Bonus Chapter: The Fifth Morning
An exclusive bonus scene from The Couple Next Door Has Benefits
by Isla Wilde
⚠️ Spoiler warning: read the novel first.
⚠️ Content note: graphic, explicit FFMM sexual content. Every pairing. Every combination. 5,000+ words. Too hot for retail.
The Fifth Morning
The pavilion had walls but no curtains.
Sabine had pointed this out on the first day of construction, standing in the middle of the concrete slab with her espresso and her reading glasses and her measuring tape, evaluating the framing the way she evaluated gallery installations: structurally, aesthetically, with the absolute confidence of a woman who knew what belonged where.
“The glass arrives in two weeks,” Hollis had said. “The glazing team installs over three days. Then we wait for sealant cure.”
“And curtains?”
“After the interior finish. Six weeks minimum.”
Sabine had looked at the open steel frame and said: “Then we christen it before the curtains arrive.”
That had been a month ago. The glass was in now. The walls were transparent. The curtains were still six weeks out. Which meant that what happened on the fifth morning happened in full view of the lake, the trees, the heron on the dock, and any kayaker who happened to paddle past at seven-forty-three AM on a Saturday in October.
None of them cared.
It started with Mara’s camera. She’d been photographing the construction for weeks. This morning, the dawn shot included Toren — shirtless, measuring where the cabinets would go, jeans hung low on his hips, sawdust in his beard, the morning light turning him into something that belonged in Sabine’s gallery.
“You’re staring,” Toren said without turning around.
“I wasn’t talking about the building.”
He crossed the concrete floor, took the camera from her hands, set it on the sawhorse workbench, and kissed her. He lifted her onto the workbench. His hand slid up her bare thigh beneath the flannel shirt she’d stolen from him. His scarred fingers found nothing underneath.
“You’re not wearing anything under my shirt,” he observed.
“We’re in a glass building with no curtains. Isn’t it perfect?”
His thumb found her clit. Two fingers slid inside her. “I want you inside me,” she said. “Right here. On this bench. In the building you’re helping my husband build for us.”
“Then stop reaching for your back pocket and fuck me.”
He laughed. Undid his jeans. Mara reached for his cock — hard, thick, proportional to the rest of him — and stroked him. He pushed inside her in one long, slow stroke that drew a moan from both of them. The stretch was significant and perfect.
He moved. Slow, deep strokes that used his full length. “Harder,” she whispered. “I want to be loud.” He gave her harder. His thumb found her clit again, pressing in counterpoint to his thrusts, and the dual stimulation cracked her open. She came with her face against his neck and her legs locked around his waist.
He didn’t come. “Saving,” he said. “For everyone.”
Sabine arrived in her dark silk robe. She surveyed the scene — Mara on the workbench, flushed and gasping, Toren between her legs with his cock glistening with Mara’s arousal. “Starting without me,” she said. She kissed Mara with commanding precision, then untied her robe and let it fall. Beneath it, nothing.
Toren laid moving blankets across the concrete. Hollis appeared in the doorway. They undressed him together — Sabine taking his shirt, Mara undoing his jeans from behind, Toren unbuckling his belt. Four people, bare in morning light.
“Every pairing,” Sabine said. “Every combination. Everyone is inside the frame.”
Sabine and Mara. Sabine lay back and Mara settled between her thighs. She kissed down Sabine’s body — throat, breasts, stomach, inner thighs. She spread Sabine open and lowered her mouth, the taste of her producing a moan that vibrated against Sabine’s clit. “There. Right there. Don’t stop.” Mara worked her with broad flat strokes alternating with focused pressure, two fingers sliding inside to curve against the spot that made Sabine’s thighs tremble. Sabine came with her back arched off the blankets and a cry that echoed through the glass pavilion, her body clenching around Mara’s fingers in rhythmic waves. “Beautiful,” Mara said. “That’s the woman I love.”
