Reeve (The Henchmen MC 11)

But just because I was horny?

Not so much.

I liked it to have more depth than that. It felt better. Orgasms were more intense. The whole experience was more satisfying.

So it had been a while.

My body was very aware of this.

"Rey?" Reeve called, making me realize he had moved on, and I was still standing in place, overthinking a casual touch.

So then I climbed up into his giant, gas-guzzling truck, feeling mildly guilty about that gas fact as we drove down the street, and Reeve parked so I could run up and fetch the dogs, coming back out, and pounding on his door, then jerking my head, inviting him out.

"You can walk him," I said, holding out a leash for the massive Rottweiler. "He likes to pull. And I can't put up much of a fight."

"No kidding," he said, looking down at me as he took the leash without even questioning why I would ask him to in the first place. "That one seems more your speed."

The dog I was walking was a very lithe Borzoi.

We fell into a companionable silence as the dogs walked - and tried to pull, though Reeve was a much better handler than I have ever been. Well, Reeve seemed to enjoy the quiet; I was actively trying not to blurt out every random thing that came to mind.

"Oh! That is so nice!" I gushed, leading the dog over toward the curb where a pile of furniture was put out to trash. "Really? They are throwing it out because it has a little wobble?" I asked, shaking my head, tisk-tisking the wastefulness of that.

"Babe, it's not a little wobble. It's missing a fucking leg," Reeve corrected, his shadow casting down on me as I inspected the wood, making sure it was solid and not that particleboard crap that kind of deserved to be tossed. "And the other leg is split," he added.

"Oh, that's not a big deal. Actually, I think I have a leg just this length at home. If not, I can just saw it down a little. No big deal."

"You have random table legs floating around at home."

"I up-cycle a lot. I hate things getting thrown away that can be reworked and kept, or given to a charity. No, I got it," I insisted when I picked it up, feeling him reach to pull it from my hand.

"No."

That was it.

Just no.

"Really, I am a lot stronger than I look."

"Still no," he said, taking the table and the dog and moving along, leaving me to do a little jog to catch up.

"Serious..." I started, only to be cut off.

"Not having a woman walking next to me carrying a fucking side table."

"Oh, so this is a I'm the man, and I carry the heavy objects, so the poor little female doesn't break a nail thing?"

"It's an I'm the man, and I carry the heavy objects period thing. It's not about you. I got a sister who would skin my ass if she thought I was being sexist. I was just raised with manners, and I use them."

Now that he mentioned it, he had actually fallen back a step a few blocks back and then swerved up my other side so that he was the one by the street.

I remembered reading that in an etiquette book Babcia had gotten as a gift for her wedding. The men were always supposed to walk on the street side, so that if a car splashed up water or muck, it hit him and not his woman.

When Babcia caught me reading that, she had snatched it out of my hand. Don't fill your head with this nonsense. No one gives a good goddamn what fork you use so long as you are a nice person. Just be you, be good, and you're doing things right. You don't need some book telling you how to act.

And while I agreed that it was kind of silly to say you should never ask Is your brother well? But instead say I hope your brother is well because, apparently, it was a faux pas to question someone in public, I did sort of like some of the ones about gallantry, even if I was a self-sufficient, modern woman who didn't need or expect it.

It was lovely when it just so happened to show up.

"We should turn back," I said when we were getting close to the garage where he had been parked the night before. The doors were thrown open, a small crew of men inside with Henchmen leather cuts were working on a very old, very rundown looking car. "I have to get all this snow off them and get gone before the owners come back. They're, um, unusual."

"You're calling them unusual?" he asked, a bit pointedly. To others, maybe rudely, but I personally found the free speech refreshing. It was okay if he thought I was unusual; I guess, in many ways, I was.