“Get your hands off me.”
“Come on now, sweetheart.”
Then he grabbed her jaw.
Hard.
His fingers dug into her face, forcing her to look up at him.
And before she could twist away, he kissed her.
Not a kiss.
A violation.
His mouth crushed down over hers, wet and rough and demanding. The scrape of his stubble burned against her skin. She tasted whiskey. Tobacco.
The awful, sick certainty that he had done this before—and never once been made to stop.
For one terrible second she froze.
Then horror became rage.
She shoved him with both hands.
Hard.
He stumbled back.
Clara wiped her mouth violently with the back of her hand, like she could erase him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she snapped, voice shaking. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
He stared back.
Like she had embarrassed him.
“You don’t have to act like that.”
A sharp, sick laugh burst out of her.
“Like what? Like I don’t want a married man pawing at me in a livestock barn?”
His face darkened.
“You think you get to say no to me?”
“I think you’re disgusting.”
She thought he might hit her.
The look in his eyes went flat and ugly.
He stepped toward her again.
Clara pointed straight at him, every inch of her trembling with fury and disgust.
“Touch me one more time,” she said loudly, clearly, “and I will tell your wife exactly what you did.”
