheerful grin growing even more when Gregor perked up and raised an eyebrow.
“You make taffy?” he asked.
“Our August makes all the candy in the shop,”
she declared, winking at me. “He’s a wiz when it comes to sugar, especially pulling those long, thick taffy pieces until the flavors have swirled beautifully and are shiny and smooth.”
My jaw about hit the ground at how lewd she sounded while describing my candy making skills. “Aunty Clara,”
I hissed, feeling my face heat up, especially when Gregor chuckled, the sound just as raw and rough with desire as I’d felt before I’d feared I’d angered him.
“What?”
she replied, turning to me with a shrug and a look that I knew damn sure wasn’t as innocent as she tried to make it seem. “You do good work. Why wouldn’t I want everyone to know about it?”
“Fair, but did you have to make it sound so dirty?”
I grumbled, while Gregor continued to chuckle.
“Well, it does leave you a bit sticky by the time you’re through,”
Aunty Clara said, completely unbothered.
The snort that burst from Gregor’s chest was so loud it startled several of the other customers, not that he cared, he peered up at Aunty Clara like she was the coolest person he’d ever met, grinned and inclined his head.
“Nothing wrong with sticky, especially when there are so many ways to remedy the situation,”
Gregor replied with a predatorial smirk.
Oh goddess.
If I thought my cheeks felt warm before that was nothing compared to the way they felt now. I was certain I looked like a rapidly ripening tomato, and we still hadn’t managed to tell her what we wanted yet. At this point, I couldn’t even remember what the name of the sandwiches of the day were, but Gregor just grinned, flashed a hint of fang, and wagged those bushy eyebrows at me.
“I don’t know where you found this one, August, but he’s a keeper,”
Aunty Clara said.
“I should hope so,”
Gregor said in the rough, rumbling voice of his. “I’m his mate.”
Silence met his declaration, for about half a second, before my Aunty Clara threw her hands and notebook into the air, the small pad hitting one of the ceiling fans overhead before it went careening into a wall as she shrieked loud enough to bring everyone rushing out from the kitchen.
“What’s happened, what’s wrong?”
my Aunty Eunice asked, wielding a spatula like she was about to send a line drive right down the center of the infield.
My cousins’ and siblings’ voices chimed in, all of them looking around wildly, searching for danger while Aunty Clara hugged the stuffing out of me. If I’d been a jelly donut, all my sticky sweet filling would have been on the table for the world to see. Judging from the heated look Gregor was giving me, he’d have been shoving everyone aside so he could lap it all up, too.
Ohh.
That brought back memories of the dreams I’d had since I met him and now I couldn’t help but try to imagine what his tongue on me would feel like, which was the absolute worst thing I could do, because the slick started flowing again and there was no way they didn’t smell it, or the heavy, musky scent beginning to permeate the air around Gregor.
“August found his mate,”
Aunty Clara declared.
A cheer went up, and then a big old hedgehog pile happened right on top of me and the chair. Fortunately for me, it was metal and made big and wide, since we had a few bear and moose shifters that loved to drop in and those guys were massive.
I accepted the squishy hugs, while Gregor sat back in his seat, a tiny smile on that fiercely scowling face. I was starting to wonder if that fierce look was just his default setting, but it pleased me to see that our exuberance didn’t seem to bother him any. Some of the men I’d gone out with over the years had taken one look at my large, affectionate, roly poly family, and tapped out of the relationship, citing an aversion to chaos and the way we tended to be a bit loud and up in each other’s business. What could I say, we were a happy bunch that loved working and playing together. Every last one of us was creative in some way or another, a fact that had made us targets over the years, especially for those who couldn’t stand to see other people enjoying life and refusing to dwell on the shitty things, or bitch about them loudly to anyone and everyone who would listen.
It was only after the clamor had started to die down and the line at the counter had begun to grow long without anyone to wait on our customers, that Aunty Eunice clapped her hands, and herded everyone back to the kitchen, shooing the stragglers with her apron when they tried to linger.
“Your folks will be so pleased when they hear about this,”
Aunty Clara said. “Are you heading over after you eat, or will you be bringing Gregor to dinner tonight to introduce him to the rest of the family properly?”
Silence followed her question, as that tiny smile slipped from Gregor’s face, leaving that snarly look that frightened me a little.
“What time is supper?”
Gregor asked when I said nothing.
“Six thirty sharp.”
“Is there anything I should bring?”
Gregor asked. “Beer, wine, I’d have offered to pick up dessert but, um, I’m pretty sure you’ve got that covered.”
“Beer or hard cider will be just fine,”
Aunty Clara asked, the amusement having slipped from her face in the wake of my silence. “Do your people know you’ve found your mate yet?”
When he shook his head, her face pinched into that dangerous little frown that always came right before she waded in to lecture someone.
“We only just realized that we were mates when we’d run into each other at the beach this morning,”
I explained. “We came in to eat and have a chance to talk about, well, everything that we want this to be and to mean to us, but we hadn’t gotten that far yet.”
“Ahhh,”
she replied, and just like that, the frown was gone as she nodded her head. “That’s understandable then.”
Her gaze drifted toward Gregor as she studied him intently. “You smell like fury and destruction. I peg you for a predator, but I’ve not been able to suss out what flavor of shifter lies beneath your skin.”
