Chapter 9 Angel
Angel
The residents of Silver Bell Hollow show up even when the weather dares them to stay home.
By noon, the Mistletoe Mug is a riot of color and sugar—Mary at a card table like a benevolent cookie warlord, Jamie hauling in a second folding table because the first one is full, kids in knitted hats arguing about whether snowmen need eyebrows.
The snow keeps settling outside windows, and the town keeps ignoring it.
Grady walks in with a blast of cold. Tyler is behind him, chin set like a dare and hair damp from snow. He’s carrying a milk crate of staples and a staple gun. My heart does what it always does now when I see Grady—stumbles, then steadies, like it can’t decide whether to rest or race toward him.
“The muscle has arrived.” I grin.
Tyler rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches. He pivots toward the chaos, and in two minutes flat, has kids at stations and a system for drying iced stars that would impress a general. He glares at anyone who calls him helpful and then leans closer when Grady says, “Good work.”
I circulate everywhere at once. The air smells like cinnamon and butter and cold plastic from the tubs of sprinkles.
Parents warm their hands on coffee mugs.
Mary orchestrates with her wooden spoon—does she carry that thing around like a wand, pointing it at children like she’s commanding an army of frosting-fueled elves?
“Don’t eat the decorations until they’re on the cookie,” she barks at one kid, who has rainbow sprinkles stuck to his lips like confetti. “And don’t think I don’t see you, Ellie June, double-dipping your marshmallow.”
Grady takes up a position by the window, his back to the storm, his eyes on the room.
I suspect he’s been in other rooms with worse weather.
He helps Tyler open a jammed frosting bag, demonstrating the exact amount of pressure to make it obey.
He elbows Jamie when she pretends not to need a hand with the milk frother.
He looks at me too often and not often enough.
“Angel,” Mary singsongs at some point, sweeping past to press a kiss to my temple. “Tell your grumpy cowboy he’s doing that thing again.”
“What thing?” I ask, even though I know.
“Looking at you like he wants to jingle your bells with his candy cane.” She gives Grady a knowing look over her shoulder.
I nearly choke on my cocoa. “Mary!”
“What?” she asks innocently. “I was young once, you know. I still remember what it’s like to want to climb someone like a pine tree in December.”
Grady smirks, completely unbothered, while my entire face catches fire.
“Stop it,” I hiss, trying to bat her away with a gingerbread mitten.
She winks. “Don’t be shy, sweet girl. It’s Christmas. The whole point is giving and receiving.”
I groan. “Please stop talking.”
“Fine, fine,” she says, walking off. “But if he proposes under the mistletoe later, just remember who lit the match.”
Grady leans close, voice warm and low in my ear. “For the record, I do want to poke you with my candy cane.”
“Grady!”
He chuckles and steps in to help Ellie June, who’s locked in a battle with a bag of mini marshmallows. She gives it one last heroic tug… and the bag bursts open, launching marshmallows in every direction.
“Marshmallow snow!” someone yells.
Grady crouches down beside Ellie June, his big hands gentle as he picks stray marshmallows out of her hair.
“Hold still, trouble,” he murmurs with a crooked smile, brushing a curl behind her ear.
Something in my chest pulls tight as I picture him crouched beside a little girl of our own. One with my blonde hair and his silver eyes, clutching marshmallows in her fist as she looks at him like he’s the safest place in a too-big world. I want that. Not someday. Not maybe. I want it with him.
The part of me that never truly settled until he walked into my life finally decides, okay, this. Yes, this.
By midafternoon, the storm throws a sulk and the power hiccups. Mistletoe Mug holds steady. Cookie kits are packaged—brown bags stamped with a sprig of mistletoe and ribboned with twine.
Tyler stacks them with quiet pride. When Mrs. Crowley whispers, “thank you” and hands him a tip, he tries to refuse.
Grady says, “Take it. Put it in your boot. Don’t spend it all on stupid.”
Tyler obeys because of course he does.
The crowd thins to a hum. Mary leaves with a wave and a look that says behave while absolutely not meaning it. The bell over the door jingles one last time, leaving Grady and me alone.
“Come with me,” I say breathlessly, skin tingling from the way he’s been watching me all afternoon. “Back room. I need you.”
Heat flares in his eyes. “What kind of need?”
“The kind that ends with you inside me,” I say, shameless now because that’s what he’s made me. “And you telling me what a good girl I am while you do it.”
His jaw clenches. “Lock the door.”
I flip the bolt, turn the sign, kill half the lights. The back room glows gold. He moves with me, palms my hips, then backs me to the prep counter I spend half my life at. The familiar becomes something else in his hands.
