For the Love of Cupidity: A Valentine’s Day Novella (Heart Hassle Book 4)

When I’m settled on the cushioned couch, I take a deep breath and rub at the cupid boss mark before calling Sev’s name.

He appears in a cloud of pink, and I open my mouth to say hello, only to stop short.

“Hey—Why are you naked? Again?” I ask as I slap a hand over my eyes.

“Fooking right, are you mad in it? Always the worst shite timing, boss.”

“Mates!”

My yell brings all four of my mates inside, and then there’s a lot of cursing.

“What the fuck? Why is your dick pointing at my mate?” Evert growls.

“She fooking called me right in the middle of me pokin’ the fud, get it? I weren’t finished!” Sev defends, his hands clasped over his junk.

I hear a sigh. “Syl, go get the cupid some damn pants,” Ronak orders.

Only when Sylred returns, and I hear Sev pulling on clothes, do I remove the hand from in front of my eyes.

I try to cross my arms in front of me, but my belly is really sticking out, so I end up just pushing my enormous boobs together.

Evert, of course, latches onto the view and doesn’t look away, even after I drop my arms. He’s been very appreciative of my extra-large boobs that I’ve gained during pregnancy and never misses an opportunity to ogle them.

When he finally raises his blue eyes to meet mine, I shoot him a flirtatious wink. His gaze instantly goes hungry, and he coughs out some wayward Lust while fixing the front of his pants.

When he sees me shift on the couch and press my legs together, he smirks, making a dimple pop out on his cheek behind the black scruff on his jaw.

If I could get off this couch without help, I’d totally jump him right now.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’ll be forced to take you back to our bedroom,” he growls.

I reach out my hands. “Sounds great. Someone help me up.”

Sylred laughs. “No. You called Sev so you could do whatever Cupidville needs, remember? You can have sex after.”

“Don’t be a right fooking radge. If she wants to fook, I’ll be happy to wait and watch,” he says with a wink.

Ronak and Evert both growl.

“Too far,” I mumble to Sev.

“Where’s Amorette?” I ask, looking at my mates. “So help me, Ronak, if you left her on the roof…”

“Relax, she’s with the gardener. She’s helping him prune.”

“You mean she’s digging up all of our flowers.”

“Probably.”

“Alright,” I clap. “Everyone who isn’t a cupid go do…whatever it is you were doing, while I talk to Sev.”

My mates leave, but not before Evert comes up to me, letting his tail trail across my thighs. “I’ll be in as soon as he leaves, Scratch,” he says with a hungry promise.

My heart flutters in my chest and I nod, thinking about all of the hot, naughty sex things we can do. Then he walks out, leaving me in a puddle of need, and Sev arches a brow at the serious lust waves I’m giving off right now.

“Good fooking grief, boss. Get a handle on it, yeah? You’re making my tadger stiff again.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Don’t talk about your stiffies.”

He just shrugs.

“Okay,” I say, getting down to business. “Lay it on me. What’s going on in Cupidville? This thingy won’t stop glowing.”

He sits down on the chair opposite me, propping his ankles up on the table. “It’s a right fooking mess, boss.”

“Why?”

This cupid boss business is harder than I thought it would be. Keeping Love Matches sorted, Love Arrow manufacturing, running the still fairly new HR department, not to mention keeping each of the Veil Major and Minor representatives happy. Plus, there’s all of the day-to-day cupid stuff. It’s… a lot. And since I can’t even go to Cupidville, that means delegating a lot of things out.

Unfortunately, all of the delegating has fallen on Sev’s shoulders. And let’s face it, he’s pretty, but he’s a terrible manager. But I can’t bear to ask Lex to help. The last time I saw her, she still couldn’t look me in the eye, and then she asked to be sent to the troll realm. But it was when she lost her status as Cupid Of The Month that I knew things were really bad. Trouble is, I don’t know how to help her. Ever since Belren died for her, she’s just been…disconnected. So that means Sev and I have to handle this on our own. I can’t dump more on poor Lex right now.

“We keep getting’ a fuck ton of recruits,” Sev says, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I blink at him. “What?”

“Recruits, aye? New cupid shiteheads. Everyone in the Veil won’t shut their right dirty traps, get it? They go on and on about our new cupid benefits, and then the second-lifers start lining up to get their red wings. We’re overrun, boss. Can’t train ‘em fast enough, not since you’re the one who made training mandatory.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “The reports show that new cupids are doing a much better job during their first year since I’ve created the training program,” I point out a tad defensively.

Sev holds his hands up in surrender. “I ain’t saying it’s a bad thing, boss. I’m just saying we’re fooking behind. Especially for the earth realm. Bloody Valentine’s Day is next week, and that realm is so overdue on Love Matches, it ain’t even funny. If we don’t get these new arseholes trained up in time for Valentine’s, we’ll be so behind, we won’t be able to dig ourselves out for another fooking year at least. We’re doin’ the best we can, get it? But there’s one group of trainees that keep fooking failing.”

“Failing? How can they be failing? Training isn’t even hard.”

Sev shrugs. “The little shites are the worst cupids I’ve ever seen.”

Coming from Sev, that’s saying something.

“Dammit.” I blow out a stressed-filled breath and rub my belly.

Sev grimaces slightly at the sight. “That thing is really fooking big.”

My hand goes still as I glare at him. Apparently, my glare doesn’t work on him nearly as well as it does on my mates, because he just shrugs. “Your diddies look fooking great, though.”

My glare instantly turns into a beam as I look down at my ample chest. “Thank you! They really are impressive, aren’t they? Evert likes them.”

Sev nods. “Aye. Fooking glorious.”

“He’d better not be talking about your fucking tits!” Evert’s voice comes hollering through the open window.

Then Amorette’s voice, “What’s a tits?”

We aren’t going to be winning any parenting awards any time soon, that’s for sure.

“Okay. We can deal with this,” I say, although I’m pretty sure I’m trying to convince myself more than I’m trying to convince Sev. “I’ll just have to get super boss bitch on them. Scare them straight, kind of thing.”

Sev looks at me, his perfect face betraying his doubt. “You sure you don’t want to call number sixty-nine? She’s a right smadge better at this cupid shite than us. No offense, boss.”

“None taken,” I reply. “But no. We’ve gotta deal with this on our own, Sev. And then I have to take a break. The baby will be here any day, and I promised my mates that I’d take eight weeks off.”

He sighs and runs a hand over his borrowed shirt. It fits a bit weird, since it’s one of Ronak’s, made to accommodate wings. But even though they have the same cupid wings, Sev is much, much smaller than Ronak, so he kind of swims in it. He’s still pretty, though.

“Fooking hell. You didn’t take that long of a break after the other one was born.”

“Exactly. My mates never let me hear the end of it.”

He blows out another breath. “Alright,” Sev finally says, conceding. He looks super disappointed that he’ll actually have to work.

“Since I still can’t physically get to Cupidville, I’m going to have to work from home. I guess…you’ll just have to bring the surplus of cupid recruits here.”

He arches a brow. “Here?”

I nod. “Yep. I’ll just train them here in the fae realm.”

“No offense, again, but do you actually know how to train these pink shiteheads?”

“I can totally handle it.”

He gives me another look, but then shrugs. “What about your mates? They gonna shite themselves?”

Probably. “Nah. They’ll understand.”

Sev doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t push the matter. “Want me to bring ‘em now?”

“Yeah, let’s do this…” I pause, making a face. “Right after I pee.”

See? The peeing thing. It’s a problem.