Birding with Benefits

Chapter 26

The trilling song of a curve-billed thrasher wound through the cracked window of John’s bathroom as he shut off the water and grabbed a towel. Goose bumps covered his skin, a by-product of the cold shower he’d taken as an alternative to waking a sprawled and sleeping Celeste with his roving hands.

She’d given him so much the night before—her trust, her vulnerability, her sounds and taste. So his plan was to tiptoe through his bedroom to the kitchen, where he’d brew her a strong cup of coffee before she woke and headed out to teach for the day. And hope they could get together soon to continue their explorations.

He opened the bathroom door quietly, careful not to wake her.

The mattress still held her imprint, and the sheets were bundled at the foot of the bed, but the lithe, naked woman who’d been there when he slipped into the shower was markedly absent. He hadn’t expected anything grand this morning, but he would have loved to give her a cup of coffee.

John whipped his towel off with a sigh, tossing it over the pineapple-topped bedpost Celeste had admired the night before.

“Well.” Celeste’s voice came from behind him. He turned to see her leaning into the doorway of his bedroom, the hem of a yellow T-shirt landing at the tops of her thighs. “Good morning to me.” Her eyes roamed up his body, slowing as she perused below his waist. But when she reached his face, her brows tightened. “What’s wrong?”

She stepped fully into the room, glancing at the bed, then at John. “Did you think I left?”

He reached for his towel rather than deny it.

“Come on, John, give me more credit than that.”

He shrugged, chest opening with relief. “I haven’t done casual before, and I didn’t know—”

She was right in front of him now. “We can be casual and kind at the same time, right?” A finger snaked down his chest, to the towel he was fumbling to wrap back around his waist. “You were very kind to me last night.” She tugged, sending the towel to the floor.

Her hands flattened against his chest, then rubbed around to his back, then his ass, where she gripped firmly, humming. “I just went to the other bathroom to freshen up. I brought this shirt over to wear just for you.”

The shirt was butter yellow, with a simple sketch of a dove in the middle, and the words Don’t Talk to Me, I’m Birding arched across the top.

“Very nice.” He stepped close again, curling a hand around her thigh and sliding up, finding her bare hip.

With a hand around his neck, Celeste pulled his face to hers, wasting no time before drawing his bottom lip between her teeth. Her hand wrapped tight around his erection, and the kiss went deeper, harder. John groaned into her mouth as her hand, as confident and greedy as he’d known it would be, pulled him with the perfect amount of pressure.

“Do you need to go to work?” The words were mumbled against her mouth, and she took them with her tongue, returning them in a long sigh.

“No, I don’t.”

“But it’s—”

Friday. And Celeste was dropping to her knees, her face turned up in a smile. “I called in sick.”

“Oh.”

Her hand was still on him as her lips opened, tongue slipping out to brush his cock. After one long, hot lick, she sat back on her heels, her eyes on him like shafts of hot sun. “I’d like to taste you now, John, if that’s okay.”

He nodded mutely, vaguely aware of a ruckus of birdsong just outside his open bedroom window. Celeste glanced up as she scraped her nails along his thighs. “Tell me what you hear.”

Her hand found his cock again, so his word came out a choked half groan. “Wha—”

She loosened her hold. “I want you to hold my hair and tell me about the birds you hear while I suck you.”

“Celeste, Christ.” He ached with need, wishing she’d squeeze him tighter, desperate for the wetness of her mouth. One hand twisted into her hair, pulling it into a ponytail in his fist. “I can’t think about birds right now.”

“Please.” She licked him once, flattening her tongue along his length. “Your brain turns me on.”

His laugh stopped in his throat as her lips closed on him, running up and down. He was lost in sensation—heat and moisture, the pull of her lips and the tangle of her tongue. And then it was gone.

“The birds, John.”

He tugged her hair just enough to tilt her face to his. “You can’t be serious.”

Her eyebrows arched, lips turned up mischievously. “You bet your nice wood I’m serious.”

After a hard swallow, John began to speak. He told her about the sparrows chattering in the jojoba bush outside as Celeste took him fully in her mouth, moaning around him. He groaned out the names of others—the phainopepla seeking a mate, a Lucy’s warbler singing brightly, a house finch begging its parents for food—as Celeste gripped the base of his cock tightly, teasing the head with her tongue until he was shuddering, pulling tight on her hair. This only seemed to encourage her, and when she leaned in, tugging him all the way into her throat, John’s brain went white, the engulfing heat of her mouth short-circuiting the last bit of his rational thought.

