Birding with Benefits

Chapter 24

John finished his last cut and slid the board down his table before powering off his circular saw and removing his industrial-grade earmuffs, letting the screaming voice of Zack de la Rocha surround him. He often worked in silence, listening to the birdsong filtering through the open windows of his shop, but whenever he used power tools he cranked music through the speakers Jared had installed for him last year.

He was just standing to stretch when he registered a voice behind him, raised enough to cut through the music. “Well, maybe you need to try harder, Peter! This is a big deal for her.”

When John turned, he caught the flare of Celeste’s hem as she paced past the open doorway of his shop. “Thank you. I’ll have her arrange it with you. Yeah. Bye.”

Her back was to him, framed in the fading sunshine filling the doorway, and John watched as she dropped her phone into her bag and rolled her shoulders. When he shut off the music, she turned, her brows knitted together. But she dropped the expression quickly when she saw him, replacing it with a broad smile. She leaned into the doorframe in a gray dress that left her arms bare, her hair pulled up into a bun. “Hey.”

“Hey. You okay?”

She looked away, then back into her bag. “Yeah, just”—her smile fell a fraction—“Morgan’s dad is going to be out of town for her art show, the one the night of the gala. Anyway, I suggested he FaceTime that night, you know, to be there. And he thinks it’s overboard.” She fiddled with her bun, pulling a few strands loose. “Which is basically his other name for me. I’m always overboard.”

She stepped all the way inside, clearing her throat. “Let’s not worry about that, though.” She dropped her bag near her feet. It was big enough to hold a few essentials, and John hoped it meant she intended to stay the night.

“So, this is the famous woodshop.” She eyed the tools hanging on the walls, her tongue rubbing along her teeth. Her body relaxed as she made a slow lap of his shop, and John’s throat tightened as she ran a finger along one of his long metal worktables.

“You look like a kid in a candy store.”

“I guess I like new stuff.” She wiggled an eyebrow. “You know me.”

She picked up his smallest hand planer as the industrial fan whirred, moving the hair at the nape of her neck and sending the hem of her dress dancing around her knees.

She turned with the tool in her hand. “What’s this one?”

“It’s a planer. It’s used for—” He scooted his bench in front of a clear work area and motioned her over. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

John grabbed a few pieces of scrap white pine from the pile in the corner and put them on the table. She sat on the bench with the tool still in her hand.

“This is used to take off thin layers of wood. You can use it to size a board, or in basic shape-carving. Can I see it?”

He demonstrated how to slide the planer against the wood, peeling off a small layer of pine and letting it flutter to the floor. When he handed it back to her, he made sure to let his fingers brush her knuckles. She smiled before pulling the tool out of his hand.

Clearing his throat, he picked up his half-inch straight chisel, an almost exact copy of the first hand tool he’d ever used, stuck in his Christmas stocking when he was eleven. For years, all John had done with it was idly carve at pieces of wood found on the ground outside. But after college, eager for an outlet during the stress of graduate school, he’d remembered the calming effect of the chisel in his hand and had sought out an experienced woodworker in Tucson, ready to learn. Once he landed back home in Santa Rita, he’d slowly filled his parents’ old barn with tools.

“This is a chisel. It can make more precise cuts in the wood.” He left it on the table as Celeste practiced planing wood off the block he’d put there for her, smiling as she worked.

She scooted forward on the bench, leaving a scant few inches behind the curve of her ass. “Join me? There’s plenty of room. Maybe you can teach me something.” Celeste peered over her shoulder at him like a dare.

He straddled Celeste’s back, settling into the small space behind her, his legs spread on either side of her hips. She shifted enough to face him sideways, biting her lower lip. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He took one of her loose strands of hair, threading it through his fingers.

“Is it weird”—Celeste licked her lips—“um, seeing each other after the stuff…” She swallowed, and he didn’t bother pretending he wasn’t watching the movement of her throat. “After the stuff we were texting?”