Hollis and Toren. Toren leaned against the steel column. Hollis pressed him against it and kissed him with fierce hunger. “I want to taste you,” Hollis said without hesitation. He dropped to his knees, wrapped his hand around the base, and took Toren into his mouth. The sound Toren made — a deep, broken groan that vibrated through the steel column — was worth every year of silence. He worked him with focus, learning the weight and texture, the way Toren’s thigh muscles locked when Hollis took him deeper. “You’re so good. You’re everything. You’re every morning I’ve been waiting for.” Toren pulled him up, turned him against the column, his scarred hand wrapping around Hollis’s cock from behind. “Tell me I’m good,” Hollis said. Without shame. “Come for me. Let everyone hear you.” Hollis came with a sound that filled the glass pavilion like a bell struck in a cathedral.
Mara and Toren. They found each other laughing, because they always laughed. He picked her up like she weighed nothing and she grabbed his beard. He pushed inside her and they found a rhythm that was fast and deep, punctuated by joy. “You’re literally fucking me on a construction site at sunrise.” “You’re the one not wearing underwear to a building inspection.” He found the angle that made her vision white out and held it. She came with a shriek of laughter and pleasure so tangled the threads were indistinguishable. He came inside her with a groan that vibrated through the concrete. “Your beard has concrete dust in it.” “We’re disgusting.” “We’re magnificent.”
Hollis and Sabine. She sat on the plywood counter and pulled him between her legs. Eye to eye, green to green. “You built us a house.” “I built us a home.” “Those are different sentences.” “I know. The second one is better.” He entered her slowly, reading her face. “Deeper. There. Stay there. Now move.” He moved with architectural precision. Her nails raked down his back and the sounds she made were devastatingly honest — the sounds of Sabine without the gallery. “I love you,” he said against her mouth, inside her body. “I love your brain and your fear and your garnet ring.” She came with his name and tears on her cheeks. “I love you too. Architecturally. Structurally. In the load-bearing way.”
All four. On the blankets in the center of the pavilion, the morning sun flooding everything with gold. “Everyone together. No pairs. No structure. Just us.” They converged. Mara straddled Toren, sinking onto him with a low moan. Sabine knelt behind Mara, her mouth on her neck, hands cupping her breasts. Hollis settled behind Toren, completing the circuit.
The configuration shifted. Rotated. Toren behind Hollis while Mara kissed Hollis’s mouth and Sabine’s fingers moved between Mara’s thighs. Sabine beneath Mara while Hollis entered Sabine from behind and Toren’s hands held both women steady. Every combination finding its moment. A four-part chord sustained through every key they knew.
They came in overlapping waves. Mara first — clenching around Toren, crying out into Sabine’s mouth. Hollis second — buried in Sabine, Toren’s hand on his neck, the word “good” whispered like a benediction. Toren third — inside Mara, his groan vibrating through the concrete. Sabine last — always the final note — with Mara’s fingers inside her and Hollis’s mouth on her breast and Toren’s hand spanning her hip, a sound that was small and quiet and contained three names spoken as a single word.
After. Four bodies on moving blankets on a concrete floor in a glass building with no curtains. The sun fully above the trees. Hiding nothing.
“We need to get up,” Hollis said. He didn’t move. “The concrete is cold,” Sabine said. She didn’t move. “My beard has dust in it,” Toren said. He didn’t move. “Everything hurts and I’m starving and I think I have a splinter from the sawhorse,” Mara said. “This is the best morning of my life.”
Nobody moved.
Mara reached for her camera. Looked through the viewfinder at the three people lying around her. Toren’s hand on Sabine’s hip, his wedding ring catching the light. Hollis’s face relaxed and unguarded. Sabine’s garnet ring resting on Mara’s thigh, her green eyes looking directly into the lens — not composed, not curated. Just present. Just seen. Just home.
Mara pressed the shutter.
This time, she took the photograph.
She’d earned it. They all had.
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