The Worktable — Bonus Chapter

An exclusive bonus scene from I’d Hit That, Obviously
by Aurora North

⚠️ This bonus scene takes place after the events of I’d Hit That, Obviously. Contains explicit sexual content. Reader discretion advised.

Lucy’s studio had a new worktable.

This was, apparently, a significant event. She’d been talking about it for three weeks—the dimensions, the butcher-block surface, the custom height she’d specified so she wouldn’t strain her lower back during twelve-hour installation days. She’d spent forty-five minutes on the phone with the carpenter discussing wood grain the way most people discussed religion: with absolute conviction and zero tolerance for dissent.

Paige had helped her move it in on Saturday morning while I was coaching clients, and Lucy had sent me seven photos of it from different angles, each one captioned with increasingly reverent commentary.

Look at this grain pattern.

She’s perfect.

I’m going to build masterpieces on this table.

Kate I think I’m in love.

I’d responded: Should I be jealous of a table?

Lucy: Depends. Can you support 200 pounds of floral infrastructure without wobbling?

Me: I can support YOU without wobbling and you’re worth more than 200 pounds of floral infrastructure.

Lucy: Smoother than your eggs. And that’s not saying much.

I’d stared at the third photo for a long time. Not at the grain pattern. At the ruler visible on the table’s surface—a metal yardstick Lucy used for measuring ribbon lengths. I’d zoomed in. Thirty-six inches. The table’s height was thirty-six inches.

I knew Lucy’s counter height—thirty-four inches, standard residential. I knew because I’d been fucked against that counter enough times to have the measurement imprinted in my hip bones. Thirty-six inches was two inches higher. Which meant if Lucy sat on this table and I stood between her legs, her face would be level with my collarbone. My hands would be at the perfect height to grip her thighs. Her legs could wrap around my waist without either of us straining.

And if I knelt…

I’d been thinking about kneeling for three weeks.

It was a Tuesday evening in April. Seven months since the fundraiser speech. I let myself in with the key she’d given me two months ago. Brass, on a small ring with a tiny flower charm. She’d handed it to me on a Wednesday morning over coffee and said, simply, “In pen.”

I was going to do my best work on that table tonight.

She was bent over the new table, wire cutters in hand, glasses on, hair clipped up, jasmine tucked behind her ear. I set the takeout on the counter. Leaned against the doorframe. Watched her hands—the calluses, the thorn scars, the short clean nails, the specific grip on the wire cutters that I knew intimately because those hands had gripped my hips, my hair, the headboard, the back of my neck with the same controlled force.

She glanced up. “You brought the good wine on a Tuesday.”

“And you’re leaning in the doorframe with that look on your face. The same look you had before the greenhouse dinner. And before the gym office incident. And before the morning you made me come against this counter while I was on the phone with Mrs. Whitfield about hydrangea availability.”

“That was a scheduling conflict. I was multitasking.”

“You were committing a federal crime against my professional composure.”

“You booked the job.”

“I booked the job while your hand was in my underwear. My closing rate under duress is apparently excellent.”

“I have a proposal. You have a new worktable. It’s thirty-six inches tall.”

“I measured it. From the third photo. The ruler was visible. I zoomed in. And cross-referenced with your counter height, which I know from extensive personal experience is thirty-four inches.”

“Kate Rourke. Are you telling me you’ve been doing trigonometry about my worktable for three weeks?”

“The conclusion is that this table is exactly the right height for me to eat you out while you sit on it, and I would like to conduct a practical test. For quality assurance.”

She set down the wire cutters.

“The surface is butcher block. It doesn’t scratch easily.”

“The legs are reinforced steel. Weight capacity is three hundred pounds.”

“If you damage my table, I will build a floral arrangement around your corpse and charge your estate for materials.”

“Close the blinds.”

I closed the blinds. When I turned around, Lucy had removed her glasses and pulled the clip from her hair. It fell around her shoulders in dark waves. She was sitting on the edge of the worktable, legs dangling, hands flat on the butcher block behind her.

She looked like an invitation written in a language I was fluent in.

I kissed her. Not soft—we were past the point where kisses started soft. My tongue was in her mouth before she finished her exhale. Her legs wrapped around my waist. I pulled her top over her head. She pulled mine. We unhooked each other’s bras with the efficient coordination of two women who’d been undressing each other long enough to have the choreography memorized.

Her breasts were beautiful. I cupped them. Ran my thumbs across her nipples and watched them harden under my touch. I took one in my mouth and sucked—not gently, because Lucy didn’t like gentle when she was already wound up—and she made a sound that went straight between my legs.

“Tell me what you want,” I said against her skin.

“I want your mouth between my legs on this table. And I want to be so loud that the bricks remember.”

I unbuttoned her jeans. She lifted her hips and I pulled everything off in one motion. She was naked on the worktable. Bare skin on butcher block, hair spilling behind her.

