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Chapter Nine

Buck

The last thing I expected was to be spat out of the oak tree as unexpectedly as I’d ended up inside of it. Having every member of our new little chosen family standing over us gawking was a close second. “What are you all doing out here?”

“Looking for you!” Kingston yelled, gripping his hair.

Skylar patted him on his back. “It’s okay, big guy.” He looked down at me and Harry. “We called everyone out to help us search for you.”

Chance hunched down by our heads. “Kingston thought you two had fallen through a wormhole or something and that we’d never see you again.”

Jetty watched his best friend with concern as Kingston continued yanking on his own hair as he began pacing. “He thought it was his fault since he’s the one who can’t get this place out of his mind.”

Harry and I looked at each other, and I rolled my hand in a go-ahead motion. “Tell them, love.”

“Come sit on the logs around the fire pit. I’ve got a story for you,” Harry said with more enthusiasm than I’d ever heard from him before.

I knew it wasn’t me when Marc’s head jerked back, and Elyse covered her mouth, giggling. My Harry was truly loosening up.

As we sat, Chance asked, “Mom, can you start a fire, please?”

Skylar, who was sticking close to Kingston, said, “Oh, let me.” He flicked his wrist and made a tossing motion toward the stack of wood in the fire pit. It lit immediately. He fist-pumped the air. “Yes.”

Elyse smiled like a proud mother hen. “Very good, Skylar. You are an excellent student.”

Kingston dropped his hands and stared down at the much smaller man. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“You’d be surprised what I can do,” Skylar said flirtatiously.

Wide-eyed, Kingston stumbled back, and Harry smacked his hands together once, drawing all of our attention back to him. “So that”—he pointed toward the old mighty oak—“is the Hallowed Tree.”

“Huh?” Scotty asked, wrinkling his nose.

“Let me tell you.” Harry went on to explain in detail everything that we’d experienced, including the mist’s image and the myriad of voices when they spoke.

When he was done, Chance smiled warmly at him. “They were right, you know? You are the guardian, Harry. I don’t know what we’d do without you and your friendship.”

My man’s shape fluttered as his cheeks warmed with pleasure. Finally, after all these months, he was truly grasping his significance in all of our lives. When we were done here, I’d make sure that he really understood just how important he was to me.

“What do you think they meant about Kingston being the walker of dreams?” Skylar asked, sounding anxious on behalf of his crush.

Elyse’s tinkering laughter echoed around us. “Only time will tell.”

“But what do we do now?” Kingston asked. “There’s got to be more we can do than just sit and wait for the Hallowed Tree and those connected to determine our fate.” The big man’s gaze swung between us. “Right?”

Jetty nodded. “Absolutely.” He smiled at Chance. “I think you should lead us, babe.”

“Lead us in what?” Scotty hissed quietly to his brother, who shushed him and pointed at Chance.

Chance stood. “On behalf of mankind, let us thank the earth beneath our feet, the trees and the flowers, the fruits and veggies, the animals we’ve been given, and the stars in the sky. We can do our part to help heal our lands.”

“Will it be enough?” Kingston asked.

“All we can do is try,” Marc said.

The rest of us rose, encircling the fire, and held hands in unity. Chance led us with words of gratitude for all we’d been given, with Elyse adding her own messages of hope. There wasn’t a dry eye amongst the living by the time we concluded. Honestly, I was feeling a little misty-eyed myself. I felt like those amongst us with heartbeats had done humanity proud. I hoped the Hallowed Tree heard the words that had been spoken here.

When we were done, Skylar gripped Kingston’s bicep, making him stumble as he pulled him toward the house. “Time for you to get some sleep.”

“I was going to—”

Skylar yanked harder. “Nope. You’re practically dead on your feet.” He grimaced. “No offense, guys.”

Stevie waved him off. “None taken.”

Jetty took Chance’s hand and drew him toward their best friends. “Skylar’s right, Kingston. Come on, we’ll walk you back to the manor.”

“Maybe you should sleep here,” Chance added. They’d only made it a few more steps when he ran back and hugged first me, then Harry. “Thank you so much for figuring out what was happening with the oak, Mr. Harry. I’ve been a nervous wreck.”

Harry patted his back. “I’m sorry it wasn’t better news. I’m sure none of us were expecting it to be the potential destruction of the Earth. And call me Harry. We’re friends, after all.”

All jaws dropped, and Chance dove back in, hugging Harry even harder. “Family. All of us.”

Elyse spread her arms up into the sky. “Family.” Then it was her turn to wrap Harry in her arms. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about the tree again. I have a sneaking feeling it’ll all work out.”

Hm . She had an uncanny sixth sense, so if she was hopeful, I could be, too. Marc winked at me, shook my and Harry’s hands, then they trailed after Scotty and Stevie. Arm in arm, Harry and I followed behind them.

