Sugar (The Henchmen MC 12)

"It's a great book!" Reese insisted.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Great."

"Just because no one was brutally murdered in it doesn't mean it wasn't good."

"Ree, you sweet, awful thing you... do you have any idea what it is like to read sex scenes like that without having someone to take care of you afterward? I buzzed through a set of freaking batteries over that book, and I still feel like I can't function. We both know that after a man like Denver, you don't want Mr. Good Vibrations; you want the weight and touch of a man."

"You've never had trouble finding someone to get into your bed," Reese said, voice hushed.

"Ugh, don't get me started," Peyton said dramatically.

"What?"

"There's this gu... never mind," she said, cutting herself off. And Reese was too nice to call her on it. "No relationship books for me. Throw all the medieval torture my way, please. Oh, lookie. Your hot beard just walked in."

"He has a name. And, you know, a body," Reese said, sounding amused.

"Yeah, but who cares about his name and his body with a beard like that?"

"Peyton, honey, how have you been?" Cy asked, catching sight of me in his peripheral, then turning his head, brows drawn together. "Why are you pulling this shift?" he asked, and I knew my hiding spot was just found out. No more eavesdropping for me.

I stood, closing the book with my finger in it to keep my place, and moved out from the curve in the wall.

"Were you there the whole time?" Peyton snapped, voice accusing. Like I had been hiding from her. And, in a way, I had.

"Yep."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Peyton asked, looking over at Reese who looked lost.

"Someone is always here lately. You know that."

"Yeah, Cy. Or one of those yummy military guys. Not him."

"Uh-oh," Cy said, looking between both of us with a wicked smirk. "Are you two having a lover's spat?"

"We're not lovers," Peyton insisted, just a bit too quickly. Seeming to sense that herself, she shot Cy a grin. "Lovers implies lovemaking. And I think we both would agree that I am not a lovemaking kind of girl. I'm a fucking kind of girl."

"Peyton!" Reese shushed her with big eyes, jerking her head over toward where two women were perusing the new additions section.

"What? Oh, them?" she asked, turning to look at them. "Sharen, Alicia," she greeted the women who turned with smiles. "How did those rabbits work out for you? Better than the bullets?"

Anyone who knew a goddamn thing about such matters knew they weren't discussing bunnies or guns.

Nope.

They were talking about vibrators.

"Peyton," Reese said again, voice smaller. "You're going to get yourself fired one of these days."

"Replaced by whom? No one else would work my shift for the peanuts they throw at me. So they pretend to look the other way and talk about me behind my back. It all shakes out. So you're all heading out?" she asked, looking pointedly at me before settling on Cyrus.

"Yeah, gotta get my woman home. I believe she has a hot date with a... Marquis."

"Viscount," Reese corrected, then shot me a shy look.

"Have fun," she told Peyton, then looked at Cyrus. "I know you will once she gets to the good parts," she added as Cy slung his arm around Reese's shoulders. "And you're still here because..." she said after the couple moved out the automatic doors.

"Sh," I said, leaning back against the wall. "I'm reading," I said, pulling the book back open again.

Why?

I had no fucking idea.

I should have been taking my ass back to the compound and getting some sleep since Roan was going to tap me to relieve him for the watch shift around four in the morning.

But I didn't want to go home and sleep.

For reasons I was choosing not to analyze.

Though there was no denying - not even to myself - that it had every-fucking-thing to do with the mermaid behind the counter pretending like she wasn't noticing me, but her eyes drifted over every few minutes as she shuffled papers and checked out books and told a group of kids to take it into the teen room, that she was the only one around here allowed to drop f-bombs and talk about casual sex.

It wasn't until about an hour later that she finally snapped.

"Leave."SEVENPeytonI told myself I wasn't going to talk to him.

I promised myself, in fact.

To say he was the least likely person I could have anticipated seeing there when I walked in for my shift would be an understatement.

I had spent the last few days, in fact, trying not to think about him at all. This was not an easy task. Because Jamie, though a good, reliable friend, also never kept anything from Savea. So once Jamie knew that Sugar had clearly gotten to me, so did Savvy. And while Jamie was content just to let the chips fall where they may, be there for me if I wanted to talk, she never felt the need to try to pry things out of me, Savvs, well, she was a pryer.