Promises Keep (The Promise Series)

by Sarah McCarty

“It wasn’t immediate,” Cougar muttered, remembering how hard it was to leave at all.

  Mara’s grip on the knife handle tightened and her expression went from angry to determined.

  “Watch it,” Cougar snapped as the knife bit into his flesh, wondering what the hell was wrong with him that his cock was so hard, it felt like it would split his flesh.

  “Sorry.” Mara took a deep breath. “Now, I want you to explain why you deserted me after handing me that stupid agreement.”

  “Now she calls it stupid,” Cougar muttered into the air. “A month ago it was serious enough for you to leave me because of it.”

  Mara shrugged. “When you give it to me as a sop to your conscience and a prelude to divorce, it became meaningless.”

  Cougar bristled, nearly castrating himself on the blade of the knife. He subsided back into the chair, but his eyes burned golden fire. “There will be no divorce, and the deed was not a sop to my conscience.”

  Mara tilted her brow skeptically as she hunched her shoulders slightly. “Then what would you call it?”

  Cougar’s eyes were drawn to that tiny gape in her bodice like a magnet. “I wanted to give you something that would make you happy.”

  “You make me happy.”

  Every muscle in his body pulled tight as she dropped her voice an octave. Her eyes met his. “If you stripped down right now and took me here on the carpet, I guarantee I would be very happy.”

  Cougar swallowed against the rise of lust that surged. It’d been too long since he’d been in that lithe body. Too long since he’d had those nipples in his mouth. Knowing that it was going to be a hell of a lot longer was the worst kind of torture. He closed his eyes against the urge to take her, to risk it just this once. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you could get pregnant.”

  “Not if you come in my mouth.”

  Jesus! His body jerked as if flicked by a whip. When had she learned to play his game?

  “I couldn’t stop there.”

  Her “I know,” didn’t sound the least upset. Which didn’t make sense. He opened his eyes as a hard coil of rope dropped over his shoulders.

  “What the hell…?” Even as he collected his muscles to leap, Mara had him trussed as neatly as a Christmas goose, the rope wrapped around the back of the chair and his hands bound to the arm rests. The only part of him he could move was his feet. And then that freedom was taken away.

  Mara looked up from where she was binding his ankles to each chair leg. Her speech was a little jerky owing to the struggle he was putting up. “Pearl suspected you might be thinking along those lines.”

  Cougar jerked on his arms to no avail. “Pearl knows what you’re up to?”

  Mara nodded.

  He pulled on his bindings again, but not one gave. “Who the hell taught you to tie knots?” he growled.

  Mara sat back on her heels and smiled her satisfaction at him. “Clint.”

  “Damned traitor.”

  “Oh no. He loves you very much,” Mara corrected, retrieving her knife. She began to saw at the legs of Cougar’s denims. “He’s just sick and tired of living with a jackass.”

  Cougar caught his breath as she sawed over his knee, nicking his kneecap. “It’s a pity he didn’t teach you how to use a knife.”

  “It would be easier if you’d hold still.”

  Cougar sucked in his lip as Mara’s hand skimmed the inside of his thigh. The feeling was sublime. “Do you mind telling me what would be easier?”

  “Why, your rape, of course.”

  “A woman can’t rape a man.”

  One by one, she popped the buttons that held together the front of Cougar’s shirt. “I don’t see why not,” she argued. “As I see it, rape has to do with unwillingness.” She arched her brow at him. “Do you want to make love with me?”

  Cougar bit his tongue against the unqualified “yes” that leapt to the fore. “I won’t risk you to childbirth,” he said tersely. “Since I don’t trust myself to keep my hands off you, I’ll maintain a separate home.”

  Mara nodded her head sagely as she spread the red cotton material clear of Cougar’s chest. “Dorothy said that was your problem. You have a marvelous chest, you know.”

  “First Pearl and Clint, and now Dorothy. Have you been all over town crying on every available shoulder?”

  “Actually, I didn’t have to go to that much trouble,” Mara countered. “We had a meeting.” She shook her head at Cougar before very gently freeing his swollen manhood from the tattered remains of his clothing. “And you needn’t try to make me angry. It’s not going to work.”

