Having His Cake (Big Easy Shifters Book 2)

by Abby Knox

  Up until that night’s hunt, GiGi had spent all her time while not at the restaurant lazing around Vann’s house. She’d never been happier. It wasn’t just the sex—though certainly the mind-blowing cunnilingus on his kitchen island, tantric style in his oversized clawfoot tub, and doggy style in the bedroom made her life joyful and exciting—but the simple pleasures of domestic life made her heart happy and fulfilled.

  Apart from the nightly movies with popcorn and snuggling on the sofa, the abundance of sex was borne out of the dread over Vann’s looming departure. They needed to fit in as much time as possible with each other. Vann’s break was coming to a close, and he would have to fly out the next day. And he would not be back until the bachelor party, a few days before the wedding in June.

  He and GiGi had hashed out every possible plan, but every discussion ended the same. She needed to stay to plan the cake and be there for wedding planning; GiGi refused to let Vann break his contract with his travel show.

  When they arrived at the clearing in the woods on the edge of the lake, Pen, Ash, Bobby, Gavin, and JB were already there. Pen did not look happy to see her but said nothing as nobody else seemed to have a problem with GiGi being there as they shifted.

  When the inevitable happened, they had already undressed. GiGi respectfully kept her eyes away from the others and focused on Vann. Naked in the moonlight in the trees, he was even more stunning than the Viking god superhero he resembled fully clothed in the daylight.

  And then, the change began. They all looked at each other and looked at GiGi. Ash asked in a deeper, edgier voice than normal, “Do you think it might be dangerous for her to be here?”

  Vann glowered. “She’s my mate, no matter what anybody here thinks. Anyone try anything with her, they’re toast. Whether you’re in my pack or not.”

  There was a growl from Pen and then Bobby chimed in. “Come on, you know we’re better than that.”

  Vann nodded at Bobby but gave Pen a look of warning. “I do know that. I trust all of you. And we’ve already accepted Rosemary as part of the family, so I hope we can all just get over ourselves. Okay?”

  Pen let out a low growl before nodding and running off down the path, disappearing into the woods.

  Vann gave GiGi one last kiss and then turned, letting out a huge howl at the moon. He disappeared behind a huge oak tree, and when he reappeared, he had changed.

  There was her Buster. He trotted over to her and nudged her leg as she reached down and gave his shining grey fur a pet. And then he took off at full speed down the path.

  What choice did she have but to run and try to keep up? Eventually, she did, and when she arrived, they were all sharing a dinner of fresh rabbits. She could not watch them eat adorable rabbits. She could not even bring herself to serve rabbit at her restaurant, nor could she ever eat wild bunnies when she was forced to hunt on the new moon every month, so how could she watch this?

  Mercifully, the feast was over quickly and then they were back to running. GiGi was thankful she had kept up her running routine despite her rigorous restaurant schedule. Of course, all the marathon bedroom sessions had increased her stamina tenfold.

  When they reached the edge of the woods, the pack dove into the lake. The water seemed to energize them all, and they tore back into the woods at full speed. When GiGi caught up with them, it was only because she was able to follow the sound of their howling. They were all together in the clearing again, the moon bright above their heads. They howled like that for what seemed like an hour. And then, eventually, they settled and made their beds for the night in the grass. Pen and Bobby’s wolf selves slept in a pile next to each other with some of the younger wolves. Vann kept his distance, then pawed the ground in a soft spot not far from his friends. He walked in a circle a few times and then fell in a heap. His ice-blue eyes beckoned her to come closer. As much as she was a little fearful of being around a pack of wolves with her eyes closed, she was exhausted from all the running. She didn’t love the idea of sleeping on the hard ground, but the huge gray wolf curled around her, and she relaxed into him. Before long, she was asleep.

  She wondered why the panther clan did things so differently. They never took naps together after a hunt; instead, they played in the water, got clean, got dressed, and left. Efficient, controlled, and perfectly timed. The wolves behaved like they were raised by…well, each other.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Vann

  He pulled his lover down on top of his lap, her favorite position.

  Vann’s flight would leave in a few short hours, and they were both still naked.

  Her tits even with his face, he cupped her breasts.

  “It’s insane how perfect these are.” He kissed them. “So soft. Your skin is a blanket for my soul.”

  “So corny,” she snickered, but when he suctioned one perfect peak into his mouth and flicked her nipple with his tongue, she forgot all about teasing him. She forgot almost everything she’d ever known, including her own name.

  Vann smiled and traced kisses over her breasts as she moaned and rocked her hips into him.

  “Take it out and look at it, Peaches. Look at what you do to me.”

  She responded by unzipping and unbuttoning his jeans and reaching in, quickly freeing his cock.

  “Hold it. I just want to memorize the feel of your hands on it.” Vann leaned back and propped himself up on his elbows, taking a deep breath and letting all the sensations wash over him. “We could stay like this all night. We could just stay like this, touching each other all damn night and I could not be happier. I am putty in your hands, darlin’.”

