Sugar Rush (Hot Cakes prologue)

by Erin Nicholas

  So he couldn’t do it. Not now. Not yet.

  This was Zoe. This would involve all the McCafferys, the people who were his family in every sense but blood. He had to do this right.

  He was going to have to marry her.

  “Aiden, please…” She started to lean in again.

  He was doing the right thing. He knew that. But he was only so strong. She couldn’t kiss him again. And she sure couldn’t do more than that. Not if he had any hope of being a good guy here.

  “No,” he finally managed.

  She stared at him.

  She looked like everything he wanted.

  So he put his hands on her waist, picked her up, and set her on the floor next to the bed.

  For just a moment, he thought she was going to reach for him again. He sat back quickly so she couldn’t.

  He was certain she was going to argue. Possibly cuss. Probably tell him that this was way worse than the time she’d asked if he liked her new haircut and he’d been honest. It had been a terrible haircut.

  Instead, she pressed her lips together, spun on her heel, and left his room.

  She even closed the door quietly behind her.

  Aiden slumped back against his pillows.

  Shit. That wasn’t good. Zoe McCaffery was definitely a door slammer.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face.

  Did he go after her?

  His cock pulsed at that idea. Of course it liked that idea. Thankfully, with her and that damned teddy and all that bare, creamy skin, and those fuck-me-please eyes out of his room he was able to think more clearly.

  That had been the right call.

  He couldn’t sleep with Zoe and leave.

  But now there was no way he could stay away from her.

  Looked like it was time to come home.

  4

  Zoe slammed the oven door shut, tossed her spoon into the metal mixing bowl in the sink, and whacked the metal muffin tins against the stove top. Then pivoted to turn her stand mixer on high.

  “Holy hell, Zoe. It’s pretty damned early for all this noise.”

  She stiffened at the sound of Aiden’s voice from the kitchen doorway, but she didn’t turn. She did, however, take a moment to bang her metal spoon against the side of her metal mixing bowl. To knock the batter off, of course.

  “Not trying to be quiet even though it’s five a.m. Got it,” he said.

  It was her damned house and her damned kitchen and if her damned house guests couldn’t sleep through her making some damned muffins, that was just too damned bad.

  She took her time adding the eggs and then the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him prop his shoulder against the fridge and settle in. Apparently not planning to attempt talking over the noise of the mixer.

  Finally, when the batter was done, she shut the mixer off and removed the bowl, folding in the blueberries.

  “So you’re mad at me,” Aiden commented.

  He was dressed. In jeans and a Henley. He’d maybe even showered. She hadn’t heard the water running from upstairs, but she’d been rage baking since four thirty with her earbuds in.

  Yes, rage baking.

  Baking always made her feel better so the morning after the biggest humiliation, and disappointment, in recent history—or even not-that-recent history, honestly—she was baking. Especially considering she hadn’t been able to sleep anyway. What else was a baker going to do but bake? It was that or go back into Aiden’s room and demand to know what the hell was wrong with him. Or smother him with one of his pillows.

  Baking was the best option.

  Because she wasn’t speaking to him—which made the demanding-he-explain-himself thing difficult—and her mom would be upset if Zoe killed him.

  The silent treatment wasn’t brand new to him. She was great at the silent treatment and had used it several times over the years with Aiden and Cam.

  She started ladling muffin batter into the tins for her fourth batch of muffins. That was a lot for a family Christmas morning brunch, but Jane and Josie were going to stop by and Jane would probably bring her little sister Kelsey and Josie might bring her sister Paige and there were always a few friends of her parents’ that stopped by to say hi. And Cam and Aiden could each eat half a dozen of her muffins by themselves.

  Yeah, Aiden liked her muffins and her pie.

  Zoe felt her eyes narrowing and her blood pressure increasing.

  He’d said no. Not just that, but he’d only said no. No explanation, no let’s talk this out, no I’m-too-drunk-to-do-you-right-but-how-about-tomorrow-night. Just no.

