A Soldier's Promise [The Armstrong Brothers of Cedar Creek 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic)

by Rebecca Joyce

  He was slowly losing it. He couldn’t get his mind to shut off, and the noise coming from down the hall was foreign to him, which had him jumping and turning at every sound.

  He needed air.

  He needed to figure out how he was going to make it through the night, without going postal, and he needed to figure out how to get her the hell out of his house!

  Grabbing his phone, he walked out onto his back porch and sat in the single lawn chair facing the woods. Quickly dialing a number he knew by heart, he waited until someone answered. He just hoped it was the one he desperately wanted to speak to and not the other.

  “Armstrong residence!” the young voice shouted loudly into the phone. Mason smiled, as he heard a woman in the background scold his niece. “Abby! How many times have I asked you to not yell into the phone? They can hear you just fine.”

  “But, Momma, what if they are deaf? I gotta talk louder so they can hear.”

  “Well, if they aren’t deaf already, they are now. Give me that phone. Hello?”

  “Hey, Rach,” Mason mumbled.

  “Oh, Mason. How are things going over at your place?”

  “She’s in my tub,” he simply said. Though he knew she tried to stem her laughter, she was unsuccessful, and Mason just rolled his eyes.

  “Okay…um, did you make sure she had a clean towel and show her where everything was?” Rachael asked slowly.

  “Yes, I think so,” he said, taking a deep breath and exhaling.

  “Mason, you’re going to be fine. What you are doing is very neighborly, and considering you did tear apart her home, it’s the least you could do.”

  “If she would have listened to me in the first place, she wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t be on the phone with you. She is making me nervous.”

  “She is also the first guest you have had at your place. Look, Mason, I get it, you like your space, we all do, but sometimes you have to share.”

  “Why don’t you come get her? She will be happier with you. I will just fuck everything up.”

  “No. You offered her your place, and it would be rude to kick her out. Besides, I have my hands full as it is. Abby and Andrew are all over the place, Sam is getting into everything, Henry brought a couple of friends over, and your brothers are tearing apart my shed. This place is a madhouse. I am not fit for company, which means you are up to bat, bucko, so suck it up. Have you made the bed for her?”

  “Yeah, I just threw some blankets on the couch.”

  “Mason Harold Armstrong, she cannot sleep on that couch! You go strip your bed and put clean sheets on it for her, and you sleep on the couch. Do you hear me? You better not let me find out that you made that poor woman sleep on that lumpy couch. God help you if I find out that’s what you’ve done!” she yelled at him. Mason cringed, removing the phone from his ear.

  “Woman, who are you yelling at?” Mason heard his brother Michael in the background. He tried to interject, but with Rachael on a rampage, all he could do was listen.

  “Your brother. He is going to make Annabelle sleep on the couch!”

  Laughing, he heard Mikie say, “Oh, that’s rich. Has he kissed her yet?”

  “No!” she gasped. “When, how, why?”

  “Apparently she was crying, and he called Mitchell to get advice.”

  “Is he nuts? Mitch! Oh my God, what did that idiot tell him to do?”

  “Just that if she didn’t stop crying, and if he wanted her to stop, to kiss her, and if I know Mason, he probably did.”

  “He can’t be that stupid! She has been through hell. He can’t just go and slap one on her. How did she react?”

  “How the hell should I know! You’re the one on the phone with him. Ask him.”

  “Oh shit…Mason! Mason are you still there?” Rachael yelled into the phone.

  “Uh huh.”

  “I guess you heard, huh?”

  “The whole state of Texas heard, Rach. Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast, okay?”

  “All right. If you need anything, just call, okay? And let Annabelle know that Andrew is doing fine. He is having a fun, okay?”

  “Yeah, talk to you tomorrow. Bye,” he said, hanging up the phone. Mason knew that within the hour his whole family would know about what he had done, and for the next week, he would be the main topic of conversation, no matter how hard he tried to deflect the attention somewhere else. Returning to the living room, he sat down on the couch. All he could hope for now was that one of his other brothers fucked up royally, to make his indiscretion look nonexistent. However, when he heard the bathroom door open, he turned just in time to watch Annabelle walk out with only his T-shirt and robe on and nothing else.