  “Come here,” she said. She leaned in and kissed his neck. Her legs tightened around him, and he rose back up, his arms pulling her in closer. Their upper bodies were glued together. It felt like heaven, and he knew they were not going to be sitting here simply touching each other all night long.

  She must have been feeling it too because she started making some different kinds of noises along with her moans. It got him more excited knowing he was about to nail her to kingdom come. No way could he leave home without one last boning.

  Her hips rocked toward him with need, and he knew it was time. The gentle seating of her on his cock quickly escalated to slow, deep thrusting, which moved into lively bouncing, moaning, guttural panting, scratching (gentle this time), and a back-bending climax.

  It ended sweetly with her wrapped in his arms, but yet…he had demands.

  “I don’t want you touching yourself without me,” he said, kissing her mouth, feeling the heat in both of them begin to rebuild. “I want to be the last thing you feel before I leave and the first when I come back.”

  “Wait, what does that mean?” She asked. “I can’t even masturbate while you’re gone. Can’t use my vibrator?”

  Vann threaded his fingers through her hair. “I’m just asking you, whenever you miss me, call me. Call me so I can listen and we can do it together.”

  With his hands in her hair, she had to work hard to hang on to rational thought. “Um…but aren’t you going to be like, 12 hours in the future, where you’re going? If I’m going to bed at night, you’ll be working.”

  He looked at her with the confidence of, well, the confidence of a man who doesn’t think anything of ditching work to go jerk one off in the middle of the workday, and said, “Whenever, day or night, you call me.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  GiGi

  The temporary separation nearly drove her mad.

  She hesitated to take him up on his offer for phone sex, just because she knew she’d be taking him away from filming at any hour that she was actually awake and not at work.

  Which led her to a surprising conclusion that she never could have anticipated. She should be a little more hands-off. She should give other people more responsibility. She should take more — many more — mental health days off from work.

  Vann hadn’t asked her to quit her career; he would never do that. But she realized he
was right. And oh, how she felt indignant when he was right.

  And so, on one particular busy Sunday, she left in the middle of brunch. Giving her staff notice that she’d be gone the rest of the day, she decided to see how the place ran without her there to watch over every last grueling detail.

  She even said no to family Sunday dinner at the DuChamp mansion, which she usually participated in every week following the brunch hour rush.

  “I think this will be good for us,” GiGi said, slipping out of the shower and into her bathrobe.

  Vann grunted, which she forgave since it was midnight where he was. “How could this possibly be good for us? Wait a minute, aren’t you supposed to be overseeing brunch right now?” His voice was doing that sexy creaky thing that she loved. When he would wake in the middle of the night, roll over to snuggle her and say the wonderful things he would say. She’d doubted he was fully awake and aware of the things he said, but he could have read the weather report in that sleepy voice of his and it would have made her happy.

  “I’m taking your advice. I’m letting the staff handle things today. I’m at home, taking a mental health day. It’s a good day for us to talk.”

  “Talk,” he said.

  “You know,” she teased. “Get to know each other.”

  “You called to talk?”

  She bit her lip. “You said to call you any time, day or night, if I needed you. Well, I need you now.”

  Vann let out a long, slow yawn then tried his best to sound cheerful at being awakened at midnight for a chat. “Of course, anything you need, Peaches.”

  She stifled a laugh and said, “I’m kidding. I’m naked under my bathrobe and I’ve been saving it up.”

  His breath hitched on the other end. “Oh thank fuck,” he said, “because it’s so late, I’m no good for any amount of conversations besides sighs and grunts right now.”

  “You mean you’re not even going to give me instructions?” She pouted.

  He sighed. “Can I just lie here and listen?”

  GiGi had a better idea.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vann

  He wished he’d been the one to think up the idea of FaceTime sex, but he was so happy his fated mate had as much of a dirty mind as him.

  He’d gone to bed just a couple of hours earlier, thinking of nothing but the next day’s shoot. And now he could barely remember what country he was in; GiGi had him in her ferocious little claws, even thousands of miles away.

  On his phone, he watched her spread her robe open, and then her legs. The bright midday light on her side of the world showed him everything. He could see parts of her were still wet from the shower.

  He would have thought his mind was still too drowsy for dirty talk, but the sight of her, vulnerable and alone in the middle of the day brought out the alpha wolf, and he wanted to be in charge of her pleasure. The more he resented not being there, the more he knew how much better it would be when they were back together in the same bed.

  “Touch your breasts for me, GiGi.”

  She obeyed but also teased him. “I thought you were too tired to tell me what to do.”

  The beast roiled under his skin. “Just follow my lead, woman,” he gritted out.

  The flush that crept across her skin told him she trusted him. “Do you like that when I get rude?”

  “Yes, tell me what else you want me to do.”

  Vann, fully awake now, said, “Slowly run your hands down, all the way down.” As he narrated, she did exactly as he said, her lips parted, her eyelids hooded, her feet kicking off the pillows the more he made her squirm. “Show me. Slip your fingers in between your lips and then show them to me. I want to see how juicy my Peaches is for me.”