“Wolverine,”
Gregor replied. “I hope that won’t be an issue for your family.”
“My question is, will it be an issue for yours?”
Her pointed question was exactly what I’d been wondering, too. When his shoulders slumped, I was afraid I had my answer, but again, he surprised me, this time by shrugging.
“I honestly can’t say one way or the other,”
he admitted. “I haven’t even had the chance to ask August what flavor of shifter he is.”
“We’re hedgehogs, honey,”
she replied. “And we are very protective of our own.”
“I don’t mean August any harm, ma’am, and I would never allow my family to harm my mate, no matter what feelings they might have about them or my mating,”
Gregor admitted.
“You’re not purists, are you?”
she asked, while I sat in the chair like a child as the conversation went on without me.
I was grateful to Aunty Clara, though, for cutting to the heart of things so I didn’t have to worry about the best way to broach the subject.
“No, ma’am,”
Gregor replied.
That he’d slipped into a more formal way of conversing let me know that he understood the seriousness of the discussion and the potential ramifications that could come from any answers she didn’t like.
“Could you elaborate, please?”
she requested.
“Certainly. I just meant that we have badgers, honey badgers and a Martin in the family, as well as both European and American Wolverines. We do not believe in rejecting mates, I just don’t have a basis for comparison to know what type of reaction there will be to a non-predatory mate.”
She nodded at that, while I sat there feeling nervous about the uncertainty of meeting a group of people who might see me, and any children produced by our union, as being less than, simply because I wasn’t a member of a species that hunted others.
“I know that you two haven’t had the chance to even begin discussing things yet, but I’m going to put you on the spot and ask how you intend to broach the subject with them?”
she asked.
Gregor sighed and stroked his chin, looking grim, while I sat there wondering if his answer was going to be to put it off until he was backed into a corner and outright confronted with questions about me.
“Alone,”
Gregor said. “I’d want to sit down with my mom and my old man and just lay it out for them, without telling them who August is until I’ve had a chance to gage their reactions. My pops can be a bit of a hot-headed grouch, not that I have much grounds to stand on considering I’ve inherited his temperament. The last thing I’d want was him running off and trying to meet August on his own, or to start asking around about him, before I have the opportunity to set up a proper meeting. I know he wouldn’t harm him, but he’s got a brusque demeanor that can sometimes come off as aggressive, and once he’s got it in his head to do something, he doesn’t always think things through, and that includes giving consideration to how someone else might take it, or if he’d be scaring the socks off of them in the process.”
“Are you ashamed of having a hedgehog for a mate?”
she asked.
“Aunty!”
I yelped, coming half up out of my seat, even as Gregor calmly responded, “Hell no!”
“Right answer,”
Aunty Clara said. “And right approach, in my opinion. Thank you for not dragging August in there and blindly hoping for the best. That right there, and your answer to my question, is all I need to know to be able to welcome you to our table tonight. I’ll let everyone know that mum is the word until you and August arrive and he has the chance to make the announcement himself.”
“Thank you, Aunty,”
I said, feeling a lot calmer and much more at ease.
His scent had gone back to normal over the course of the conversation, which meant that there was no longer the undercurrent of sexual tension soaking into every word that was said between us. As easy as it would have been to finally end the long drought I’d been in, and give in to the desire and all the pheromones, Aunty Clara had brought up some fundamental issues that we’d need to address before one of us plunged headlong into heat or rut. Judging from the hot and heavy scents that still lingered on his leather jacket, it was going to be him.
Yeah. I really needed to get conversation and some bonding out of the way before he decided that dragging me back to the beach and pinning me to the sand would be a much better option than breakfast.
“All right, you two, I’ve picked on you enough, what would you like to eat this morning?”
“August informed me that you make a trio of new breakfast sandwiches each morning and I can’t think of a better introduction to the food here than to get one of each, as well as a strawberry cream cheese Danish and whichever of the long list of iced coffees going up the wall that you think would go best with all of that.”
“Oh, honey, these aren’t small sandwiches,”
Aunty replied.
“And I am not a small man,”
he replied, grinning and gesturing down to his slightly rounded middle.
He was thick and imposing, fierce in a way that sent a shiver down my spine.
“I assure you that anything I can’t finish now will be resting in my belly before lunch time, so please hit me with the thickest, juiciest creations you’ve got.”
I slapped a hand over my eyes because damn, now that the seriousness was out of the way, the man was right back to the innuendos, and what the hell? Was that a little smirk, too? He still looked intense and lowkey terrifying, but seeing this playful, sexy side of him so eager to come out and play gave me a sense of power.
I’d already asked around about him. I already knew what others said. Growly, grumpy, not a man to be trifled with. Snarky as hell and twice as mean had been the way one man described him while a friend of my sister’s had out and out called him a rude bastard and borderline mean. Knowing her, though, something told me she’d had it coming so I hadn’t put too much stock in her words.
All of them had painted the picture of a proud, grumpy man who ran around looking perpetually pissed off, and yet every time he looked at me, all he did was smile a little brighter, like I was the only one he was capable of doing that for.
Damn did that make me feel like the most powerful hedgehog in the world.