A Taste of Honeybear Wine (BBW Bear Shifter Standalone Romance Novel) (Bearfield Book 2) (16 page)

The pleasure in her bubbled and fizzed and popped. She felt like some witch’s cauldron that she’d been throwing ingredients into all week. Add one part sexual tension, one part awful break-up, four parts adventure and raise the heat. Gently stir in a kind-hearted man who was prettier than an underwear model. Add a pinch of true love and stir with the biggest fucking cock you’ve ever seen. And then,
voila
!
 

Michael fucked her slowly against the bed, thrusting his great big dick into her in a fast head-spinning rush of pleasure, and then dragging it out slowly until it was almost gone, leaving her feeling empty and starving for more. Again and again he did this, the old bed squeaking and groaning and shrieking almost as loud as Alison. At first it was distracting to her, but as Michael kept the rhythm up, she soon lost herself in the physical joys of the moment. And then Michael was all the way inside her, making her feel so incredibly deliciously full. Every thrust coaxed primal animal noises out of her that she didn’t even know she could make.

For a moment, Alison realized that she was always going to have this. He was moving in with her. This ridiculously amazing man was going to live with her, hopefully forever. He was going to take her like this, forever. He was going to love her, and look at her with his adoring honey-brown eyes, forever. The realization unlocked something inside her, something deep and ancient, and she felt the earth move under her feet. Figuratively, of course. Her feet hadn’t been on the earth for some time.
 

Michael’s growl deepened and his thrusts grew harder and faster. Alison felt the yawning abyss of her climax opening its mouth to swallow her. They were both almost there.
 

Lying back on the bed, with Michael on top of her, her legs spread wide with her toes pointed to the ceiling, Alison licked her fingers and rubbed her stiff hard clit.

Michael’s growl became a roar. His eyes burned with golden fire.

“Yes,” Alison moaned as he erupted inside her and her pleasure finally took her. “Yes, Michael. Yes.” She was answering questions he didn’t need to ask. Whatever he wanted, the answer was
yes
. Now and forever, yes.
 

Epilogue

Bearly Awake

The night was cool and the moon was nowhere to be seen when Michael slipped from Alison’s warm bed and padded out of the house on bare feet. There was one last thing he needed to do before he could rest, before he could devote himself to Alison in the ways she deserved.

Through the woods he tromped, loud when he needed to be to keep the mountain lions away, quiet when sneaking past the new pack of wolves who were out exploring the territory they now called home. The wolves would be a problem, he was sure of it. But they would be Marcus’s problem. He’d either assimilate them into the town properly or find them a new pack elsewhere. It’d happened before. Shifters all over knew of Bearfield as a place of peace and sanctuary from the bullshit politics that gripped basically every other shifter community on the planet. Some came because they genuinely wanted a quieter, better way of life.
 

But some shifters came to town thinking that “quiet” meant “weak,” and when they made a play for the town, Marcus was there waiting for them. Jack Sable was just the most recent usurper to come at the Alpha. He wasn’t the first or even the hundredth, and he wouldn’t be the last. Every fight made Marcus stronger, cagier, but also less trusting. There’d come a point, Michael knew, when Marcus’s nature and Bearfield’s nature were no longer a good fit for each other.

But today was not that day.

When Michael found the great bear cave, Craig Vander was on guard. Craig had been his swim coach, and his English teacher, and was one of the town’s part-time librarians. Craig stiffened when Michael came padding into the cave but relaxed when he realized who it was.

“Fear is one of the greatest emotions, Michael. One of the most primal. Certainly the oldest.” Craig said with a gracious smile. “Whenever we touch it, we feel our history in our blood. We taste the fight-or-flight that is the first question every being must answer, posed again for us to hear.”

“Hey, Craig,” Michael said.

“It’s a gift, is what I’m saying. When you sneak up quiet and scare me, it’s like for a second I’m an ancestor—a caveman—facing down a bear in the woods. His fear and my fear are identical, both philosophically and chemically. So thank you. It’s always a pleasure to walk in the muddy footprints of the ancients.” Craig wore rimless glasses. A pile of library books and a lantern sat on a neatly folded blanket next to his chair. More than anyone else in town, Craig loved guard duty.