  When his cock grew to gigantic proportions as she smiled at him, he knew right then and there, he was so screwed. He watched as she smiled and then disappeared into his bedroom, quietly shutting the door. Sighing, he kicked off his boots and lay down. His couch wasn’t the most comfortable thing. He groaned, knowing Rachael was right. After the day Annabelle had, she needed a bed. Hoping to get some sleep, he closed his eyes, and tried to think of a way out of this mess.

  It was raining. He could feel it hitting his head. Looking up, he opened his mouth and welcomed the water as it hit his dry lips. It had been three days, three long and torturous days. He could still hear their screams as they were subjected to another round of let’s-beat-the-shit-out-of-you-till-you-give-up-the-information. From the grunts and curses, he knew they were working on Gunny. He was putting up a good fight by the sounds of him, and then all of a sudden a gunshot rang out as he screamed, “Kerry!”

  Gasping for air, Mason bolted straight up. Sweat dripped from his forehead. His heart pounded heavily. His mind quickly processed his surroundings.

  He was alive, no longer in the military.

  He was home, in Cedar Creek.

  He was alive.

  He kept saying that mantra over and over.

  With those simple words in his mind, his eyes began to focus. His heart began to slow, and his breathing came under control. Taking a deep breath, he wiped his hands down his face, when he felt it. He was not alone. Someone was close. Instantly going on alert, he twisted from where he lay on the couch and grabbed the intruder, throwing them to the ground, pinning their body under his.

  He never heard her yelp, or felt her soft curves under him, only focusing on her soft eyes. Those deep fathoms of caramel honey, so liquid and warm—he felt as if he was falling into them. Understanding hit him and concern engulfed him, as he felt his body move against her, yet she never said a word, never blinking as she kept him mesmerized by her intent gaze.

  Before he could stop himself, he took her lips hard and hungrily. Claiming her softness, he thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. He could feel her wiggling beneath him, moaning into his mouth. His mind whirled that she was there with him. The fear he felt moments ago fled as the need to dive into her goodness overpowered him.

  She didn’t fight him. If anything she was rather still, but he didn’t care. He needed her like he needed air in his lungs. He couldn’t stop himself. Somewhere deep within his mind, someone was yelling at him to stop, that this wasn’t right, but when she reached up and caressed his face, kissing him back, he ignored that voice and took what was gifted to him.

  Moving away from her lips, he kissed his way down her neck as his hands tore the robe she wore from her body. She didn’t struggle, actually helping him to remove the offending clothing. She still wore his T-shirt that he had given her, and with one good grip, he ripped it, too, from her body, eager and needing to get to the woman beneath.

  She was beautiful and soft, and he needed her. He had never needed anyone in his life, always capable of taking care of himself, yet in this moment he wanted what technically didn’t belong to him. He felt a craving, a yearning, for something more.

  Annabelle gasped as he latched on to her breast and began to suck greedily. She didn’t know what had happened or how she came
to be under him, writhing in pleasure.

  Awakened by his cries, she had jumped out of the bed, rushing into the living room to find him panting and gasping for air. His body had sat firm, rigid upon the couch, his eyes seeing everything but actually seeing nothing. They were vacant, as if he was still in the nightmare that had woken him.

  She remembered what it was like for her uncle when he came home. He, too, had horrible nightmares. Only he was unable to handle them, and eventually took his own life. She knew that Mason was ex-military—the pictures on his walls told her that—but how long ago it was that he served, she didn’t know, and right now she really didn’t care. He was in the throes of a nightmare only he could get himself out of and when he came to, she just prayed that he would let her help him. She had tried with her uncle, but he always clammed up, refusing to talk about it. Walking slowly toward him, she had just reached out to him when he turned on her, taking her to the floor.

  Now with Mason grinding his body into hers, and suckling on her breast, all thoughts of his nightmare fled, as the need to make him feel again surfaced. He had inadvertently awakened something deep within her, something she thought she had finally gotten past—the need for a man.

