by Bethany-Kris
Her older women grinned mischievously. “He swore he started it that first n-night.”
Malachi shared a glance with Gracen.
Sometimes, people just knew.
Souls found souls.
Hearts came home.
Mimi sniffled and patted at her lips with her fingertips. “Would you get me some water? I’m thirsty.”
“Of course,” Gracen rushed to say.
He moved sideways to let her pass him in the doorway, but he was content to remain there while Mimi had her moment to revel in her memories.
A few seconds after Gracen’s footsteps padded down the stairwell, the old woman glanced his way again.
“He built me steps because the bed was too high.”
Malachi smiled. “Did he?”
“Made me feel like a queen-n.”
The silence stretched on again, but there was no disputing Mimi’s wandering gaze taking in the rest of the room and the things inside. Like the dirty clothes, his and Gracen’s, in a nearby laundry basket. Or his bags piled, and opened, in the corner.
“We had our best talks there,” Mimi added, breaking the quiet stillness again. “I miss that the most.”
“I’m sorry that you lost your husband.” Malachi added quickly, “And your son.”
She didn’t respond to his sentiments.
Mimi did, however, draw in a long breath as she leveled her gaze on him. He heard her every word clearly—no stutter on the letter N, although she lingered on it hard—as if she meant for him to.
“It is the throne of her home,” the old woman said.
“Absolutely,” Malachi acknowledged with a nod, “and long live the queen.”
Mimi cracked a big grin, and cackled a hearty laugh he’d not yet heard come from such a small and frail woman. “Better n-not forget it, mister.”
*
Mimi left to return to Valleyview Manor long before the housewarming party ended, and Malachi had lingered outside with Gracen as she said a long goodbye. With the added promise of coming tomorrow for her regular visit as usual.
The rest of the guests began to trickle out after that with the last handful of people waiting until darkness completely cloaked the property. Malachi and Delaney worked on the clean up and storage of leftover food while Gracen said those goodbyes, too.
“Remind me to thank Margot again for getting her dad to bring a load of wood,” Malachi groaned out as he climbed into bed.
Right in the middle.
Once his head hit the pillow, Malachi could have died. Sleep-wise, anyway. The end of the party wasn’t actually the end because her friend’s father came in with a half a cord of wood that Malachi unloaded and piled into the cellar with the wood furnace in less than fifteen minutes.
Gracen’s hands were too soft for that kind of work.
“It’s warm tonight,” he mumbled between the crack of pillows where his face had landed, “so it was worth it.”
He heard Gracen’s muffled laughter fill the bedroom, and then felt the shift on the bed as she climbed on top. Silk-soft palms found the rock-hard muscles of his back, and for ten glorious minutes, that woman did the best things to his body.
Malachi let her know how good it felt, too, resituating his head on the pillows as she straddled his hips and really dug into his muscles. He hissed at a particularly sensitive shoulder blade muscle that always gave him trouble. “God, yeah, harder there ...”
Gracen snickered. “You’re sounding a little like me, but something about this is different.”
Even he chuckled at that.
“Construction isn’t good for the back,” he muttered.
Gracen hummed behind him. “I guess not. Who was rubbing this out for you before?”
“I grit my teeth through it.”
Pain was part of the game. At least, he knew what his body could do.
“I bet,” she returned, the smile in her voice clear.
Without warning, Malachi flipped over to his back, causing Gracen to fall over the top of his body as she struggled to keep her balance. In only his night boxers, he enjoyed her warm skin pressed against his. He ended her light laughter by cupping her face and pulling her higher for a kiss. Not a soft and sweet one. His tongue found hers willing to tangle and ready for a taste.
He found rum and mint on her breath.
She’d brushed her teeth, but then made tea.
Someone was trying a new thing.
The gray cotton of her panties and matching sports bra did little to hide her dampness between her legs when their hips rocked together or how her nipples hardened to peaks crushed to his chest. It wasn’t until his lungs began to ache that he finally broke the sweeps of their lips.
He pushed the loose flyaway strands of her blonde hair back from her face. The rest, up high in a messy bun that still looked good even for bed, blocked the glare of the hanging light fixture over the bed. All he could see was her.
Beautiful eyes colored like the sea.
A smile so sweet.
There was not one part of her face—and he’d studied it hard—that he couldn’t picture when he closed his eyes. This girl was in his dreams.
“I love you,” she whispered.
His thumbs stilled against her hairline having given up on the flyaway hair that wouldn’t lay flat no matter what he did. It hadn’t been very long since the two shared those three little words, but he noticed that he often had to say it first. Not that Malachi minded; he understood she was still trying to figure out how to trust those words again and not be frightened of them.
“I love you, too, babe.”
Gracen grinned bigger, but it melted into something sinful when her hands slid down his stomach as she pushed up to sit. Their lips may have stopped connecting for a moment, but their bodies had not. She shifted enough to fish his hard cock out from the slit in the front of his boxers. It took minor maneuvering of her hips for her to fit his cock under the gusset of her panties.
