Page 106 of Stone Promises

He shrugs. “She was planningsomething,” he says. “But it just goes to show you, she would have gotten to me one way or another. You can’t beat yourself up over the Paul invitation.”

Another tear rolls down my cheek. “I thought I’d lost you,” I tell him. “I wanted to die, Chad. I wanted to lie here and rot away so I didn’t have to feel what I was feeling. But I knew that would never happen. I knew I would always love you even if you betrayed me.”

He lies down and pulls me next to him as I rest my head on his chest. “I will never betray you, Mallory. I know it may seem like I did, but I would never willingly break my promise to you.”

“I know you wouldn’t. I know youdidn’t.” I rest my head on my hand and peek up at him. “I promise I won’t jump to conclusions again. I’ve done that twice now.”

“With damn good reason both times,” he says. “I promise I will do everything I can to make sure we’re never put in a position like this again.”

“I promise to throw away every bottle of ‘Desire Me’ that I own.”

He kisses the top of my head. “I promise to buy you a whole damn magnum of any other perfume.”

“I promise to always let you know when I get dead rodents in the mail.”

He laughs and my head bounces up and down on his chest. “I promise to never use tongue when I kiss other women.”

“Any other fiancée would be offended,” I say, giggling. “But I think that’s very romantic of you.” I kiss him through his shirt. “I promise to be the best wife I can.”

He wiggles beneath me and pulls something from his pocket. “Give me your hand,” he says. I hold it up, sad that for a few hours the ring I threw at his head was missing. He slips it back onto my finger. “I promise to never be a stupid bastard.”

I admire the ring back in its rightful place. “I promise to never take it off again.”

He pulls me on top of him. “Did we just write our vows, future wife?”

I laugh. “Those are some pretty crazy vows,” I say.

“To go with our pretty crazy life,” he says. “But it’sourcrazy, and I love it. Just like I love you.” He threads his hands into my hair and pulls my lips to his. “I promise to make you scream my name every damn day of our lives.”

Right before our lips meet, I make one last vow. “I promise to let you.”

His lips capture mine, gently at first and then demanding. Almost like how a whisper becomes a shout. We taste each other knowing after what we’ve endured, nothing can tear us apart. Our kisses are salty reminders of the bond we have that can never be broken.

His hands come up to unbutton my blouse. He reaches inside to cup my breasts and I quiver. I want to remember every touch; every kiss; every sound of our love. Because it was almost taken away from us in an instant.

“Mal, I want you so much,” he says. He turns to his side, spilling me off of him as his hand reaches down to unbutton my pants. “I promise to fulfill your every fantasy,” he says, looking at my bare chest. “Because right now, you’re sure as hell fulfilling one of mine.”

My eyes mist up thinking of the time he told me he used to fantasize about what we would do in this very treehouse. I wanted him, too. Even way back then. Even when I couldn’t comprehend that the tingles running down my spine meant I was falling for a twelve-year-old boy. Even when I didn’t understand that the butterflies in my stomach meant my heart belonged to a sixteen-year-old man.

Our clothes become a heap on the clapboard floor of the old battered treehouse. He peels my panties slowly down my thighs, inhaling my scent along the way. He spreads my legs and buries his mouth in me making me writhe and buck beneath his expertly placed tongue. I grab his hair, weaving my fingers through it, holding him tightly to me until his name rolls off my lips in pleasurable waves.

He climbs up my sweat-slickened body, kissing my scar, my breasts, my neck, as he works his way on top of me. And as he enters me and we become one, his hot whispers caress my ear. “I’ll promise you anything. I promise you everything. Just promise me you’ll always be mine.”

I moan at the feeling of him filling me so completely. At the feeling of his hot flesh on mine. “I’ve always been yours, Chad. Since the day we met. Maybe even before that. I was made for you.”

He rocks his body into me, faster and faster with every delicious thrust. “I need to hear you say it, Mallory,” he begs, as he works a hand between us, bringing me once again to the precipice of ecstasy.

I lift my hips and squeeze my thighs, my stomach tightening with my impending explosion. “I promise,” I say breathily, just as he shouts into the night, emptying himself into me as I pulsate around him.

~ ~ ~

Dawn wakes us, our backs sore from sleeping on the hard wooden floor. Our bodies battered from the love we bestowed upon each other time and time again. Pain has never felt so good. Chad wraps our naked bodies in the sleeping bag as we hold on to this moment that will be etched into our memories until the day we die.

I feel a wave of heat cross my face when I hear my father yell from the back door. “Coffee and pancakes in ten!” he shouts.

“Oh my gosh,” I say, burying my head into Chad’s shoulder. “Do you think he heard us last night?”

He laughs. “Babe, I think New Jersey heard us last night.”

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