The sun is starting to set, leaving an orange haze glaring over the woods and fields. It looks like something from a postcard, somewhere people would find picturesque and they’d want to live. But the truth is, nothing stays clean here. Not for long. Not the streets. Not the hands. Not the girls.
“Don’t dawdle, Summer,” Mama calls from inside. “You need to be getting dressed. It’s getting late.”
I don’t answer. I don’t trust my voice to come out steady.
I step back from the porch rail, legs unsteady. My palms are slick. My heart is a caged thing in my chest. I take one last breath of fresh air and turn to go inside. I enter back into the kitchen and smile toward Mama and Papa.
“I’m going to change now, Mama. I won’t be long.”
I head through to the laundry room to gather my dress. I hold it up into the sunlight. It’s white. Long-sleeved. Knee-length. Modest. Most girls my age will be trying on college graduation dresses, but here I am. Preparing to be shown off in front of the town by a man I detest with every fiber of my being.
I throw the dress over my elbow and turn to leave the room. Then I hear him.
Jacob.
Descending the stairs with the slow, deliberate grace of a man who never needs to rush. Not because he’s lazy, but because the world bends to his pace.
He’s dressed in a black shirt and slacks—clean, immaculate. A sermon of a man carved in onyx and smoke. His badge attached to his waist hoop, boots polished.
And his eyes… God, his eyes.
They slice through the room like razors dipped in venom, pinning me where I stand.
This is what makes it so difficult. How handsome he is.
Sometimes I wonder—in another world, if he wasn’t the monster of a man he is today—whether I could have wanted him. But then the memories flood back in, and my body stiffens cold.
“You’re not dressed.” His voice slithers across the space between us—low, smooth, lethal—each syllable a noose tightening around my throat.
“I’m going now,” I answer. Careful. Not submissive. Not defiant… dead.
He stalks across the room like a hurricane in human skin, bringing with him the scent of cedarwood, smoke, and power, bottled and worn like war paint. He doesn’t tuck a strand of hair behind my ear—he claims it, fingertips burning against my skin. Soft. Deceptively gentle. A wolf’s teeth before they puncture.
“You want my help?” he murmurs, his breath scorching my cheek. Not a suggestion. A promise of violation dressed as kindness.
“No,” I choke out. “I won’t be long.”
His fingers brand my waist as he passes. I don’t flinch—I shatter inside.
“So twitchy,” he mutters, his smirk splitting his face. That expression floods my veins with ice, while something traitorous and molten ignites in my core. “Funny,” he adds, leaning closer. “I’ve seen you naked plenty of times.”
My lungs collapse. I’m drowning in the bathroom memory—the creak of the door, the invasion stripping me bare, the way he devoured me with that stare, like it was his birthright.
He turns toward the mirror, runs his hands through his hair—but his eyes aren’t on the strands. They’re on me. Watching. Consuming. Owning. And beneath that raging hunger—a terrifying, unshakable calm. The stillness of a man who knows he’ll never have to hurry.
Never have to chase.
I ascend the stairs at a slow pace. There’s no need to rush.
I have nowhere left to run.
Chapter 3
Whiskey, Smoke & Sin
Summer
The Dogwood is lit like a dying dream. Red neon bleeds through clouds of cigarette haze, turning everything it touches to rusted gold. The air is tangible, not just with sweat and humidity, but the scent of regret. The ghosts of nights that ended badly.