She fell back on him again, after that.
There was something wickedly divine about his bare dick sliding inside her panties with every rock of their hips. Between her fleshy pussy lips where her hot slickness waited to juice his cock with every stroke. Her bottom lip started to quiver with her trembling breaths, the firmer their bodies moved together and even her fingernails found purchase in the muscles of his arms.
That bite of pain was perfect, though.
It kept him under control.
“Oh, God,” she breathed, her hips shifting a little faster on him, “I think I could come like this.”
“You should—do it for me so I’m good and wet, babe,” he urged.
He fisted two handfuls of her ass, hoping to Jesus he left fingerprints behind to admire in the morning when he pulled her into the shower, and dragged her harder and faster along the shaft of his cock. Her hips jerked, and she let out one of those broken, high cries he loved so much when her release finally came.
Gracen was still panting, and laughing at his impatience, into the duvet when he flipped them over on the bed again. On her knees with her ass high, he didn’t even bother to take her sopping panties off. He liked the way they look bunched up against her ass cheek and soaking wet from their fun.
“Oh, fuck,” she praised when he slid in, deep and slow.
Malachi wanted to feel every tight inch. All the way to his balls. She’d asked the night before if they could stop reaching for condoms—weren’t they both adults? Didn’t they know what they were trying to do here together?
He’d never fucked raw.
He wouldn’t fuck Gracen any other way, now.
Giving her creamy ass a smack to add to the pinkness already blooming there, Malachi asked, “You want it hard?”
She shook her ass against him, that pussy filled with his cock, and clapped her hands in a steady beat. “Don’t fucking stop.”
That meant she wanted her face shoved into the mattress and her ass warm from the sting from start to finish. Malach
i could do that; he’d give this woman anything she wanted.
*
“Would you be mad if I got you one more thing for your housewarming?” Malachi asked Gracen as she spooned him from the front.
Even with his lips against her throat, he could feel the way her lips pouted a bit. “What did you do?”
“Found something in town.”
Gracen laughed loudly, causing a quiet meow from the other side of the darkened bedroom. “What?”
“Yeah, when I went in for gas this morning.”
She didn’t question him further, but frankly, Malachi didn’t give her the chance, either. He rolled out of bed and ignored the cold hardwood floors pressing against the soles of his feet as he crossed the room. Quickly enough, he found the gift bag he’d shoved into one of his duffels.
“I meant to give it to you earlier,” he told Gracen as she flicked on the one lamp currently in the house.
The light illuminated enough of the space from her side of the bed that he could make a trek over there without stubbing his toe on the rock-solid bed frame. A feat, really. He’d not been so lucky the night before.
“What is it?” Gracen asked, sitting up against her pillows.
He kicked through one or two on the floor.
“Something I saw in the window passing by a shop near the gas station. Here,” he said, handing the bag over before taking a seat on the side of the bed. “Take a peek and tell me what you think.”
Malachi tried not to be nervous as Gracen pulled away the bit of tissue paper in the bag, all the while keeping her gaze locked on his. She only looked away when she pulled the footlong board, stained natural wood with a loop of leather cord to hang it, to absorb the design on the front.
A house and winding drive, shadowed silhouettes against the backdrop in painted back, sat above the cursive words: Take the long road home and appreciate the view.
Gracen’s head lifted with joy. “Oh, that’s really cute, and kind of perfect, too.”
His fingers found hers as she admired the decorative piece from all angles. “I’m glad the road brought me home to you.”
Epilogue
Three weeks later ...
“Wanna play Hide and Seek in the wheat field?” Gracen asked, grinning as she leaned in beyond the barn’s open door.
Malachi snorted loudly. “There’s no wheat in the field.”
Not growing from the ground, anyway. The farmer came through with tractors to cut it down and bail the wheat up. Big bales lined the rolling hills surrounding Gracen’s house. A perfect place to play a game of Hide and Seek.
“The bales,” she explained with a wave.
Meanwhile, Mister Kitty bounced around Gracen’s ankles before entering the barn to sniff out Malachi who had been working on cleaning out the loft. It meant a lot of hauling of old, and somewhat useless, items which had been stored high in the barn that the previous owner left behind.
He did find a few things that had once belonged to her father. Planers and other tools. Even a few cans of very old stain.
More than a few people had asked Gracen if she was concerned about moving in with a man that didn't currently have a job and hadn’t been in her life long—she’d opted to stop speaking to those people for a little while.
Sometimes, everybody needed a break.
What should she worry about?
Gracen had never been happier.
“Aren’t we a little old for Hide and Seek?” Malachi asked over his shoulder with a grin, and he used a rag to wipe clean a set of old wrenches.
