Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (33 page)

Every muscle in his body protested as he held back, not giving her what they both wanted. He wanted her to come first. He wanted to feel her pussy gush over his hand, to feel her ass clamp like a vise around his cock. He wanted to be able to shove his fingers into her spasming pussy and feel his own cock jerk and pulse as it filled her ass with the seed threatening to explode from his balls. More than he wanted it, he needed it. She was his and he wanted to fuck her so long and hard, fill her so full, she never, ever forgot it.

His strokes took on a desperate edge, and he knew he was being too rough for someone new to this, but he couldn’t hold back. He pounded her ass, his hand clamped around the base of his cock keeping him from driving too deeply. He fucked her until she screamed and collapsed beneath him, her body jerking as her orgasm overtook her. He shoved his fingers into her writhing pussy and let his own release take him, feeling his cock swell and jerk through the thin membrane, coming so hard, her name was ripped from his throat.

Chapter Fifteen

That night, as Mara returned to the table from removing the last of the supper dishes, Cougar pulled her down onto his lap. Mara struggled but Cougar was having none of it.

“Keep me company,” he said around a mouthful of apple pie.

She glanced up at him. “You can’t eat pie by yourself?” Beneath his hand, he could feel her ribs.

“Nope.” He cut off another piece of pie and brought it to her lips. “Open up.”

“I already ate.”

“A little more won’t hurt.”

Her lips parted, but only to say, “I’ll explode.”

“I doubt it.” She sighed and reached for the fork. He shook his head. Her gaze flew to his as he pressed the pie against her lips. “Just open your mouth.”

She did. He slid the pie in. Watching her mouth close around the tines, he slowly pulled the fork out. Her lips slid the full length. Blood rushed to his cock and breath fled his lungs. Damn. She had a great mouth. He waited until she’d chewed and swallowed—barely—before bringing her chest to his, his mouth to hers. Her lips fluttered softly against his as she desperately swallowed again. He sucked her lower lip between his teeth, holding it the way that always made her shudder, and felt the shiver take her. Then he said, “Open.”

She did. Helplessly. Embarrassedly. His tongue swept inside. She tasted like wild woman and sweet apples. He kissed her until she had no breath left, no will left, then pulled back, loving the way her lips clung to his, her body softened into his, and her hips slid against him.

“My two favorite flavors,” he murmured against those soft lips, kissing them one more time before leaning back so he could see her expression. “Mara and apple pie.”

She blushed and buried her face into his chest. Laughing, he cut off a piece of pie for himself, hugging her as he chewed.

He did enjoy her. He managed to get two more bites down her before she begged off, claiming to be full. Her stomach under his fingers was hard, so he relented. He did not relent in letting her up. He liked the way she felt in his arms. The way this felt, the two of them together at the end of the day, so he held her on his lap, snuggled up tight against him, and finished the pie.

It wasn’t long before tiredness began to sway her in the direction of his shoulder. By the time Cougar was two-thirds through his second piece of pie, Mara was cuddled against him, lazily drifting off to sleep.

The chill in the room worsened, and by the time Cougar finished the pie, the fire was definitely in need of replenishing. Carefully carrying Mara to the velvet upholstered sofa she had insisted be put in the parlor, Cougar lay her down. Working quietly so as not to wake her, he fed the fire, did the supper dishes, and doused the lamps before returning to stand by his wife. She slept on her side with her hands tucked under her chin and her lashes feathering her cheeks. Shadows from the fire flowed across her face, emphasizing and de-emphasizing the delicate bone structure.

Shrugging out of his shirt, Cougar sat on the floor beside Mara, his fingers pushing a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. “Wake up, Mara.”

Sleepy and trusting, her eyes opened and stared into his.

“I fell asleep?”

“Yeah. You fell asleep.”

Still caught between dreams and reality, Mara shifted to her back before reaching up and cupping the hand caressing her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be,” Cougar whispered. Mara’s tongue eased out to moisten her lips, and Cougar bent his head to touch it with his before it could return to the sanctuary of her mouth.

Mara closed her eyes and waited.

So trusting, Cougar thought, so damned trusting of me not to hurt her. He was going to push that trust to the limit tonight, because tonight they were going to make love. He brought his thumb up to rest against the damp surface of her lips. Because he couldn’t help himself, Cougar slid his thumb between Mara’s lips, keeping them parted for the invasion of his tongue. Leaning forward, he mated his mouth to hers. Little gasping breaths passed from her mouth to his. She was afraid when they were like this, front to front. He knew it, but she was interested, too. Cougar kept it slow. At first, he only let his tongue trace the shape of her mouth. Every time he felt her body jerk, he paid particular attention to the spot.

“Open for me,” he ordered.

Cougar loved the way Mara obeyed mindlessly. Diving into the moist portal, he thrust and explored to his heart’s content. He found every drop of honey she hoarded in every secret corner, and when Mara grew bold enough to meet his foray with her own, Cougar rewarded her by bathing her tongue in sensation. His heart thundered in his chest as he pulled away.

He wasn’t fooling himself that her blood raced to match his. Not yet anyway. There was expectancy about her though. As if she was waiting for something to happen. If he approached this right, she wouldn’t think of anything besides him. “I’m going to make love to you tonight.”

She sighed, and relaxed into his chest, obviously not taking his meaning. “Okay.”

He cupped her cheek in his hand. “The normal way, Mara.”

Tension crept into her pliant body. “Couldn’t we just do it like before?”

He shook his head. “I’m willing to bet you’re too sore to take me again that way.”

Her blush and unconscious shifting confirmed his suspicions. “Isn’t there something else—”

He slid his thumb over her lips, cutting off her suggestion. “I want my wife, Mara.”

