Roaring for Him (BBW Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance) (Wicked in Wilder Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Tilly wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Okay, that was an exaggeration. She knew what she was staring at—nice little rows of cookies laid out on the stainless steel counter, snug in their cookie sheets. She’d whipped up several batches around 4:00 a.m. amidst preparing the day’s cupcake, brownie, and mini-tart orders. And then there was the regular day’s supply to prepare for the casual customers.

  But none of the other stuff mattered because she was staring at her sister’s glorious masterpieces. Her sister’s words, not Tilly’s. Never Tilly’s. What she had before her was so anti-masterpiece it needed to be banished to the ninth circle of hell. And even then, the devil would look at her and say, “What the fuck is this?” or “What the fucking fuck?” or even “You’re only seventeen, how do you know about this?”

  If it offended Satan, it would definitely offend the customer.

  She really did not have time for this. The bakery she owned with her two sisters, Bless Your Tart, was due to open at 7:30 a.m., which was in—she glanced at her watch—an hour. The cookies spread out before her were supposed to already be decorated and boxed, ready for pickup by the customer at eight. This was a simple job. A job their bakery had completed in one size or another dozens of times since they’d opened four years ago.

  And yet…

  Tilly took a deep breath, fighting for calm as she stared at her youngest sister’s handiwork. Her inner-lioness paced in the background, growling and informing her they needed to show Phoebe who was the boss. That she should always listen to Tilly, and if the seventeen—nearly eighteen—year-old girl couldn’t get that through her head then her lioness would…

  She shoved the animal to the back of her mind, demanding that she submit to Tilly’s human half. It’d been this way her whole life. She wasn’t a pure shifter so her control wasn’t as strong as that of others. All three siblings had the same issues even if they weren’t the same type of shifter. Her mom had a thing for lions, and tigers, and bears (oh my) which meant all three sisters slowly learned how to compensate for the alleged “lack.” (Alleged because she dared any pure breed to say the words to her face. She dared them.)

  Ahem.

  Another deep breath. “Phee, can you just go through your thought process with me on this one?”

  “What’s wrong?” Phoebe frowned, her gaze going from Tilly to the cookies and back again. “I got the colors right.” Phoebe narrowed her eyes. “You approved the colors before I started. I brought you the icing and you said yes. No take backs.”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I’m not taking back my approval on the colors.”

  She had approved them. It’d become a new rule in the bakery after Tilly learned Phee saw purple as pink or at least pinkish. Then it was—did Tilly know Phee was having trouble with her eyes? Did werebears always have color problems because…

  “Oh. Good. ’Cause I worked really hard on ’em.” Phoebe popped her gum. Probably because she knew it’d annoy the hell out of Tilly. “Then I don’t understand why you’re crankypants. I mean, it’s six thirty and these don’t have to be ready until eight and I’m almost done. I’ll be done early. I should get a bonus or something.” Her youngest sister jerked her head in a nod as if it was already decided and held out her hand. “Can I have an advance on that? My shift ends at eight and I’m meeting Shawn, I mean Stacy, at the diner for breakfast.”

  Tilly pinched her nose. “We’ll discuss Shawn-Stacy in a minute.” Mainly because Phoebe needed to stay away from boys forever. Okay, more deep breathing. She really needed to listen to her serenity tapes every day and not just when she was ready to kill her siblings. Especially not when the one annoying her most stood fewer than three feet away. “For right now, explain to me what these white drops of icing represent?”

  She knew what Phoebe was gonna say. Knew. It. She just didn’t want to know. Because, what else could droplets of white icing on corset cookies represent? They were typically one of the best sellers for bachelor parties, guys wanting to get frisky with some breasts without getting into trouble with their mates or wives-to-be. So, Bless Your Tart made Babeless Boob cookies. Skinny little corseted waist cookies with overflowing breasts. Some corsets were red with black piping while others were pale pink with dark pink piping. Naughty and nice. One thing that did not exist in any color combination for her decorations was white.

  And definitely not white drops decorating the cookie cleavage. Ever.

  Thank God she hadn’t let Phoebe decorate the penis cookies. She didn’t want her baby sister to think, see, or speak about penises. Ever.

  There was a lot she didn’t want her sister ever doing. Ever, ever.

  “Um, well…” She fidgeted. “I was talking to Marcia—”

  Marcia was the sweetest girl on the planet but definitely no longer living in Virginland. But that wasn’t her argument to have because Marcia wasn’t her responsibility.

  “—and Marcia was talking with Lucas—”

  Tilly bet that in Marcialand talking meant sex. Again, not her argument to have. Marcia was a werewolf, sister to the local pack’s beta. Tilly reminded herself that wolves were highly sexual—banging was a better outlet than tearing each other to shreds when attacked by all of those teen hormones. She knew teenage sex was acceptable since: 1) They couldn’t catch diseases and 2) They couldn’t get pregnant until after they’d had their first heat. Seventeen—nearly eighteen—year-olds hadn’t had their heat yet.

  “—and Lucas told her about pearl necklaces.”

  For the love of fuck.