We were halfway back when he stopped, watching the bunny rabbit who’d adopted the gardens for its home hop by. He watched it until it was out of sight, smiling softly. It was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen.

“Would you like to come back to my room so I can completely debauch you?” I blurted.

Harry leaned into me. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Hell ya!

Harry

Instead of poofing us naked, Buck carefully removed every layer of my clothing, peppering open-mouthed kisses on every bit of skin he revealed. I’d never felt so exposed in my life. It was nerve-wracking and exhilarating. I wondered if this was why romance novels always talked about butterflies fluttering in the stomach.

Once I was naked, he swung me up in his arms and laid me across the mattress in his bedroom. I fought the urge to cover myself with a blanket or my hands and let him drink his fill.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you. Are you going to…” I asked shyly. I swirled my hand around, indicating that he should take his clothes off, too. Instead of the treatment he’d given me, his disappeared with a mere thought.

I drank in his form the same way he had mine. He was so stinking gorgeous with his hairy chest and thick, veiny cock. He reached down, making my mouth water as he jacked himself nice and slow. “Do you like what you see, Harry?”

Licking my lips, a, “Mhm,” slipped from my mouth.

Buck laughed, crawled onto the bed, and knee-walked between my legs. His palms traveled around the sides of my thighs, caressing and kneading my skin. So many things in my afterlife had been sensory memories, ones I’d clung to desperately so I wouldn’t forget all of those wonderful sensations. But this? This was new. So many things with Buck were. I’d never had anyone touch me this way, with such desire in the depths of their eyes, so how was it possible to feel him as if we were alive…I didn’t know.

“Stop thinking, love,” he said with a chuckle.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It just feels so…”

“Real.” He leaned down, brushing his lips gently across mine. “It does for me, too. It proves what I’ve been thinking all along.”

I looped my hands around his neck. “What’s that?”

“We were created to be together,” he said seriously without even a hint of joking.

“But how? That would be impossible. I’m so much—”

Buck covered my mouth with his fingertips. “We didn’t get an instruction manual, so how do you know?” He dropped his body on me, allowing me to feel the full weight of him, and it was amazing. The pressure was so ridiculously real, so much like how it had felt when my heart still beat, that I wanted him to stay like this forever.

“I’m going to make love to you now, Harry. Let you feel what you’ve missed out on, what you’ve always deserved. I’m going to pound you so good with my cock that you’ll see stars and wonder if you’re at Heaven’s pearly gates.”

I laughed, but he didn’t. “You’re serious?”

He brushed my hair back from my forehead. Whispered a kiss across my eyelid, my cheek, my lips. “There’s no messing around when it comes to matters of the heart. We’re so damn lucky, and now that I have you, I’m going to do my best to make up for every year of your life that you were mistreated or alone. Loving you is it for me, Harry, and I have no intentions of failing this assignment.”

He squirmed around, positioning himself with my legs out to the side. Our kisses were deep, passionate, and I was ready to cry or come just from the care he was taking with me. As he poised at my entrance, he brushed another soft kiss to my lips. “Are you ready, love?”

“Yes, Buck. Please. Show me. Love me. Fuck me.”

He chuckled. “I will. I do. Now take it.” He slammed into me in one long push. My body opened naturally, accommodating him perfectly. He smirked down at my disbelief. “Another advantage to being dead. Our bodies are only as corporeal as we want or need them to be.”

A slow smile spread across my face. “So we have no limitations.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Only whatever restrictions—” He pulled out, then smacked back in, and I groaned. Good grief, it had been, like…forever, but had it ever felt that good before? No, definitely not. “You put on us.”

Trailing my fingertips around his pert, pink nipple and through his dense chest hair, I said, “Any and all carnal activities are your call, Buck. I’m too shy and inexperienced to even know what I want or don’t want.”

His eyes twinkled wickedly. “We’re going to have so much fun, love. Wait and see.”

He pumped in and out of me two more times, turning my brain to mush. I opened my mouth, and he did it again. His large hand encircled my penis, and his movements synched as he drove me out of my mind with his body and his warm, wet kisses.

Unused to sex outside of my own hand, it didn’t take long for the tension of a quickly approaching orgasm to work its way up my spine. Buck smirked knowingly, and I grabbed his face, holding him still. “I need to tell you something.”

His hips faltered. “Is everything okay?”

“More than okay.” Leaning up, I kissed him hard, sweeping my tongue into his mouth and dominating him like he’d been devouring me. Coming up for air—that I didn’t really need—I said, “I love you, Buck. You’re not chasing me. You’re not alone in this. I love you, too.”

His mouth fused to mine as his body partially merged with mine, and I felt all the sensations he felt, as well as my own, like we were on some sort of intoxicating loop. Our orgasms hit together, and it was like every granule of my essence exploded with pleasure as my cum coated his belly and his filled my ass.