  Her breath caught as she slid her hand down.

  “So pretty. Such a pretty kitty,” he said.

  GiGi’s nostril’s flared whenever he used cat nicknames with her in bed. “You don’t want the cat to come out,” she breathed.

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. First, tell me what my Peaches tastes like.”

  She didn’t even hesitate. GiGi slipped her fingers into her mouth and sucked off her own juices, then said, “…like what you’ve been missing.”

  The way that landed, with all the feelings he wasn’t prepared for. Oh, he felt them. He’d felt them from the beginning. But he knew at that moment there was something more she needed, even if she didn’t know.

  Vann instructed her to keep going. To keep pleasuring herself while he talked to her, but only if she wanted to.

  “I have something to say. Do you know how incredible you are? Do you know that I knew you before I even knew that I knew you? The wolf part of me found you before the man even knew what was happening. You had me before either of us knew each other as humans. It was meant to be, but it’s more than that. It would be one thing if I’d simply ended up with my mate, with the person I imprinted on because of basic, primal instinct. I don’t think you understand how lucky I am that it was you.”

  “Vann,” she said, her voice watery, but he kept going.

  “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I hate that we’re spending this time apart. I’m kicking myself for letting you talk me into finishing out my contract. I’m kicking myself for not finding a way to take you with me. But I love you because you stick to your word. You stayed because of your commitments and you made me stick to mine, and I love you for that. That’s who you are.”

  The noise she made was something guttural that might have been his name and might have been “I love you too,” but he couldn’t quite tell.

  “Peaches, are you okay?”

  On the screen, he could only see that she was wrapped up in a blanket on the bed, and she was wiping her eyes.

  “Did I go too far?” he asked. “Did I ruin your plan for today?”

  GiGi shook her head and smiled, her eyes closed. “You finished me off with your words. I fucking love you.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that, Peaches. I’m so glad you took the day off.”

  She smiled and snuggled deeper into the pillows. “I’m going to take a nap now. Could you just … keep talking to me until I fall asleep?”

  It didn’t matter to him one bit that she’d called him in the middle of the night, and now she was the one sleeping when he was the one who should be. The only thing that mattered was she was learning to look after herself, to take what she needed and what she wanted.

  It wasn’t his intent to help her finish just by talking, but if it worked, then she was in for a lifetime of hands-free orgasms.

  He might be the one with all of the celebrity and all the glory, but she was the one who deserved it the most.

  Chapter Seventeen

  GiGi

  Despite thinking about little else than her man arriving home any moment now, GiGi was doing her best to enjoy Rosemary’s bachelorette party.

  Rosemary and Pen had cleared the air, and Pen seemed on her way to accepting GiGi after Vann’s speech at the last hunt. Pen, the maid of honor, had actually been having fun with the bridal party ever since they had gone dress shopping together Uptown, where Rosemary had picked the biggest, loudest, most ridiculously expensive gowns in the entire Southern United States. GiGi found herself warming up to Pen, and vice versa.

  But tonight, GiGi was anxious. It had felt like an eternity since her Vann had flown away, even though it had only been weeks. Her need for him was compounded by the fact that he had made her promise not to pleasure herself without him.

  She had agreed, but it felt wickedly cruel. She was so eager to see him and to make up for lost time with that beautiful face of his, that brick house of a chest and that sweet soul of his, she was about ready to hyperventilate.

  The bachelorette party was supposed to merge with the bachelor party at the end of the night for one big final blowout party at The Wolfpack Tavern.

  Dinner at the DuChamp mansion in the Garden District was stellar, of course. The comedy show in Uptown and the
burlesque show on Bourbon Street were amazing. The latter location is where GiGi got very drunk to loosen herself up as she waited and waited to get to the end of the night and see her man.

  This was the first Thursday night she had ever been free of any restaurant responsibilities, as Aunt Betsy had insisted. She considered it a test run to see how her sous chef and hostess could handle everything without her. But when the group of women descended on the Wolfpack Tavern, there was no sign of the golden god.

  GiGi checked her phone, and her heart leapt at seeing a text from Vann.

  Connecting flight from Houston canceled. Driving right now. Can’t stand one more night without you, babe.

  Her heart fell to her feet, but his words lifted it again a little bit. Drive like the wind, and no more texting while driving!

  Aye-aye, captain.

  She regretted having to tell Rosemary she was cutting out of the party a bit early, but she couldn’t take another second without Vann. Besides, she had a shit ton of work to do on the cake if it was going to be ready by Saturday.

  At about one a.m., he texted her again. I’m at the bar, where are you?

  She couldn’t see to text him back because of the tears. She called him back.

  “Ohmygod, hi. I’m at the café. I decided to call it a night and get some work done on the cake.”

  She could hear cheers and drunken debauchery happening in the background.

  “I wish you’d told me, because now I’m at the party and I can’t leave because Ash wants me to stay.”