Bethany Kris – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Bethany Kris – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com Fri, 16 Dec 2022 07:44:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.books2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Bethany Kris – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com 32 32 Waliz (The Hallans #2) Read Online Bethany-Kris http://www.books2020.com/waliz-the-hallans-2-read-online-bethany-kris Thu, 10 Nov 2022 23:01:53 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/waliz-the-hallans-2-read-online-bethany-kris Genre: Alien, Dystopia, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Insta-Love, Romance Authors: Bethany Kris Series: The Hallans Series by Bethany-Kris
Advertisement

Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77692 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 388(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >82

Kings never die but living forever or finding his mate on a doomed planet is the last thing on Halun’s mind as he wages war against the humans of Earth.

With an altar of heads on spikes and a throne of melted weapons outside his camp, not even the sight of it is enough to quell the fire in Halun’s heart for what was done to his brother by the earthlings. The only reason he allows the leader of The Opposition in his presence is because he knows the females of this planet have a role to play in Hallalah’s future. But this one meeting will set the future king on a collision course with the fate he’s longed to find all his life.

Luna, the rebel daughter of The Opposition leader, has been taken hostage by The New Order and moved from one prison to another in the hopes that they can beat the answers they want out of her and avoid being found by her father. He is not who they should worry about. She can’t afford to wait for anyone to come save her, and when she sees an opportunity to escape, she uses whatever means necessary to make her way towards the exit.

She never expected to find a Hallan standing in her way.
He knows he’s found his mate.
She thinks she’s come up against her new captor.
The rules just changed.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

ONE

There’s something about the smell of war.

Something exhilarating.

Something I like.

At the gate of the compound where my army of Hallans have taken control and made camp until our duty here is done and we leave this awful planet, I stop for a moment. Long enough to catch the scent on the breeze. I breathe a good chest full in, and then exhale.

Ah.

There it is.

Suffering and the beginnings of a long restitution. This planet will pay in a river of blood. I don’t need to return to the Hallan war horns in the distance to pick up on the cries of mercy from the newest wave of human males captured in our latest attack. As I leave the destruction and death cries behind, I still want that moment to appreciate the unfurling, unpleasant truth coming undone beneath these earthlings’ feet.

If I’m being honest, I did not expect to be on Earth for this long after first arriving. Yet, those left in power after the recent demolishment of their capitol by our destroyer ships remain a stone in my shoe.

Forever on my last nerve.

And not one more step ahead of me for long.

I found the sanitorium shown to me in my brother’s memories taken from his mate. I found it within mere days of our arrival, in fact.

I found it empty.

Ransacked.

Practically useless.

Except for the records. We may be getting closer to the ability of reading the human language—the library of books we’ve amassed just from the general’s home alone is astounding—but I didn't need to understand the words inside a file to match the photograph of a mature-aged, black-haired woman to one found in General Lockett’s home.

Zarah.

That’s the name a dying male croaked under the crushing grip of my hands around his throat before I made sure his death was painless.

Mostly.

Selina Lockett’s mother will be found if it’s the last thing I do here. I won’t fail in that promise to my baby brother. No matter how determined the males in power of this planet are to use Zarah as the bait for the return of Bothaki’s mate.

I no longer listen to those demands.

Now, I simply answer them with more violence.

Apparently, I’ve not yet amassed a large enough altar of skulls for the warning to be clear to those who need to know and heed it. That, too, will happen soon enough.

My return beyond the gate after another successful mission is greeted with the bang of staffs against the ground, mirrored bows across the board of waiting guards, and a murmur of, “Waliz Halun.”

The greeting of my people, even on the day of my birth, has yet to fail in settling heavily on my shoulders. Like the hug of an old cloak that fits my contours perfectly but I can’t forget it is there.

Not for a second.

“Mecha,” I reply in kind.

A good day, I tell them. Another well done round of making our position here unbearably clear to any human within distance to hear it. And they will, everywhere.

Until I get what I want.

I make my way through the front of our compound quickly, weaving between a circle of Hallans cheering on two who go fist to fist in the middle. Their cheers and jeers for the fight only stops long enough to greet me respectfully as I pass.

