Sugar Rush: The Hot Cakes series prequel Read online

  Sugar Rush

  The Hot Cakes series prequel

  Erin Nicholas

  Copyright © 2020 by Erin Nicholas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editor: Lindsey Faber

  Cover design: Angela Waters

  Cover Photography: Lindee Robinson

  Models: Chelsey Nicole, Adam Johns

  The Hot Cakes Series

  One small Iowa town.

  Two rival baking companies.

  A three-generation old family feud.

  And six guys who are going to be heating up a lot more than the kitchen.

  Books in the series:

  Sugar Rush (prequel)

  Sugarcoated

  Forking Around

  Making Whoopie

  Semi-Sweet On You

  Oh, Fudge

  Gimme S'more

  Contents

  About Sugar Rush

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About Erin

  About Sugar Rush

  A prequel to Sugarcoated

  and the Hot Cakes series

  He’s been her brother’s best friend all her life. He’s always been there for her, no matter what she needed.

  He's loaned her money, let her borrow his car, and told her the truth about her bad haircuts.

  Surely, he do her this one favor.

  Yeah, it’s a big one. But she really needs to get rid of her V-card and she can’t ask just anyone to help her with that.

  She needs one night and a little coaching from a guy she trusts. Heck, she'll take twenty minutes if that's all he's got.

  She’s got the chocolate pie and the pink lingerie and…she really hopes he can take it from there.

  And that this isn’t the worst idea she’s ever had.

  1

  She was really tired of being a virgin.

  Zoe McCaffery rolled her eyes as she loaded a plate into her mother’s dishwasher. She was twenty-five, for God’s sake. What was she waiting for?

  Well, it sure wasn’t for The One.

  She knew better than to think that Prince Charming would be the one to…deflower her.

  She rolled her eyes again. Deflower. See, it was the fact that it even had special terminology. Sure, some of it was nice and sweet while some of it was a little vulgar. “Popping her cherry” came to mind. But either way, there was so much importance put on the whole first-time thing that it even had specific phrases referring to it.

  Anyway, it would not be Prince Charming who took her V-card—another specific term, though for some reason one she didn’t mind quite as much—because she was going to take care of it long before that guy came along.

  In fact, she intended to take care of it long before any other guys came along.

  Well, except him, of course. The one who would take her maidenhood.

  Zoe shuddered. That was just so bad. Why did all of the slang terms for having sex the first time have to be so obnoxious?

  She rinsed a pot under the warm water, lost in thought.

  This was going to suck. And not in the fun, dirty way.

  If she’d just gone all the way—seriously, ugh—at age seventeen or eighteen like a normal horny teenager then the guy would have understood if she was… well, terrible at…well, all of it.

  But at age twenty-five? No way. She should not be fumbling around in the dark, trying to find stuff, and not sure where to put that stuff once she found it.

  She was good at everything she did. Everyone knew that.

  She could not be bad at sex.

  Especially given the eighty-five percent chance that her first time would be with someone she’d known since kindergarten. Her hometown, where she still lived and worked, was small. Really small. They got a few people moving in here and there, but they were never young, hot guys. Unless they were young, hot guys that had left Appleby after high school and now came home from time to time to visit their grandmothers.

  Who she’d known since kindergarten—them and their grandmothers—and who knew everyone else that she knew.

  Which meant that even if she hooked up with one of them when they were home visiting for Christmas, they could still tell the entire town how bad she was in bed.

  That couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t. She had two choices: she could wait and have sex with the man she married, after they were married and he essentially had to keep her secret because…marriage. Or she could lose her virginity with someone she completely trusted not to blab about it.

  She was good at things. When she wanted to learn something new, she researched, she practiced, and she worked at it until she was good. And then she just kept doing it the same way over and over again.

  Like in her bakery. She had recipes that people drove from over an hour away to get. Her bakery, Buttered Up, had been her grandmother’s and the recipes had been making people happy, and making the McCafferys money, for over fifty years.

  Zoe had never changed one thing on the menu or one measurement in the recipes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  Sex could be like that. Once she knew what she was doing and was good at it, she could just keep doing it the same way.

  She just needed to get there first. And not humiliate herself in the process.

  “Here’s the last of the plates.”

  And the maybe-kind-of-bad-but-hopefully-not-totally-terrible idea that she’d had brewing was suddenly front and center.

  Aiden Anderson.

  He was the solution to her problem. The only solution to her problem.

  She needed a guy who she was attracted to and who wouldn’t spill her big bad-at-sex secret. Aiden was the only one who checked both of those boxes.

  She watched as he bent to put the plates in the dishwasher.

  He had a nice ass.

  She wasn’t sure when that had happened, but she certainly knew it to be true now.

