Heartstrings & Wedding Rings. Front Lines to Home Fronts

Some pacts are meant to be broken. Theirs was destined to be sealed. Duke Caster was the hotshot quarterback and resident playboy of Honeyville High School, but there was only ever one woman who truly mattered: Hudson Frazier. Since the fourth grade, she has been his girl-his constant, his confidante, and the target of a protective rage that once earned him a two-day suspension after someone made her cry.
Though Hudson, a curvy, shy woman, carried an unspoken crush for the friend who never claimed her romantically, Duke was waiting.... He knew if he tasted her then, he would never let her go, trapping her in their small town before she realized her potential. So he sealed their future with a promise. "If neither of us is married by twenty-five, " he declared to her and two witnesses, "you and me, we'll get married". Seven years later, Duke has returned on his 25th birthday, ready to collect his prize. Now older, bigger, stronger, and intensely possessive, Duke tracks down Hudson in Boston only to find her working for a boss he instantly pegs as predatory. Hudson believes their pact was a childish joke, a statement made to distract her from high school bullying.
But Duke isn't playing games. He wasn't then and he sure isn't now. When he locates her, he immediately declares her his fiancée, follows her across state lines, and stamps his claim on her body, refusing to let her deny the passion he held back for years. Duke has always been her protector, but now he demands to be her forever. He will burn down anything-and anyone-in his way to prove to his Huds that she is, and always has been, his everything. He waited until she was ready for the world.
Now, he's done waiting. She's his. Forever. And once he slips that ring on her finger, he has no intention of ever taking it off. This short read is MF with a guaranteed HEA.