The same treatment follows me deeper into the compound, beyond the open pits of cooking food and the game of golden rings another group plays under a tent. Knowing news waits for me once I get inside the laboratory we now call our headquarters, and that I’ll be able to get what I’ve been yearning for all day, I don’t pay the delicious scents or game any mind as I head by.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >82

Advertisement Zawla (The Hallans #1) Read Online Bethany-Kris http://www.books2020.com/zawla-the-hallans-1-read-online-bethany-kris Sat, 15 Oct 2022 22:38:42 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/zawla-the-hallans-1-read-online-bethany-kris Genre: Alien, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Insta-Love Authors: Bethany Kris Series: The Hallans Series by Bethany-Kris
Advertisement

Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >89

Every Hallan has their fate, but where Bothaki least expects to find his is on a planet he’s never even seen or heard of.

When a meteor storm throws his ship off course, he’s forced to land on a planet of blue and green. His hopes that the strange land is uninhabited are dashed when its people take him hostage, but his thoughts of breaking free begin to change when he finds the woman he’s waited a lifetime for just outside his cell.

Selina has always waited for opportune times to sneak into her father’s library and steal away the books she’s not permitted to read under Earth’s new law. This trip will be unlike any other. Beyond the books, she finds an imprisoned alien. She can’t take her eyes away from him, because his eyes look at her like she belongs with him.

Or to him.

*

ZAWLA is book one in THE HALLANS series featuring a HEA, and no cliffhanger. TW for violence, torture, etc.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

ONE

“You have critical fuel reserves remaining,” the computerized voice says.

I stare at the screen, with its blinking warnings of low fuel, and telling me I’m off course. I growl at it as if it’s my ship’s fault that there’s no way I can return home now. Or that a meteor shower cast me off course as I exited a black hole meant to direct me back towards my home planet hours ago.

Hallalah, the motherland, seems an impossible journey now. This pitiful galaxy with its mostly uninhabitable planets and an angry, hot sun-star sucking them closer by the passing seconds makes it hard for me to imagine how I’ll find somewhere feasible to crash land.

Never mind, live.

“Shall I set a course for the nearest planet?” the voice asks.

I close my eyes, releasing a breath, and hoping it will take my frustration with it. It doesn’t help a bit. I need to figure out what to do and fast. Once my fuel runs out, the ship will start to shut down all functions. And if I have nowhere to land when that begins to happen, I’ll be stuck floating in space until someone finds me.

If someone finds me.

That’s not a good option, either.

I only have enough supplies to last a short while aboard my ship. It could have made the trip between the Star Valley and my home planet after finishing with the crew I left behind to tie up the semantics of shipping home our trade of Emululite for freshwater. We need the minerals in the Emululite to make fuel while the Big Greens—oh, they hate when you call them that—have suffered for a millennium on a poisoned planet with water that rots.

Alas, I’d be starving and freezing by the time anyone from my planet even thought to look for me. I’m not due back for a while, and wanting to surprise my kin by returning from my post early—with good news—I hadn’t informed anyone that I was on my way back in the first place.

The only one truly surprised now is me. That I’m in this situation. That I let myself be caught so unprepared. That I’m now left with no option but to land on the next planet I come across.

But since I have no choice, I open my eyes and begin to do what needs to be done if I want to survive.

“Bring the nearest sustainable planet up on the screen.”

Stars and darkness zoom by until the screen shows me a small planet. Mostly blue with patches of green here and there. Teachings that have been drilled into me all my life come to my mind in an instant.

Water is life. Honor the ground from which life grows.

Blue and green. Water and fertile land. What I need to survive is on this planet, but the presence of life-giving blue and greenery means the planet may already be inhabited. I can land there and use what time my ship has left running to send a beacon home. It will take a while to get here, as this is not any part of the galaxy that we have ever explored and the meteor shower exiting the hole threw me off, but at least I can survive while I wait for them.

When one travels through space at impossible speeds, things are rarely ever definite but most certainly finite.

That’s the one guarantee about the universe. It will go on forever. Meanwhile, I just have to survive until my kind finds me.

“Set a course to the planet.”

“Setting course.”