  “Nidia was right. You are a bruja loca.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “A crazy witch.”

  “If I am,” Mara settled on her knees between her husband’s spread thighs, “it’s your fault, leaving me all cold and alone in that big empty bed.”

  She looked up at him. “Did you know my father left me in that brothel, Cougar?”

  “No.” He bit his tongue on saying more. She wouldn’t break him with sympathy.

  “He did. He sold me to settle his gambling debts.” She leaned forward, so close, he could feel her breath on his cock. Cougar’s hands tightened convulsively on the arms of the chair. “I’m sorry, Angel. Do you want me to kill him for you?”

  Right now, he would love to wrap his hands around someone’s neck.

  She laughed softly. “No. He’s not worth it. He’s a drunk and a fool, but when he left me, I swore no one was ever going to be able to hurt me like that again, but—” She shrugged. “I didn’t know you existed.”

  “And?”

  “You’re stuck with me, Cougar.” She kissed his cock the way he liked. A soft, gentle prelude to the violent need she roused in him.

  “So you say.” It was a pathetic attempt at a growl. He wasn’t surprised when she ignored him. Opening her mouth, taking him all the way to her throat, sucking him, swallowing hard when he hit the back, dragging a moan from his lips.

  He couldn’t believe she was actually doing this. He said so.

  In response, Mara pulled back. “Why ever not? It appears to me that you’ve forgotten who you belong to. It’s up to me to see that you remember.”

  “Dammit, Mara!” Cougar snapped. “Back off. I don’t want this.”

  Mara shook her head and kissed the tip of his cock. She ran her tongue along the broad tip, bathing him in the heat of his own desire, stealing his will as she stole the drop of pre-come that rose to meet her lips.

  “Yes, you do. You’re just scared silly that you’ll lose me.”

  She engulfed him in the heat of her mouth.

  “You almost died,” he grated through the agonizing pleasure.

  “And I could catch pneumonia tomorrow and die next week.” She ran her lips down the length of his cock, her muttered words a caress unto themselves. “There’s no way of knowing what tomorrow has in store for us, but unlike you, I intend to savor every moment we have together on this earth. I’m not going to waste a single second hiding away in fear of what might happen. And I’m not going to let you either.” She looked him directly in the eye, and Cougar felt his gut sink at the determination in hers. He struggled and cursed his helplessness.

  “Angel, I outweigh you by a good hundred pounds, and I can flip you as easily as you flip a pancake. You can’t make me do anything.”

  The smile she sent him was full of pity. “I can get pregnant.”

  “Not by me, you’re not!”

  “Oh, I think so. And once I’m pregnant, your honor won’t let you leave.” Mara raised her hands to her bodice. Looking Cougar straight in the eye, she dipped her fingers beneath the lace. He bit back a moan as she worked her fingers over her flesh, letting her head drop back as her hands worked beneath the lace. He knew how those nipples felt. How they gave with pressure, sprang back against his finger with the release. Dammit, he knew. As if reading his mind, Mara
pulled the bodice of her dress down so her nipples peeked out through the lace.

  Cougar sat on that chair and felt as if he were going up in flames. He’d thought he was safe once he’d broken the seductive gaze of his sexy wife, but now the lure of those provocative peaks was too much to resist. “I don’t love you anymore,” he growled desperately.

  Mara smiled, and swayed harder. Her “bull” coincided with her dress falling to her waist and Cougar knew he was lost. “You look like a whore.”

  “But you like it,” Mara purred.

  “It” was the most flagrantly sexy corset Cougar had ever seen. It was unabashedly red, and made of fabric so sheer, it merely coated Mara’s white flesh with the color of passion. And the top of it. Cougar’s eyes helplessly followed the path of Mara’s finger as it trailed the contours of the scooped bodice.

  “It’s perfectly scandalous, isn’t it?” Mara teased as his breath caught in his throat and his cock throbbed with relentless demand.

