Chapter 17 Friends with Benefits
SEVENTEEN
Friends with Benefits
Mabel
Monday morning, I didn’t wake up to a Post-it note.
I woke to my hair being gently tucked behind my ear.
My eyes slid open and to the side, and there was Hutch, his stubble, his mustache…him.
“Got dogs to feed, babe,” he whispered.
“Okay,” I whispered back.
“Took Tonks out. Both are fed. You’re good for a lie in.”
He was the best.
“Thanks.”
“Be back at one.”
“Right.”
He smiled.
I experienced cardiac arrest.
I’d never seen him smile. A hitch of his lips, at most.
A full smile, never.
It was…
Magic.
“Bed gets crowded with four breathing beings in it,” he stated.
Oh no.
“Tonks and Moxie sleep with me,” I told him something he couldn’t have missed.
Still smiling, he said, “Yeah, I know. We were locked in place last night because Tonks claimed our feet.”
I stretched my lips in an eek!
“And shins,” he carried on. “And Moxie claimed Tonks.”
“Doesn’t Hannibal sleep with you?”
“I don’t let him. He has a dog bed beside mine.”
“Is that a problem for you? Tonks and Moxie, I mean.”
“Your house, your pets, your rules. And just to say, the hardest thing to train Hannibal to do was sleep in his own bed when I kicked him out of mine because he’s a bed hog and he snores.” Long pause. “Bad.”
This time, I smiled.
His eyes moved over my face and then came back to mine even as his hand moved to pull the covers up my bare shoulder. “Your furnace sucks hard, May.”
“I noticed that.”
“The thermostat is jacked up to eighty, and it can’t be seventy in here.”
“I should probably talk to Mrs. Matthews about that.”
“I’ll look at it after training. You also need firewood. You know how to build a fire?”
“Stack logs and toss a match on them?”
Another smile. “Not quite. I’ll teach you that too.”
“Can’t wait.”
He tipped his glorious head to the side.
“You gonna lay there or are you gonna kiss me?” he asked.
“Last night was energetic,” I reminded him.
He kept up his beautiful smile. “Yeah, I was there. And mind you, I did most of the work.”
I rolled my eyes, held the covers to my chest, but pushed up and pressed my lips to his.
He took over, his tongue spiked into my mouth, and we made out hot and heavy, to the point I thought he was going to take off the clothes he foolishly put on, but then he ended it.
“I want you careful today,” he said quietly. “I spent the night.”
I knew what he meant, and I refused to allow it to douse this moment with unwanted cold water.
I nodded. “Okay, honey.”
Cupping the back, he pulled my head down so he could kiss the top of my hair.
He let me go. “Now, go back to sleep. See you later.”
“Later, Hutch.”
The wrinkles at the sides of his eyes deepened in an extraordinary smile that didn’t reach his lips before I watched him walk away.
Nine o’clock that morning, I was in the workshop, doing the finishing on the shelves, when Hutch called.
“You get a note?” he asked.
“Nope,” I answered.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” I confirmed.
“Good. See you in a few hours.”
“You want me to have lunch ready for you?”
“I’ll have eaten. But since I’m comin’ back later so we can enjoy our benefits, you could make dinner.”
“One baked chicken breast and a pile of broccoli boiled to mush coming right up,” I quipped.
“Smartass,” he muttered, but I could hear the humor in his tone. “Later, babe.”
“Later, Hutch.”
We hung up.
Incidentally, I made us my garlic roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli not boiled to mush but boiled and served still with some bite and yummy.
Hutch waved away the gravy.
And only I had a dinner roll.
Later that evening, Hutch had his fingers laced in mine, my hand held over my head in the pillow, the fingers of his other hand clamped on the back of my neck, his mouth devouring mine, while my legs clutched his hips, and he fucked me.
I’d never known a man who didn’t allow a woman to take the top so he could get all the goodness without doing any of the work, but by damn, Hutch Hutchison was not a surrender-the-dominant-position kind of guy.
Not remotely.
He also wasn’t a talker.
Not dirty talk, not encouragement, not verbal indication he liked something or wanted something.
There were grunts and growls and groans that mingled with my whimpers, pants, gasps and moans, wet noises, flesh meeting flesh.
But other than that, it was connection, touch, taste, smell and feel.
Lots and lots of feel.
I liked it. It was intense. Powerful. There were no distractions. Nothing else to concentrate on other than him and me, wringing as much pleasure out of each other as we could, and eventual climax.
Oh, and he could hit the G-spot magnificently.
This round was going to be a clit climax, I knew when he took his hand from the back of my neck and slid it between us.