“Words,” he murmurs, touching my mouth with his thumb. “Tell me.”
“I want your mouth,” I say, blood beating hard between my legs. “On me. I want your fingers inside me slowly, then rough. I want to come on your tongue and your hand, and I want you to call me Shortcake while I do it.”
His eyes darken. “Good girl.” He squeezes the back of my knee and lifts, setting my heels on the lower shelf. “Dress up. Panties off.”
I obey, greedy for his praise. He drags my panties down slowly, as if the act itself is a ritual. He kisses the inside of my knee, and my breath trips. He kisses higher, leaves his mouth open and hot where my skin is sensitive, and by the time he settles between my thighs, I’m shaking.
“Open for me,” he instructs. “Look at me while you let go.”
I do. He tastes me like he’s been starving. The dirty things he says are soft-edged and reverent. The praise is filthy because of how much he means it.
“Sweet girl,” he murmurs against me. “Pretty little sounds. That’s it, ride my mouth, take what you want. Look at you. Look how good you give me yourself.”
I shatter, and he holds me there with his hands on my thighs, thumbs stroking me down, talking me back to earth with a steady stream of you’re okay and I’ve got you and that’s my girl. It feels like floating and falling and landing exactly where I meant to.
“More?” he asks when I can breathe.
“Yes,” I gasp. “Please.”
“Touch your tits for me.”
My body lights at the command. I obey, nipples tight under my fingers, and he watches, eyes hot enough to scorch. He slides two fingers inside me slowly and curls them. My hips jump like he shocked me. His smile is wolfish and tender as he sets a rhythm that dismantles me one gasp at a time.
“Good girl,” he says, like it’s my name. “Gorgeous when you take it. Say please.”
“Please,” I pant. “Please, Grady.”
“Again.”
“Please.”
“Good. Come for me. Shortcake.”
I do. Hard. It arches my back and rips a moan I don’t recognize from my throat. He kisses me, swallowing my whimpers like trophies while I tremble apart. The aftershocks hit, and he stays, easing me through every last one like a man who takes pride in the details.
When I finally slump, boneless and dopey, he stands and brackets me in with his arms, forehead to mine. He doesn’t push for more. His mouth brushes my lips, cheeks, jaw, the pulse at my throat.
“Thank you,” he says, wrecked and sincere. “For trusting me.”
“I like trusting you,” I whisper, hands fisted in his shirt because gravity is winning over my shaking muscles right now. “I like… everything.”
He huffs a laugh that sounds like a man who found a warm room after a winter he thought would never end. He kisses me properly then—a slow, deep, lazy kiss, like we have time, like he’s banking it. I taste myself on his tongue and the intimacy of it makes me dizzy.
“Your turn,” I murmur, reaching for his belt.
He catches my wrists and lays them flat on the counter, fingers threaded through mine.
“Later.” I want to argue until he adds, soft and dirty, “Because when we get to my place, I’ll sit you in my lap with my cock deep inside you, and I’ll let you hear how crazy you make me.
For now, it’s enough that you’re sated and smug. ”
I grin, drunk on power and pleasure. “You’ve created a monster, Grady Cross.”
“It’ll be my pleasure to housebreak you,” he deadpans.
I laugh so hard the back room light flickers like it wants to join in.
We tidy. We unlock and relock. Outside, the snow is falling in thick, fluffy flakes.
“How’s the staying plan?” I ask casually once we’re in his truck, like I didn’t spend half the day thinking about it.
“Talked to Christopher,” he says. “I’m in. Tyler first.”
I beam so hard it hurts. “Good.”
At the cabin, the hearth is still warm. We wind down.
I change into one of Grady’s T-shirts without being told, and he watches with blatant appreciation.
We heat soup and eat half of it because we both have appetites for other things.
I end up straddling his thighs at the table, my hands on his shoulders, his palms spanning my back.
The kiss starts slowly and becomes greedy.
When I rock against him, he groans, which only makes the wanting worse.
Clambering off his lap, I lower to my knees between his spread thighs. I look up into his heated gaze and place my palm over the ridge of his cock through his jeans, squeezing gently. His nostrils flare. His hand clamps onto mine, and I wait with bated breath. Will he let me take the lead?
“Time to let me hear how crazy I make you,” I murmur, licking my lips.
Slowly, his hand lifts. Moves to his waistband. His gaze never leaving mine, he pops the buttons, freeing his cock.
I arch a brow. “Guess the whole commando thing isn’t just a job description, huh?”
Grady huffs a laugh. “Tactical. One less layer between your sweet mouth and my cock.”