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  Honor Bound Series: Book One

  ANGEL PAYNE

  This book is an original publication of Angel Payne.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

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  Copyright © 2017 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design by Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Photographs: Shutterstock

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  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Nobody does it better…Thomas, you are my hero, always.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Continue the Honor Bound Series with Book Two

  Excerpt from Cuffed: Honor Bound Book Two

  Don’t miss Misadventures!

  Prologue

  Also by Angel Payne

  Acknowledgments

  About Angel Payne

  Chapter One

  Heaven.

  He had to have died at last, and somehow—God only knew how—ended up beyond the pearly gates.

  Garrett Hawkins didn’t bother questioning the admission details beyond that. No sense in tempting Saint Peter, or whoever the fuck was standing watch today, into checking notes and realizing a mistake had been made. Wouldn’t do the guy any good. At this point, Garrett wasn’t past blowing the balls off anyone who told him he had to leave.

  The deal was, heaven was nothing like the scene they’d taught him in summer Bible school. No sugar-spun clouds. No bad haircuts. Not a single angel with a half-tuned harp.

  Heaven was silk sheets, his tongue on the inside of Sage Weston’s left thigh—and her sigh in response.

  “Garrett! Damn it! Higher. Please…higher!”

  He chuckled and sank a soft bite into her tawny flesh. “Is that any way to talk in heaven, sugar? Ssshhh. You’re gonna get us tossed out.”

  He spoke the last of it as he crossed to her other thigh, making sure his mouth brushed over her glistening pussy in the process. Christ, how he wanted to stop there, and he thought about it as he watched new drops of arousal on her sweet pink folds, but there’d be time to return for all that sweet ambrosia and then some. In heaven, they finally had all the time they needed.

  A shiver claimed the new skin that he began to suckle and lick. “Sergeant Hawkins, you’re making me insane!”

  “I hope so.”

  “Ohhhh! Bastard!”

  “Mmmm. You taste like cream and honey.”

  “Garrett!”

  He sighed and laughed again. “So impatient. So greedy.” He trailed his lips toward her knee, inciting another protesting moan from the silk ribbons of her lips.

  “Impatient? You’ve been teasing me like this forever!”

  “And isn’t it fun?”

  “I hate you.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “No you aren’t.”

  He was about to taunt the inside of her ankle when she really did yank it away from him. He raised his head in question, only to have the back of it bonked by her other foot as she swung that over the edge of the bed as well. “Sage! Hey!”

  “Don’t pull petulant on me, Garrett Hawkins. I invented it, and I do it way better than you.”

  He almost smiled. She’d been a ball of sass and fire since they’d met at that dive bar in Tacoma, and he loved her a little more every time she rekindled the attitude. It also helped him choose the next words out of his mouth, issued as a deep and heated growl.

  “You’re not going anywhere, Ms. Weston.”

  Her eyes widened, ablaze with bright peridot shock. She pushed out her chin and tacked on a smirk. “Is that so, Sergeant?” She stepped into a little white thong trimmed in sexy-as-hell pink lace and then tugged a white tank over the bra he hadn’t gotten the chance to get off yet. “Why don’t you watch me?”

  He laughed, though the sound was made of anger, not mirth. Thanks to the countless sessions with Shrink Sally, as he’d affectionately come to call the poor woman assigned to “fix” him a year ago, he also recognized that the rage was directed at the guy in the mirror across the room, not the woman in front of him. That only tripled the resolve for his next action.

  Without giving her any warning, Garrett hooked two fingers into the lace at her hip and pulled hard. The surge of her body returning to his side matched the rush of joy in his blood and the roar of arousal in his cock. This was where she belonged. This was so fucking right.

  With a grunt, he twisted the panties tighter. The fabric gave way in his grip. It fell away, exposing her incredible golden hips. Sage gaped at him, though he took that from her too, ramming their lips together while he pulled her and flattened her to the bed again.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” he growled, rolling his hips so she felt every pounding inch of his erection. “Why don’t you watch me, sugar?”

  She did just that, jerking her brilliant green eyes wide as he jammed both her arms over her head and lashed them together using a bungee cord off his mission pack. For a second he wondered why his pack made it to heaven with him, but he was too grateful to question the issue for long. It was just as weird that her old bed had made it too, a wrought-iron thing he’d never liked much, thanks to its headboard full of fancy curlicues that tangled with each other like a damn tumbleweed. But right now he was really grateful for the thing. The two bungee hooks fit perfectly around a couple of whorls in the headboard.

  With a frustrated whimper, Sage wrenched her arms. “Wh-What are you doing?” She craned her neck, exposing the nervous drum of her carotid artery. “Garrett, why—”

  “I told you.” He stated it with steeled calm. “I’m not letting you leave. It was a mistake to do that the first time. It was a mistake not to go after you. So now I’m keeping you right here, safe with me. Just trust me, my heart. You’re going to be very happy.” Without preamble, he tore her tank top down the middle. “And very satisfied.”

