🪵 Age Is Just a Lumber Bonus Content 💕
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You found it! This is the exclusive bonus content hub for Age Is Just a Lumber. As a huge thank you for reading, we’ve put together some extra material that you won’t find anywhere else.
Below you’ll find an exclusive extended scene set on Val and Rhett’s one-year anniversary. We hope you enjoy spending a little more time with your favorite grumpy boss and her golden retriever sunshine!
✨ EXCLUSIVE BONUS SCENE ✨
After Hours
One Year Anniversary
⚠️ Content Warning: Explicit sexual content. Intended for mature readers only.
The lumber yard was empty.
Val stood in the middle of the retail store, arms crossed, staring at the handwritten note Rhett had left on her desk.
Meet me at the workshop. 7 PM. Wear something you don’t mind getting dirty.
She’d read it six times. She still didn’t know what he was planning.
It was their anniversary—one year since a stranger with a broken-down truck had walked into her life and turned everything upside down. One year since he’d tackled her into a pile of sawdust and made her feel something she’d thought was dead forever.
She’d expected dinner. Maybe flowers. The kind of normal, predictable romance that couples did after a year together.
She should have known better.
Rhett Callahan had never been normal or predictable.
Val locked up the store and walked across the darkened yard, her boots crunching on gravel. The summer heat had faded into a warm September evening, the air sweet with the smell of pine and the distant promise of autumn.
The workshop lights were on.
She pushed open the door—and stopped.
Candles.
Dozens of them, scattered across every flat surface, casting the workshop in flickering golden light. The workbenches had been cleared, the tools put away, and in the center of the room stood something that made her breath catch.
A bed.
Not a real bed—a platform, built from reclaimed wood, covered in blankets and pillows. It was beautiful, rustic, and utterly impractical.
It was also the most romantic thing she’d ever seen.
"You’re early."
Val turned. Rhett was leaning in the doorway that led to the back storage room, a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other. He was wearing dark jeans and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his tattoo sleeve on full display.
He looked good enough to eat.
"You built a bed," she said stupidly. "In the workshop."
"I built us a bed. In the place where it all started." He crossed to her, setting the champagne aside, and pulled her into his arms. "Happy anniversary."
"Rhett, this is—" She shook her head, overwhelmed. "This is insane."
"Good insane or bad insane?"
"Good. Definitely good." She looked around at the candles, the makeshift bed, the care he’d put into every detail. "When did you even do this?"
"I have my ways." He kissed her forehead. "You’re not the only one who can keep secrets, Ms. Stone."
"It’s Mrs. Callahan now," she reminded him.
His smile could have lit the room without the candles. "Not yet. But soon."
The engagement had happened two months ago, on a random Tuesday, because Rhett had decided he couldn’t wait another second to ask her. He’d proposed in the kitchen, while she was making coffee, with a ring he’d designed himself—a band of reclaimed walnut inlaid with gold.
She’d said yes before he finished asking.
"So," Val said, running her hands up his chest. "You lured me to an empty workshop. You built a bed. You lit approximately one million candles." She tilted her head. "What exactly are you planning, Mr. Callahan?"
"I’m planning to make love to my fiancée in the place where I first knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with her."
"The workshop?"
"That first day, when I reorganized your tools." His hands settled on her waist, warm and familiar. "You were so angry. So fierce. You got in my face and told me I had no right to change things without asking." He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear. "And all I could think about was pushing you up against that workbench and kissing you until you forgot what you were mad about."
Val’s breath hitched. "You never told me that."
"I’m telling you now." He pulled back, meeting her eyes. "I’ve wanted you in this workshop since the day I met you. And tonight, I’m finally going to have you."
The words sent heat pooling low in her belly. A year together, and he could still make her feel like this—breathless, wanted, alive.
"Then stop talking," she said, "and show me."
He undressed her slowly.
That was the thing about Rhett—he was never in a rush. Not when it came to this. Not when it came to her. He treated every encounter like they had all the time in the world, like her body was a landscape he wanted to map inch by inch.
Her shirt went first, his fingers working the buttons with deliberate patience. Then her bra, sliding off her shoulders and dropping to the sawdust-covered floor. He cupped her breasts in his palms, thumbs brushing her nipples, watching her face as sensation rippled through her.
"Beautiful," he murmured. "Every single time. You take my breath away."
"Rhett—"
"Shh." He kissed her collarbone, her shoulder, the curve of her neck. "Let me worship you."
Her jeans came off next, then her underwear, until she was standing naked in the candlelight while he remained fully clothed. The power imbalance should have made her self-conscious. Instead, it made her feel powerful. Desired.
He walked around her slowly, trailing his fingers across her skin—her shoulder, her spine, the curve of her hip. When he completed the circle, his eyes were dark with want.
"Get on the bed," he said.
It wasn’t a request.
Val climbed onto the platform he’d built, settling into the nest of blankets and pillows. The wood was solid beneath her, sturdy, built to last. Built for exactly this moment.
Rhett watched her for a long moment, drinking in the sight. Then he started unbuttoning his shirt.