  “And that guys love to see—”

  Tilly held up her hand, silencing her sister with the gesture and a look that promised retribution. “Under no circumstances do I ever want to hear about them from you. Ever. For my sanity, please.” She fought to find her center. Like all her stupid serenity tapes said. Those damn tapes weren’t made by someone raising a teenager. “Unless you’re thinking about exploring them in real life. In which case, don’t.”

  Phoebe groaned. “Tilly…”

  “No,” she shook her head. “Non-negotiable.”

  “You do realize everything with you is non-negotiable, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tilly knows best?” Phoebe rolled her eyes.

  “Tilly knows she doesn’t want her sister knocked up before she’s married or at least graduated from college and has a stable job with a 401K,” she replied blandly, earning another eye roll from Phoebe. “Are there any that don’t have ‘pearl necklaces’?”

  Phoebe nibbled her lips and looked down the line, forcing Tilly to do the same.

  No. The answer was no.

  “Um, we could put white icing on the tip of the Dudeless Dong cookies and then—”

  “No,” she snapped. “One, you’re never going near a dong, cookie or otherwise.
” Ever. Ever, ever. “And two, we don’t sell those types of desserts.”

  “You sell dong cookies with bow ties, but not ones covered in icing cu—”

  This time she slapped her hand over Phoebe’s mouth. “Not another word and I don’t even want to know how you know I put bow ties on them.” She glanced at the wall clock, mentally calculating the time she needed and the call she’d have to make. Great. “You’re going to go open the shop and handle breakfast while I call the customer and get to re-baking these. Got it?”

  Tilly removed her hand. “But Shawn—I mean Stacy is waiting for me.”

  “Shawn-Stacy and his penis—I wasn’t born yesterday, kid—can wait until you’re done for the morning.” Phoebe poked out her lower lip, but Tilly hadn’t fallen for that since the girl was three. It was also the same time she began contemplating smothering Phoebe in her sleep. Obviously she hadn’t, but she was putting the option back on the table. “And if he can’t wait a few hours, he can keep his penis and his pearl necklace to himself. Got it?”

  “Fine,” Phoebe huffed. “You’re the worst sister ever.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Open the shop and don’t call for me unless the place is burning down or you’re dying.” With a sigh, she snatched the order receipt off the bulletin board and trudged to her office, leaving the door open on the off chance Phoebe set the place on fire and was dying.

  She glanced at the slip and then groaned. Of course the order was for the werewolf pack’s soon-to-be mated beta. The beta who lived in the pack house. Of course. With a hiccup like this, she typically offered to deliver the order, but she didn’t feel like strolling onto pack property. Hell, maybe she’d get lucky and they’d deny her access. That would be awesome. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with the whole “cat versus dog”—er, wolf—thing.

  Because, hey, they were dogs, of a sort. The only reason Phoebe hadn’t had problems was because she was half werebear while Tilly was half werelion and their middle sister Liv was half weretiger. Yeah, their mom was a wereho.

  Tilly picked up the cordless phone and quickly dialed the number, listening to it ring. The familiar sound rattled three times and she began mentally preparing her message, trying to be apologetic yet firm at the same time. She wasn’t a pushover. Generally.

  When the fourth ring came, followed by a click, she patiently waited for the voicemail system to, well, do its job, but all she got was silence.

  Silence and then… “Blake residence.”

  Two words. Two words and… she shuddered, arousal piercing her hot and fast and between one heartbeat and the next, she went from business owner to needy whore.

  Needy. Whore.

  Needy whore with wet panties because there was a deep voice and then there was a deep voice that touched you in all the right places. She was turned on. By a voice.

  There was no way she could meet the owner of that voice. And sure, there was no guarantee that if she delivered the cookies she’d actually see the owner of that voice, but—

  “Hello? Is someone there?”

  Did a whimper just escape her? Yes, she was pretty sure it did. Tilly did not whimper or moan or whine.

  “Hello?”

  Oh, he sounded annoyed. Annoyed and sexy and Tilly finally found her voice. “Sorry. Wrong number.”

  And then before she could second-guess herself, she ended the call. Now that she’d spoken to Mr. Sexy Voice, she needed help.

  This person she rang answered immediately. Like a normal human being. “Lush, Emma speaking, how can I—”

  “Emma? It’s Tilly.”

  “What’s up, Tills?”

  “I need new panties and I need you to make a call for me.”

  Emma ran the best (and only) lingerie store that catered to curvy women in Wilder along with a kick ass website that had an awesome web business.

  “Because…”

  Tilly whined. Look at her, the non-whining Tilly whining again. “Because I said so?”

  “Try again.”

  “Fine,” she grumbled, knowing her BFF wouldn’t give in. She rolled her chair toward the door and peeked into the kitchen and beyond to see Phoebe behind the counter. “Because I made a call this morning and…” She sighed. “Wet panties.”

  “That… is not enough information. Try again.”

  “Wet. Panties.” And a panting lioness. The damn animal was acting as if it was starving and it wanted to feed on the man attached to that voice. And by feed, it meant hours of mind-blowing sex. A man who sounded like that… It’d be a criminal shame for him to suck in the sack.

  “A little more for me, hon.”