If there was anything John hadn’t expected this evening, it was this—shy Celeste. She’d been everything but shy in the past couple of days, texting him about how she’d touched herself thinking of him and about the way she planned to fuck him when they saw each other next.

Had her cheeks flushed a rosy pink like this as she typed out those messages? Or as she read the ones he wrote in response?

“It’s not weird for me,” he said. He’d enjoyed the opportunity to express himself to her, and had loved learning more about what she liked to do to herself. “But it doesn’t mean anything has to happen today, if you’re not feeling it.”

“I’m definitely feeling it.” Their eyes caught for a moment before she turned back to the worktable. “So, whatcha gonna teach me, John?”

He slid his arms around her, holding the chisel in one hand and grabbing a block of wood in the other. With the way they were sitting, he couldn’t hide the effect she had on him.

“So,” he choked out, “we’ll just get you used to using this tool with some simple, basic cuts.” He demonstrated a mortise cut and carved out a small sliver of wood. “Your turn.”

She carved a few shaky lines into the wood, leaning forward eagerly to observe her work. “This is so cool,” she said. “Maybe sometime you could help me make something? Like that cute birdhouse you gave me, or maybe something Morgan can take with her up to college.”

“I’d love to.” His eyes stayed on her hands as she turned the chisel over in her palm, rubbing her thumb along the smooth wooden handle.

She hummed and squirmed against him, trapping his now obvious erection between her tailbone and his abdomen, then chuckled as John inhaled sharply. She opened her mouth but closed it again, shaking her head.

He whispered into her ear. “Go ahead. You think I don’t know you’ve been dying to make wood jokes since the day we met? There’s no way you can resist, given… everything.”

“You mean”—she pushed into him again, earning a groan—“given all the wood in this shop right now?” She leaned her head back on John’s shoulder. “It is hard to resist, now that I feel the wood you’re working with.”

Her position left her neck exposed for him, and he took advantage, running his nose just under her ear and reveling in her gasp. “I know that’s not all you’ve got.”

She sighed as he brushed his lips against her neck. “I had a lot stored up.” Her voice was breathy. “About how good you must be at working your wood, and how I’d like to see if I could…” John swiped his tongue across her skin. Celeste moaned, giving him one of the sounds he craved from her, alive in the air of his shop. “…handle it. If I could handle your wood.”

John stroked down her arms and covered Celeste’s hands with his. Her clenched fists released the chisel, giving him space to massage her soft palms with his thumbs. “Is that it? I expected a longer list.”

“I had a longer list.” Celeste slipped her hands from his and raised her arms to entwine her fingers behind his neck. The view it created for John—the small rise of her breasts accentuated by her slightly arched back, her rapid breathing, and the spread of her legs where they pushed up against his own—was otherworldly. “I can’t seem to remember any of them.”

For a moment it was just their breathing and the soft sounds of the world outside the open door. The moment held the potential of a flock of starlings just before a murmuration, their energy about to be unlocked.

“John,” she whispered. “Please.”

He gripped her hips tight in his hands, pulling her against him as he ground into her, breathing hard into her ear. Her answering moan urged him on, and soon his hands were on her thighs, fingers twisting in the hem of her dress, drawing it up.

“You can take it off.” Her breathing was heavy. “Please. Take it. Off.”

John lowered his mouth to the curve of her neck, grazing his teeth across her skin, then lifted the dress up, Celeste arching up off the bench to help. It was over her hips, then exposing her belly button, her ribs, her simple black bra, the ridge of her collarbone. She released her hands, stretching them overhead as he pulled the dress up and over her.

“Drop it.” She sighed, interlacing her fingers behind his neck again. “It can get dirty. Just touch me again.”

John abandoned the dress to the wood shavings on the floor, promising himself he’d get it later and send it through his dryer. But even as he planned it, his hands were back on her, tracing each line of her rib cage before covering her breasts with his hands, tracing her hard nipples through her bra. He dipped each hand into the fabric, seeking the warmth of the puckered skin, first brushing lightly with his thumbs before capturing each for a hard pinch.

