Summer's Lease

Chapter 2-2

John turned the key in the lock but found the door was already unlocked. He could have sworn he’d locked it on leaving—he never forgot stuff like that—but then he’d never imagined a huge bear before. Shaking his head, he pushed the door open and almost fell over something on the floor. Looking down, he saw that the cupboard under the sink was open and its contents strewn about. And there was water on the floor, too.

“They have strange burglars in Cornwall,” he muttered, not sure if he should call the police or…

He heard a thump from upstairs. Remembering his phone and camera were by his bed, not to mention his wallet, John inched his way toward the stairs, determined to tackle the burglars himself.

“Get the f**k on, you motherfucker!” This was followed by several scraping sounds.

John paused, his foot on the bottom stair.

“That’s it, you bastard,” came the same voice.

What the hell was going on up there? John went to investigate, but froze when the next stair creaked loudly. The scraping from upstairs stopped. The silence was so profound, John could hear the blood pumping in his ears.

After what felt like an eternity, a deep voice announced, “It’s okay, I’m just fixing your leaky faucet.”

Relief swept through John. Yes, of course. That explained the mess in the kitchen. He felt foolish for allowing his brain to conjure up something more sinister. He started to ascend the stairs once again.

“Thanks. That was quick, I only told Mor…” The rest of John’s words died in his throat.

There, kneeling in front of the bath, was a huge man naked to the waist, his back rippling with bulging muscles.

“Should be through in a minute, but as you can see,” the man gestured with a massive arm, “I had a bit of an accident.”

“Uh, that’s okay.” John felt his d**k stirring to life.

A quick twist of a spanner, and the guy got to his feet, back still to John, whose mouth fell open. The guy was a giant.

“There, all done,” the man said, turning around and inhaling.

John looked up and up. If the guy’s back was amazing, it was nothing to his broad chest, covered in masses of brown fur. The chest gave way to the broadest shoulders John had ever seen on anyone outside of a Mr Universe competition, and he’d studied the models in those many times. Thick neck, brown beard, strong and large straight nose, and a pair of eyes of the most piercing blue. The man’s forehead was smudged with blood.

“Hi,” John said, trying not to squeak. “You’ve hurt yourself.”

“No, I’m fine.” The guy swapped the spanner to his left hand and held the right out to shake. “Mitch Benjamin.”

John, who was no weakling at just over six feet and weighing in at one hundred and ten kilograms, felt puny in comparison to this giant, whose hand seemed to swallow John’s. But despite Mitch’s size, John was amazed at how gentle his touch was.

On contact, lust was transformed into serenity; there was no other word for it.

“Let me clean this mess up, then I’ll get out of your hair,” the vision of masculinity said, the sound seeming to come from deep within his chest.

It will take hours to clean up, I hope, John’s mind declared. Out loud he said, “It’s okay, I can do it, shouldn’t take long.” What? his mind screamed. Why’d you say that?

“If you’re sure.” The guy looked relieved.

“No problem.” John’s devious mind quickly scanned the room to see if there were any other small repair jobs that needed attending to, to keep Mitch longer.

As a sop to his more lascivious side, John asked, “Would you like a cup of tea or…” He remembered he didn’t have any milk.

“It’s okay,” Mitch said, withdrawing his hand. “I need to get moving.”

John hadn’t realised they’d still been holding hands. The loss of contact left him feeling curiously bereft. Shaking it off as the lingering effects of the sleeping pills, he asked, “Hope you didn’t have to come far.”

Mitch paused in the packing of his tools and smiled over at John, the smile doing a lot to banish his empty feeling. “I live over in number three.”

“Oh.” There wasn’t much else John could think to say. Then he again noticed the gash on the man’s forehead and it was still bleeding. “Oh, you’re bleeding, hang on, I’ll get the first aid kit out of my car and—”

“It’s okay, it’s not too bad.” Mitch touched his forehead, his fingers coming away stained red.

“Won’t take me a minute to get a sticking plaster. Probably should put some antiseptic ointment on the cut, too.” John hated to see the big guy hurt.

“It’s okay. I’m a quick healer.” Mitch closed the lid of his toolbox and straightened, John marvelling once again at the man’s height.

“How tall are you?” John’s mouth asked before his brain could censor the question.

“Six eight.”

“Wow.”

John managed to resist asking the follow-up question about how much the guy weighed.

They walked downstairs, Mitch leading the way, John’s eyes feasting on the acres of flesh and muscle. This was especially attractive when Mitch got down on the floor to turn the stopcock back on under the sink.

At the back door, Mitch offered, again, to clean up the mess on the kitchen floor, but John again refused.

“If you leave the doors and windows open it should dry out the ceiling pretty quickly.”

John nodded and was about to ask Mitch if he thought that would be safe given that there’d been a bear in his garden the night before, but managed to stop himself at the last second. There hadn’t been a bear.

“Well, thank you again,” John said, holding out his hand. He just had to touch the man one more time.

Mitch transferred his enormous toolbox into his left hand and they shook. Again John felt a wave of warmth.

Mitch let John’s hand go. He looked uncomfortable. Scuffing an enormous boot on the mat, he swapped the toolbox back into his right hand. Not meeting John’s gaze, he mumbled, “Like I said, you shouldn’t have any more trouble with that faucet now.”

“No, thanks.” John knew he couldn’t prolong the encounter any longer, so he bade the handsome hunk farewell, reminding him he needed to do something about the cut on his forehead.