The ship revs up, speeding through the blue-black, star-speckled space now that it has somewhere to safely take me. I take control as we get closer, though, wanting to make sure this planet actually is safe before I land there. As we approach, I open the channels to pick up any signal that might be coming from the planet. Immediately, words pour through the speakers inside my control room. I can’t understand, but already I see the computer system analyzing whatever language is being spoken, and the screens zoom in on images of the planet appearing.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >89

Advertisement Outtakes Vol 1 – The Russian Guns (Filthy Marcellos #1) Read Online Bethany Kris http://www.books2020.com/outtakes-vol-1-the-russian-guns-filthy-marcellos-1-read-online-bethany-kris Mon, 03 Oct 2022 08:16:17 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/outtakes-vol-1-the-russian-guns-filthy-marcellos-1-read-online-bethany-kris Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Dark, Mafia, Romance Authors: Bethany Kris Series: Filthy Marcellos Series by Bethany Kris
Advertisement

Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 239(@200wpm)___ 191(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >49

From author Bethany-Kris to her readers, nearly a decade after the release of The Arrangement, she brings back your favorites in Outtakes Vol 1: The Russian Guns. take a trip back into the world of Anton and Viviana Avdonin before, during, and after the events of their arrangement. Watch their children grow, and even their children’s children.

The Russian Guns series should be read first.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

White Sand, Black Beauty

Foreword: White Sand, Black Beauty was done by request of quite a few readers who wanted to see more of that “first time” from the flashback in The Arrangement. So, you’re going to find a sixteen-year-old girl doing bad things and an eighteen-year-old boy who encourages her to do it.

*

“Anton?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you fall in love with me?” Viviana asked.

Anton looked up over the edge of magazine he was reading. Viviana sat on the rocking chair in the corner, her hand ghosting over the five-month pregnancy bump shaping her stomach round. They’d found out earlier in the day that they were having a boy. The baby hadn’t cooperated the last two ultrasounds, but they finally caught him this time.

Viviana still couldn’t pick a name.

“Anton?” she asked again.

“Instantly,” he said quietly. “Like I was gasoline soaking into the sand and you were a match. Smoke, that’s all that was left the second I saw your eyes.”

“Some people think that kind of love doesn’t exist.”

“Some people aren’t us, baby.”

Viviana smiled. “True.”

He adored that when she was sad about something, she could still smile her way through. He also hated it that she was sad about something and talking her way around whatever it was.

“Vine?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“My first instinct today after we knew the gender was to call my parents and tell them,” Viviana admitted softly. “It took me an entire ten seconds to realize they wouldn’t pick up that call. I know because I watched the clock on the wall. And you were standing right next to me, but I just ... felt like I was standing there by their graves again, looking at the filled in spaces, so alone.”

Anton cleared his throat, sitting straighter in the bed. “Actually, you were sitting ... both times.”

Viviana’s head snapped up, her gaze meeting his with unshed tears welling. “What?”

“When you buried your parents, after everyone was gone and you were the only one left, you sat beside their graves. You didn’t stand.”

“How do you know that?”

“You were never alone, Vine.”

Not since the moment he met her, anyway.

Anton Avdonin fell in love with a girl on a white sand beach.

She was beautiful. A dark-haired, brown-eyed paradise and nothing like who he thought she would be. An angel. Too innocent to know better. Kind of perfect. But he knew, behind that innocent face, was a blackened beauty waiting to show.

Even if her beauty was blackened by him.

After all, she said yes.

*

If it were possible, Anton would have sunk as deep as he could manage into the leather backseat of the rental car to avoid the heavy, piercing stare of his step-grandfather. Nicoli Avdonin was watching him through the rear-view mirror from his spot in the driver’s seat, silent and stoic. There were a million and one things the older man was saying with his gaze.

It was kind of fucking sickening how a simple look could chastise an eighteen-year-old without even saying a word.

“I expect you to act like the respectful, charming young man your mother and father raised you to be on this trip, Anton,” Nicoli finally said, breaking the silence. “This is your last chance to clean up and figure out what you need, my boy. I suggest you take the time to do so.”