He was so good with his cock, his mouth, he smelled amazing, the power of his body completely unbridled, the taste of his tongue filling my mouth, it didn’t take but a few strong circles of his thumb on my clit with his thick cock thrusting inside for me to suck his tongue deep as I gasped my orgasm.
It didn’t take a lot longer for me to swallow the groan of his.
He collapsed on me briefly before he rolled us so I was on top.
I rested my head on his shoulder.
His hands roamed my back.
We caught our breath.
His fingers hit a scar and stopped.
I froze.
“Felt them our first time, baby,” he said softly.
Oh God.
Shit.
After watching him play and spending so much time with him, particularly the time at the Art Center opening, once I had my friends-with-benefits idea, I was powerless to do anything but propose it to him.
Even if I’d been nervous about suggesting it—because I hadn’t lied, if he’d declined, I’d have allowed that play—still, that kind of thing would always be mortifying.
And even if it was a spur of the moment thing, I still thought it was a great idea.
Because he was interesting. Confident. He knew himself. He was comfortable in his skin. I liked being around him, even when we were bickering. I liked what I knew about him, so much, I wanted to get to know him better. And I knew he was great in bed.
So, using my intuition, I threw the idea out there, and as crazy as it sounded, I was sure it was a good idea.
But it was way too soon for that getting-to-know-you info.
I lifted my head and pushed up so I could look down at him.
“It’s a long story,” I replied. “And not a post-great-sex story.”
“Yours to give when and if you wanna give it,” he said, and I relaxed. “One thing I need. You okay?”
I gave him a small smile. “Yeah. Three years of therapy with a counselor who was pretty awesome and who I still exchange Christmas cards with got me to a good place.”
“All right,” he said, his eyes moving over my face.
I cupped his jaw. “I’m fine, Hutch.”
“I believe you, May.”
I hadn’t had my name for long.
But I loved it.
After being forced to be three different girls in the span of seventeen years—the age I finally began my journey to figure out who the hell I actually was—when the thing with my ex went down, and the aftermath, I was so used to shedding an old skin (or being forced to), that was where my mind took me.
But this time, I got to choose.
My place.
My job.
My name.
So I picked what I wanted.
Still, Hutch calling me May was the prettiest thing I’d ever heard, even prettier than his songs.
“I need to get rid of this condom,” he said.
I rolled off him and watched his fine ass as he sauntered to my bathroom.
“Are you spending the night?” I called in that direction.
“Is that an invite?” he called back.
“Yeah.”
“Then yeah.”
I adjusted so I was under the covers, and once there, I pulled them up to my chin and grinned like a loon.
Hutch returned and got under them with me about half a second before Tonks jumped on the bed.
“Not yet, girl,” Hutch told her. “We’re not done.”
Tonks yodeled toward the ceiling and jumped off.
“You wear me out,” I told Hutch.
He yanked me under him (see what I mean about dominant?).
“Not yet. But I will,” he returned.
And then he kissed me.
After that, he wore me out.
We took Tuesday off, which was probably good.
Grounding.
Time apart and away from the intensity.
Wednesday afternoon, Hutch showed for Tonks’s training appointment with a truck bed full of firewood.
There was some framing in the car port against the outside cabin wall where it was meant to be stacked so it could keep dry.
Thus, Tonks and I left the workshop so I could help him unload (which, at Hutch’s decree, was me in the truck bed handing it to him log by log so he could stack, because, like loading the trunk of a car, apparently, only a man knew the proper way to stack firewood) and Tonks could supervise.
After that, there was some mild bickering as to who would pay for the wood, which in the end, I allowed us to split it because he said, “Babe, I’ll be here and enjoying it, so just give it up and go half.”
I gave it up, but I right then and there demanded his Venmo in order to reimburse him, and he watched me do this after sighing heavily.
They did their training, and I went out the last fifteen minutes so Tonks and I could work together.
I didn’t know, and I didn’t ask Hutch (because I didn’t want him to disagree with me), but she seemed to be taking to “heel” even easier than “stay,” and therefore I thought this meant she was highly intelligent and learning, day to day, how to listen better and jive with the vibe.
He then went to work on installing a new thermostat, which he’d phoned Mrs. Matthews to tell her he was putting in, and she’d told him to send her the receipt so she could reimburse his expenditure.
She’d also told him she was sending a landscaping team out the next day to rake the pine needles up around the property.
“Seems Mrs. Matthews has the same idea your friend had about keeping your property busy,” Hutch mused after he gave me this info.
He was probably right.
I just knew that woman was the bomb.