Page 38 of Shattered Promise (Avalon Falls #4)

ABBY

The house is quiet, heavy with late-afternoon heat and the kind of stillness that only comes during Theo’s epic naps.

He’s out cold—his cheek smushed against the crib mattress, fists curled beneath his chin like a cherub in a painting.

The monitor sits silent on the kitchen counter, a low hum beneath the sound of the old ceiling fan ticking overhead.

I should be productive. I should fold the laundry or reply to the five work emails I flagged this morning.

But my skin’s buzzing beneath this sundress, and all I can think about is the weight of Mason’s palm on my lower back when he passed behind me earlier.

The way his eyes dragged over my bare shoulder like it wasn’t just a glance but a promise.

We haven’t shared a bed since the storm.

But we haven’t really been apart either.

There’s been a quiet rhythm to it—brushes of skin, porch kisses that last too long, shared coffee, and accidental touches that linger like they mean more than they should. I’m not sure we’ve said what this is. But I know what it feels like.

It feels like something I don’t want to lose.

I run a hand down the front of my dress. The fabric is soft, a pale blue with a fluttery hem that hits mid-thigh. It makes me feel . . . pretty. And free.

I’m not wearing underwear.

Not because I forgot. Because I didn’t want to.

The thought makes me grin as I head for the back door, pretending I’m just going to check on something. Maybe find a screwdriver or help him sort something in the garage.

But really? I just want to see him.

The garage door is open, sunlight pooling across the floor in golden ribbons.

Dust motes dance in the air, caught in the glow, and Mason’s bent over the hood of a black ‘68 Camaro like it’s something sacred.

His sleeves are shoved up to his elbows, grease streaking the sinew of his forearms. There’s a smudge of something near his jaw, and sweat clings to the back of his neck, darkening the collar of his shirt.

My breath catches.

It’s not the first time he’s knocked the wind out of me, but it might be the first time I don’t try to hide it. I just watch. Let it settle in my chest, all this want curling slow and sure beneath my skin.

He glances up before I even make a sound, like he felt me coming.

“How’s our boy?” he asks, voice warm and gravel-rich, dimple flashing like a sucker punch.

My knees go a little soft.

“Sound asleep,” I manage. “No sign of a nap strike today either.”

I start walking slowly toward the car, fingertips brushing along the edge of the driver’s side door as I circle it. “You know, now that I think about it, there hasn’t been a single nap strike since I got here.”

Mason chuckles, the kind of laugh that’s all breath and low vibration. He wipes his hands on a rag, then scrubs the back of his neck—sheepish and smug in the same breath. His weight shifts subtly, spine straightening, chest opening. Confidence and vulnerability bleeding together in his posture.

“It’s all you, Trouble. You’ve got the magic touch.”

Warmth blooms behind my ribs. I fight a smile, but it wins. “Maybe,” I murmur, circling around to the workbench.

The space smells like oil and sunlight, warm metal and the faintest trace of cedar from the flannel I know he tossed on the back of a stool earlier.

The tools are arranged in neat, utilitarian rows—wrenches, pliers, socket sets—lined up with the kind of quiet precision that says Mason needs things to be where he left them.

I trail my fingers along the wooden edge of the bench, my pulse thudding a little too loud in my ears.

Behind me, he shifts—arms folding slowly over his chest, his weight easing back onto the front bumper of the car. I can feel his gaze drag over the back of my thighs. It lands hot and unhurried. Like he knows exactly what I’m doing.

“Lookin’ for something?” he asks, voice low and amused, like he’s already halfway to a smile.

I glance over my shoulder, meeting his gaze with a slow grin. “A Phillips screwdriver. I need to tighten the, uh, baby gates in the living room.”

He smothers his laugh, mouth twitching, dimples just barely breaking the surface. His arms stay folded, but his knuckles flex where they tuck into his biceps. “Third drawer from the bottom. Right next to you.”

I reach down slowly, fingers grazing the cool metal drawer pull. As I bend, the hem of my sundress inches up, a breath of air skating across the bare skin underneath.

A beat.

Then a low, wrecked groan.

“Are you trying to take me out, Trouble?” His voice is closer, rougher.

