Chapter One
Benjamin
“Morning.” Levi’s warm breath tickled the back of my neck as his morning wood tickled my ass.
“Not morning. Sleep more,” I grumbled into my pillow.
My husband had always been a morning person. Me? Not so much. I preferred my morning to be slowly unveiled and starting when the sun rose and not a second before.
“You forget what day it is?” His arm wrapped around me from behind, pulling my back to his front.
“No. Of course not?” I very much did. No sense hiding it. I searched my memory banks for what he might possibly be talking about. “Just tired.”
“You don’t remember.” He chuckled just as Molly our fur baby bounded onto the bed, leash in her mouth.
“It’s dark,” I whined, which apparently gave some kind of signal to Molly, who immediately licked my face. It looked like it was my turn to walk her furry self. “I’m getting up, girl.” I ruffled her fur before sitting up in defeat. Sleep was not for me.
“Serves you right,” Levi sassed as he snuggled into me, going so far as to take my pillow.
I padded to the bathroom for a quick stop before pulling on my hoodie and sweats. It was a far cry from the clothes I went to work in, but the mornings were still chilly and usually Molly only wanted to do her business and come back in. It was her after-dinner walk she like to dillydally at.
“Ready, girl?”
Her tail wagged a mile a minute. We’d gotten her one Saturday morning when they had an adoption fair at the park. She was so stinking adorable with her muttly mix of green eyes, black wavy fur, smooshed-in nose. It was not something we’d planned to do, but as is usually the way, she picked us, and we became proud fur-baby daddies.
“I’ll be right back,” I called to Levi who was still in bed, only now he was propped up on his elbow.
“Ready to get a hint?”
“Fine. A hint please.” I sighed in faux exasperation. I’d come to the conclusion when I was in the bathroom that if it had been anything of significance I’d have remembered, so this was just Levi being Levi.
“Think roses.”
Of freaking course.
“The home and garden show.” I clipped the leash on Molly’s collar as I slipped on my shoes.
Levi had picked up the tickets at least a month earlier. He had some big idea for us to add a raised garden and fancy schmancy barbecue to the backyard. I was down for the grill, but never got the garden thing.
We’d been in Mapleville for just about five years, and in that time, we’d focused on the interior of the house. It had been neglected by its previous owners, and those repairs had to take priority. We’d rewired the entire place, replaced most of the piping, and suffered through more wallpaper removal than anyone should have to in a lifetime. But the place finally felt like home, and it was all worth it.
“Fine, I forgot, but to be fair it’s because I don’t want to go.” I was more of a stay-at-home-on-Saturday kind of guy. The going into a college outbuilding with people from neighboring towns all squished in together to see things we could look up on the Internet made zero sense to me.
Levi got up, stretching oh so slowly. We’d been married for over six years, and never a day went by that I didn’t look at him and still wonder how I found someone so freaking hot.
“Huh. I guess I could go alone.” He bent down, giving me a great view of his ass as Molly yanked on the leash.
“I’m walking the dog. With a boner, thank you very much.” It wasn’t as if that was an unusual state since I first met Levi and inhaled his eucalyptus and peppermint scent.
I allowed Molly to lead the way, which was against everything her doggy-training classes taught, but it worked for us. We stepped out into the backyard, and my focus went straight to the grass, which was still brown, except it no longer was just brown. Someone had marked it off with what looked like spray paint.
Had we still been in the city, I’d have assumed it was vandalism, but we lived in Mapleville, town of a thousand smiles. Sure, people were people no matter where you were, but there was something special about this place.
Molly headed straight to the back corner where she preferred to do her business, and as I followed her I took in the markings. Levi had laid out where he wanted everything to go from where the fence was going to go so Molly could have her freedom, to where we would place the grill, to the three raised beds, to the raspberry bushes and, in the back corner, he had written reading nook.
I’d been so not excited about spending my Saturday in a crowd, that I’d failed to see just how important the backyard remodel was to my husband.
Molly did her business and wanted to go back inside for her kibble, which worked for me. I had a husband to grovel to. Or at least get on the same page with.
Kibble poured, I jogged to our room, which was vacant. I could hear the shower running in the background and threw off my clothes as I hurried to join him.
The door to the bathroom was ajar in invitation. He so knew what my reaction would be to seeing his plans, or maybe he thought his glorious ass was invitation enough—which it was.
“Knock knock,” I called as I walked on in and straight to the shower. “Got room in there for a self-centered husband who gives a mean blow job?”
“What? Did you say blow job? Come on in.” He held the curtain open, and the steam billowed out as I stepped under the warm jets. That was one thing we did right when we fixed up the house—multiple showerheads. Nothing worse than having your ass get cold as you are knotting your husband.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be. I know that kind of event isn’t your thing, but I was excited for this project and wanted you to share it with me. I can easily go alone and get the fliers for us to look at together, if you like.”
“No. I want to go. I mean, if I don’t, how am I going to give you road head.” I gave him my best innocent look.
It had been an ongoing joke for us since we first met, thanks to a crappy dating app that had road-head preferences on the profile between your age and occupation because somehow that was more important than if you were employed?
I grabbed the shampoo bottle from the shelf and squeezed a bit into my hand before tapping him on the shoulder. “Turn around.” I lathered up his hair, massaging his scalp the way he liked before guiding him under the spray to rinse it away.
“Your turn.” He washed my hair as I had his. Big burly firefighter all muscles and yumm, yet at the same time so gentle and kind. He was pretty much the perfect man. And he was mine.
“So?” I asked as he finished rinsing my hair. “The reading nook—is it screened in?”
“It can be anything you want.”
I stepped closer so that our bodies were pressed front to front.
“You know what I want right now?” I planted an open-mouth kiss on his shoulder.
“My lips around your cock?”
“I was thinking more mine around yours. I do seem to recall telling you I gave a mean blow job. I thought maybe I should put my money where my mouth was—or is it my mouth where my mouth was?” I snaked my hand down and wrapped it around his erection, giving it a little tug.
“Or you could open your hand wider.” He bit my lower lip before sucking it.
“Like this?” I opened my hand. “And then what?” My man always did like frottage, and who was I to say no to something that had us both coming like a couple of teenagers.
“You could wrap it around both of us.” He didn’t wait for me to respond, instead leaning back against the shower wall as he grabbed the back of my head, pulling me in for a searing kiss.
I closed my hand around us after grabbing a pump of the body wash to counteract the friction of the water, and slowly worked up and down our lengths as he devoured my mouth. It didn’t take long before the warm liquid of our release coated my palm, and we were panting. It was a good shower.
“I guess we should wash and get ready to go.” I flashed him a grin. “I have plans for this nook. Big plans. Huge. I’m almost thinking mini-greenhouse so it can be warm when Mapleville is not.”
“I was thinking possibly a he-shed.” Oh yeah, Levi spoke my love language—warm places to read without bugs.
“Last one ready has to make breakfast.” I scrambled to wash and dress before he did. Not because I hated to cook, even though I did despite my skill at it. Levi competed to win, and that would mean taking shortcuts—like freeballing under his jeans, making me the winner no matter how it turned out.
I ended up cooking or, more accurately, making toast, and Levi ended up gloating and gloriously underwearless. All in all, not a bad start to the morning.