When she released him, Celeste chuckled, gazing up with hooded eyes and wet, swollen lips. “Lost your train of thought?”

She opened her mouth to take him again, but John pulled her up and whipped off her birding T-shirt. They met in a hungry kiss as he gripped her hips and walked them to the bed. When her thighs hit the mattress she lifted herself up, pulling him down to her and wrapping her legs around his hips.

“We still doing good?” His voice was all sandpaper.

She nodded, biting her lower lip. “Still really good.”

“And you feel okay not using a condom?”

After they’d broken the sex ice with their texts, Celeste had emailed him her latest STI testing results and he’d reciprocated, grateful he’d gone in after his breakup with Breena, just in case. Then Celeste had texted him that she had an IUD and—through a series of creative and increasingly lewd emojis—suggested they could forgo condoms if they were both comfortable doing so.

“I definitely feel okay about that if you do.” Her fingers scraped down his back and cupped his ass, pulling tight against her so that they rocked together. “Fuck,” she groaned. “John, please.”

He backed his hips up, bringing the tip of his erection right where he wanted it. Her body welcomed him, hot and soft and wet. John entered her slowly, letting out a long, slow breath to steady himself.

He settled deep inside her, then pushed a little more, groaning. “Oh shit.”

Celeste gave a light laugh under him. “I love making you use bad words.”

She rotated her hips, a smirk on her face as her body closed around him like a glove, tight around his cock as he pulled back slowly, almost all the way, and moved back into her with the same deliberate speed. She bit her lower lip and groaned, the smirk on her lips sliding into something needier, until her mouth was covered with his as he kissed her, slow and deep like his thrusts.

When they both came up for air she smiled against his mouth. The feel of her upturned lips against his was a sensation John wanted to feel again and again.

“God,” she sighed. “Sex is good. It’s been a while.”

He chuckled against her mouth, sliding into her again, holding himself up with one arm while a hand traced the curve of her jaw. “For me too.” A deep moan rumbled in his throat. “Worth the wait.”

Celeste’s body, curving into him with every slow thrust, spoke to the animal in him, the one that had been observing this woman for weeks as she took up more and more of his sexual imagination. He bent low again to sweep his tongue across her pulse point, measuring her excitement.

Celeste yanked him closer, pulling him into her as her hips moved greedily beneath him. But he kept his pace. When she gave a frustrated sigh, he pulled back to look at her pouting lips.

The pinch of her eyebrows made him laugh, which only made her lips pucker more. “You’d better not be laughing at me during sex.” Her lips quivered like she was holding back a smile of her own.

John shook his head, running his hand across her mouth to dip a finger between her lips, where her tongue deftly swirled around his knuckle. He shuddered and pulled out of her again, pausing when their bodies were just barely joined. She whimpered and pulled at him, but he stayed put and laid a kiss on her forehead. “I wondered if you’d do this like you do everything else.”

“Which is?”

“Eagerly,” he said, driving into her again, a little harder this time. “Enthusiastically.” She writhed under him, and he put his mouth near her ear, pausing to bite her earlobe. “You feel so good.” But he kept his movements slow, pulled all the way out of her after each thrust, as he felt her body grow more restless under him.

“John,” she growled, “I need—”

“I know,” he assured her. “I can tell you won’t hold anything back. But let’s start my way.”

“What’s your way?”

The fingers of one hand traced along the ridge of her hip, then pressed her hip firmly into his bed to slow her movements. “What do you think?”

She squirmed beneath his grip, but smiled. “Hmm. Thorough?”

John scooped his arm under the curve of her knee, holding her even more open for him. Lines of bright sun slanted through the windows across her body.

He shifted, angling them across the bed. “Hold on to the post.”

She stretched her arms up, her eyes gone molten. The position pulled the skin along her ribs taut and accentuated the rise of her breasts and tight, puckered nipples. Her fingers curled around the base of the bedpost, gripping the wood he’d spent hours crafting. God, it was worth the work if it gave him this moment.