Anton scowled at the window. Things weren’t as out of control in his life as people were making it out to be. What difference did it make if he liked dabbling in ecstasy and blow once in a while? His family fucking sold it for profit, for Christ’s sake. So he’d gotten into some shit with a bull for the Bratva. Big fucking deal. Sprained his wrist while he busted up his knuckles on the idiot’s face for running his mouth.

Wincing, Anton was also reminded on the bullet he took that lodged in his shoulder. There was that, too. Sasha dug it out, at least.

“So my punishment is a vacation to Barbados?” Anton asked sarcastically. “What, clear my head while I lay on white sand and see how many girls I can fuck in—”

“Anton Daniil, I swear to God,” Nicoli snapped, frustration lacing his tone thick. “Not every woman needs to be a conquest for you to conquer. If you’d have a little respect for women, the results might surprise you.”

Anton snorted under his breath. “Right. Listen, if they’d have more respect for themselves, I’d show them respect back.”

As of now, Anton was just fine and fucking dandy with going about his exploits the way he wanted to. Fucking when he felt the need and dropping them before they turned clingy.

“They’re all willing,” Anton added quieter. “It’s not like I’m forcing anybody, Grandpapa. You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not a fucking monster.”

Just learning to be, he thought wirily.

He was the prince, after all. The sole heir to a crime dynasty. And as of a month ago, he was officially a Vor. A made man for his Bratva family. Finally beginning to fill the shoes everyone around him wanted him to. The path to his future as the boss was paved with guns, drugs, and blood.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >49

Advertisement Outtakes Vol 2 – The Commission World (Filthy Marcellos #2) Read Online Bethany Kris http://www.books2020.com/outtakes-vol-2-the-commission-world-filthy-marcellos-2-read-online-bethany-kris Mon, 03 Oct 2022 08:16:17 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/outtakes-vol-2-the-commission-world-filthy-marcellos-2-read-online-bethany-kris Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Dark, Mafia, Romance Authors: Bethany Kris Series: Filthy Marcellos Series by Bethany Kris
Advertisement

Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >197

Featuring stories from readers favorite characters from author Bethany-Kris’ Commission World, Outtakes Vol 2: The Commission World takes readers to before the filthiest Marcello took his throne and far beyond … to the next generations.

Made up of outtakes and short stories written for and by request of readers, the collection contains over 170,000 words and over 100 shorts.
Readers should be familiar with The Commission World to best enjoy.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

MARCELLO

ANTONY OUTTAKES

Fathers Day of ‘93

Antony/John POV

“Shut up, Gio!”

“Knucle John says—”

“Shut up.”

Antony cracked his eyes open just enough to stare at the ceiling of his bedroom. He didn’t know if his sons were just waking up and trying to sneak past their parents’ bedrooms, or what was happening. All he knew was that once Gio learned to start talking around two years old, the kid never shut up.

Oh, God.

He loved his son.

So much.

Both his boys, really.

But Gio incessantly talked all the time. It never ended. He could talk for an hour about a certain flavor of ice cream if someone didn’t rein the kid in before he really got going. He liked to talk, and it was impossible for the boy to do anything without talking while he did it. Which made things like playing Hide and Go Seek with his brother impossible because ...

Gio never shut up.

“Papa, you up?”

In his bedroom, then. He didn’t answer Dante back right away because a part of his brain was still asleep, and he was trying to figure out why he felt like he’d just slept twelve hours. A good sleep, yes, but a long one.

That was unusual for Antony. He rarely felt this rested when he woke up. He was typically the one in their house who was up at the ass crack of dawn because work never ended as a made man. If it wasn’t one thing, then it was another.

Antony looked over in the bed to tell his wife the boys were up, but he found an empty bed staring back at him. He blinked at the spot where his wife should have been, but quickly realized something else.

The window.

And the sun.

The sun was way too high in the sky for it to be early morning. Antony darted up in the bed, and instantly reached for the alarm clock on the nightstand to check the time. Ten-fifty-five, it read.

In the morning?

“Hi, Papa!”

Antony didn’t even get to wonder why he’d slept so long or where in the hell his wife was because the next thing he knew, Gio had climbed up on the four poster bed, and launched himself from the footboard right onto his father’s lap.

And almost hit the family jewels in the process.

“Jesus Christ,” Antony grunted, laughing under his breath.