  Making sure, once again, that Phoebe was occupied, she spoke to Emma. “I called a customer this morning because their order won’t be ready on time.”

  “But you always meet your deadlines.”

  Yeah, unless my sister decides to put cum necklaces on my cookies. “Just… Phoebe.” Emma’s ahh told her nothing else needed to be said. “So I called, and oh my God, Emma. His voice. Pure. Sex. I mean… my cat wants him more than the damn cow I took down with the pride two weeks ago.”

  “Ew. I mean, yay for wanting to boink him, but I don’t need to hear about raw cow consumption. And why the hell are you still going to Clover to hunt when we have perfectly nice woods around here?”

  Wolf-owned woods. “Can we focus on our current situation, please?”

  “We are totally revisiting this though, right?”

  They revisited the issue pretty damned often. Emma kept assuring her that the Wilder pack was nothing like any other their mongrel family had encountered before. Well, Emma was a human and just couldn’t understand the dynamics of shifter relationships. Tilly wasn’t willing to risk the heartache or the pain Phoebe would experience from more rejection. Going two towns over for a hunt was just fine for them.

  “Fine. We can revisit. After you bring me panties and make a phone call.”

  “Why am I doing this again? Pick up the phone. Call him back. Do your job, then ask him what he’s wearing. Get that phone sex ball rolling.”

  The idea had merit. A lot, actually. Sadly, she would not take her friend’s advice.

  “Because when I said I really enjoyed his voice I really enjoyed his voice. Or rather, part of me did.”

  Silence. Pure silence. “Did it enjoy things a lot or just a little bit?”

  “I… I just… panties, Emma. Please.”

  “And a phone call.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “To whom?”

  “The hot guy so I don’t need two pairs?”

  But no, her problems could not be happily solved by a phone call to Emma because…

  Phoebe. The whirlwind world destroyer also known as Phoebe. “Tilly? Why do you need panties? What hot guy? Did you sneak a guy back here? Because that’s not fair. You said no boys—”

  That wasn’t the worst part. There wasn’t much privacy in her house and that was something she’d come to expect. She was raising a teenager. At least it was only one. When it’d been a tween Phoebe and a teen Liv… she’d nearly killed them both. Often.

  “Hold on one sec,” Tilly spoke to Emma and then took the twentieth calming breath of the hour. “Phoebe, I don’t have a guy here, I was talking about the guy on the pho—” she slowly turned toward the door and froze.

  Phoebe wasn’t alone. Of course not. Never could Phoebe show up alone when Tilly was having a lovely embarrassing-as-hell conversation with her best friend about wet panties and a hot guy.

  “Tilly, this is Mitchell. He said he thinks you called him about something a little bit ago. And he was coming out this way anyway so he thought he’d stop in to see if you needed to talk to him.” Phoebe slumped her shoulders and did her best to look pitiful. It was a look she’d perfected after all this time. “Have I worked long enough now? Can I go see…”

  Tilly now knew why animals in the wild killed their offspring.

  * * *

  Three words brought him to Bless Your Tart. Th
ree words that had Mitchell’s dick rock hard and his wolf howling as if the moon were full and shining in the sky.

  Now, less than ten minutes later, he was standing in the kitchen of the small bakery, staring at the woman destined to be the next notch on his bedpost. Nah, the next five notches. God. Damn.

  She was gorgeous, all wide green eyes, deep auburn hair, and curves. Fuck, she had curves. Not that he could see them all, but from where he was standing… Her rack was full and begging for his hands. He wanted to cup and knead them, taste those pretty nipples. And they’d be damned pretty. Pink against her alabaster skin. He’d lick those little nubs, suck and nibble until she begged for more.

  His animal was back to howling and pacing, nudging and nosing him to pounce now. Now. They could talk later. It wanted to mount her in front of the whole damned town so others would know she belonged to him. Him.

  And he didn’t even know her name.

  The wolf reminded him names weren’t necessary, bringing their bodies together was. His cock twitched with the idea, the image of them clinging together in bed, him baring his teeth and her tilting her head, giving him the perfect opportunity to bite…

  He sucked in a harsh breath, intent on releasing it slowly to hopefully calm his rampaging need, but what came with that inhale…

  Sweet. Musky with a hint of sugar and his mouth immediately watered with the desire to lap up those flavors. Arousal. Desire. Need. Her need.

  For him. He had no doubt that the flush in her cheeks and the cream now soaking her panties was for him. A low rumble built in his chest, his wolf making its desires known as the animal overpowered his control. It wanted this female—Tilly—writhing beneath them. This wasn’t lust, wasn’t the craving for a quick meaningless fuck. No, he wanted hours with Tilly. Days.

  Years…

  Years?

  The wolf purred. Years.

  Another quick inhale, another wave of her delicious scent, another twitch of his dick. Dammit. He wasn’t a fucking kid anymore. He wasn’t going to come in his jeans.

  The young female at his side, half-shifter if his nose was anything to go by, sniffed once… then twice… then…

  “Ew. Gross. Can you two keep your nose boners in your pants for, like, a second?” The girl shuddered and focused on Tilly. Tilly with an even brighter red face.