Abby grinned wide at her. “I take it back,” she whispered. “This is the best girls’ night out ever.”
“I want to talk about what they did on page one hundred and twenty-seven,” Matt said. “I tried that with Jena, and she punched me.”
Jena gasped, and Caroline quickly smacked a hand over her mouth. She tugged it away, her eyes wide. “So, that’s where he got that idea,” she whispered.
“Aye,” Andrew said, in the tone a college lecturer would use with his first-year students. “That’s an advanced technique. I’ve read hundreds of these romance books now, and I can tell you for a fact that it’s better to start off with some of the easier stuff. You don’t want to freak your woman out. Especially in bed.”
“Are we supposed to bite?” Josh said. “Do women really want us to mark them like that? Or is that just a cat thing? Where does the fiction story stuff end and the female fantasy part begin?”
“That’s a good question.” Andrew leaned back in his seat and tented his fingers in front of him. “Thoughts?”
“I think it’s all real,” Mitch said. “I think women like marks of ownership. Why else would they want wedding rings?”
“Exactly.” Andrew stopped just short of patting Mitch on the head.
“Women want rings,” Matt said, “so they have the gold to sell once they get rid of the guy that came with it.”
“Wow, cynical, cuz,” Flynn said.
“No,” Jena whispered. “Matt’s right. I’m totally stocking a war chest in case things go pear-shaped with him.”
“With your history, I’m not surprised,” Abby said.
“Matt thinks it’s cute. He adds to the chest for me.” She sighed dreamily. “What kind of man would help you save for the day you might need to leave him?”
“You’re both nuts,” Abby said. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah.” Jena beamed.
“I’m not sure about the biting thing,” Josh said, drawing their attention back to the men. “If I bit Caroline, she’d bite back.”
“No kidding,” Caroline muttered.
“It’s sensual biting,” Mitch said with a roll of his eyes. “You make it sound like you’d walk into the room, say hi, honey, and then take a chunk out of her neck.”
“He’s still not biting me,” Caroline whispered.
“Which brings me to the vampire in the book,” Flynn said. “Anyone else think drinking blood is sexy? Because that just made me want to puke.”
The men shud
dered.
“I don’t know why women think vampires are sexy,” Andrew said. “Maybe it’s the dark, mysterious, bad-boy thing.”
“It’s the penetration,” Josh said.
The men stared blankly at him.
“Fangs into neck. Penetration. It has sexy connotations. I talked to David Boreanaz about this once. Met him at a party, and he said that’s why chicks dig vampires. He should know, he made his name playing one.”
“Josh is team Angel all the way,” Mitch said with a smirk.
“Do we even want to know what that means?” Matt said.
“We’re getting off topic,” Andrew barked. “Focus. Who cares why women find vampires sexy? And the shifter thing has nothing to do with how weirdly attached they are to cats. These books are all about the female fantasy, and that’s what we need to tap into.” He waved his book. “They’ve literally written a manual on relationships; all we need to do is decipher the code. Shifters means they want to snuggle. Vampires means they like a little danger with their snuggling. It’s that simple.”
“Now that I think about it, what’s with all this ‘mine’ stuff?” Flynn said. “Every second page, the guy’s grabbing the girl and growling mine. And now that I think about it, what’s with the growling? When was the last time you growled anything? Other than a growl. Seriously, try it. Can you growl a word?”