Wiggly little three-year-old Gio rolled to his back, and beamed up at his father with a bright smile that could light up anybody’s fucking life. How a person could be sad when there was a kid like Gio around, Antony would never understand.

“Ma says—”

“Not to be a shit,” Gio interrupted.

Antony pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. He was not supposed to encourage the cussing, but he found it really hard. Especially when the kid used it in the correct terms.

“She did not say shit,” Dante grumbled.

His oldest son climbed up on the bed, too, but unlike Gio, his first move was not to act like a bird that could fly across the bed and land on his father. He did get close enough to let Antony pull him into a hug.

“Where is your Ma?” Antony asked.

“Cooking,” Dante said. “Waffles—your favorite.”

Antony smiled. “Oh?”

For a moment, Antony reclined on the bed with his two boys. Dante on his right, and Gio in his lap because he couldn’t convince that kid to do anything else. Once he got his mind set on something, that’s all that would be happening.

It wasn’t very often Antony got to have moments like these. Quiet, peaceful moments first thing in the morning with his two principes because life liked to get in the way all the damn time. So, he soaked it up.

Late morning sun, white sheets, and two little boys who kept looking at him like he was king of the whole world. Someday, they’d figure out he was just a man. And not a very moral or good one at that, but a man nonetheless. Their father ... but for now, he enjoyed being the very large sun in their small world.

“And she said I don’t have to go to school,” five-year-old Dante pointed out. “Because it’s a special day.”

Antony glanced at his son from the side. “Is it?”

Fuck.

Antony’s mind scrambled to figure out what day it was. Not his anniversary, and not his wife’s birthday. Not one of the kids’, either. Not somebody important. No holidays, he was sure.

What had he missed?

“Yep,” Dante said, pushing himself off the bed using two hands. “For you, Papa. Happy Father’s Day.”

Gio flipped himself over in Antony’s lap and beamed up. “Happy Father’s Day!”

“Breakfast is ready.”

Antony found the owner of the sweet voice standing in the bedroom doorway. His wife, already dressed and ready for the day, looked like she had a secret to share. He loved her best when she looked like that. His greatest memories were pulling those secrets from his wife in a way only he could do, too.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >197

Advertisement The Long Road Home (These Valley Days #1) Read Online Bethany Kris http://www.books2020.com/the-long-road-home-these-valley-days-1-read-online-bethany-kris Mon, 03 Oct 2022 08:16:16 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/the-long-road-home-these-valley-days-1-read-online-bethany-kris Genre: Action, Contemporary, Erotic, Romance, Suspense Authors: Bethany Kris Series: These Valley Days Series by Bethany Kris
Advertisement

Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >116

Crying into an iced coffee in front of a stranger isn’t high on anyone’s priority list but …

Gracen Briggs has history in this valley—deep roots, dead dreams, and an ex whose smiling face she sees plastered all over town, every single day.
Wonderful, right?
Malachi Anders left things unfinished here, too. All his trouble and traumas … God knows he already spent too much time trying to leave it behind.

He never wanted to come back.
She can’t find a way out.
Welcome to the valley.
It’s a long road home.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

“I’m going.”

“You’re absolutely not,” Gracen returned just as strongly as her friend.

Delaney scoffed over her shoulder at the reply as she walked through the front door with a fresh coat of candy apple red paint. “I will, and I am.”

“You’re seriously considering it? Delaney, the last time we ran into your mother at the supermarket, she turned around and immediately raced down the adjacent aisle. Doesn’t your brother still call you “that one” whenever someone asks about you at the hardware store? What are you talking about? Your cousins don’t treat you much better!”

“That’s enough. Bexley has always—”

“As long as nobody’s around to see her talk to you, yeah, your cousin isn’t so bad. I guess.”

Gracen let the screen door between the porch and foyer slam shut, and left the main one open, when she darted in after her typically bubbly friend. A ray of damn sunshine on her worst days, Delaney Reed wouldn’t be caught in public behaving in any other way.

Her proudly conservative, Pentecostal upbringing taught Delaney to smile even in the face of critics, and all the time in between, but especially when doing her duty; serving a godly man. She might have escaped from her family’s control and demands after high school by going out on her own and accepting their shunning, but some habits were hard to break.