“I’m just here to pay my respects to my dad.”

“Of course, of course. Say hey for me, too, willya?” Craig settled himself back down in the chair and picked up his Kindle from the stack of books. The books on the ground were all by Russians—Dostoevsky and Gogol and Bulgakov. But on his Kindle, Craig loved romances. He told anyone who would listen about the necessity of engaging with the modern as well as the classic. That night he was alternating a chapter of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” with the newest novel by Krista Lakes. He didn’t even watch Michael as he shifted once more into his bear form and walked the long path to the body of his slumbering father.
 

The cave was dry and warm. The sounds of gentle snores rolled down the long passage like waves crashing on a beach. On either side of the path, offerings stood in knee-high piles, like cairns mourning the dead. Flowers, dried food, and photographs were common. But mixed in with them were articles of clothing that smelled strongly of family. They were beacons, pulling the elder bears back from their slumber. The Morrissey boys weren’t the only Bearfielders to have relatives in the cave. There were offerings more recent than Michael’s. During the Winter solstice, all of the bear-blooded people in town would come down to the cave to clean it and tidy it. To lay fresh wood shavings on the ground and to refresh the piles of food and clothing. But no one ever cleared away the old offerings, so as Michael padded down the passage he passed by older and older offerings. The first offering was a pile of painted stones, an arrowhead, and a long severed braid of hair as black as night. Michael’s father wasn’t too far past that offering, asleep at the mouth of a large yawning cave.
 

Michael shifted once he found his father. The big bear hadn’t moved an inch. The lines in the dirt Michael had drawn around his father’s body years ago were perfectly intact, except where Michael’s own feet had scuffed them.

“A lot’s happened since we last spoke, Dad. I met a girl. Alison. She’s amazing. Smarter than anyone I know, brave as the sun, with a beauty that makes me want to bury myself in a cold stream to keep from overheating. She’s my mate. Every part of me knows it, and she knows it too. First Matt finds Mina, now I’ve got Alison. Can you imagine if Marcus found a mate? Part of me wonders if it’s all coincidence, or if something is up. Is someone doing this, helping us find our mates? Or is it really just fate? I wish you’d wake up so we could talk about this, so you could meet her. You’d love her, Dad. I know it.”

Michael rested a hand on his father’s giant back and rubbed the fur there. “I’ve got more to say, Dad. But I left Alison alone and I’m dying to get back to her. Mostly I came here to give you this.” Michael removed the bear pendant from around his neck and looped it—with some effort—around his father’s ursine head. “I love you, Dad. Please wake up.”

The young shifter turned into a bear again and padded out of the cave, giving Craig Vander his second taste of caveman fear in an hour.

* * *
 

The cave was dark and warm and dry. No one was watching when the big bear yawned, stretched, opened his eyes for the briefest of seconds, and rolled over.

* * *
 

Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoyed
A Taste of Honeybear Wine
, I hope you’ll leave a review to help others discover it. Reviews are seriously the best. Even if it’s just a few words, a review is priceless.
 

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Author’s Note

I’d like to thank Astrid, for telling me all about musk sage while on a nature walk and convincing me to pluck one of the flowers and sip the nectar from the stem. It really is delicious. And Riley, for telling me all about practical botany, brewing mead, and everything else ever. All of my brewing knowledge (most of which was cut from this book) comes from Mark, who won’t shut up about it, but we love him anyways.

The Honeybear wine is loosely based on the San Francisco Mead Company’s
apple pie mead
, which is just the sweetest, richest, lushest mead I have ever tasted. All of their meads are worth tasting, but the apple pie mead is one I ended up falling in lust with.
 

I’m deeply indebted to my beta readers, my incredible editor, my fellow authors who encouraged me to continue the Bearfield story, and especially all of you amazing readers. I literally couldn’t do this without you.

Thank you,

Jacqueline Sweet

The Good People of Bearfield

Michael Morrissey — a bear, junk shop owner, wrecker driver, treasure hunter, and youngest of the Morrissey Brothers

Alison Meadows — botanist with a heart of gold, sneakier than she looks, inheritor of Old Man Jackson’s estate

Matt Morrissey — a bear, attorney, sugar aficionado, engaged to . . .
 