A slow smile pulls at my mouth. I bite the inside of my cheek, heart hammering, and glance over my shoulder again.

His gaze is locked on my ass, jaw tight, eyes hungry, like a man starving quietly and trying not to show it.

Then I feel it. His hands, large and deliberate, sliding up the backs of my thighs. One slow sweep, then another. His fingers curve around the bare skin of my ass, and he goes still.

So do I.

Then his voice, low and lethal, rasps against the base of my spine. “No panties, Trouble?”

My breath catches, and my stomach flips.

He squeezes gently, reverently, his thumbs grazing the hem of my dress, pushing it higher.

“This all for me?” he murmurs, each word a slow drag of heat.

I don’t answer right away. Because I’m too busy swallowing the thrill that zips down my spine. The feel of him—broad and controlled behind me, his hands like brands, his voice like a promise I’m aching to hear again.

And I’m not scared.

I’m lit up.

Waiting for what comes next.

“Is it, baby?”

My breath catches, but I don’t move—just let him hold me there, his palms warm and reverent against the bare curve of my ass. His touch isn’t rushed. It’s possessive. Like he’s savoring every second of being allowed to want me this openly.

“For you?” I echo, glancing at him over my shoulder. “Guess that depends.”

His brow arches, jaw still tight, but a crooked smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “On what?”

I lift my chin, challenge lighting low in my chest. “You planning to do something about it?”

His hands flex, fingers sinking into the soft swell of my skin. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Too late.”

His breath hitches, and then he moves.

A deliberate shift, his chest brushing my back as he crowds me gently into the bench. One arm slides around my waist, anchoring me. The other ghosts up the outside of my thigh, slow and devastating, until I’m trembling against him.

“Mason,” I beg, my voice catching.

“Shh,” he murmurs, his lips grazing the shell of my ear. “Let me touch you.”

His fingers trail higher, dragging the hem of my dress with them until I’m bared completely and the only thing between us is the soft friction of his jeans and the heat radiating off his skin.

The denim drags against the back of my thighs, rough and electric, and I gasp, the sound echoing loud in the hush of the garage.

He holds me there, breath hot at the nape of my neck, and I’m shaking—not with nerves, but with the kind of anticipation that feels almost dangerous. He noses aside a tumble of my hair to press his mouth to the bare curve of my shoulder.

“You have no idea what you do to me.”

“Show me,” I whisper, arching my back and grinding my ass into his hips, needing more friction, more of him, all of him. The words come out less like a challenge and more like a plea. Fragile and hungry.

He groans, the sound ripped from somewhere deep, and his hand flattens against my stomach, pinning me to the edge of the workbench.

His other palm is rough and hot as it maps the curve of my ass, sliding lower, then up again, like he’s making sure I’m real, that he’s allowed to touch me this way.

He finds the soft inside of my thigh and drags his fingers up, knuckles grazing the place I want him most.

I rock back again, slower this time. A deliberate roll of my hips, dragging my ass along his dick.

He grips my hips with a tsk, anchoring me in place. Then one hand slides up, firm and unhurried, tracing the line of my ribcage, past the flutter of my pulse, until his fingers cradle the front of my throat.

The gesture should feel possessive— controlling . But it doesn’t. It feels protective— reverent .

His thumb brushes beneath my jaw, tilting my head gently. His lips find mine from behind—an awkward angle that somehow feels perfect. The kiss is deep and claiming, slow and fierce, his body surrounding mine like a storm he’s not trying to outrun anymore.

I melt into it, but I want more.

I reach back blindly, fingers fumbling for his jeans. I want to touch him. To see what that hunger looks like when it finally tips over the edge.

“Turn around,” he murmurs, dragging the blunt edge of his teeth along my jaw. “Let me see you.”

He spins me, palms bracketing my hips, and then lifts me onto the workbench in one easy, unhurried motion.

My thighs part instinctively, the edge of the wood pressing cool against the backs of my legs.

I feel exposed—completely, achingly bare under the dress—but I don’t shrink away.

I tip my chin up and meet his gaze, daring him to look.

And God help me, he does. He always does.

