Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (31 page)

This time, she did squirm, the moisture leaking from her pussy easing her slide across his stomach, facilitating his positioning of her body.

When she felt the broad head of his cock push against her thigh, she froze, and then pulled to the side.

“Hold still.”

She didn’t have any choice as his hand locked her hip to him. Her eyes flew to his, the protest on her lips fading as she met his gaze. There was no softness there. Just the same driving need surging through her, reflected in his eyes. Only in his, there wasn’t the fear she felt. The uncertainty she couldn’t help. The fragmented memories she didn’t want.

“You made me a promise,” he reminded her.

She swallowed. “I know.”

“I’m your husband.”

“Yes.”

“Then scoot back. Welcome me.”

With her eyes locked to his, she came up on her knees, moved back the inch she’d moved away, and accepted the weight of his cock against her buttocks.

His hand behind her head pulled her forward for his kiss as his other reached between them. His fingers slid over her pussy, gathering the liquid he found there and drawing it back until he could coat her anus with it. She jumped at the dark hunger that spread as his finger circled the sensitive opening, again and again. She couldn’t help arching into his hand, opening her mouth wider, wanting more of his touch, of him.

“You like that?” he asked into her mouth. It was a rhetorical question, as he didn’t wait for an answer before bringing his formidable cock to bear against the tiny clenched opening.

“Steady,” he ordered, while he levered himself up against the headboard.

As he shifted forward, his cock shoved hard against her. Frissons of desire shot out from her anus. Her muscles twitched, and for a brief moment, she wished it were possible. Wished she could take him there. Give herself into his keeping the way she never had to anyone else.

Then he was sitting before her, drawing her up on her knees, not breaking contact, keeping his cock wedged between her buttocks in a steady, immovable pressure.

Locking his eyes to Mara’s, he slowly eased his tongue over his lips. “Give me your breasts.”

With a helpless sob, she responded to the softly purred order, bracing her hands on his shoulders and offering her breast to his mouth. As he took her nipple into his mouth, he maneuvered his cock between her cheeks. It pressed against her, a powerful threat. And a potent lure.

At first, his lips were gentle. Soft. tender. It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted his teeth and that strong suction that flared through her body like lightning. When he gave it to her, she screamed. Her body bucked on his cock, bearing down and releasing in time with his mouth as she rode the dual sensations of pleasure and pain in a relentless tide of need.

“That’s it, Angel. Push back. Welcome me.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about. She just knew she was burning, empty, and she needed something. His hand dipped between her thighs and found her clit. The snap of his fingers was a tiny culmination that had her pussy clenching and her ass grabbing at his cock.

“Shit. You’re burning me alive,” he groaned.

She was glad. His cock pushed harder at her ass while his fingers worked her clit, pulling, tugging and sliding until she was mindlessly sobbing. Working her body on his cock, pushing into his hands, desperate for the relief he wouldn’t give.

“Come on, Mara,” he whispered in her ear. “Give it to me. Give me that tight little ass.”

He nipped her nipple while pulling on her clit.

“Open, baby. Just a little. Just the tiniest bit, and I’ll come for you. Don’t you want that?” he whispered, spreading the juices running down her thighs up around his cock and her anus. “Don’t you want to feel my seed spurting into your ass? Filling you?”

God, she could almost feel it. It was wrong, dirty, and she wanted it so badly, she could taste it. She nodded.

“Then let go, Angel.”

He leaned forward and took her nipple in his mouth. With his tongue, he pressed it against the roof of his mouth before raking it with his teeth. The hand on her clit took up the same rhythm, the same roughness. He released her breast.

She opened her eyes to find him watching her. He braced both hands on her hips. Both thumbs came to rest on her clit. His hands pushed down. His callused thumbs dipped. Swirled. Dragged. It was too much. She couldn’t contain the explosion that threatened.

“Give me your ass,” he ordered as her breath caught. There was the slightest of giving, parting and then a sharp pain and an even more delicious pleasure. He was in her! She clenched around him, cupping the tip, struggling to understand what was happening as her nerve endings went wild in anticipation. He scraped his nail across her clit and there was no more anticipation, just a headlong toss into the center of the storm as her body convulsed in a searing explosion. Her pussy grasped at air while her ass ground down upon the head of his cock.

“Easy, Angel,” Cougar gasped, his fist around his cock preventing her from driving him deeper as spurt after spurt of hot come bathed her dark channel, each splash sparking another spiraling, mindless release of sensation. Cougar’s growl of “mine” just one more echo in the maelstrom of passion sucking her under.

Chapter Fourteen

Morning, Mara discovered, came very early on a working ranch. Dawn was just pinkening the eastern sky with a lazy yawn of color, and she was bustling around the kitchen, throwing together a huge breakfast for the two men seated at the table drinking coffee and discussing the morning’s plan.

Smothering another yawn with the back of her forearm, Mara popped the biscuits in the oven and put three huge steaks in a heavy cast iron frying pan to cook. She struggled to maneuver another, equally huge pan off the rack attached to the wall above the stove. It hit the stovetop with a God-awful clatter. Under her breath, Mara uttered one of Cougar’s favorite oaths.

“Need any help?” Cougar asked.

“No,” Mara snapped. Forgetting the flour coating her hands, she unobtrusively pulled her dress away from her bosom. All her discomforts this morning could be laid squarely at her husband’s feet. She was bone weary from the meager two hours sleep Cougar had allowed her. Heck, she was so tired, even that mud called coffee sounded good. She couldn’t cook a decent breakfast because every time she moved, her dress chafed her irritated nipples. Nipples tender from her husband’s insatiable greed. And to top off everything, he lounged in his chair, looking as comfortable and as rested as if he’d come off a two week sleep.