He drew her bare earlobe into his mouth before grazing it with his teeth. “No earrings tonight?”

“Wanted you to be able to—” He closed his teeth on her again, drawing a gasp from her, then a small laugh. “Yep. That.” She continued to move against him, pushing herself back into him in a slow rhythm. “In those texts, you said you wanted to hear me come. You gonna make that happen?”

“No.” He reached for one of her hands and pulled it to her thigh. “You’re going to make it happen.”

“You want me to—” She turned to face him with the rose blush back on her cheeks. But then she was spreading her legs wider, throwing them over his knees and hooking his calves with her ankles.

His hand stayed over hers as it moved across the dipping crease where the thigh ended, finally cupping her over her black underwear as they both moaned. He took their hands up and under her waistband.

Once there, Celeste wasted no time. A low groan vibrated through her throat as her middle finger cut through her curls.

“Jesus, Celeste.” He scooted back to put a slice of air between them, afraid the slightest pressure would have him coming against her back.

As her finger moved, his did too, just a shadow over hers as she drew small circles over herself, then switched to long, slow strokes. He noted each movement and its reaction—how the circles made her shudder and the strokes made her sigh. All as her sounds grew more desperate, her breathing coming in a staccato beat of gasps.

“Help me.” Her hips were moving against their hands now, her head thrown back on his shoulder.

“How?”

“Inside me. Fingers inside me?”

It was a question he was happy to answer, dipping his hand lower and sliding one, then two fingers inside Celeste. Her body welcomed him, luscious and tight, and she wasted no time in moving against his hand, taking what she needed.

Their hands bumped and knocked as she rode his fingers, arching her back and rocking her hips to get more of him. Beneath his wrist he felt her switch from long strokes against her clit to short flicks.

“Oh god.” Her face turned into his neck. “Oh god, oh god.”

John had lain awake at night wondering how Celeste sounded as she came. And now, her legs trembling over his as he curled the fingers inside her, his other hand holding tight to one of her nipples, he was finally making this discovery.

She was silent. Her needy moans and little pleas were subsumed by an intake of breath that held as she tightened around his fingers. It reminded John of leaping off a rock into a local swimming hole when he was younger—that sweet moment of suspension in the air when his body paused between up and down. He held Celeste there until she sighed and melted against him.

Slowing kissing her neck, John withdrew his hand, smoothing it across her stomach as he wrapped an arm around her waist. Outside, the evening sky had given way to the navy blue of early night, the shop now lit only by a single work lamp.

He was still hard behind her, but he wasn’t in any hurry. They’d get there when they got there.

“Wow,” she whispered, unhooking her ankles. “Thanks.” After a moment, she stood on shaky legs, turning to stand between his thighs. She was a vision—face flushed, mouth open, with one long drip of sweat trailing down the valley between her breasts. One strap of her bra fell down her shoulder, exposing a hint of pink that made John’s mouth water.

He forced his gaze back to her face. “You did the work.”

“It was a team effort,” she said with a smile. “I guess we’re good at more than birding.”

Celeste threaded her fingers through his hair, tugging just enough to tip his face up to hers. “Maybe we should see what else we’re good at. You want to tell me where your bedroom is and give me a five-minute head start to freshen up a little?”

He pointed to the door that attached his workshop to the rest of the house, walking her through how to find the bathroom and his room.

When he stood, he left no space between them. Being this close to her without apology, without the nagging voice in his head that they shouldn’t, was a liberation. He cupped her smiling cheek in his hand and lowered his mouth to hers, finally allowing them a kiss. It was slow and shallow to start, but then Celeste’s fingers slipped beneath his T-shirt as her teeth scraped his bottom lip, and he pulled back before they got carried away. Not that he hadn’t fantasized about bending her over in his woodshop, but definitely not for their first time together.

Hands on her shoulders, he pointed her toward the door. “I’m giving you five minutes and not a second longer.”