  She realized she was beating the batter with the ladle and crushing the blueberries. She dropped the ladle, braced her hands on the counter and just breathed in and out.

  Or maybe there would be no tomorrow night because he just really didn’t want to have sex with her. All the pie talk had just been talk about pie. Real pie. She’d read into the whole stupid thing. It had sounded fun and sexy and flirty in her mind but she was just crazy and Aiden saw her as a little sister and someone to wipe boogers on and nothing more.

  She really hated him right now.

  Aiden pushed away from the fridge and crossed to the coffee pot.

  Zoe straightened and felt herself smile. A very wicked smile. She started scooping batter into the tins again.

  “There’s no coffee?”

  There was coffee. But she’d hidden the grounds and the K-cups for the Keurig.

  “No.”

  That was all she said. Just no. Simple.

  He sighed. He knew that there was coffee and that she’d hidden it. There had been a bunch of coffee yesterday. But Aiden also knew her. She was a McCaffery. Specifically, she was Letty McCaffery’s granddaughter. Letty had held a grudge against her best friend from childhood for fifty years. It had divided the entire town and set up a professional and personal feud between the two families that was still going on.

  Zoe was not someone who got over being slighted easily.

  And turning her down for sex had definitely slighted her.

  “Can I have a muffin at least?” he asked.

  He was really pushing his luck. She turned to face him, her eyes narrow.

  “No.”

  She could see that he completely understood why ‘no’ was the only answer he was getting.

  He sighed. “We should talk about this. You know that.”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to speak to me at all today?”

  She folded her arms, not caring that she was dripping muffin batter on the floor. She didn’t even have to answer that one. He knew.

  “And I’m going to assume that there’s not a friend to pick up from the airport and you got me up this early for…some other reason?”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  He nodded. “Got it. I think I’ll head over to your mom’s for coffee. And… friendliness.”

  Zoe didn’t really care. He wouldn’t tell Maggie that Zoe was mad at him because then he’d have to tell her why and he did not want to do that, she was sure. It was likely her mother was up already, getting brunch stuff ready. If not, she was at the table, drinking coffee and reading. All of the McCaffery women were early birds. Maggie would love to have Aiden come over.

  And it would get him out of Zoe’s sight.

  Because dammit, she really was mad. And he looked really good this morning.

  How could he look good after turning her down and leaving her…ugh, humiliated like that?

  It was the kiss.

  She could not forget the way he’d kissed her. Like he was all in. Like every single thing she wanted and needed was right there and he was ready and willing and able to give it to her.

  But then he’d pulled back.

  He should have fucking said no and pushed her away before he kissed her and made her one thousand percent sure he was the one she wanted to do this with the first time.

  Yeah, she hated him.


  He stopped at the back door and looked back. “You going to forgive me?” he asked.

  She felt her eyes burning slightly, but she lifted her chin.

  “Right. No,” he answered himself. He blew out a breath, then let himself out.

  5

  “Oh my God, please make it stop.” Camden looked at Aiden. “I’m begging you.”

  The ”it” he was referring to was Dax Marshall, another of their partners and friends. More specifically, it was his whistling of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” as he came into the conference room for their morning meeting.

  Aiden understood. Cam was severely hung over, as he always was after they took a trip to Appleby.

  “Seriously. Shut him up,” Cam hissed. He was surly on a good day, but downright asshole-ish when hung over.

  Aiden swallowed hard and scrubbed a hand over his face. He wasn’t feeling a whole hell of a lot better than Cam at the moment. Last night he’d joined his buddy with his bottle of whiskey because he’d had a not-great-at-all run-in with a woman in Appleby as well. Thankfully, Cam had been caught up in his feelings over Whitney so hadn’t asked why Aiden was drinking too. Not that Aiden would have told him the truth. Definitely not.