Delaney kept the sweet personality for the most part. Very little else.

Right then, Delaney did her best to ignore the way Gracen stalked down the foyer’s short hallway behind her before the back of her friend’s shiny pin-straight mane of jet-black hair swerved for the kitchen. By the time Gracen’s white runners squeaked to a stop on the linoleum floor, Delaney faced her with fists—one still clutching tight to the entire reason for their current conversation—dug into her hips, and a familiar gleam in her narrowed hazel eyes that needed to look up to stare Gracen in the face.

All five-foot-one inches of her friend acted like a wall Gracen couldn’t pass to enter the kitchen. The opposite of Gracen not only in appearance but also personality, that was the thing about Delaney which often brought the friends to a head. She proclaimed to never liked a challenge; she couldn’t stop herself from answering one, though. Sometimes, the sweetness meant nothing when Delaney couldn’t keep her mouth or temper under control.

“What, are we going back to high school, or something?” Delaney asked with an arched brow that dared Gracen to try it.

The comment made Gracen bristle in all the wrong ways, but Delaney likely knew it, too. After all, there was a reason she hit out with that barb, and the start of their friendship had begun in the halls of their shared high school while they sat side by side with matching bruised faces outside the principle’s office.

Maybe Gracen had been a bit of a bully. On that day, though? Delaney showed she had something to prove even in a baggy hoodie and a jean skirt that swept the floor with the slit in the back hemmed to below the knees for modesty.

“What does high school have anything to do with the engagement dinner invitation I found shoved in the mailbox, Delaney?”

Waving her hands high, and the invitation in question, Delaney mockingly hissed, “Oh, you know—we both do. If Gracen Briggs doesn’t like you, nobody does. What, are you going to tell me I can’t go to a party with my cousin? Really?”

“First of all, you need to get off that.”

“First of all, nothing,” Delaney cut in before Gracen could attempt to defend herself. Not that she planned to, really. She didn’t have any good excuse for the crown she chose to wear so that high school was survivable, but that also wasn’t the point.

Just as cutting as before, Delaney started, “Listen—”

They would get nowhere like this.

“It’s not about your cousin, or her friend,” Gracen said fast. “And you’re blatantly ignoring what I said about how your family still treats you despite living in the same town.”

A town with a population of one thousand five hundred and three people stretched over what was appropriately named The Valley—they were bound to see Delaney’s family especially considering they owned the hardware store at the top of town.

A portion of the Acadian Peninsula where the Trans-Canada Highway cut through the upper section of the right side of town coming down the Saint John River, a bridge connected both sides of The Valley. The two main streets of town stretched on for less than a kilometer, connected to backstreets filled with everything from children’s schools to dental offices. One didn’t need to go on any more than a fifteen-to-twenty-minute walk within the town to be where they needed to be whether it was the grocery store or the post office. Twice daily they could watch a familiar black sedan—owned by Delaney’s father—go past the tall windows at the front of their salon as he drove to and from work.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >116

Advertisement Loved Either Way (These Valley Days #2) Read Online Bethany Kris http://www.books2020.com/loved-either-way-these-valley-days-2-read-online-bethany-kris Mon, 03 Oct 2022 08:16:14 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/loved-either-way-these-valley-days-2-read-online-bethany-kris Genre: Action, Contemporary, Erotic, Romance, Suspense Authors: Bethany Kris Series: These Valley Days Series by Bethany Kris
Advertisement

Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >146

Two years have passed since the fire that changed Delaney Reed’s life overnight, but she still hasn’t been able to move on. Not even time, distance, and a whole new city has helped ease the fear she feels about returning to the place that hurt her the most.
Well, until a tall and handsome stranger sits in her salon chair …
Lucas Dalton walks a careful line between the beer brewery heir the public sees, and the man he doesn’t want to be. The private struggles of his family haven’t hit the papers yet, or come to a head, but it’s just a matter of time before it all falls apart.
When tragedy sends Lucas looking for the one person safe enough to get him through it, Delaney can’t say no—even if it bends some of her rules—and neither of them expected to find home in each other in the process.
That’s the thing about love.
It has a way of calling us back where we belong.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

“You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”

Was that a real question?