  She’d known Aiden all her life. He and her brother Cam were five years older than she was and they’d become best buddies their first day of school, so it was not an exaggeration to say that Aiden had always been there.

  Zoe tipped her head and studied him. He was a lot bigger than her. The top of her head came about to his nose and her head settled perfectly on his shoulder when they hugged. They hadn’t hugged in a while though. Now that she thought about it, they hadn’t hugged since he’d seen her in her bra and panties. Huh. That was interesting. Had their physical awareness of one another subconsciously kept them from touching?

  She’d always liked his hugs. He had big arms and a wide chest that she’d fit against perfectly. She knew he ran to keep in shape and his flat abs and muscled thighs and that nice ass were definite perks. He had dark blonde hair and deep green eyes and an easy smile that was as familiar to her as her father’s or brother’s. More familiar, really, than her brother Cam’s, because Cam didn’t smile as easily as Aiden did.

  Aiden had been like a brother to her for years, but she’d been very aware that other girls found him hot. Because they were constantly telling her that. She’d have older girls ask her about him—what he was like, if he liked chocolate chip cookies or peanut butter cookies better, if he had a date for the school dance. She’d gotten so sick of being Aiden Anderson’s personal dating assistant that she’d started lying to them all. She told them he picked his nose and was mean to dogs,
hated all cookies, and that yes, he did have a date for the dance.

  He’d been annoyed. But then he’d picked his nose and wiped it on her arm and made her make him chocolate chip peanut butter cookies to make up for it.

  She’d made the cookies. And spit in the batter.

  That was how their relationship had been. Older-brother-younger-sister type stuff.

  Until one day it hadn’t been anymore.

  Aiden had gone off to college and gotten hot.

  And nicer. That hadn’t hurt. He’d never been an actual jerk, but he’d teased her and pointed things out like bad haircuts and done things like the boogers on her arm.

  Once he went off to college, he’d just been nicer. More mature. He’d ask how she was and actually listen as if he was interested. He’d tell funny stories about what he and Cam had been up to and wouldn’t roll his eyes when she asked questions. And, maybe most of all, he raved about her baking. Every time he came home to visit, it was as if he hadn’t eaten a decent cookie or cupcake or piece of pie in months.

  Nothing got to her like someone loving her cupcakes.

  Her literal cupcakes.

  But then one day he’d walked in on her ironing a dress in her underwear.

  And the way he’d looked at her had made her think that maybe he kind of liked her cupcakes too.

  Her body had heated and tingled and in a blink Aiden had gone from her brother’s annoying friend to a hot guy she would really like to kiss.

  It had been that fast.

  That had been two years ago. They hadn’t kissed, or seen each other in their underwear, or anything else unusual since then. But she hadn’t stopped thinking about it whenever he was visiting. And wishing he’d just take the initiative and do something.

  How was she supposed to make the first move? The furthest she’d ever been had been Justin Lewis’s hand in her bra in corner of his living room during a movie party with twenty other people.

  She hadn’t liked it.

  Aiden had to be better than that. He had to be. According to the rumors, the girls in Appleby generally thought he was very good. At that and more. Of course, these were the same girls who, apparently, didn’t care that he picked his nose so maybe their opinions shouldn’t have mattered quite so much.

  But after his muscles had gotten bigger and he’d grown another two inches and he’d started walking around her mother’s house without a shirt on when he was back visiting, she’d thought maybe the girls had taken one look at that cocky smirk of his, and those green eyes, and those abs and thought what’s a booger or two when I can have that?

  Or maybe that was just her.

  It was so stupid. She’d been looking at that smirk and those eyes all her life. Was she really so superficial that a few sit-ups and some time apart was all it took to slide him from the friend-zone into the fornication-zone?

  Ugh, fornication. Really? The terms for losing her virginity were bad, but there were plenty of bad ones for sex too.

  But yes, apparently, that was all it took because she couldn’t even imagine doing the deed—seriously, ugh—with anyone else.

  The first time.

  Right, that’s what she meant. She couldn’t imagine having sex with anyone else her first time.

  It wasn’t like she thought Aiden was The One or Prince Charming or anything like that. That was not why she was picking him. She’d heard the guy belch, fart, and tell really stupid jokes far too many times to even think about him romantically.

  She just needed someone who knew what he was doing in bed and who would never tell anyone that she didn’t.

  She’d been thinking about this for a while. Probably since that day he’d made her tingle just by looking at her. But for sure for the past four months. Ever since she’d run into him in the upstairs hallway with only a towel around his waist. They’d literally run into one another and one of his hands had shot up to keep her from falling on her ass and the towel had slipped and…

  She hadn’t gotten a look at anything.

  But she’d wanted to. She’d been disappointed that she hadn’t. And that’s when she realized that, yeah, Aiden was the perfect choice to get laid with.