  Cam wasn’t exactly the protective type. Zoe wasn’t the type that needed protecting. She was feisty and more than able to take care of herself. And she certainly didn’t need to be protected from Aiden. He’d never do anything to hurt her. He was ninety percent sure he was in love with her. But he didn’t really want to know what Cam would think of him and Zoe together at the moment.

  Then again, he and Zoe weren’t together. At all. They were less together now than they had been before she’d kissed the hell out of him in his bed.

  The next morning in the kitchen had been downright chilly. And loud. Good Lord the woman could make muffin tins sound like gongs.

  The reception in her kitchen had convinced him to eat at Maggie’s before Zoe showed up for brunch. Zoe would have absolutely put ghost peppers in his eggs or dog shit in his hash browns.

  She was not happy with him.

  As in, she wasn’t speaking to him. Every time he was within two feet of her, she’d found a way to skirt around him or simply head in the other direction.

  The one time he’d managed to block her into the corner of the dining room, she’d given him a look that could only be described as murderous and said, “If you really think I’m above kneeing you in the balls in my mother’s house, you are dead wrong.”

  Not the kind of talking he’d hoped to get from her. He’d let her go.

  ”I’m going to heave my coffee mug at his head,” Cam growled.

  Dax was still whistling. He was also sitting at the head of the conference table, with his feet propped on the shiny mahogany surface. He had his hands linked behind his head and Aiden knew Dax realized Cam was hungover.

  “Knock it off,” Aiden told him. “You know he’s always like this the morning after.”

  Specifically, the morning after being within a hundred yards of Whitney Lancaster.

  Cam’s ex. The woman who’d broken his heart. The woman he’d never gotten over. And, inevitably, every fucking time Cam was in Appleby, no matter how hard he tried not to, he ended up running into her.

  He really did try like hell not to see her or have to talk to her. But every damned time, something happened—he’d stop for a tank of gas or to pick something up at the hardware store for his father or he’d just be walking down the damned street—and suddenly she was there in front of him.

  This time he’d nearly run her over in a crosswalk on Main Street.

  Dax stopped whistling. “Did you know that it’s a commonly held belief that you can only kiss one girl under the mistletoe on any given night?” he asked. “It’s not like New Year’s Eve where you can go around kissing everyone while the clock strikes.”

  Cam groaned, propping his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands. His huge biceps bulged, making the tattoo that ran from shoulder to wrist jump.

  “That right?” Aiden asked, amused in spite of himself.

  “Guess so,” Dax said. “At least that’s what the four girls at the Christmas party told me.”

  “You kissed four different girls under the same mistletoe at the same party?” Aiden asked.

  “Yeah. But one at a time. It wasn’t like a mistletoe orgy or anything,” Dax said.

  “But they thought mistletoe should be a monogamous thing?” Aiden asked.

  Dax shrugged. “Yep. Ridiculous, right?”

  “I’ve honestly never given mistletoe etiquette a lot of thought,” Aiden told him.

  “Well, now you know.”

  He hadn’t made a lot of use of mistletoe at all actually, but he wouldn’t mind getting Zoe there. She’d have to kiss him again then, right? He had a feeling he was going to need all the help he could get. He didn’t know all the mistletoe rules, but he knew that the basic one was you had to kiss whoever was under there with you.

  “But being under Mistletoe later ended up being completely worth having to apologize about the other three girls,” Dax said.

  Aiden lifted a brow. “One of them was named Mistletoe?”

  Dax grinned. “That’s what she told me it was. She was in a tiny green dress with little white ‘berries’ dangling from it.”

  “Was this a costume party?” Aiden asked.

  “Nope.”

  Aiden shook his head. That kind of stuff happened to Dax all the time.

  The conference room door opened again and Oliver and Grant, their other two partners, entered followed by their executive assistant, Piper.

  She set a bottle of water and two ibuprofen tablets next to Cam. She rubbed his shoulder. “I’m ordering burgers and fries for an early lunch,” she told him. “It will soak up some of that shit in your system.”

