Page 35 of Shattered Promise (Avalon Falls #4)

MASON

The sound is soft, barely more than a whispered word through the monitor. But it’s enough.

My eyes fly open, but my vision is blurry. The room is heavy with the kind of dark that comes after a storm, the kind that sinks into your chest and settles there. My hand reaches across the mattress before my brain catches up.

The sheets are cool beside me. For a second, the air catches in my throat. I remember falling asleep next to Abby. Warm and soft and pressed against me.

And now she’s gone.

I exhale hard, dragging a hand over my face. Try not to take it personally that she bailed in the middle of the night.

It’s not like I haven’t done it before—slipped out, kept things easy, clean.

But this is different— Abby is different.

Fuck me, she’s?—

The baby monitor on the nightstand crackles again, and I remember that’s what woke me up in the first place. I grab the monitor off the charger and look at it, blinking a few times to clear my sleep-blurred vision.

“Theo?” I murmur, seeing an empty crib.

Panic spikes fast and hard through my chest. I sit up too quickly, heart kicking behind my ribs as worst case scenarios beat against my brain.

He’s fallen out of his crib.

Someone snatched him while I was sleeping.

He’s hurt.

The monitor slips from my hand and lands facedown on the mattress as I shove the blankets back and swing my legs over the edge. My feet hit cold wood, my body jerking forward on instinct. No thought other than to get to my son. Panic curls hot and sharp in my chest.

I’m flinging open his bedroom door before I even realize it, my body pulling up short at the sight in front of me.

Abby’s curled into the glider like she’s done it a hundred times, my shirt drowning her frame, those ridiculous rolled sweatpants cuffed high around her ankles.

One arm wrapped around Theo, the other trailing in slow circles along his back and they rock slowly.

His face is buried against her collarbone, and her cheek rests on his hair.

And she’s singing something low, barely more than a whisper, but it slides under my skin like a balm.

The sight lodges something in my throat. Lodges it deep.

I lean against the doorframe, needing the support more than I want to admit. The floor creaks under my weight.

She looks up immediately, eyes catching mine. She lifts a finger to her lips. Shhh.

I nod, too stunned to do anything else. Because I’ve never seen anything so quietly devastating in my life.

And I don’t know how I’ll ever survive losing it. And losing it is inevitable. Nothing good ever stays.

She keeps rocking, even after Theo’s breathing slows, even after the little hand in her hair goes limp. There’s a patience in the way she holds him, a steadiness I can’t pin to muscle or will. It’s something deeper.

When she finally stands, she carries Theo to his crib and sets him down gently. She tiptoes out of his room, pulling the door closed behind her. She startles a little when she sees me still standing there, leaning against the hallway wall like I forgot how to move.

“I heard him on the monitor,” she whispers, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her voice is hushed, but it sinks into my bloodstream like thunder.

I drag a hand over my face, clearing the emotion from my expression, but not fast enough.

“I would’ve gotten up,” I say. It comes out low, rough. “You should’ve woken me.”

Her gaze lifts to mine. “I wanted to let you sleep.”

God . The way she says it, quiet but steady, like caring for me is a foregone conclusion.

It wrecks me. Takes me out at the fucking knees.

I step forward before I can talk myself out of it and crowd her back until she’s flush with the wall. I plant both palms next to her head and drop my forehead to hers. My eyes fall closed as I breathe her in. Summertime and soft cherries invade my senses.

“What am I going to do with you?” I whisper, my voice raw against the space between us.

Her breath ghosts against my mouth in a shaky exhale. Then her soft lips press to the corner of mine.

“Everything,” she breathes.

The last thread of restraint snaps clean in half. I drop my hands to the back of her thighs and lift her.

A sharp gasp slips from her lips as her arms wrap around my neck, her legs around my waist. I take advantage and slant my mouth over hers, our tongues tangling like we’ve done this a thousand times.

I groan into her mouth, and she tastes like wild honey and sleep, and the edge of a secret, like I’ll never get enough of her, not if I kissed her for a hundred years.

Her mouth is warm and yielding, her tongue chasing mine with a hunger that’s almost feral.

And I can’t stop, not when she’s making these tiny desperate noises, not when her hands are fisted in my hair like she’s drowning and I’m the only thing keeping her afloat.

I walk her blindly down the hallway, until her spine hits the wall next to my bedroom door, and she gasps again, her thighs tightening around my hips.

Her hips roll, and I have to adjust my hold on the curve of her thighs, notching her center against my dick, and I can feel the heat of her through my athletic shorts.

She whimpers against my mouth, and I nearly lose it right there, but I make myself slow down, grinding her gently against me until her head thumps back against the wall and her lips part on a shaky moan.

I kiss down her jaw, bite her earlobe, and breathe her name like a curse. "Abby."

She shudders and digs her nails into my shoulders. "Mason, please." Her voice is ragged in my ear.

Her teeth scrape that sensitive spot underneath my ear, and it feels like shoving my hand in a live socket. The electric pulse goes straight to my cock, and my hips reflexively arch into her.

Fuck .

I think I groan. I don’t know. Everything is heat and breath and the damp echo of rain against the roof.

I peel her off the wall and open my bedroom door with my foot.

I set her down on the edge of my bed, but she doesn’t let go—her legs stay locked around my waist, pulling me with her as she leans back.

And I follow, because what else am I going to do?

Now that I’ve got her in my arms, I don’t know how I ever lived without the weight of her there.

I flatten my forearms on either side of her head, our mouths never losing contact. It’s the hottest fucking kiss of my life. All teeth and tongue and the ache of years lost between us.

We break apart only because we have to, both of us gasping for breath. Her eyes are wide and glassy, mouth swollen and bitten red. She looks at me like she’s starving, and I want to feed her every last inch of myself.

She fists both hands in my shirt and yanks me down, crushing our lips together until I taste blood and longing and something darker, all at once.

I’m afraid I’m already addicted.