Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
The thing was, Hutch had never had a friend with benefits either.
So he had no idea, both Abigail and Brett Buckner, sitting in the front seat of their truck, seeing the couple as they were on the porch, knew those two people were friends, there were benefits, but that was not what they were in the slightest.
Not even close.
TWENTY-ONE
Quid Pro Quo
Hutch
“Fucking hell,” Hutch growled, the words escaping his lips involuntarily half a second before he shot his load into Mabel’s hot, wet mouth.
She kept sucking him off as he jetted, but gentled as he started to come down, then slipped him out and climbed up to straddle his lap where he sat, pillows packed behind him against her scrolled-iron headboard, his knees cocked.
He rounded her with his arms as she nuzzled under his jaw, enjoying this as he slid one hand up her neck and into her soft hair.
“Okay,” he grunted. “You win. You ruined me for other women.”
He knew this was no lie.
He also knew it was a problem.
One he wasn’t going to face right then, with Mabel’s body keeping him warm.
He felt her smile against his skin before she said, “Samesies.”
Samesies?
At that, all thoughts fell away, something with which Mabel had a knack, and his lips tipped up.
This happened not only because she could be an adorable dork, but because it wasn’t lost on him she’d come hard into his mouth earlier.
He moved his hand on her back, and it stuttered when it hit a scar.
He ignored it verbally, but he felt the muscle dance in his cheek.
She tensed.
“I hate to tarnish my reputation,” he said to move them past it, something, at one point or another, he had to do any time they were together like this because her scars were hard to avoid. “But I’m wiped, baby. And what I had left, that blowjob took out of me. I need sleep, and tomorrow we need a chill Sunday.”
She angled up to look down at him, shifting further so she could use her hands to smooth his hair back while she watched them move.
He should have seen this as the warning it was.
He didn’t.
Her gaze came to his.
“My mom was messed up,” she whispered.
Oh fuck.
“Baby,” he whispered back.
“She got sent to prison. Drugs. She got hooked up with this shifty guy, who turned out to be my father, but I didn’t know that until I was twenty-seven.”
“May—”
“Anyway, no one knew it, so when she went to prison, they sent me to go live with Mom’s brother.”
She had to get it out?
And with the way she was talking, he knew she did.
Hutch would shut up.
So that was what he did.
“He had ideas about disciplining children.”
He closed his eyes.
He opened them when she continued talking.
“Now, I can’t say I didn’t need discipline. I did. I didn’t have any growing up. I was a mess. Behind in school. A lot of stuff.” She threw out a hand then put it right back on him. “Long story.”
She had many “long stories.”
“But he was…”—her eyes drifted over his head—“possessed? Damaged? Deranged?” She shook her head and came back to him. “I don’t really know what makes someone beat a child with a belt.”
He knew it was coming.
He still couldn’t stop himself when he clamped a hand on the back of her neck and his arm around her waist after hearing it from her lips.
“Scars like that, he hit you so bad, he made you bleed,” he gritted.
“He went to prison for it, Hutch. Lost his own kids. His wife was messed up too. Stood by his side. So her folks, who were not okay with any of this, because he did it to their grandchildren as well, took her to court for custody. And they won. They were good people. They kept in touch. Still do. So do my cousins. They got on with it. There were supervised visits and stuff like that, but they never went back to them.”
She paused for breath.
Then kept talking.
“But I never saw either of them again. Though, I know he’s still preaching. She’s still his sycophant. They didn’t have more children, and he had a record and a reputation, so he doesn’t have a very large flock. But they weren’t invited to graduations or weddings. Maybe they don’t care. But I bet they do. They paid. And now they have grandbabies and they aren’t in their lives. So they’ll keep paying.”
This was all said, not with no emotion, but it was still matter-of-factly.
“Therapy teach you to be this adjusted?” he asked.
She smiled. “Mostly, yeah.”
“What’s the other part that’s not ‘mostly?’” he pressed.
She blew out a breath and played with the lock of hair that always curled around his ear.
She also answered.
“I don’t want to give the man credit, that shifty guy who turned out to be my father, but he had this absurd idea that humans are animals, which of course we are, and animals survive in the wild, or they don’t. So my early years, with almost zero parental or even adult input, I learned to survive. And when I say that we, I mean the other kids there and I ran entirely amuck. We ate whatever we wanted. We took baths when someone noticed we were dirty.” Her eyes caught his. “But don’t think I was roughing it. I had a princess room in a mansion. The man was a flake, among other things, but he was loaded. There was plenty of food. Plenty of people around. I had the most expensive clothes and toys you could buy.” She grinned. “I had a Barbie dream house that was taller than me. I still miss that thing.”