  “I know you like my breasts. Do you like the way it leaves them bare? The way it cups them and shoves them up as if toward a man’s mouth. Your mouth?” She pinched her nipples between her fingers. Her voice went hoarse. “I’ve got a confession to make.”

  “What?” Cougar’s fingers contracted and opened as if they were the ones touching those plump nipples. His pulse hammered in his throat. Its cadence echoed in his groin. If he didn’t get his act together soon, he was going to lose this war.

  “When I have my dress on and the bustier shoves them up so hard the lace rubs them,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “it gets me all hot and bothered.”

  Cougar swore long and hard, and then recovered himself. “You even talk like a whore,” he accused scathingly, wanting her to take offense and run, but not holding out a lot of hope that she would. Mara was tenacious when she wanted something. Even when that something wasn’t good for her. Like him.

  Mara merely smiled and loosened the last buttons on her dress. It fell to the floor in a soundless puddle of red and white decadence.

  “Holy Mother of God!” Cougar gaped like an idiot. She didn’t have a single thing on beneath that dress except the sheerest of stockings that exactly matched the red of her bustier. Black lace garters held the stockings in place and framed the red-brown curls now shielding her pussy. Her tiny feet were encased in fragile, high-heeled shoes that emphasized the delicacy of her build. Her slender legs seemed to go on forever. Cougar swallowed, tried to come up with another insult, and gaped some more. His heart was threatening to burst under the unrelenting tide of lust that swept over him.

  “I’m glad you approve,” Mara said as she sauntered over to him.

  “Now, let’s see about this little problem we have here.” She knelt between Cougar’s thighs. She teased his cock with random strokes of her nipples, laughing in delight when he arched his hips off the chair in demand for more while above her head he cursed her with every breath he took. She cupped the hard-soft sacs between his thighs, and then blessed him with her mouth.

  Damn, she was good. Her mouth was hot and hungry as she took the head in. Her hands were greedy on his balls, encouraging him to where she wanted him to go. Forbidding him dominance here.

  She sat back on her heels. “You never let me play, Cougar,” she said, her eyes devouring him with a hunger that slid over his skin like a caress. “You always take over, but today, I think I’ll play.”

  Her hands settled on his abdomen, her thumbs dipping onto the well of his navel, anchoring her palms as his muscles sucked in on a hard breath. She leaned forward and placed a kiss on the scar just above his left hipbone.

  He never knew damaged flesh could be so sensitive, but when her tongue lapped at the edges, darts of fire struck at his desire, at his control. He couldn’t hide his reaction. Pre-come beaded on his cock.

  She smiled into his eyes, not one whit put off by his scowl. Slowly, she dipped her head, her gaze holding his. Very deliberately, very delicately, she lapped at the creamy fluid. The little flicks of her tongue on the inflamed tip of his shaft had him squirming on the chair.

  He needed more. So much more. Before he broke down and begged, she released his cock, leaving him aching and throbbing, and moved her lips to his belly. Kissing her way up over his ribs, she snuggled his shaft into her slight cleavage as her mouth reached his right nipple. Desire writhed through his body like a plains fire, wild and unchecked by anything except the bonds she’d placed on him.

  “Are you sensitive here like I am?” she asked him.

  He didn’t answer, but when she tapped his small, dark nipple lightly with the hot point of her tongue, his whole body flinched, his cock jumped and more moisture beaded the tip. Her smile was wicked as she kissed her way back down to his cock, arching her body away, preserving the thick drop of seed for the sweep of her tongue. The chair rocked as he arched toward her mouth, needing her generous heat to flow over him.

  His efforts met with air as she once again stole his seed and then kissed her way up his chest, this time to the left, pausing to kiss the length of the knife scar on his biceps, before proceeding to his nipple. She was relentless once she discovered she could make it pucker for her kiss. Nipping, sucking, pinching, she wrenched groan after groan from his lips, and drop after drop of come from his straining, painfully swollen penis, lapping each away before returning to torment his nipples. He was one throbbing mass of relentless need. Semen dripped from his cock in a steady stream, curses and pleas slipped from between his clenched teeth with the same unending drive.

