Jacob

They think I’m smiling.

      That’s the part that always gets me—how fucking easy it is.

      A tilt of the mouth. A nod. A badge pressed to my chest like a holy relic. People will believe anything if the devil’s wearing a uniform. I could blow a man’s brains out in this bar and half of them would call it justice. The other half would thank me for keeping the peace.

      But I’m not thinking about them. I’m thinking about her.

      Summer.

      Out there, with another man like she’s forgotten the name I carved into her life. The woman I dragged from the dark and put under my roof. The woman I told myself I would keep.

      The woman I have been in love with for two years and have taken into my home to protect from the monsters that lurk in the dark. But she’s dancing with that fucker for all to see.

      That singing stray with hands too familiar and eyes that don’t understand what it means to touch something sacred.

      And she’s smiling. Not the smile she gives me. Not the one she wears when she thanks me through her teeth for the silk I buy or the food I put on the table. This one’s real. Soft. Lit from inside.

      Unforgivable.

      “She’s got moves,” some idiot mutters nearby. “Didn’t think the sheriff would let her off the leash.”

      My head turns slow. Wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m the kind of man who loses control. Yet.

      I find the voice. Lock eyes. Some oil-rig rat with beer on his breath and death behind his teeth.

      “You want to repeat yourself?” I say, calm as a storm gathering under skin.

      He chuckles. Weak. Backpedals. Good.

      I’m not in the mood to bury another one behind the diner.

      Haywood says something beside me—laughing about blood on a porch turning out to be barbecue sauce. I nod. Smile. Pretend I give a shit.

      I don’t.

      I’m too busy watching her. Still swaying. Still glowing. Still fucking mine.

He touches her waist. My hand twitches, the urge to pull out my gun and shoot the fucker burns through me like lava.

      If she were smart, she’d be crying right now. Begging me to make it stop. Begging me to get him to take his hands off her. But she doesn’t⁠—

      She’s gotten stupid. Or brave. Or both.

      From the first second, she was mine. Not a passing obsession—an inevitability carved into me. I’ve memorized every shiver, every tear, every defiance. She’s always belonged to me, even when she thought she was running. She still looks at me like I’m the danger. Maybe I am. But I’m also the only thing standing between her and the monsters who wanted her. Who planned her destruction. And if she knew what they had planned, what I had really saved her from, she would never lead a normal life again.

      Every road she takes will always lead back to me. Every breath she takes is already inside my hands. She can fight, she can hate, but she’ll never escape. I won’t let her. Not now. Not ever.

I haven’t owned her in the bedroom yet. I was never going to be the man to tie her down and take her against her will. Hell, that’s the men I’m saving her from. But right now, the idea of her in chains, taking every inch of my cock and staring into my eyes sounds like heaven. Maybe that’s what she needs. Maybe then she’ll stop eyeing bar rats and thinking it’s alright to let them put their hands on her.

      I’m a fucking monster. But a rapist?

      No.

      It takes every ounce of strength I have to walk back to the table and sit, to hide the storm clawing at my insides and let the room think I’m calm.

      “I’m waiting for you baby,” I mutter under my breath.

      The song ends and he finally takes his greasy fucking hands off her.

      I want to stomp on his fucking throat—but I won’t. I’ll play the long game. I’ll find out everything there is to know about that son of a bitch.

      She heads back over. Eyes down at the ground. She knows. She fucking knows. She has the audacity to sit there like nothing happened. Like she didn’t just look at another man like he could save her. Like he could take her home and fuck her into forgetting I ever existed.

      I saw it—that flicker. That spark she thought she could hide. She wanted him to look at her, to see her. To know she was interested. And now she sits there, all wide eyes and trembling lips, pretending she’s innocent?

No

“Had fun with your boyfriend?” The words come out smooth, almost playful, but they taste like rust on my tongue.

      What I really want to do is drag her out by the hair and make her confess how far she would’ve let him go if I wasn’t here.