Mister Kitty’s meows were a lot louder inside the barn. He didn’t stop the cries until Malachi bent down to pick up the cat and place him atop the work bench along the side wall of the barn where he liked to lay and watch one of his humans work. They introduced him to the outdoors after a week of having the kitten home, but only when they would both be within yelling distance. Not that it mattered. Mister Kitty never went far from the two of them if he could help it.
Gracen pouted as she inched further into the barn, fully enjoying the way her man eye-fucked the curves of her body in the new sweater dress she’d picked up from the falls the day before. It clung to the right spots in the best of ways, and she couldn't turn in the mirror and find a single angle that didn’t scream sexy. She topped off the dress with a cute pair of black suede heeled booties. Delaney, still feeling the effects of Gracen moving out, needed extra time and attention when both women could afford it. Shopping was one of the ways they did that together.
“You like?” she asked.
He cocked an eyebrow, his stare lingering on the slit in the skirt and then the low dip at her cleavage. “Very much. You want to play Hide and Seek in the field in that?”
“Not really. I just wondered—”
“Girl, if you want me to play tag with you in that field after the farmer sprays it with manure in the spring, I will. As long as you wear that dress. Or one like it.”
Gracen cringed. “We’re definitely not doing that.”
Malachi chuckled as she joined him at the bench. “I’m just saying.”
“I do think we should play Hide and Seek at least once before they come and take the bales away. Maybe get some pictures.”
“Of what?”
Gracen shrugged. “Anything.”
Them.
Him.
The land.
She had the greatest urge to capture every moment that she could even if all she planned to do was fill as many photo albums as she could. So be it. They’d have something to look back on when a different time came, and these ones felt like distant memories.
“Mister Kitty on top of a hay bale,” she offered, grinning.
The kitten in question had perched himself atop an old, rusty paint can. Proudly so.
Malachi’s amusement echoed in the barn before he quieted to lean over to steal a kiss from her lips. “Later? I’m waiting for a call.”
The sun was barely up, but she found him at this exact place every morning, waiting on the same phone call.
Alora’s good morning.
“I meant later,” she agreed. “After work—then we can catch the sunset. You still want coffee?”
Pushing away from the bench, Gracen headed for the barn’s doorway. Over her shoulder, she found Malachi thoroughly enjoying the sight of her walking away, too.
“Love the dress, babe,” he murmured.
And she loved this man.
“Coffee?” she reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah. That, too.”
Gracen took the walk back to the house slowly, giving herself the chance to properly enjoy the autumn morning before she had to head off to work. In the kitchen, she found her phone ringing on the counter.
And three missed calls.
All from the same person, too.
“Delaney, what’s wrong?” Gracen asked as soon as she picked up the phone.
She didn't have any reason to think Delaney’s rapid calls were the cause of anything bad, but a pit settled deep in the bottom of her stomach the very moment she picked up the phone.
Delaney’s gasped sob crackled over the phone. “It’s burning, Gracen!”
Did her heart stop?
It felt like it.
“What’s burning?” Gracen demanded, her desperation clear.
“The Haus—it’s burning! The firetrucks, they’re ... Oh, my God, I don’t understand what happened. Everything was fine when we closed it last night. What would do that?”
Or who?
“It’s not burning, right?” Gracen asked, refusing to believe her best friend. Delaney didn't reply, prompting Gracen to ask again, “Right?”
“I don’t know why this is happening,” Delaney whispered back. “I’m sorry.”
Gracen didn’t hear the phone clatter to the floor after falling from her trembling hand, but Malachi had heard her scream all the way inside the barn. He would swear on it later that he’d felt it in his own chest as her heart broke in those
few seconds when time stood still, too.
Apparently, the universe wasn’t done with Gracen yet.
She had more pain to get through.
More growing to do.
*
Loving These Valley days and want more?
Book two is coming soon, but until then, check out bethanykris.com for more BK reads!
About the Author
The author of too many novels to count, Bethany-Kris is a Canadian, lover of much, and mother to four sons, a glaring of cats, and a pack of dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time.
Find where to follow BK and keep up to date with all her book news at www.bethanykris.com.
Other Books
The Beast of Moscow Saga
The Beast of Moscow
The Lies Between Lovers
The Beauty Who Loved Him
The Breath Before Forever
The Darkest Lies Trilogy
The Agreement
The Promise
The Marriage
After Another Trilogy
One Step After Another
One Breath After Another
One Second After Another
Boykov Bratva
Fractured Ties
Essence of Fear
The Guzzi Legacy
Corrado
Alessio
Chris
Beni
Bene
Marcus
The Firsts: A Guzzi Legacy Companion Novel
The Guzzi Legacy: Vol 1
The Guzzi Legacy: Vol 2
Renzo + Lucia
Privilege
Harbor
Contempt
Forever
Cusp
Renzo + Lucia: The Complete Trilogy
Andino + Haven
Duty
Vow
One Last Time
Andino + Haven: The Complete Duet
John + Siena
Loyalty
Disgrace
John + Siena: The Complete Duet
John + Siena: Extended