I dropped to my knees.

The concrete floor was cold. I didn’t care. I pressed my mouth to the inside of her left knee. Kissed up. Slowly. Each inch warmer than the last. Her hand found the back of my head. Her thighs were already trembling. I could see her—the evidence of her arousal glistening, her body ready before I’d touched her where she needed.

“Kate. Please.”

I pressed my mouth against her.

The sound she made—a low, guttural, full-body moan that vibrated through the table—was worth three weeks of measurement fantasies. She was soaked. The taste of her flooded my mouth and I groaned against her because seven months of this and I was still greedy for it.

I used my tongue. Flat, broad strokes first. I licked her from bottom to top in long, deliberate passes. Then I focused—the specific spot, slightly left of center, the precise location I’d mapped months ago. I circled it with the tip of my tongue. Lucy’s hand tightened in my hair. Her hips jerked.

“There. Right there—don’t move—”

I didn’t move. I circled with increasing pressure, each revolution tighter, faster. Her thighs clamped around my head. Her nails pressed into my scalp.

I slid two fingers inside her. She gasped. I curled them. Found the spot—the slightly textured ridge that made her voice change registers, that made her say my name like it was the only word she knew.

“Kate—fuck—right there—don’t stop—”

I didn’t stop. I fucked her with my fingers and licked her with my tongue and I could feel her building—the tightening around my fingers, the rhythmic clench, her breathing going from ragged to desperate to completely out of control. Her hips were grinding against my face, chasing the orgasm.

She came. Hard. Her whole body locked—back arching off the table, hand fisting in my hair, thighs clamping so tight around my head that I couldn’t hear anything except the muffled, earthquake sound of Lucy Haines screaming my name in a voice that rattled the wire spools on the shelf.

I stayed with her. Gentled my tongue. Eased my fingers into slow strokes that drew out the aftershocks—pulse after pulse, each one making her twitch and gasp and grip the table edge until her knuckles went white.

She collapsed backward on the table. Boneless. Chest heaving.

“Structural integrity confirmed.”

“I can’t feel my legs.”

“Five stars. Table holds.” She propped herself on her elbows. “Your turn.”

“Get on the table, Kate.”

The command in her voice made my stomach flip. Lucy giving orders was devastating. I climbed onto the table. She unbuttoned my jeans slowly. One button. Watching my face. Her knuckles grazed the skin below my navel and I shuddered. She pulled everything off in one fluid motion.

She climbed back up. Straddled my hips. The weight of her pinned me to the surface.

“You measured my table. You walked into my studio with Thai food and a structural engineering thesis on optimal oral sex positioning.”

“That is the most unhinged, obsessive, borderline psychotic romantic gesture anyone has ever made for me.”

“You like to make me come. The thoroughness is a delivery mechanism.”

She kissed me hard. She could taste herself on my mouth—she always kissed me harder when she tasted herself. She kissed down my neck, my collarbone. She took my nipple in her mouth and bit—a sharp, precise pressure that made me cry out and grab the table edge.

“Lucy—please—your mouth—”

She settled between my legs. She looked up at me. The sight—Lucy Haines between my thighs, her mouth an inch from where I needed it, her dark hair spilling across my legs, her eyes locked on mine—was a religious experience.

“I want your tongue on my clit and your fingers inside me and I want you to not stop until I can’t remember my own name.”

“Specific.”

“I’ve learned from the best.”

She put her mouth on me and I stopped being a person and became a sensation.

She knew that I liked it slow at first. She knew that I liked it faster once I was close—tight circles on the left side, not dead center, with pressure that increased incrementally. She knew that I liked her fingers inside me while her tongue worked—two, curled forward, moving in counterpoint so the sensations layered and built.

She slid her fingers inside me—two, deep, curling on the upstroke—and I made a sound that echoed off the brick walls.

“Lucy—fuck—right there—don’t change anything—”

It hit me like a wall. My back arched off the butcher block. The orgasm rolled through me in waves—deep, full-body—and I was loud. Louder than the gym office, louder than the greenhouse. My voice filled the studio, bounced off the brick, rattled the windows.

She climbed back up my body. Lay on top of me. We held on.

“The table held.”

“Load-bearing capacity verified under operational conditions.”

“Hey, Luce? Remember the night you sat on this floor and cried?”

“I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry you had to choose yourself because I wasn’t brave enough to choose you. But I’m glad you did. Because the Lucy who chose herself—the one who set the boundary, who said no—she’s the Lucy I get to love. Not the patient one. Not the easygoing one. The brave one.”

She pressed her mouth against my collarbone. I felt her smile.

“I’d hit that, obviously,” she said.

I laughed so hard I nearly rolled off the table.

“That’s going on your headstone.”

“Right under yours: She measured the table.”

The jasmine on the worktable smelled like spring. Like beginnings. Like the opposite of waiting.

Like home.

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