“I want you,” I whisper, breathless, betraying myself the moment the words slip free. They’re raw, jagged, ugly in their desperation—yet true. Too true. If I can’t escape him, maybe I can choose how he consumes me.
He stills. His breath shudders against my lips, every line of him strung tight, ready to snap.
“Say it again.”
The command slices through me. I swallow hard. “I want you.”
He jerks back as though struck, but it isn’t rejection I see in his eyes. It’s restraint. A war being fought behind the black heat of his gaze.
“No,” he exhales, rough, reluctant. “Not like this. Not yet.”
The words crash through me, cold and disorienting, leaving confusion clawing up my throat.
“Why?” My voice trembles, small.
His hand brushes my waist—gentle, almost reverent—and it breaks me more than his brutality ever could.
“Because I want more than your fear,” he says, voice low, certain. “I want the part of you still fighting. The part of you that doesn’t even realize it belongs to me yet.” His eyes lock on mine, merciless and unflinching. “I want you clear. Awake. Sober on me. Not high on adrenaline. Not softened from foreplay.”
Silence falls heavy. I don’t know if that part of me even exists anymore, or if he’s already stripped it away.
He steps back, leaving an ache in the air where his body held mine. The space between us burns, a void that feels impossible to cross.
He exhales slow, a sound caught between a laugh and a growl. “What you want isn’t me—it’s the way last night felt. The way you broke for me. And you’ll want it again. You’ll crave it until you can’t breathe without it. I’ll keep peeling you open until every morning, every night, begins and ends with me in your head.” His eyes burn into mine, merciless. “And when I finally fuck you, Summer, it’ll be so deep, so hard, you’ll wonder how the hell you ever survived without me.” He steps back, like the moment hasn’t just scorched the ground beneath us. “Now, let’s go. We have a reservation.”
Chapter 13
Reservation For Ruin
Summer
We pull up outside a place I’ve only ever seen from a distance. Not the neon buzz of the diner down Main, not the peeling sign of The Dogwood. This is different—plate-glass windows catching the amber glow of gas lamps, mahogany siding polished so the porch lights gleam like jewels. Brass letters crown the door, gleaming and golden, promising silk and suits, not work pants and flannel. It doesn’t feel like Rosefield.
Jacob kills the engine without a word. I watch his heavy-stitched boot hit the pavement before he circles the truck, opening my door like a gentleman. He extends his hand. The leather of his palm is rough, but I wrap my fingers around it anyway.
Inside, the air is thick with warm bread and oiled leather. Burgundy booths nestle under golden sconces glowing. White linen napkins rest in precise triangles beside polished silverware that catches every ripple of light. Around us, voices murmur and ebb. Beyond a low partition, a piano spills velvet chords into the hush.
It looks safe. Luxurious.
The host—a bald man in a charcoal vest—glances at Jacob and stiffens. His nod is reverent, words clipped: “Sheriff. This way.” The tone says he’s already decided we don’t belong.
We’re led to a booth tucked behind a curtain of fern, the tablesecluded, cut off from the center of the room. The leather seat presses into my shoulders, closing me in. A candle quivers between us, shadows bending and twisting across his jawline.
Jacob slides into the booth across from me, jacket still on, collar up. He doesn’t touch the menu. Just watches as my fingers trace the edge of the embossed cover.
“You’re quiet,” he says, voice low enough to scare the hush right out of the space.
I inhale, lungs filling with the scent of polished wood and warmth. “I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
I study his reflection in the wine glasses lined along the table, ghostlike and fractured.
“How strange it feels to be here.”
His mouth curves, a half-smile trembling in the candlelight. “Strange how?”
I push the menu away gently after a glance, leave a faint smudge on the white page. “Like it isn’t real. Like it’s staged.”