  Her breath caught on a sexy-as-hell hitch. “My hero.” The sigh changed her voice, too. Her tone transformed from incensed to breathless but climbed into a strained cry when he took care of her front bra clasp with one deft snap. “Oh…mmmm!” she moaned, arching into the fingers he trailed around her dark berry nipples, pushing her puckered fruit up at him. He gave into the craving to sample one with deeper intent, pinching the nub and then pulling. Hard.

  “Shit! Ohhh, Garrett!”

  Damn. Her startled cry made him want to try it on the other nipple, and he did. Both her areolas were red and irritated now, their tiny bumps standing in attention around the distended peaks at their centers.

  To his perplexity—to his shame—he got painfully hard.
<
br />   That didn’t stop him from getting greedy. With both his hands on her tits now, he couldn’t resist tugging on both her beautiful nipples at the same time.

  “Damn it!” she screamed. “Garrett, th-that hurts! Oh God! Oh…mmmmm…”

  She fell into an enraptured moan as he made up for the man-pig behavior, soothing each breast with long, tender licks. That wasn’t a huge help to his aching body. His cock had gotten harder and hotter, throbbing between their stomachs. He shifted a little so he could dip his hand between her thighs, intending to continue his gratitude by giving her pussy a nice little rubdown—but what he discovered had him grinning in delighted shock. Her tunnel was gushing, warm, and creamy for him. She took one finger, then two, then three, her walls secreting more tangy juices all over his skin. Her arousal revved his mouth again. He pulled his tongue back from her nipple and bit into the stiff nub.

  Her whole body bucked off the mattress. “Garrett! Hell! Why are you doing that?”

  “Because you like it,” he said while working a fourth finger into her. With one of his thighs, he shoved hard on the knee he’d just been worshipping, opening her legs wider. “Because the pain makes you wet for me.”

  He dragged his mouth against hers again, but this time she didn’t let him into her wet heat. She opened her lips only enough to get her teeth into his bottom lip.

  “Damn you to Hades,” she whispered, her teeth still anchored in his flesh. He yanked back, licking at the flesh she’d torn open, though he did it on a dark smile.

  “Too late, sugar. I think my passport’s already got that stamp.”

  She looked adorable as she rolled her eyes. “Which is why you’re in heaven with me?”

  Before he answered that, he did kiss her. He did it thoroughly and desperately, possessing her tongue in bold sweeps, permanently tangling his essence with hers.

  “We’ve always lived on borrowed time, my heart. We both know it.” He gripped her leg, hooking her knee around his shoulder. “Which is why I’m going to fuck you hard now. Which is why you’re going to let me. Which is why you’re going to love it.”

  Her eyes shimmered with tears. Her lips lifted in a misty smile. “Okay.”

  His penis surged against his fingers as he guided himself to her tight, glistening entrance. “Tell me you want it.”

  “I want it, baby.” Her obedience didn’t land him in heaven again. It made his whole heart and soul turn into paradise. “I want your hot cock, Garrett. Please. Now. Deep inside me.”

  “Yeah.” He swirled the searing precome around his bulging head and then pushed himself into the first inch of her channel. “Oh yeah, sugar.”

  “Garrett.” Her strident gasp filled him. “Garrett…Garrett…”

  “Soon, my heart. Soon.”

  “Garrett! Fuck, man. Open the door!”

  What the hell?

  His fiancée suddenly sounded like his best friend. Correction—his demanding, door-pounding, subtle-as-a-linebacker ex-best friend.

  “Hawkins! Get your ass out of bed and answer the door!”

  Garrett slammed his eyes open. Squeezed them shut again. “No.” His voice was a croak, absorbed by the grimy walls of the room in this no-name Bangkok hotel he’d checked into last night. He looked down, trying to piece together this new truth. The precome was real. One of his hands was still wet with the stuff. His fingers were also really wrapped around his aching boner as he lay beneath a mound of cheap, cloying sheets.

  Sage was nowhere to be found.

  Of course not.

  Because she was dead. For a year, two months, sixteen days, and almost twenty-four hours now.

  The knives of grief, all ten million of them, reburied in his chest. As he gulped through the resulting dearth of air, he raised his clean hand to his chest, scrabbling for his dog tags. More accurately, he searched for the gold band that hung on the chain between them.

  Though his head ordered him not to do it, he slipped his ring finger back through the band. For one wonderful extra moment, the knives went away, and he relived the day he and Sage had picked out the jewelry… The day when he’d thought it would soon become a part of his wardrobe for good.