“Give me something else to look at in the mirror, Margot. I need it. It’s this or a tattoo of my last name. I’ve considered making the appointment.”

Maybe that would get Delaney out of her own damn head. A late birthday gift since she’d gone on like her twenty-fifth was just another Sunday.

Margot’s nose crinkled in disgust. “Really, you’d want Reed … just somewhere? You’ve got more creativity than that, Delaney.”

“I was going to make it cute,” Delaney tried not to whine.

And failed.

“On three?” Margot asked.

Delaney nodded but kept her gaze on the apartment ceiling overhead instead of the redhead looming over the side of the couch.

“Okay—one, two, breathe.”

She gulped in a lungful of air as Margot plunged the needle straight through Delaney’s left nostril.

“And let it out now,” Margot urged.

Delaney did. The pain came and left faster than she remembered it from the first time she’d had the nose piercing done, but that was years ago. Somebody who didn’t know what they were doing had an earring gun and it took weeks for the swelling to go down. Margot had skill and practice on her side, so the second of pain was over before Delaney had even blinked.

Tears raced down her cheek when she did.

“Jesus Christ,” Delaney muttered under her breath.

Margot’s wild curls bounced with her laughter as she reached over Delaney’s prone form on the couch with gloved hands for something she’d sat on the tray. “It wasn’t that bad, come on.”

“I’m crying!”

“Your eye is watering. It always does.” Her friend laughed. Blue latex came back into Delaney’s view, and Margot said, “Sit tight, and I’ll get this hoop in for you.”

She remained still while Margot finished her work, sliding in a hoop at the end of the long needle that nestled nicely around the shell of Delaney’s nostril. After discarding the needle to the clean tray on the coffee table, Margot wiped the river of tears that had trailed down the side of Delaney’s face.

Margot beamed and lifted her eyebrows high. “Wanna see?”

Laughing, Delaney pushed up into a sitting position on the couch. “Yeah, where’s the mirror?”

Margot pointed next to the tray as she rounded the couch and began cleaning up her supplies. Only a little ache remained around the piercing, but more interesting was how Delaney could feel the thin strip of gold looped along the side of her nose. Every flicker of her facial muscles made her more and more aware of the small piece of jewelry.

She hadn’t even reached for the mirror yet.

Margot noticed. “Yeah, that’ll get better. Give it a couple of hours.”

Delaney wrinkled her nose again. “I don’t remember this from the first time.”

“Yeah, probably because you were lucky they didn’t crush your cartilage and your brain could only focus on one thing—like the pain.”

Fair point.

Delaney gave it to Margot.

“Give me a break, I was seventeen and free,” she mumbled under her breath, picking up the mirror.

Margot shrugged. “True enough, but stupid is still dumb, Delaney.”

Yeah, it was.

She admired the gold hoop framing the left side of her nose and how it added to the delicate swoop of her bridge and button tip. It confirmed what she’d believed all those years ago when she dared to get the piercing despite knowing how her mother would scream at her for it the first time she saw it—the look suited her face.

As for her mother all those years ago? Amanda didn’t stop shrieking until Delaney had backed out of the driveway.

Delaney glanced away from the black-haired, hazel-eyed reflection in the mirror that looked so much like her mother’s, thinking, well, she won’t see it to yell about it now.

“You got quiet over there,” Margot noted.

Of course, her friend would notice. Despite being well-liked and having a lot of friends when she was younger, Delaney always kept her circle small. Those people she truly let see her mask slip to find the human waiting underneath. One didn’t need to wait long in adulthood to figure out that being human in public sucked.

People like Margot knew those quiet moments for Delaney were introspective seconds lost in the maze of her mind and hidden thoughts. Not necessarily a pleasant place to be, for what it was worth. Delaney rarely had a choice, though.

“Yeah, I did get quiet,” Delaney admitted, handing the mirror across the coffee table for Margot to take. Not having something in her hands made her edgier. She’d forced herself to stop picking at the beds of her nails by keeping a manageable length set of gel nails on but as soon as those bitches started to grow out, her urge to pick began. It had become a vicious cycle. A sad by-product of the fact she hadn’t smoked a cigarette in two years.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >146