Page 50 of Shattered Promise (Avalon Falls #4)

ABBY

The garage door creaks louder than usual as I push it open with the heel of my palm, sunlight cutting across the concrete in long, honey-colored stripes.

Mason is bent over the workbench, hands deep in the guts of something mechanical—maybe a generator, maybe one of the older ATVs. It doesn’t really matter.

What matters was the way his shirt rides up just enough to reveal the cut of his lower back, the curve of his hip.

Grease smudged along the edge of his jaw like a fingerprint.

His forearms flex as he worked, dusted in sweat and sawdust and whatever else men like him pick up from simply existing outdoors all day.

I lean against the doorframe and bite back a smile. “Hey.”

He doesn’t look up right away. “Hey, Trouble.”

Theo and I had been outside all morning—chasing butterflies, collecting wildflowers, watching a line of ants march across a tree stump like they had somewhere important to be.

I still smelled like sunshine and dirt and peanut butter crackers.

My hair is curling at the edges, damp from heat and effort.

My sundress clings at the back, a little too warm now, the fabric sticking lightly to my skin.

“Mister Porter,” I call, pushing off the frame and skipping a few steps closer, letting my voice curl around the edges of mischief. “I just put Theo down for a nap.”

That gets his attention. Mason straightens slowly, wiping his hands on a rag, his brow pinched in that soft, absent way he always has when thinking about Theo.

I let the pause stretch for a moment. “I was thinking about taking a shower.”

His gaze flicks to mine. Curious and casual.

I tilt my head, let my eyes slide over him, just enough to make him work for it. “Just figured I’d let you know. In case you needed something . . .”

Mason’s mouth curves, slow and crooked. The rag in his hand stills. “In the shower?”

I shrug, letting my hair fall over my shoulder. “Maybe.”

He blinks once, then twice, and something in his expression clicks into more focus. He tosses the rag on the workbench without another word.

By the time I turn toward the door, I can hear the scuff of his boots behind me. The warmth of him presses close. His hand ghosts over the hem of my dress, rough fingertips trailing the skin at the back of my thigh.

“Trouble,” he murmurs, voice lower now, more gravel than air.

“I’m just taking a shower,” I say over my shoulder, trying and failing to smother my grin. “Unless you have a better idea.”

He catches my waist with both hands, his mouth skimming the curve of my shoulder, lips brushing warm against my skin. “I do.”

I laugh and pull away just enough to keep walking.

Slow, teasing steps across the gravel, up the porch, through the kitchen, and down the hall into his bedroom.

He stays behind me, hands on my hips again, then my waist, then sliding under the hem of the sundress, callused fingers dragging against bare skin.

By the time we reach the bathroom, I’m already breathless from the chase.

And he hasn't even really touched me yet.

He doesn’t bother with subtlety once the bathroom door closes. He turns the shower on with a flick of his wrist. The backs of my knees hit the counter and suddenly I’m sitting, my dress bunched in a wrinkled halo around my hips.

He kneels, yanking my sandals off, then traces the arch of my foot with a thumb, drawing a shiver up my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature.

I reach for him, threading my fingers through his hair, and he looks up—eyes a little wild, a little reverent, like he was half-expecting me to disappear if he blinked too long.

The dress is next. He peels it up, tugging it past my ribs and over my head, then presses his palm to the center of my chest, holding me in place—not forceful, just certain.

He kisses the inside of my knee, then up, slow and deliberate, as if he wants to taste every patch of skin that has ever seen sunlight.

A laugh sneaks out of me—half nerves, half delight—and Mason grins into the bend of my thigh, teeth scraping the soft skin there.

“You’re a menace,” I whisper, but I’m the one trembling when he finally stands.

He lifts me off the counter. My back slides against the cool tile wall, and for a second, I forget how to breathe.

The bathroom is already filling with steam—mirrors fogged, the air syrup-thick and pulsing with heat. He sets me down inside the shower and steps in after, crowding me beneath the spray. Warm water, hotter skin, his hands braced on either side of my head.

It’s nothing like before. No slow build, no gentle question marks. He kisses me like he’d been waiting for decades. Hungry and focused, his tongue rough and searching. I cling to his shoulders, melting back into the tile, the world shrinking to the press of his body and the ache low in my belly.

He puts me down only to shed his own clothes, before scooping me back up and walking us both into the shower.

My balance tips, knees skimming the edge of the porcelain, water sluicing over my hair, then down the arch of my spine in a kind of fever.

Mason’s hands are everywhere—palming my hips, mapping the curve of my ribs, brushing the wet hair from my eyes as if he wants no barrier between us at all.

He presses his forehead to mine, breathless, both of us already half-drowned in all the things we’d never said out loud.

He kisses me again, slower this time. Less teeth, more tongue. Deliberate and lingering, as if he could memorize the taste of me like a favorite song.

One of his hands finds the base of my neck, thumb rubbing the spot where my pulse hammered.

“Mason,” I breathe out his name.

“I missed you like this,” he murmurs. “All soft and wet and mine .”

I don’t have a clever response. Just a choked sound in the back of my throat as he nudges my legs further apart with his knee. His fingers trace down my stomach, teasing, until I’m panting into the tile.

He doesn’t rush. Not this time. Every kiss he presses to my neck feels like an apology. A promise and a prayer.

And then he moves.

He grips the underside of my thigh, lifts it high until it’s slung over the crook of his elbow. I gasp, bracing both hands on his shoulders. My body trembles as he bends enough to align us. His free hand finds my hip, steadying.

He pushes in, slow and careful, the way he always does, but I’m already so desperate I nearly sob when the stretch becomes fullness, and then the fullness becomes a pulse, and then it’s nothing but the sound of water drumming and the animal noise caught between my teeth.

He stays still for a breath, buried deep, his forehead pressed to my shoulder.

“Fuck, baby,” he mutters. “You feel so good.”

Mason’s jaw flexes as he starts to move, hips rolling with an unhurried rhythm that feels almost reverent.

The first shock of pleasure is so sharp I nearly slide down the wall, but he pins me up, murmuring, “I got you. I got you,” into the crook of my neck.

It’s sloppy, all elbows and knees and wet skin, but he never lets me lose my balance.

If anything, he holds me tighter, the angle pushing him even deeper until I’m keening, grip clawing at his back for purchase.

His mouth finds my ear, low and guttural, “Couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Every word thuds through me like a second pulse. “Every goddamn minute you’re not here, I want you like this. Your perfect cunt squeezing the life outta my cock.”

I whimper, and he laughs, a barely-there huff against my jaw that doesn’t feel cruel, just incredulous. Like he can’t believe he’s allowed this. Like he’s afraid it won’t last, so he has to burn the memory into his body, molecule by greedy molecule.

His hand slips between us, thumb finding the spot that turns my knees to water. The world goes white-hot and fizzy around the edges. I arch into him, chasing the oblivion on the horizon, and Mason’s eyes flick up to mine, glassy and blue, pleading.

“Let go,” he whispers. “I need to feel you come, baby. Please .”

The word please—broken, urgent—undoes me. I tumble hard, my body clenching around him in frantic, helpless spasms. The sound I make is humiliating, raw and real, echoing off the slick tile.

My head thumps back but he cradles it in his palm, cushioning me, before it hits the tile. He kisses my temple, my chin, nipping at my jawline as he drags his teeth down my throat. And he never stops moving.

“Mason,” I groan.

“Fuck,” he mutters as his thrusts turn ragged and deep. And then he’s groaning my name into the hollow of my throat, teeth scraping skin as he comes.

He shudders, slamming in one last time, and I feel every frantic pulse of him inside me like thunder in a summer storm.

We stay tangled in the scalding water, both of us panting, Mason’s arms locked around me until the water started to run lukewarm.

He lets me down slow, careful as though I am spun glass, but I am already laughing—breathless, absurd, clinging to his shoulders as my feet find slick tile. My knees refused to cooperate. I try to stand and nearly buckle.

Mason catches me under the arms, tugging me to his chest with a wide, prideful grin. “Gonna have to carry you everywhere now, huh?”

“Guess you’ll have to,” I manage, voice hoarse and giddy. I wipe water from my eyes and blink up at him. His hair is flattened to his forehead, dark lashes wet.

He’s never looked more attractive in his life. And I can hardly believe he is mine.