He set a steady rhythm, slow enough to give his body the time it needed to learn about hers, time to settle deep into her with each thrust, to feel how each adjustment of his hips brought them both closer to falling over and apart together.

He explored her gently, one hand skimming over her hard nipples until she was whimpering again and rotating her hips against his. He closed his eyes and bit his lip hard, holding on to his control.

“You ready to come?” John choked out as he settled deep into her again.

“Always ready,” she gasped.

“I want to watch you. Will you show me again?”

Her hand slipped into the tight space between their bodies as John’s hungry eyes followed their path. She was stunning, with one hand gripping the bedpost and the other taking herself to the edge.

“Yes, Celeste. Fuck.” She shuddered under him when he spoke. “Make yourself come for me.”

Her hand moved fast between them, and he lifted to give her space, to watch her fingers slide against her slick clit, hard with arousal, the same dusky pink color as her nipples. He already couldn’t wait to get her in his mouth again.

His speed picked up, and he cried out when her fingers brushed the sides of his cock as he slid in and out of her. She pressed at herself with the heel of her hand, freeing her fingers to caress him with each thrust as her breathing came in shallow bursts. His fingers found one of her nipples, squeezing just hard enough to draw out a long, throaty moan.

Her orgasm pulsed tight around him as her jaw dropped open in a silent scream. He pushed deep inside her and took a long, steadying breath as she rode it out.

Then she uttered the word that was quickly becoming his very favorite.

“More.”

She let go of the post, gripping John’s neck and pulling him down for a hard kiss. When she let go she was breathing fast. “My way now. I want you behind me.”

He groaned, pulling out quickly. She flipped onto her stomach and angled her ass toward him, her forearms flat on his mattress, as she turned her head to watch him with intensity.

She was so beautiful in her boldness, so sexy in her need. He stroked himself, still wet from her, as he let himself take in the view.

She pouted out her lower lip. “I believe I was promised a hard fuck.”

He laughed and gripped her waist, alive with the discovery that sex could be as fun as it was mind-blowing. Celeste’s jaw dropped open as he entered her again. Holy hell, she felt amazing.

“You good?” he ground out, moving slowly.

She nodded and dropped her head to her forearms. “I’m so good.” She sighed. “You don’t have to be gentle with me.”

His hand on her back followed the path of her spine, slipping over her neck before fisting her hair in a strong grip. “I know.”

The sound she made next—a moaning laugh, her pleasure clear in all its forms—detonated in John’s chest, and he thrust hard. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

She pushed herself back against him, moaning. “I promise, John. I’ll tell you.”

John gave her hair one more tug before holding tight to her hips, pulling her to him, thrusting into her all the way. She yelped and ground her hips against him, urging him on, until the room was filled with the sounds of their unified breathing and the slap of skin.

He moved a hand around her waist, slipping it down between her legs, but she batted his hand away. “Just wanna feel you,” she gasped. “No distractions.”

He gripped her hip and let go of all restraint, trusting Celeste would tell him if it was too much. But as she moaned and arched her back into him, he knew she could take it. Then he was lost, thrusting hard, each sharp intake of her breath getting him closer, until his orgasm rocketed through him.

Celeste purred as she ground her hips back, prolonging his release and pulling a long moan from his throat. He kept his hips flush with her ass as his fingers sought out the spot to make her come. She sighed and groaned and squirmed against him, panting into the mattress until she was muttering his name again and again and shaking around him.

With a long sigh, Celeste pulled away from him and collapsed onto her stomach, a lazy grin on her face. John laid kisses along her spine before lowering himself with satisfaction beside her.

After a moment, she propped herself up, smiling at him. “You’re good at sex.”

He laughed as he brushed a stray hair off her face. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Lines of sunlight fell across her neck as she smiled. “Any chance you can take the day off with me?”

“Happy to. That’s a real perk of being unemployed.”

Celeste smoothed a hand across his chest. “You’re not unemployed. You’re self-employed. And soon to be even more so. But if you want, today we could play hooky from everything else and do some birding.” Her grin went silly. “And some other stuff.”

His mouth met hers for a slow, relaxed kiss, one that spoke of an entire day with nothing on the agenda but two of his favorite activities. Especially when he was doing them with her.

“A day of birding and other stuff sounds absolutely perfect.”