His hands slide up my thighs, slow as sunrise, pushing the dress higher, and higher, until it’s bunched around my waist and all my secrets are his. He stares, and there’s no mistaking the hunger in his gaze.

He steps closer, crowding into my space, and his hands—those big, careful hands—curve around the backs of my knees, dragging me to the very edge of the bench.

I grip the edge behind me, knuckles white, pulse rioting in my throat.

I can feel the heat of him, the way his jeans rub the tender skin of my inner thighs before he drops his hands to my knees and pushes them gently, insistently, apart.

Then he nudges a stool over with his foot and sinks onto it. The move is so deliberate, so quietly confident, that my mouth goes dry.

I brace my hands behind me, heart thudding so hard I swear it echoes off the walls. My sundress is already rucked high on my hips, and Mason wastes no time, dragging his palms slowly up the outsides of my thighs, fingertips pressing into the soft curve where they meet my hips.

His eyes flick up once, catching mine.

“Let me make you feel good,” he says.

It’s not a question or a line. It’s a plea.

And then he leans in and presses his mouth against the inside of my knee—one slow, reverent kiss.

Then another, higher this time, and then another, and I forget how to breathe.

He’s mapped me with his hands and now paints the same circuit with his lips, the kind of worship that makes every nerve in my body sing.

My thighs shake with the effort to keep still. He’s patient, but I am not. I want to beg, but I want to see what he’ll do if I hold out just a little longer.

He gets to the soft crease at the top of my thigh and pauses, lips parted and breath hot where I ache and ache for him. His hands splay out, gentle but insistent, holding me open as he draws his nose up the slick seam of me—just a preview, a tease, not even a taste yet.

“Fuck, baby,” he says, voice gone ragged, “you’re dripping.”

The words almost undo me. My head tips back, eyes squeezed shut, the fan overhead blurring into a spinning mess of light and shadow.

He licks me in one slow, flat stroke up the center, and my hips jerk off the bench, a raw, desperate sound torn from my throat before I can bite it back.

He laughs, a low, dark rumble, then does it again, slower, savoring.

He eats me like it’s his last meal—a slow, greedy mapping of tongue and lips, every flick calculated to make me shatter.

He’s relentless. If I try to close my thighs, he pins them open, a big palm splayed over each knee. If I try to squirm away, he pulls me back, mouth sealed and working me until I’m shaking so hard I have to clutch the workbench.

“Wait—Mase,” I gasp, breath hitching as I tug on his hair to pull him back. “I want—to come—with you—inside me.” It takes effort to get the words out, my breath hitching every time he sucks my clit in his mouth.

His mouth slows, a lazy kiss to my inner thigh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I rasp, tugging harder at his hair until he looks up at me. His pupils are blown, lips slick and parted, jaw shadowed dark.

He stands so fast the stool skitters across the concrete, metal legs screeching. His body cages me against the bench, hands braced on either side of my hips, and for a second there’s nothing but the sound of both of us breathing, wild and uneven.

“Tell me what you want,” he says, voice so rough it barely sounds like him.

“I want everything. I want to taste you, I want—” The words tangle in my throat, but I don’t look away.

I just slide my hands up his chest, palms skimming the ridge of muscle beneath his shirt, and then I push gently until he gets it.

He steps back, just enough for me to hop off the workbench, bare feet hitting the concrete.

He’s breathing hard, eyes never leaving my face as I drop to my knees in front of him. The move is deliberate, a slow slide down, and I steady myself with both hands on his thighs. He goes perfectly still, like he’s bracing for impact.

I look up and see him blinking down at me, jaw clenched, like he can’t decide if he should haul me up or let me stay. I want him to let me stay. For once I want to be the one who drives him out of his mind.

I don’t bother with his zipper at first. Instead, I palm him through his jeans, feeling the hard, impossible length of his cock straining behind the denim. I drag my nails up the seam and watch his eyelids flutter, the veins popping in his forearms as he strains against the workbench behind me.

“Abby,” he groans, and the sound of my name hits low in my belly.

I work the button open, slow and teasing, then tug the zipper down. He’s not wearing boxers—because of course he’s not—and his cock bobs free, flushed and thick and long and pierced .