  Raising her hands, she let them trail over his broad shoulders, down his muscular back, to his waist. He was toned and fit, unlike her ex-husband. A dark black tattoo wrapped around his right bicep, bold and strong. He devoured her as he continued heightening her pleasure. She could feel his strong, able hands move sensually up and around her body, as his cock furiously kept grinding against her pelvis. She could feel his hard cock, long and stiff under his pajama bottoms, rubbing against her now-moist pussy.

  It had been so long since she felt another man’s touch. Forgetting everything that had happened to her in the last day, she let it all go, her irritation and fatigue, allowing the man above her to do with her as he pleased.

  She felt as his cock stretched and grown into its perfect shape and pleasurable proportions, knowing that her world would be right again.

  Soon.

  Their eyes met and locked, as he braced himself on his hands, his pelvis still pressed hard against hers. She looked into his fathomless blue eyes as Mason’s eyebrow flared and settled, his gaze dropping back to her chest once more.

  She reached up and trailed her fingers through the soft hair that covered his chest. At one time, she never cared for hair on a man’s chest, but there was just something about Mason, and the way he felt against her—she knew she would never want any other. A cheeky grin revealed her pleasure as she teased Mason with a smirk before continuing down his dark happy trail toward the bulge lying against her womb.

  Trailing her fingers slowly under the hem of his pajamas, around his narrow waist in deliberate seduction, she grinned as her hands cupped his ass and pulled him closer to her. There was no need for an exchange of words. Actions and expressions spoke far more eloquently, and as she looked back into his deep blue eyes, she knew he felt the same way. Raking her nails across his ass and up his back, her eyes never left him.

  She enthralled him with her sexy little smile and curvaceous body. And when she grinned that mischievous little smirk, he about came in his pants right then and there. No one had ever teased him. Well, except for his brothers, but they didn’t count. They did it to get a rise out of him. But by the looks of Annabelle, not only was she playful with him, she too wanted a rise, just one that benefited her.

  Before he could say anything, he watched as she slowly trailed her hand down her stomach, toward her pretty blue panties, slipping her hand inside them. His eyes descended and fixed on her hand. He watched as she fluffed the soft thatch of blonde hair before her fingers uncurled on their own accord, sliding between her dampened lips. He could smell her arousal. His mouth watered, desperate to taste her. The pleasure took her unexpectedly. Her eyelids drooped and her head rolled back as she moaned in her pleasure.

  The moment she came, their eyes connected, immersing him in knowledge that what came next would constitute more than mere physical satisfaction. There was something deeply rooted between them, a longing only they knew about. It connected them, made them who they were today. It was if they both just knew.

  Quickly removing his pajama bottoms, he watched as Annabelle wiggled and shimmied out of her panties. There was no need for words and none were spoken. Moving over to the couch, Mason leaned against it, wrapping his hand firmly around his thick cock, holding it steady, stroking it as he watched her crawl toward him.

  She inched forward into position. Her shaky, anticipating fingers sank into her soft golden tuft and shamelessly parted the hidden slit to show herself to him. His blood pumped and heat swirled deeper, generating more of the sweet nectar of love as Mason’s devouring gaze continued to feast on her enticing body. Only when his glazed eyes rose to hers did Annabelle slowly begin to lower herself onto his pulsing shaft. Silk brushed against silk as her eyelids fell to the serenade of a long-winded sigh.

  The moment she sat fully upon him, Mason grabbed her around the waist and kissed her, slowly and leisurely. He wanted whatever this was to last. For so long he had lived a lonely life, without care or affection. Yet this little slip of a woman showed him more compassion in the last ten minutes than anyone he had ever known.

  She was gentle and caring, and by God, he wanted what she was offering. Even if it was only for tonight, he was going to take what she offered, gladly and happily. Tomorrow he would move on, but for right now, as she looked at him with her soft brown eyes, wanting to please him, he let her.