  He nodded but didn’t look up.

  She smiled at Aiden. “You want anything?”

  “Same,” he told her with a grateful smile. He wasn’t as hungover as Cam, but he was damned tired and feeling like a jerk.

  He wasn’t sure a burger would actually fix how he was feeling, but he was positive a salad wouldn’t.

  Piper laid papers next to Ollie and Dax, picked up Dax’s empty coffee mug—and would likely refill it—and handed over Grant’s glasses, which he must have left somewhere.

  She was always taking care of all of them. Grant had hired her as Ollie’s assistant, because Lord knew Ollie needed the most babysitting. The visionary of the group, Ollie had a hard time with things like schedules and deadlines. He was always thinking five steps ahead of the rest of them. But he wasn’t at all detail oriented. He came up with the big ideas and then trusted Dax, Aiden, Cam, and Grant to make them actually happen.

  He was brilliant. But he couldn’t be counted on to show up for a dinner reservation—or to even remember to eat at all—without Piper.

  “I want something for lunch too,” Ollie told her.

  “I know,” she replied, heading back for the doorway.

  “Do you want to know what I want?” he asked.

  “A teriyaki burger with pineapple and no onions.” She did not put a question mark after onions.

  Ollie frowned. “Yeah.”

  She simply nodded and swept out of the room, the air behind her smelling like spicy candy. Aiden had yet to place the scent exactly—and she wouldn’t tell him, always giving him a mysterious smile when he asked—but it was delicious.

  “She’s a know-it-all,” Ollie said to no one in particular.

  The rest of the guys didn’t reply. Because she was. Thank God.

  “You gonna live?” Grant asked Cam.

  “Unfortunately, I think so,” Cam told him, tossing the ibuprofen tablets into his mouth. He swallowed a mouthful of water, then said, “It’s going to be a long fucking day though.”

  “Why do you do that to yourself?” Grant asked.

  “He almost killed Whitney this time,”
Aiden said. He much preferred talking about Cam and Whitney to thinking about Zoe and how badly he’d messed things up with her.

  She couldn’t go without speaking to him forever. Her family was his family. They would see each other again. They’d sit across from one another at her mom’s dining room table. They’d lounge on the sofa in the living room and watch movies with Henry, her little brother. They’d sit around the firepit on the back patio and drink spiked lemonade with Cam and Josie and Jane.

  She couldn’t avoid him.

  And the next time he saw her, he was going to fix everything. Somehow.

  “You almost killed her?” Dax asked. “What’s that mean?”

  “I did not.” Cam shot Aiden a scowl.

  “That’s not the story I heard,” Aiden said, unable to resist needling Cam.

  They’d been best friends since kindergarten. Cam had done a lot of stupid things over the years and Aiden knew about every one of them.

  “I was turning the corner onto Main and she stepped out into the crosswalk. It was totally her fault,” Cam said with a scowl.

  “But you did almost hit her,” Aiden said.

  “Holy shit,” Dax said, his eyes wide.

  “I. Did. Not.” Cam sighed. “I saw her immediately and slammed on the brakes. She was startled and dropped the bag she was carrying which made it look a lot worse than it was.”

  “What was in the bag?” Ollie asked.

  “Uh.” Cam clearly didn’t want to say.

  But Aiden really had heard the whole story. It had happened on Main Street in Appleby, Iowa. It was a tiny town and everyone heard every “whole story”. And then some. The stories got embellished, of course, but this one was pretty good even without the extras.

  “Panties and frosted cookies,” Aiden said.

  Dax thought about that. Then he nodded. “Two of my favorite things.”

  Aiden grinned at Cam’s pained expression.

  “Apparently she’d just been shopping at the boutique and had stocked up on panties,” Aiden supplied helpfully. “She also had a box of frosted cookies. So the crosswalk was strewn with panties in various colors that were covered in frosting and pieces of cookie.”