“What if I struggle?”

“I’ll deal with it.”

“What if I go crazy?”

“You won’t.”

“What if I can’t respond?”

Ah, now they were at the crux of her worries. “It’s my job to see that you do.”

He caught her hands in his, stretching them up until they rested by her head. Lowering his torso, he placed his mouth on hers, aligning their lips precisely so that each ridge found a mate to cuddle. With tiny increments of motion, he persuaded the slightest of breaks to occur in the tight seal she unwittingly maintained. With the utmost care, Cougar slid the tip of his tongue through the crack. When her lips parted further and an increase in her respiration could be detected, Cougar pulled back.

“Very nice,” he approved the way Mara’s mouth gleamed from the wetness of his. “Very nice indeed.”

Mara ran her tongue over her lips. “I taste like you,” she said wonderingly.

A jolt of pure lust tore through him. “Good.”

She looked down his body.

“You’re naked.”

“Not quite. Is it a problem?”

Mara’s fingers flexed under his palms. “I’m not sure.”

Cougar shifted both of her hands to one of his. Reaching behind her head, he released her glorious hair from its respectable knot.

“Which is it? Yes or no. I’m a man of large appetites and right now, I’m very hungry.”

He felt the quiver that shook Mara’s body from his chest to his toes. “Damn you,” she hissed. “You do it on purpose.”

Cougar didn’t deny it. He met the helpless anger in her gaze with honesty. “Do you know what it does to me when you respond to me like that?” He cupped his hand behind her neck, and arched her mouth to his. When he parted his lips from hers, his voice was raw with his need. “It tears me up, humbles me, and sends me out of my mind.”

Mara stiffened beneath him. “You’re not going to stop tonight, are you?”

“No.”

“No matter what?” she asked.

“No matter what.”

Her breath shuddered in her chest and her face leeched a pale white.

Cougar snorted in exasperation. “What would be the point of waiting? Look at you.” He motioned to her face. “Two minutes ago, you were crazy for me. Your breasts are still peaking for my touch, but now you’re terrified out of your wits. Do you think that’s going to get any better with time?”

“Yes.”

Cougar shook his head, keeping her from leaving by holding onto her hands. “The longer we wait, the worse it will become.”

Mara tugged at her hands. “If you’d give me time…”

“I told you from the beginning, time wasn’t part of the deal.”

She turned her face from him, staring at the fire. He could see the battle she waged with herself. He could order her to submit, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her to come to him. He wanted this proof of her trust.

He waited two minutes before she turned her head back to him. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. Her breath hung in her throat as she reached for the front of her dress. With fingers that trembled imperceptibly, she undid the buttons on the bodice of her dress. “Are you still hungry?” The shakiness of her voice belied the hard determination in her eyes.

“Ravenous,” Cougar answered solemnly, knowing how hard this was for her. Reaching up, he stopped the dress from shimmying off her slender shoulders. “But for right now, why don’t you kiss me?”

The lips that touched his were aggressive but cold. Oh, so cold. Holding Mara’s head still, Cougar gentled her with butterfly touches of his mouth on hers. Suddenly, her breath escaped in a harsh expulsion that Cougar drew into his mouth along with the tears that had pooled at the corners of her lips.

“I’m so afraid,” Mara confessed in a fragile whisper. “So deathly afraid.”

“I know.” He stroked a tear from her cheek. It wasn’t a rational fear, but he knew it was real to her.

Her lip slid between her teeth. He pulled it free with his thumb. Her breath shuddered over his skin. Her gaze skirted his. Mara’s chest pulled tight against his as she took another breath and held it. He counted to three before she blurted out, “Can we just get it over with then? Can we just do it?”

Cougar smoothed the tangle of hair back from her face as he sat up. A few strands twisted around his hand, tangling with his fingers. “Yes. We can just do it.”

Taking a quilted throw off the back of the chair, Cougar shook it out. It flared in a colorful sprawl over the plank floor before the fireplace. Taking Mara’s clammy hand in his, he pulled her over and down until they were lying on the center of the broken star pattern. When she immediately rolled onto her back and spread her legs, he was unprepared for the rush of tenderness that surged through him. He stroked his fingers down her face. “Open your eyes, Mara.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He smiled at her frown. “Because I want to talk.”

“It’ll go faster if we skip conversation.”

Her eyes were still closed. “I can work and talk at the same time.”

That had her cracking an eyelid. “Work? This is work?”

He shrugged. “You’ve pretty much taken all the fun out of it.”

Her other eyelid cracked open. “You’re not serious.”

“I’m always serious.”

Her gaze collided with his, bounced off, and then came back to focus just to the left of his nose. “Compared to whom?”

“Asa MacIntyre.”

“Who?”

“He married up with my neighbor, Elizabeth Coyote, a year or so back.”

“What does he have to do with anything?”

“Compared to Asa, I’m as serious as a damned judge.”

“Oh.” A long pause and then, “You sound as if you like him.”

“He has a way of growing on you and Elizabeth finds him tolerable.”

Her eyes opened all the way now. “You like Elizabeth?”

“Yeah. I like her.”

If her frown was anything to go by, she wasn’t too happy to hear that. “It’s impolite to speak of another woman while in bed with your wife.”

“This something you picked up in that etiquette book?”

Her gaze shifted from his. “Maybe.”

“Or would you just be making this up as you go along?” She shrugged, the quilt bunched under her shoulder.

“What if I am?”

He leaned over her to tug the crease flat. “Then I’d want to know your reason.”

A log popped in the fireplace. Mara jumped, her chest colliding with his forearm. Her muscles immediately pulled tight again.

So much for distraction. One accidental touch and they were back at square one.