  It took every ounce of self-control and patience she had in her to do no more than press against his thick crown, which covered the span of her opening, and slowly savor the feel as she took him into her body. Her gentle hip rotations blended his pre-cum with her female fluids, making them slippery, wet, and slick. She hadn’t intended to throw herself on him, but when the crown of his cock slipped through accidentally, drawing gasps from her, she couldn’t stop herself until she had him fully in her. She felt every ridge, every vein, every pulse, as she slowly sank onto him. He stretched her, filled her like no other. Full, to the point of pain, she never stopped until she felt the soft hairs surrounding his balls touching her ass.

  Shocked, her eyes lifted to meet his, and she saw the same wild urge, total acceptance, and wonder. She had heard that eyes were the window to one’s soul, but never until this moment did she realize what that meant. Looking at Mason, with their bodies connected in the most primal of ways, she saw his need to be tender but controlling. He wanted her happy, and yet he was willing to accept what she offered. He humbled her.

  Mason never took his eyes away from her, locking them in this moment. Holding onto her hips, he helped her with the gentle glide and rocking motion of her hips, back and forth, their breathing picking up speed. Soon, sweat beaded on their bodies, and still neither looked away. Mason grew more demanding, as his grip tightened until he had her at the speed he needed. Her moans and cries were soft as he watched her body come alive. When she placed her hand on his shoulders and began to bounce on his cock, he released her hips, cupping her bountiful breast. His thumbs and forefingers rolled and pinched her luscious nipples, and still her moans continued.

  She moved urgently on him, her wetness leaking down her thighs, coating his pubic hair. The smacking of wet skin against wet skin only seemed to spur her on, as she became determined to reach that pinnacle within her grasp. Her pussy tightened around him like a vise. He growled as she ground herself on his cock, taking every inch of him, never letting him leave that one spot within her.

  Unable to take much more, he grabbed her around the waist and bounced her hard as he thrust into her with long and steady strokes. Her nails dug into his shoulders, causing a bite of pain, as he plunged deeper into her core. Her cries were constant now, as he picked up the pace, demanding she give him all of her pleasure. When her legs tightened around him, he knew that Annabelle was teetering on the edge of her climax. Loweri
ng his mouth to her neck, he bit her, sucking hard, as she tensed and held firm beneath him as he waited for his reward.

  The sharp pain of pleasure spread across her face as Annabelle fell into sweet oblivion. Pumping into her faster, he drew a guttural scream as her body exploded into indefinable gratification. Mason felt every pulse, every spasm as her pussy clinched him tightly, gripping him, milking him as she gushed her orgasm around his cock.

  As the sensation of her explosive orgasm wore off, Mason sighed, slowing his thrusts as he held Annabelle in his protective arms.

  “Annabelle…” He said her name in reverence as he suddenly rolled over, trapping her languid body beneath him. “Look at me,” he whispered.

  Annabelle stilled suddenly, opened her eyes, and looked at the man who had just made her feel like a whole woman again. She knew what that look in his eyes meant. She, too, had just worn it. Drawing her legs up sharply, she clasped them around his waist. Then the torment began anew, and with vengeance. He possessed her as an overwhelming urge to spare him nothing rooted deep within her. She widened her legs, granting him the access he needed as he thrust his hard cock in and out of her sore pussy.

  His mouth swooped down and found hers. His kiss was savage, as if a punishment for the extent of his desire. He sucked and bit, unforgivingly, as his hot tongue thrust in and out, turning and twisting, sweeping thoroughly. When his lips did tear away, they left hers swollen and bruised. He forced his hands underneath her buttocks and lifted them with a firm grip, enabling himself to plunge deeper, to pound more aggressively. Annabelle groaned, her body welcoming the vicious attack, the unrelenting demands of his manly needs.

  Still, it wasn’t enough. Mason freed his hands and quickly draped first one long, shapely leg then the other over his shoulders, pressing Annabelle into a tight roll, effectively locking her upturned bottom higher for maximum penetration. His strokes now more vehement, he repeatedly withdrew to the brim then plowed back in with the force of his desire.