Chapter 35 Refuse To Break
REFUSE TO brEAK
PATIENCE
Jacob’s five-minute warning was clearly an exaggeration. He’s climbing out of his car as the door to Sigma House closes behind me. When I look to see if Maddox or any of the others followed, I find myself alone with him.
My teeth grit as I turn to see him approaching me. Anger is etched in the deep grooves between his eyebrows, and his jaw is set. I guessed my teasing would piss him off, but it clearly worked better than expected.
He stops in front of me, and my reckless heart skips a beat.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I cross my arms over my chest, standing my ground.
Except that all my anger does is seem to entertain him. His dark eyes gleam with his smile. Moonlight casts shadows over his already stormy expression.
“What?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“Fight me all you want, baby. I don’t mind. But you are getting in that car.” He reaches out, snagging me around the waist.
“Wha—” I’m cut off by him throwing me over his shoulder. “Put me down.”
“I warned you.” His fingers toy with the back of my thighs, and I’m aching for this man as much as I hate him.
So I try to push and shove. Anything to break free from this hold he has on me.
“If you want something to wiggle on, you can have my cock.”
“No thanks.” I shove his back, but it’s no use.
Jacob chuckles, unfazed as he opens the car door and sets me on the passenger seat. I’m about to try to pop right out of it when he grabs my chin, forcing me to look up at him towering over me.
“You think you can threaten me with the idea of you sharing another man’s bed, and I’ll just let it go? My brother’s bed much less?”
“I didn’t think you’d care.”
“That’s a lie, and you know it.” His tone is icy cold.
I meet his glare with one of my own. “I didn’t even know you had a brother until tonight. Maybe if you learned to communicate better, there wouldn’t be so much confusion.”
“My family is complicated.”
“Yeah, well, so is mine.”
Jacob releases my chin. “Feet in the car.”
Everything in me wants to defy him, but there’s no give in his voice. No leniency in his expression. So, angry as I am, I spin to face the inside of the car, crossing my arms over my chest.
He shuts the door behind me, and I stare at the trees, trying not to look at him. But when he rounds the car, the headlights cast a glow on his outfit, and I realize this is the first time I’ve seen him in anything besides dress slacks and a button-down shirt outside his apartment.
He’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, with his hair a beautiful mess. It’s grating that he can still be so eye-catching, even like this.
Jacob climbs into the car and peels out of the driveway, not saying anything.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To your dorm.”
I hum, staring out the window and refusing to look at him. Trees whip by in the night. Stars peek through the branches. Like the universe has its eyes on me, ready to weigh me for my sins.
Sins I feel coursing through my veins the longer I’m around Jacob.
I might be refusing to look at him, but I feel his attention from the corner of my eye. The heat of his body sharing the car with me. His grip tightens on the steering wheel with each mile. The tension is so thick it’s going to snap.
He’s everywhere.
I press my thighs tight and grip the passenger seat, trying to take shallow breaths so I don’t have to smell his apple spice cologne. The more I breathe him in, the more my body wants him, regardless of what he’s done to my heart.
“Patience—”
“I don’t want to talk.” I cut him off.
He swerves the car to the side of the road, throwing it into park.
“What are you doing?” My fingers grip the edge of my seat. Dust plumes kick up around us as he shuts off the engine.
“Enough of this.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Really. Enough? I’m not a fucking child.”
But just like one, I open the car door and storm out because I can’t sit next to him with these thoughts running through my head.
His commands might be condescending, but they’re turning me on.
I fell for Jacob’s dominant side. His taking control allowed me to get out of my head.
And in this moment, all it does is make me want him when I shouldn’t.
I slam the car door behind me, but he’s already climbing out on his side. We’re in the middle of the forest, so there’s nowhere to run, but I decide to walk the road that leads to the dorm anyway.
“Stop.” Jacob snags my wrist, spinning me until my ass hits the hood of the car, and he’s standing between my legs.
With one hand gripping my jaw, he forces my face up to his.
My eyes narrow, and I want to fight with him.
I’m itching for it.
We’re both breathing hard. Exhaustion is etched all over his face. Deep circles I didn’t notice at first cast shadows under his eyes.
His grip gets tighter. “Just stop fighting me for five fucking seconds.”
“I can’t.”
It’s the truth.
I need the fight. The claws, the anger, the rage. It’s all that reminds me I haven’t given up completely. I’m still here, and there is something worth surviving for.
Something worth waking up to.
As much as I despise what Jacob has done, that’s what he is. The touch that wakes this fire in my belly. The flames that incinerate me with his stare.
I’m angry, but I need to fight with him.
It’s keeping me going.
Like Jacob senses it, his mouth sinks to mine, and it isn’t sweet. It’s pure anger and regret and passion. It’s the heart of an explosion that will ripple until there is nothing left of us.