  She was going to win this one, he realized. He couldn’t resist her. Didn’t want to resist her when she brought his body to such a burning precipice. He was lost and he didn’t even give a damn.

  “I want your baby, darling,” she whispered against the crown of his penis before sliding him deep into her mouth, drawing hard on him, as if determined to suck his seed from his body against his will.

  And there, Cougar realized with a small functioning corner of his mind, was his way out. As she’d pointed out, she couldn’t get pregnant if he came in her mouth.

  But Mara must have felt the change in his intent because as soon as he made the decision, she backed away. Cougar groaned as cool air bathed his cock where before there had only been heat, but he concentrated hard on the sensations charging through his body, rushing himself toward release.

  Mara stepped up onto the chair. Squatting over him, she reached between their bodies, positioned him in the well of her vagina. Her lip slipped between her teeth as she slipped her legs between the arms and the seat and took him in a lusty plop.

  Cougar felt her body shudder as his cock tore into the incredible wet heat of her tight pussy. A hissed “Steady, Angel,” was all he managed before his balls exploded in an agonizing release that had him shouting her name and jerking under her thighs.

  Mara stroked Cougar’s cheeks as he bucked under her. “That’s right, Cougar,” she coaxed. “Just like that.” Her hands dropped back to his thighs and she forced the last half inch of his cock home. “I want it all. Every drop.”

  Cougar opened his eyes and stared at his wife’s pretty breasts just out of reach. “Damn you then,” he growled, as another spasm ripped through his body, the ecstasy dimming his vision. “Take it!” He bucked against her. “All of it,” he hissed, coming hard and high in her, filling her full, groaning as his seed overflowed her pussy and spilled onto his thighs, helpless as always to refuse her what she wanted, scared to death of the repercussions of giving her what she wanted. “I love you, Angel. Too damned much.”

  “Impossible,” she whispered. She kissed his lips, her mouth a gentle oasis amidst the violence of his release. “You can never love me too much, too hard, or too completely,” she whispered, resting her cheek on his chest and holding him close as the last final searing shudder of completion racked his body.

  It could have been two minutes or two hours later when Cougar fought his way out from bliss. Mara lay against his chest
, her head tucked under his chin. His meek and mild little wife. He remembered his thoughts on how she’d conform, and despite himself, he smiled.

  “Are you still determined to be difficult?”

  Cougar rested his head against the back of the chair. “Because my wife tied me up and used me as a stud? Why on Earth should I be angry?”

  “I could be pregnant. We could have made a baby.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Mara bit her lips and pulled back so she could see her husband’s face. They were still intimately joined and her unsatisfied flesh was unbearably sensitive. “Do you really mind so much?” she whispered to his chin.

  Cougar lowered his head so he could look into her eyes. “I almost lost you because I can’t control myself around you,” he paused, and the fear in his gaze made Mara wince and cup his cheek in her palm. “I need you too much.”

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “I almost killed you.”

  “I lost our baby. According to Doc, that’s an act of God.”

  “Helped on by my lust.”

  She caught his face between her palms, meeting the challenge in his gaze with the certainty she felt inside. “Bullshit.”

  He blinked.

  “Women lose babies all the time with nothing more going on than breathing in and out.”

  “Mara, the night before you lost the baby, I was out of my head with lust. I took you hard. Too hard. Too many times.”

  He was so full of crap. She sighed and stroked his cheek before clearing up his misconceptions. “There was no ‘taking’ between us that night.” She shook her head at the stubbornness that immediately entered his gaze. “Do you think I don’t know that all I ever have to say is ‘please’, and you’ll stop? No matter how much you want to go on? No matter how wild you are?”

  “You don’t know your own limits.” He was determined to take responsibility for this, as if she needed shielding from the reality of their passion for each other. As if she’d want shielding from it.

  “Yes, I do, and as soon as you reach them, I’ll let you know.” She reached over to the table, got the knife, and cut through the bonds around his hands. “But if you want to go placing blame for losing the baby on what we did that night, then place it on me, because I suspected I was pregnant and I didn’t do anything to stop you.”