The Long Road Home (These Valley Days #1) Read Online Bethany Kris

Categories Genre: Action, Contemporary, Erotic, Romance, Suspense Tags Authors: Series: These Valley Days Series by Bethany Kris
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Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
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Excitement, maybe.

Not that anticipation could fully describe the pit of need pooling deep and widening her thighs with the help of the gentlest push from Malachi’s fingers. In the face of her silent willingness, he stepped in between her open legs, asking, “I’m gonna need to know if we’re doing the kissing thing or not, Gracen.”

It was almost impossible to tell him no when all she needed to do was tip her head up when he leaned down.

“If you close the garage door first,” she managed to say with her tone pitched slightly higher. He made it hard to breathe this close, even if the last thing she wanted him to do was leave. The garage had a sliding door to shut, not that she’d ever seen it closed more than a quarter of the way down before. There was always time for a first.

Malachi only whistled while he studied her.

It felt different now.

How did the saying go?

Ah, yeah. Gracen remembered. The best way to get over someone was getting under someone else.

“Kiss first,” Malachi offered like he was bargaining her request, “then the door, and we go from there, hmm?”

Gracen could work with that. “Okay, kiss—”

She didn’t get the first part out.

His mouth was hungry when it found hers. His kiss, rough enough to make her breathless. She’d forgotten what that was like, and how much she enjoyed it. She tasted the remnants of his beer on the tip of his tongue while it tangled with hers. Her thighs tightened to his legs to keep him close while one of his large hands rested across her collarbones while his pointer finger pressed under her chin to keep her mouth available to his demanding kiss.

It was funny that Malachi had said she was something interesting to distract himself with when everything about her life seemed as boring as the town she had never been able to leave. In fact, he was the most interesting thing to have walked in it lately.

Not that he needed to know as much.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” she breathed against his slower pecks and playful nips to her lips that were hard to resist responding with her own. Gracen hadn’t forgotten the deal. Slapping her palms to his chest, she pushed Malachi back a step. His groan and those heavy-lidded blue eyes of his locking in on her didn’t stop Gracen from pointing over his shoulder to say weakly, “Door next.”

She needed to maintain some dignity even if he made her want to question her own self-respect and boundaries at that very moment. He’d have to deal with it; Gracen unfortunately was.

Chapter 7

Malachi Anders had a million things to do. His life had fallen apart the second he rode back into this shithole of a town, and maybe he didn’t have anything except himself to blame for it doing so, but his shitty penchant for self-awareness meant the little voice inside his head wouldn’t shut up whenever it knew he was doing something stupid. There were a million other things to keep him occupied that didn’t include knockin’ boots with a pretty blonde who had been the feature of morning showers for the last handful of days. Only in his mind’s eye, of course.

See, he had a problem.

With women, that was.

Oh, women weren’t the problem. Technically. He loved everything about women, and what came along with desiring one. Too much for his own good, too. The chase, the thrill; even the fall. Yet, his flimsy relationships never survived beyond the initial crash and burn. He fell in lust, rarely in love. From his first kiss at twelve until the disastrous night of his twenty-first birthday, Malachi devoted nearly every waking hour to chasing the next woman when he had been able. Only to realize time and time again that whenever he found himself staring down a mountain of trouble, it was almost always because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

The girl with the cop father; the warden’s pet; even the Major General’s daughter.

Malachi had a track record.

The last one didn’t end well. After that shit show, he put real effort in not fucking up just to prove that he wasn’t a fuck up. Not that he had anyone left to prove it to—except yourself. There was that, too.

Three years of a self-imposed celibacy stared him in the face and laughed in the form of Gracen Briggs in the tiniest yoga shorts. Did she realize her ass cheeks peeked out when she bent over? He didn’t think so, and since he had zero plans of sticking around this town for longer than he absolutely had to, what could go wrong? Malachi couldn’t find a reason to say no, just like he hadn’t been able to refuse the business card Gracen had handed him with her number despite knowing taking it couldn’t go anywhere.


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