My heart is a bloody puddle of grief dripping with old wounds, and his hands aren’t enough to patch me up. But he tries. He dips his fingers to my throat and traces my neck like he’s drawing out my last breath.
After all, that’s what this is.
The kiss of death.
Eternity swallowing me.
Jacob pushes me down on the hood of the car, and I accept that I want him. If for nothing more than tonight. I’m a marionette, and he pulls in all the right places, forcing me to see him.
His tongue slides along my lower lip, and my thighs clamp at his hips. My skirt rides up, and I’m faintly aware we’re on the side of the road, and that anyone could drive by, but I don’t care.
Is this what it’s like to give up? Or is this what it’s like to let go?
Is there a difference?
He shoves my skirt up higher, and I widen my legs. My nails dig into the back of his neck, and he shivers as I drag them down his back.
“I still hate you,” I murmur against his mouth.
“Good.” He sinks his teeth into my lower lip until I scream. “That means you’re learning.”
Jacob flips me around, pressing my chest flat to the hood as he shoves my skirt up my hips. Something metal flicks, and I look behind me in time to see the flash of a knife as he flips it open.
“Don’t move, baby.” He grins. “Wouldn’t want to cut you.”
Something about how he says it makes me think he wouldn’t mind cutting me at all. The simple fact that heat throbs at my center at that thought tells me just how sick I am for this man.
Jacob drags the blade between my thighs, slicing my black tights, and then using his fingers to rip a hole. He slides my panties to the side and rubs his fingers through my pussy as he tucks the knife away.
With his free hand, he grabs my hair, forcing my back to arch so he can whisper in my ear. “You really do hate me, don’t you? Nothing gets my girl wetter than pissing her off.”
“I’m not your girl.”
He shoves two fingers inside me. “Your body doesn’t seem to agree with that filthy mouth of yours. Your pussy swallows me deeper the angrier you get. You might not like that you’re mine, but you are. There’s no denying it. You’re mine to ruin. Mine to please.”
Jacob curls his fingers, shoving his hips against me to force himself deeper as he works his zipper.
“Someone could drive by and see us.”
“Good. Then maybe you’ll finally understand that I don’t give a fuck who knows about us. You’re mine, Patience. And what’s mine can’t be touched by anyone but me.”
In a swift movement, he replaces his fingers with his cock. A brutal thrust shoves me against the hood of the car. My knees dig into the metal. He grabs my hip with one hand and continues to hold my hair with the other, fucking me like he hates me as much as I hate him.
All this rage is good for something. It stokes this fire until I’m lit from my toes to my fingernails. I’m a burning ember in the night, and Jacob is the fuel stoking my flames. If we aren’t careful, we’ll turn this forest to ash around us.
That’s what happens when you mess with Sigma Sin.
You burn.
Jacob pulls out and flips me around, setting me on the hood. He’s so comfortable bending me to his will. Playing with me how he wants. I crave it.
And when he thrusts back in, I have no choice but to cling to him so I don’t topple off the hood of the car.
“Jacob.” His name is a curse.
A prayer.
He grips my face and forces my eyes to him. The strands of gold that shimmer in the green depths aren’t promises. They’re the threads of fate, reminding me I’ll never escape him.
My lashes flutter, but I don’t break his gaze. I scratch my fingers along the sides of the overgrown scruff on his jaw, down his neck. I pull his mouth to mine, and I beg him to consume me. At least then this could make sense.
Jacob wraps his arms around my lower back and tugs me down the hood of the car to impale me deeper. Just as he does, headlights round the turn at the far end of the road. He holds my face and refuses to let me hide against his chest, staring into my eyes as they drive past.
“See.” He grins, slowly rocking his hips forward. “Someone saw us, and the world didn’t end.”
“Are you mocking me or fucking me?” I narrow my eyes.
“Both.” He thrusts harder, grabbing me by the throat and pinning me back down on the car.
The tether is cut.
The beast is unleashed.
He fucks me with every bit of his soul, and in the darkness, I swear I feel him drinking mine straight from my pores.
He fucks me until I’m screaming into an empty forest. So loud, a black bird breaks free from the branches and skates across the obsidian sky.
Until I come apart, dragging Jacob with me.
His cum spills out between his thrusts, dripping down my legs. And when he finally catches his breath and pulls out, he doesn’t clean up. He slides my panties back into place and helps me off the hood with my torn black tights barely holding themselves together.
I wrap my arms around my stomach while he tucks himself away. But when he reaches for me, I step to the side, avoiding his touch. Refusing to meet his gaze.
It’s not that I’m ashamed—it’s the opposite.
I want to forgive him, and I’m not ready to face the shame of that.
“Take me to the dorm now, please.” I hurry to the side of the car and climb in silently.
His cum might be leaking out of me, but I won’t be weak. Especially not for a man.