  He remembered every detail of how beautiful she’d looked. It had been a brilliant late-spring day. Her hair was a cascade of light-brown sugar that earned her his favorite nickname, falling against the freckled shoulders that peeked from her pink sundress. But her smile… Ah, he remembered that the best. Her lips had glistened with her joyous tears and quavered with her soft whisper.

  I can’t wait until you get to wear it for good. I can’t wait until you’re all mine.

  A month later, he’d gotten the phone call from Heidi Weston that upended his world forever. The woman who was preparing to become his mother-in-law stammered that he needed to come over right away. He’d actually packed a bag, thinking Sage had been hurt, maybe badly, judging by the sound of Heidi’s voice. He was prepared to stay long enough to get as much info as he could about her condition and then head for the base to force himself onto whatever flight was headed anywhere near Botswana. When he’d walked in to see the Casualty Notifications Officer and the Chaplain sitting there, on either side of a sobbing Heidi, his knees hit the floor along with his pack. Only half their words had reached his brain through his roaring senses. Tribal warfare…region unexpectedly unstable…van sidetracked off the main road…likely rebels…found burned out…nothing but ashes found…

  He swallowed hard and pulled his finger back out of the ring. As expected, his brain crowed while his heart screamed on the torture rack of memory. He waited, breathing hard, for the agony to end. He begged the wounds to bleed hard and fast, letting the anger get here and turn the pain into a scab. After that, he’d be able to move again. To function again.

  “Hawk! Damn you, man!”

  Anger moved in on the grief. Thank fuck. Fortunately, nothing got him more pissed off than Zeke’s mommy-hen act. After rolling from the bed, he tugged on his briefs and then stumbled across the room. The dirty light and sound of traffic beyond the thin shutters told him it was about midday. Or maybe his growling stomach did.

  “Okay, why are your panties in a wad?” He glanced at Zeke after opening the door, the last of his grogginess obliterated by the lime green and banana yellow print of his friend’s tacky tourist ensemble. Z’s khaki shorts were baggy on his timber-log legs, which marched him into the room before Garrett could even think about reclosing the portal. “Don’t tell me you’re bored, with all of Bangkok out there for the taking. We don’t roll on this mission until nightfall. That gives you at least five hours to work your flogging arm and your kinky cock through a lot of cheap tail, my friend. I’ll bet the girls at Club Subjugate are missing you something fierce, Sir Zekie.”

  “Sir Zekie. Aw. That’s cute, honey.” The guy kicked the door shut behind him. Zeke’s six-foot-six frame was only a couple of inches taller than Garrett’s, but the man’s mountainous build intensified the effect of his stature, especially in this room seemingly designed for people half his size. “As much as Chelsea and Chyna like my side-by-side spanking special, shit like that gets boring by myself. You tried the fun-filled dungeon field trip once. Think you want to sign up this time?”

  Garrett snorted and flopped on the bed again. His friend wasted his breath with the memory. Yeah, he’d gone. Yeah, he’d tried it. Z had gotten him in a weak spot around the six-month mark after Sage’s death. He’d been desperate to forget the pain for a while, hoping “the magic of BDSM,” as Z called it, would help. More urgently, he’d been hoping to figure out the kinky-minded demon that had been crawling in the back of his imagination since…well, he knew since when. The secret would go with him to his grave. An occasion, God willing, that would come sooner than later.

  Needless to say, he’d scratched the itch just fine that night. Or, as truth would have it, hadn’t scratched. That part wasn’t such a state secret, and it justified the response he tossed at his friend.

  “Yo
u really think that offer’s relevant?”

  Z shrugged. “Lots of water has passed under your bridge, dude. Maybe commanding a sweet little subbie will fire your rockets this time around.”

  “No,” Garrett snapped, “it won’t.”

  “Right. Because you’d rather stay here and just beat off after your wet dreams about Sage.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “It’s been over a year, Hawk.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Fine.” Z pulled the faded Yankees cap off his head, revealing the miniature broadcasting station literally sewn inside it, before scrubbing a hand through his tumbling dark-brown hair. “Turns out free time just got drastically cut, anyhow. That’s why I’m here collecting your sorry ass.”

  He’d just cracked open a lukewarm soda and was about to take his first guzzle. He stopped the can halfway to his lips and shot a quizzical look across the room. “What do you mean, ‘cut’?”

  Zeke dropped into the room’s sole chair and shrugged. “CENTCOMM received a line of new intel. Seems we’re gonna be more effective going in to rescue these girls as the badass uniformed machines we’ve been trained to be instead of a bunch of American dorkgasms looking for some girl-next-door-type pussy.” He stretched his tree trunk legs out, crossing them at the ankle on the foot of the bed. “So as soon as you get your ass dressed, we’re buggin’ back to the embassy. They’re gonna let us change and get haircuts and shaves.” He scratched the scruff on his jaw. “Thank all that’s holy.”