Cyrus (The Henchmen MC 9)

"This stuff smells lethal," Cyrus declared as I walked into my kitchen, waving my bottle of blueberry syrup at me.

"It's organic," I insisted. "And I only use one pump."

Or, you know, two when I was having a bad morning.

With that, he put one pump in a fresh cup which he held out to me with a smile. "What?"

"Even your mugs are bookish."

Okay, so maybe I totally got the mug set from Penguin Books. You know, the ones with the colors and the names of classic books.

I was a darn dedicated bookworm!

"Oh, and I found this under the fish tank where you store fish food," he said, producing a small mass market paperback that had come in one of my subscription book boxes. It was over the top cheesy, and, unfortunately, not in the good way. Hence how it could sit there forgotten, and not get devoured.

"He called her 'lovebug,' and said he would die without her," I informed him with a lip curl as I took the book and put it down on the counter. I had a strong feeling it was going to go in my rare DNF pile.

My general rule was, if I bought it, I read it.

But sappy wasn't my cuppa tea.

Real men didn't talk mushy.

Case closed.

And I refused fiction that didn't at least get the characterization realistic.

Cy snorted at that too. "He'd live just fine without her. He'd drown it in whiskey and pussy, and move on."

"Right!" I declared, happy he got it. I had gotten into more than a few online arguments about sappy heroes.

"Like when jock assholes are with their buddies claiming they 'destroyed that pussy,'" he commented, making my face heat slightly. It had been a while; I forgot how, ah, easily Cy used phrases like that. "You didn't destroy shit, man. She's fine. She's home, probably a little disappointed, but she's gonna bounce back."

I laughed at that, the smile so big that my cheeks hurt.

"Missed that fucking smile," he said casually, making my belly do the flutter thing again. "So, now you got some caffeine in your system. Your brain finally working again? Can we talk about Bookjam without your head exploding now?"

"I think I can manage that," I agreed, but my head was actually kind of still spinning at the idea.

I mean, he was taking me to Bookjam?

In the city?

After only, technically, dating for half a day?

Who did that?

"Good. Like I said, we have a train leaving in an hour and a half now. Which should put us in the city around ten or so."

"But... no hotel does check-in that early," I objected. I knew this more from books than, ah, real life. In fact, I had never stayed in a hotel in my life. I was kind of super excited about it.

"They do if you reserve the night before, and call them to tell them. I ironed out all the kinks, angel. You just have to tag along, and enjoy."

Enjoy.

Yeah, I was pretty sure that wouldn't be a problem.

"So this fish," he said after a moment.

"What about him?"

"I'm assuming he needs to eat every day."

"Oh! Right." Geez. I almost forgot all about poor Knightley in my excitement. I, ah, hadn't exactly made friends with any of my neighbors, so that only left my mother, Paine, Elsie, or my sister. My mom and Paine were still in the dark. So was Elsie, though I could tell her. I just didn't want to put her in that position.

But telling Kenz, though she already knew about him in general, meant enduring about one-thousand texts while I was in the city. All in varying degrees of teasing explicitness.

Oh well.

I had to do what I had to do.

"I will ask Kenzi to drop in to feed him. I will probably come back to my clothes all in a Goodwill bin, but..."

He laughed at that. "What's wrong with your clothes?"

I wanted to tell him about her comment about my grandma sweaters being 'cock kryptonite,' but I couldn't quite seem to force those words out.

"Come on, with a look like that on your face, now you have to tell me. And I'm not above using torture methods."

Torture.

Yeah, about the third time we went out, he had accidentally figured out that I was ridiculously ticklish. And when he wanted something out of me, he used that knowledge shamelessly.

"She has an issue with my 'grandma sweaters,'" I hedged.

"What kinda issue?" he asked, clearly enjoying himself.

Oh, God.

I was pretty sure I had never used the word 'cock' out loud before, let alone around a guy I was dating.

But I didn't want to almost pee myself through a tickle session either.

"They're, apparently, cock kryptonite," I informed him, words coming out too fast, almost tripping over each other.

There was a long pause before Cyrus threw his head back and laughed.

"Cock kryptonite, huh?" he asked, giving me a smile. "Well, I appear to be immune. Your grandma sweaters have big pockets for you to store books in."