Mara slammed an egg into the hot skillet so hard the yolk broke. Another swear word and a burnt finger later, and she heard the talk behind her cease. There was a scrape of a chair leg, and Clint departed the house with a comment about getting breakfast in the bunkhouse.

As the screen door slammed, Cougar smiled and shoved back his own chair. The set of Mara’s shoulders just dared him to set one foot in her direction. He wasn’t one to turn away from a dare.

Another yolk broke under the onslaught of Mara’s bad temper. “I won’t hold breakfast for him if he comes back,” she groused.

“It won’t be the first time he’s done without,” Cougar replied evenly while rummaging around in a cupboard.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Cougar walked up beside her. Her back was poker straight and her gaze locked on a grease spot on the stove.

Mara brushed her eyes with the back of her uninjured hand. “For being so grumpy.”

“I can handle it.” Cougar removed the skillets from the heat.

He snagged his finger in the front of Mara’s dress. The neck gaped obligingly, revealing her tender nipples. “I’m hungry.”

Proving the depth of their memory, her nipples immediately perked to wanton attention. Mara groaned and brought her hands up as if to cover the sight. Cougar caught her eye and shook his head. He drew her over to one of the chairs by the table and sat her down. Perching his hip on the table, he pulled her finger up for inspection. It wasn’t bad. He applied some ointment, vividly aware of her nipples straining toward him.

It was all he could do to doctor her finger. He wanted those nipples in his mouth. He wanted to finish what he’d started last night. As soon as her finger was tended, he pulled her to her feet to stand between his thighs. Her quick glance down brought a blush to her cheeks. He pulled her dress away from her chest, intrigued by the path the blush took, starting at her breasts and traveling upward. Mara had time for one horrified squeak before he pulled the dress down, trapping her arms at her sides and exposing her breasts.

“That does it,” she growled, eyes narrowed. “Tomorrow, you are taking me into town so I can get some decent clothing.”

“Don’t bother on my account.” Cougar studied her breasts intently. He was immensely flattered that her body responded at all this morning, considering the state of her beautiful chest.

“I think I owe you an apology,” he said quietly, touching one angry red nipple lightly with his fingertip. His finger dipped to trace the whisker burn surrounding the swollen end. “I didn’t realize I had been so demanding.”

Her breath hitched, raising those nipples as if to beg his mouth before she gasped, “I didn’t mind.” She closed her eyes. “I mean…” she stammered. “At first, it was terribly embarrassing, but later it wasn’t, I mean it’s your right. I married you…”

“Shhh,” Cougar hushed. “I’m trying to apologize.” Slipping his hands around her fragile ribcage, he brought her right nipple to his lips where he butterflied tender kisses of regret. When he administered the same apology to the other, he was shocked to find Mara’s fingers clenched in his hair.

“Oh God,” she moaned in what sounded distinctly like an order. “Do it right!”

He was happy to oblige. He couldn’t think of anything he’d like better right now than to taste her. To have her against his tongue again. His mouth opened over her breast. Mara cried out. The hands that had been pulling Cougar closer, now pushed him away. Mara threw her head back on a sob.

Feathering his fingers up and down the sides of her rib cage, Cougar paused. “What’s wrong, Angel?”

“Is it awful for me to be this way? Is this why you left me at Doc’s?” she asked, her voice tight as if she feared his response.

“God, no,” Cougar husked, lashing each nipple once with his tongue, while keeping Mara from leaping off the chair with the weight of his hands. “This is beautiful.”

“Then why?”

“I told you why.” He nibbled all around her nipple, evading her efforts to get him to do more, laving the crinkled skin at the base of her nipple before dancing his tongue away.

His hair tangled with her breasts. He impatiently grabbed it and moved it out of his way. His morning beard brushed her breast. She flinched.

“I’m hurting you,” he realized. He thought he had been so careful, barely touching the skin, and her hands had been pulling him closer as they were now, but he was hurting her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Mara said fiercely, her head thrown back so her nipple could prod his mouth. “Don’t stop.”

“Shhh,” Cougar soothed. “Let me see what I can do.”

Mara’s only response was another one of those groans that made him rock-hard in an astounding rush. He lifted her out of the chair and swapped places, sitting her on his lap so her back was to him. He dipped his fingers into the jar of salve and then spread the healing balm to both hands before smoothing it in concentric circles around Mara’s swollen breasts. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her hair spilling over his chest as she arched into his caress.

Her hips twisted and her bottom squirmed on the hard ridge of Cougar’s thigh. She sobbed harder and harder as she came so close to achieving what she so desperately needed. Her back was arched almost double, as if she was trying to escape, but always she swayed with the smooth milking glide of his fingers. Her fingers sank as deeply into the muscles of his forearms as her teeth sank into her lower lip. Her entire body was flushed a rosy red. She was totally lost in the feelings, and she was his.

With every surge of her hips, she drove his cock along the crease of her ass. He couldn’t help remembering last night, and how tight she’d been around him as he’d entered her that tiny bit. How she’d clenched and spasmed as he’d shot his seed into her dark channel. He wanted it again. If he couldn’t take her conventionally for fear of her remembering, he wanted her this way.

He tucked his chin so his words brushed her ear. “Do you remember last night?”

She paused. The blush creeping up her cheek spoke volumes.

“Do you remember how tight you gripped me? How good it hurt when I came inside you that little bit?”

Her lower lip sucked between her teeth. She nodded.

“Can you still feel my seed inside you?”

Her eyes closed and there was an infinitesimal hesitation. He imagined her checking, searching herself for evidence of his seed. His cock throbbed painfully. She shook her head, “No.”

“We can’t have that,” he drawled, drawing her skirt up. When it cleared her thighs, he asked, “Do you want me to fill you again?”

Her eyes popped open. The sideways look she sent him was hungry, and a bit desperate, but she didn’t answer.