It was dynamic, and magical, and everything wonderful. “From now on, we’re going to have the best afterlife,” Buck mumbled into my neck. “I love you.”

Grumpy, grouchy Mr. Harry, who’d kept people at arms-length was gone. I was sure he’d try and rear his prickly head again at times, but after the events of today and now what I’d experienced Buck, I was determined to loosen up and just live.

Five minutes later, I decided being twined with my big, adorably sweet man was my new favorite thing. He made me feel warm and safe and like I never wanted to leave the bed. Except… “Buck?”

“Yes, love?”

“Do you think the sludge is still there on the branch?”

“I’m honestly not sure. I can’t help but wonder what the process is for all those trees to communicate through their roots. Does it take seconds like a text message or is it more like a carrier pigeon delivering a note?” He chuckled at his own imagery, making me fall for him even harder.

“That’s an interesting question, but that isn’t really what I meant. Do you think the prayers around the fire helped sway that Hallowed Tree at all? They’re so majestic, and now we know how powerful they are. Do you think they laughed at our puny attempt?”

Buck kissed my temple. “I think that your orgasm has faded, so you’re back in your head. It’s barely dawn. Would you like to take a romantic stroll and go check on the tree?”

Rolling over, I propped my chin on my clasped hand so I could read his expression. “Do you mind?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I planned homemade muffins for our guests this morning, and with all of the drama from yesterday, I never got around to it. We can walk out to the pond, check the tree, and then pop back into the kitchen and get to work on the breakfast buffet.

Groaning, I flopped onto my back. “Ugh. What have you done to me? You’re being responsible, and I want to go check on the tree limb, then come back to your room and…”

“Fuck like bunnies?” he asked with laughter in his tone.

“No.” He snorted. “Yes,” I admitted. “But you’re right. We have work to do.”

We dressed in a blink of an eye and began our slow trek out to the pond. It was peaceful in the pale light of morning. The soothing sounds of nature waking up around us, and I thought perhaps I’d like to do that every day. “This is nice.”

He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed the back. “It is. We should do this every morning.”

How had he read my mind so easily? Was I that transparent to him? Was it even a bad thing if I was? I thought about Chance and Jetty and how wholly and completely they loved each other and decided that I was going to enjoy having someone know me like that. I pulled him to a stop and kissed him senseless for pursuing me, for waiting on me, for loving me. “We should.”

Always one to go with the flow, Buck grinned happily, and we made our way to the branch hanging over the pond. “Buck,” I gasped.

“Heck ya!” He fist-pumped the air with the hand not holding mine. “The sludge is gone!”

An overwhelming feeling of gratitude flooded my being. As one, Buck and I made our way to the tree trunk, and with our hands still joined, we hugged it. “Thank you, Hallowed Tree,” I said softly into the morning.

The bark grew less real under us, and we glanced at each other, smiling, before stepping into the heart of the oak. The purple-green mist swirled into being before us. “Thank you, guardian.” It stilled. “I apologize. I see you have bonded your souls for eternity. Thank you, guardians, for all you have done. For waking your people up to the call of our hearts.”

“You can see it?” Buck asked. “That will be together forever?”

The many voices of the mist laughed, and I rolled my eyes. “He meant you’re welcome, Hallowed Tree.”

“Yes, I know,” they said, sounding amused. “And yes, I can see the twining of your spirits. Your own but also together.”

That had to be the best thing I’d ever heard right after Buck telling me he loved me. An entity who was older than…old, saw our bond. Joy sang through my essence.

“What made you decide to give us another chance?” Buck asked curiously.

“You and your friends helped, but mostly, it was the walker of dreams. We thought they were gone forever, but with him and his soulmate, there is hope for mankind.”

“Soulmate?” Buck mouthed to me.

Of course, the big softie went straight to Kingston’s love life. “I’m not sure what a walker of dreams is,” I admitted.

“You shall see. For now, be well, love hard, and guard well. This land is safe for a long, long time.”

A gentle breeze blew, and we found ourselves back next to the pond. Buck picked me up and swung me around. “Did you hear the Hallowed Tree? You’re truly mine forever, love.”

Smiling down at him, I cupped his cheeks. “Forever.”

As our lips came together, I lost myself in his kiss. There would be more trying days ahead. Evil spirits, wayward ghosts, whatever adventures were ahead for Kingston, and possibly a broken heart for Skylar, depending on who Kingston’s soulmate turned out to be. But there was also friendship and family, love and forever.

We pulled apart at the sound of someone clearing their throat. An older apparition I’d never seen before stood nearby. Buck glanced from the man and then to me. “Would you like to meet some of my friends who live out here at the pond, love?”

His life was mine and mine was his, and I was ready to embrace it. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”