"You know what I love most about you?" he asked conversationally, as if he wasn’t stripping in front of her, as if she wasn’t already wet and aching.
"My sparkling personality?"
"Your bravery." The shirt hit the floor. His hands went to his belt. "A year ago, you were terrified of this. Terrified of wanting me, of letting me in. But you did it anyway. You chose me, even when it scared you."
"I’m still scared sometimes," she admitted.
"I know." His jeans came off, then his boxers, and suddenly he was just as naked as she was. Just as exposed. "So am I. But we’re scared together. And that makes all the difference."
He climbed onto the bed, covering her body with his, and kissed her deep.
They’d had a lot of sex in the past year.
Desperate sex, after their first fight. Lazy sex, on Sunday mornings when neither of them wanted to get out of bed. Make-up sex, the night she’d almost let him leave. Celebratory sex, when they’d gotten engaged.
But this was different.
This was Rhett taking his time, using his mouth and his hands and his body to reduce her to a quivering, gasping wreck. He started at her lips, kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, then worked his way down—her throat, her breasts, her stomach, her hips.
By the time he reached between her thighs, she was already trembling.
"Please," she whispered. "Rhett, please—"
"Please what?" He looked up at her, his chin resting on her lower belly, his fingers tracing maddening patterns on her inner thighs. "Tell me what you want."
"Your mouth. I want your mouth."
"Where?"
She groaned, arching into him. "You know where."
"I want to hear you say it."
A year ago, she would have been mortified. Too embarrassed to voice her needs, too self-conscious to demand what she wanted. But Rhett had spent twelve months teaching her that her pleasure mattered. That asking for what she wanted wasn’t weakness—it was strength.
"I want your mouth on my pussy," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "I want you to make me come with your tongue."
His smile was pure sin. "That’s my girl."
He gave her exactly what she asked for.
His tongue was hot and clever, finding her clit with unerring accuracy, working her with the kind of focused intensity that told her he wasn’t going to stop until she shattered. She gripped the blankets beneath her, her hips lifting off the bed, sounds escaping her mouth that she couldn’t control.
"That’s it," he murmured against her. "Let go for me."
He slid two fingers inside her, curling them just right, and Val’s world exploded. She came with a cry that echoed off the workshop walls, pleasure crashing through her in relentless waves.
He didn’t stop.
"One more," he said, his fingers still moving, his tongue still working. "Give me one more."
"I can’t—"
"You can." He added a third finger, stretching her, filling her. "You always can."
The second orgasm built faster than the first, stacking on top of the aftershocks until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. She came again, harder this time, her vision going white at the edges.
"Rhett—" She was pulling at his shoulders, desperate to feel him inside her. "Please. I need you."
He rose over her, positioning himself at her entrance, his arms braced on either side of her head. In the candlelight, he looked like something out of a dream—golden skin, dark eyes, the kind of love in his expression that made her chest ache.
"I love you," he said.
"I love you too."
He pushed inside.
The workshop filled with the sounds of their lovemaking—the creak of the wooden platform, the slap of skin against skin, the breathless moans and whispered words that lovers shared in the dark.
Rhett moved inside her with deep, steady strokes, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath hot on her face. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, wanting to feel him in every cell of her body.
"Mine," he groaned against her neck. "You’re mine, Val. Say it."
"Yours. I’m yours."
"Forever."
"Forever."
He picked up the pace, his control fraying, his movements becoming harder, more desperate. Val felt another orgasm building—impossibly, after the two he’d already given her—and chased it, rolling her hips to meet his thrusts.
"Come with me," she gasped. "Rhett—I want to feel you—"
"Yes." He drove into her hard, once, twice, three times. "Yes, fuck, Val—"
They crashed over the edge together.
Pleasure tore through her, sharper and sweeter than anything she’d felt before. She heard herself cry out, heard him groan her name, felt him pulse inside her as they shattered in each other’s arms.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. They just lay there, tangled together on the bed he’d built in the workshop where it all started, breathing hard and holding tight.
"So," Rhett said eventually, his voice muffled against her shoulder. "Good anniversary?"
Val laughed, weak and sated. "The best."
"Better than dinner and flowers?"
"Infinitely." She pressed a kiss to his hair. "You realize we’re going to have to disinfect this entire workshop now."
"Worth it."
"And explain to Hank why there’s a bed in here."
"We’ll say it’s for inventory emergencies."
"That doesn’t make any sense."
"He won’t ask follow-up questions." Rhett lifted his head, grinning down at her. "Trust me."
Val looked at him—this ridiculous, wonderful man who had built her a bed in a workshop and made love to her by candlelight—and felt her heart swell with more love than she’d ever thought possible.
"I trust you," she said. "With everything."
His expression softened. "I know. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life being worthy of that."
"You already are."
He kissed her, soft and sweet, and then pulled her into his arms.
Outside, the lumber yard was quiet. The saws were still, the trucks parked, everything peaceful beneath the September stars.
But inside the workshop, wrapped in blankets and candlelight, Val and Rhett held each other close and dreamed of the future they were building.
Together.
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