  Zoe frowned. Get laid with sounded weird. Should it be “he was the perfect choice to lay”? Ugh, that sounded awkward too. Plus she wanted him to lay her. She didn’t know how to do that. Well, technically she did, of course, but not in the make-the-first-move-be-seductive way. Maybe she should say “he was the perfect choice to be laid by”? Nope, that sounded stupid too.

  “Are you okay?”

  Zoe blinked and looked up at Aiden. He was standing right in front of her, watching her like he was afraid she was about to puke or something.

  “I’m…fine.” My hymen is still intact and that’s bugging me, but otherwise fine.

  Geez, even ‘hymen’ was such a weird, not-at-all sexy word.

  “You look…”

  She lifted a brow. She’d worn this top because it was a little clingy and it slipped off one shoulder. She’d hoped that was sexy. She didn’t have a lot of curve up top for it to cling to, but the pale pink color was soft and feminine and the jeans she’d paired it with were fitted and she hoped that it all made Aiden think that…well, that she was a woman and not just his best friend’s little sister.

  “I look…?”

  “Weird.”

  2

  Zoe sighed. So much for the clingy-top factor.

  “You look like you’re worried about something,” Aiden said. “Everything okay?”

  Well, worried was better than weird.

  And she was worried. She was worried that Aiden would think sleeping together—okay, that was one she could kind of get on board with though sleeping wasn’t the key focus really, so that made it misleading… Zoe forced herself to concentrate. On Aiden. And convincing him that them having sex was not a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

  Zoe braced her hands on the counter behind her and leaned back casually. Maybe that would make her breasts seem more obvious too.

  His gaze didn’t leave her face.

  “I actually could use your help with something,” she told him.

  “Okay.”

  Just “okay”. Some of the nerves that had tightened her shoulders unknotted and she took a deep breath. This was Aiden. Sure, he’d teased her and been disgusting around her over the years, but he’d also always been there for her.

  After his mom had died when he was fourteen, he’d practically moved in with the McCafferys. Her mother had been his mom’s best friend and Maggie stepped in to mother him as if he was her own. His dad had still been around, but had taken his wife’s death really hard and had spent a lot of time at work or a little drunk. They’d helped him as much as they could, but her dad had also stepped up as a father figure to Aiden.

  So, yeah, he’d always been there, but he’d also been there. He’d never said no to her if she asked to borrow his car, borrow twenty bucks, if she’d needed a ride home from a party, if she’d needed help with her math homework.

  He’d be here for her now. Surely.

  But instead of saying “can you take me to bed and ravish me?”—because seriously, who would say that anyway?—she asked, “Can I have that last piece?”

  While she’d been wrapped up in her thoughts about sex and him, he’d taken the last piece of chocolate pie from the tin on the counter. It was his favorite. The thing he most looked forward to when he came home—or so he said. She knew it wasn’t true. Strawberry cupcakes were his favorite. But they reminded him of his mom, so he never ate them.

  Besides, Zoe was pretty sure that what he most looked forward to was being mothered by her mom and sleeping in his old bedroom and eating anything Maggie and Zoe made, not just that pie. But Maggie always made sure Zoe made it for him. Just like she always came over to Zoe’s house and cleaned from top to bottom, put out the “special” towels that only came out when Cam and Aiden visited, and made sure that their favorite coffee was stock
ed by the Keurig.

  Now that she had moved out, when Cam and Aiden came home to visit, they stayed at Zoe’s with her. There were four big bedrooms and they were only a block away from Maggie’s so it worked out better than having two grown men sleeping on couches or blow-up mattresses on the floor.

  Of course, it also led to things like half-naked interactions in the upstairs hallway. But Zoe wasn’t complaining.

  She only complained about how her brother seemed absolutely incapable of wiping up toast crumbs and how neither of them ever remembered to bring toothpaste and that she ended up with half her tube gone by the time they left.

  How did two men use so much toothpaste? Were they brushing their teeth five times a day? That, of course, led to her thinking about how minty fresh Aiden would taste if she kissed him though, so…that wasn’t exactly a complaint either.

  Aiden looked at the pie on the plate he held, then back to her, then sighed. But he held it out. “Okay.”

  She didn’t grin. That would have been rude. Yes, she’d been testing him. And he’d passed.

  He would give her his pie.

  Not dirty, not dirty, not dirty. She told herself. She had not meant that dirty. He would, literally, give her his piece of pie. The last piece. Of his favorite pie. Because he was a good guy who liked her.

  Besides, when people referred to pie in a dirty way it was usually referring to— She cut her own thoughts off there. Didn’t matter. Didn’t need to think about that.

  “Thanks.” She took the plate and the fork and started to take a bite.

  Aiden did, however, reach out a swipe his finger through the meringue on the top of the pie. He gave her an unapologetic grin as he stuck his finger in his mouth.