Mina Brooks — baker, force of nature (not literally), Matt’s fated mate

Marcus Morrissey — a bear, the Alpha of Bearfield, owns a construction firm, perpetually grumpy, oldest of the Morrissey Brothers

Sebastian Morrissey — Marcus’ human son, a good lad, keeps to himself

Major Joe — Postman

Marcie Jackson — Busybody

Shawna Killdeer — Prophet, Pet Store Owner

Sheriff Pete — Bearfield’s only law enforcement, would rather be napping

Jolene — 911 operator, police administrator, basically runs half the town

Jack Harper—hardware store owner, raven hater.

Maggie Mayhew—married to Jack Harper, head of the Ladies Quilting Society, Arctolatrist

Augusta Brown—Publisher and editor and lone employee of the Bearfield Gazette

Craig Vander — teacher, librarian, philosopher, loves to talk

Old Man Jackson — recently deceased, Alison’s grandfather, hermit, maybe a wizard?

Those Assholes Over In Rook’s Roost

Jack Sable — French-Canadian Raven Sorcerer, total jerk

The Raven Queen — Coldly beautiful, cooly intelligent, icy to strangers, with a fiery temper and a penchant for tricky contracts

Other People of Import

Mrs. Meadows — Alison’s terrifying mother, antique store owner, self-made woman, collects grudges like they were Pokemon

Celia Brooks — Mina’s mother, doesn’t understand why anyone would choose to live in a place that wasn’t Chicago

Cal Morrissey — Nephew to the Morrissey Brothers, wants to eat all the pie

Arnold Pimsler — Poppy Valley attorney, Matt’s legal nemesis

Excerpt: Taken By My Shifter Billionaire Stepbrother And His Motorcycle Club (Of Vampires) (Soraya Surreal - Book One)

By Jacqueline Sweet & Stikki Minaj

G
rowing up in a house full of sisters, it can be hard to get noticed. If you’re not the tall one, the smart one, the beautiful one, or the conjoined ones, you get lost in the shuffle.

My name is Soraya Surreal, but you can call me the slutty one.

My problems started last month, when my mom got remarried for like the seventh time. Something about being a witch seemed to both attract men by the drove and send them screaming for the hills a year later. All of the potions and nakedness and magic must seem pretty sexy until you have to live with it every day of your life. My dad lasted longer than most, but even he could only take so much crazy.
 

Some of my sisters shun the supernatural but me, I prefer to embrace it. I like to wrap my arms and legs around the supernatural and just let it fill me up.

The wedding was a nice affair. Midnight ceremony, in a clearing in the woods on family land. The groom’s side wore tuxes and tidy dresses. The bride’s side wore snakeskin, leather, latex or nothing at all. I didn’t go sky-clad, like mom, but I didn’t exactly wear much. And as the seventh daughter, it was my turn to be the maiden of honor. Other girls might be embarrassed to be standing next to their naked mom at her own wedding, but you get used to it. And anyway, I had a pretty big distraction.

Standing across from me, bigger than life and twice as hunky, was Duke Grant. He was the best man, the best-looking man, and my new stepbrother. I knew he was trouble the moment I saw him. The guy was a giant, easily six and half feet tall, with a muscular build like he spent every waking minute at the gym. He and his father together ran an impossibly lucrative herbal supplement business, which is how my mom met his dad. Apparently when you bulk order newt eyes and rapunzel weed, you attract attention.

Duke grinned at me through the ceremony, like he knew exactly how my pussy would taste. I couldn’t stop undressing him with my eyes. His tux was too tight in all the right places, especially the pants-type places. He had a bulge in his trousers like he was smuggling in his own salami for the reception. And by the look in his eyes, he knew exactly how much I wanted to be on the receiving end of his meat.

What? I told you I was the slutty one.

I didn’t even hear the vows, or when the sky priest asked who was representing the bride’s side. Or when they asked for the rings. I was lost in the man. Little did I know, until after the ceremony, that Duke Grant was lost in me, too. We didn’t even make it out of the grove of oak trees before he had me in his arms, tearing off my latex pants with his clawed fingers and stuffing me achingly full of his hot shifter sausage.