Chapter 8
Bad Girls Don’t Get Happy Endings
Summer
The door slams, firm enough to rattle the hinges. Loud enough to say I’m home—without saying a word.
By the time his boots strike tile, I’ve smoothed the lilac dress over my thighs and fixed my face into something pleasant.
Jacob doesn’t look at me at first. Just tosses his keys onto the counter and yanks a beer from the fridge.
Like it’s any other night. Like he hasn’t been gone since dawn.
Like the air doesn’t still hum with the ghost of someone else’s touch.
“Office was a shitshow,” he mutters, twisting the cap off with a click. “Teller let that junkie bitch slip through processing again. Halfway across the bridge before anyone noticed. Waste of a badge.”
He takes a long drink. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I told them—tighten the damn watch on the cells. But no one listens until someone’s twitching with a needle in their throat.”
He finally turns. His gaze skims my face—then drops to the dress. Lingers.
“You look nice.” His lips pull into something that wants to be a compliment. But it doesn’t land like one.
I nod. “Thanks.”
He leans against the counter. Just watching me. Not speaking. Just letting his silence settle like fog, thick and heavy and full of unsaid things.
“You make dinner?” He asks eventually.
“I can,” I say quickly. “I was waiting.”
He grunts. Like I should know when to expect him home and have it ready.
“You hear about the Morrigan boys?” His tone shifts—colder. Controlled. “Busted them running Carlton's herd out. Thought they’d get away with it. Hell, they’re lucky I got to them before his cowboys. Wouldn’t have been enough of them left to bury.”
I nod. Fold the dish towel in my lap. Tight. Tight enough it nearly tears.
Jacob’s voice sharpens. His eyes glint. “I shut it down. Fast. Before it turned into a warzone.”
I nod and smile. Pretending to admire him the way everyone else in this godforsaken town does.
Another swig of beer. He sets the bottle down with a dull clink.
“I’ll always keep you safe, you know,” he says. “Just you, me, our home.” His smile is tight. “Was thinking about your name today. Summer, it suits you,” he adds. “All that light. All that skin.” A pause.
He tilts his head.
His gaze flicks over me. Slower now. Possessive. “You just need to remember that you’re spoken for. No more whispers. No more wandering onto dance floors with other men. No more little visits from your bar-boy.”
My breath catches in my throat. Shit…. The CCTV—
He leans in, voice dropping. “You’re not going to be some messy little rumor under my roof.
I’m not going to stand here and let people in town talk of fucking soft boys coming to my front door to see my woman.
And one day Summer. Maybe sooner than you think, you’ll have a ring on your finger.
That’s your future, sweetheart.” He says it like a sentence. A punishment.
He moves to the table. Sinks into the chair across from me like a man who’s just put the whole world back in order.
“I did some digging today. Into your little rockstar.”
My blood goes still. He doesn’t look at me. Just peels the label from the beer bottle like he’s skinning something alive.
“Benedict Harrow,” he drawls, like it leaves a bad taste. “Turns out he’s not back for the gigs. Or the bar. Or you.”
His grin cuts toward me, teeth bared. “The bastard’s such a fucking lowlife he let his own family file him missing. Drugs, most likely. Rotting in a gutter somewhere.” He leans in, voice dropping, almost delighted. “But no. He’s here because Mommy’s dying.”
Something twists hard inside me, jagged and mean.
Jacob’s laugh scrapes the air, hollow as a grave. “Sad story, isn’t it? Cancer. The slow kind. Sucks to be her.”
“Jacob—” My voice catches, thin as a thread.
It’s too quiet. Too soft. He lifts the bottle in a mock toast. “To family, huh?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Didn’t say it was.” He shrugs. “But it is convenient. Means he’ll be crawling back to whatever gutter he came from soon enough.
I mean, it’s for the best. He leaves without breathing a word to you again.
Otherwise, he might meet the Lord Almighty before his mother does.
” His eyes gleam. “That shit hole trailer behind the bar. It’s temporary. Like him.”
“Stop.”
It’s not a scream. It just slips out—brittle and cutting.
Jacob freezes. Not with shock. Not with rage. With focus. His whole-body stills. The bottle pauses halfway to his mouth. The silence that follows is suffocating.
Then he sets the bottle down. My stomach twists.
Wrong. You did it wrong.
He stands. Not fast. Steady and unhurried. The air in the room contracts around him. And when he speaks, his voice is quiet. Almost curious.
“Say it again.”
I shake my head and step back. He follows.
One step.
Two.
His eyes are ice. The calm before the storm.
“You speaking up for him now, huh? Say it again.”
My lips tremble. Nothing comes.
He lowers his gaze to the floor—spots a sliver of glass. A flick of his boot sends it skittering. His stare snaps back to me.
“I gave you this house,” he hisses. “A roof. A bed.” A low, brutal chuckle. “What’s he given you? A promise of an escape to his shit hole trailer?”
He’s at my side now, so close I taste my fear on his breath.
“How do you—” I whisper.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Summer?” He speaks slowly, a beat between each word. “You think I don’t know what’s going through that fucking head of yours?”
“Have I left with him?” My voice cracks, as I shrug my shoulder. “No, I’m still here. He just—he showed up. I didn’t ask him—”
A harsh laugh. “You didn’t ask him? Yet you let him stand on my porch and put his fucking hands on you!”
His hand darts out but he doesn’t strike. It seizes my chin. He tips my face up.
“You wore a pretty dress for your little rockstar.” He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear—gentle, predatory. Meaning something is coming. Something I’m not going to like.
“Take it off.”
My heart hammers. His mouth hovers over mine—almost a kiss.
“You forget who I am, baby? Who you’re dealing with?”
Air vanishes. He holds me, silence thick as blood.
I choke out, “Jacob—”
“No names. Now. Dress, off.”
I’m frozen. He releases me briefly, turning away—then the belt uncoils from his waist with cold precision.
"You think I'm soft?" he murmurs, voice scraping like a blade being sharpened.
His pupils contract to pinpoints, eyes gone winter cold.
The corner of his mouth twitches—not a smile, but something more primal.
"You've pushed your luck to its breaking point.
Now I'm going to carve the lesson into you until you can't remember a time before it. "
He circles behind me, a predator closing in. My knees tremble as the belt whistles through the air.
“Off,” he snarls again, but I shake my head.
His hand clamps around my nape, burning. The other rips the dress in one savage slash from collarbone to hem.
The lilac fabric falls. I stand exposed—vulnerable. Humiliated.
“Mmmm,” he purrs. “Now, panties and bra, too”
“Jacob—”
He pulls a pocketknife from his trousers.
“Off, or I cut them off. Your choice,” he says, bluntly. Not giving me any room to argue.
I feel bile rising from a mixture of fear and adrenaline. Reluctantly, I unclip my bra, and then pull my pants off, stepping one foot out at a time. I wrap my arm around my breasts and hold one hand over my most personal area.
“No,” he snaps. “I want all of you.”
“Please—”
Before I can finish, he scoops me up and lays me flat on the dining table. The cold wood bites into my back, a shock that makes me gasp. My legs kick in reflex, a flicker of defiance, but he’s too strong. He’s always thrown me around like I’m built to be handled, and this time is no different.
“I warned you what would happen if you acted like a whore again,” he rasps, breathlessly. His tongue swipes across his bottom lip, like he’s imagining all the ways he wants to destroy me.
“Now—let’s teach you what happens when you let other men think they have a fucking chance.”
My body’s a furnace—burning with want and loathing all at once. Desire for the devil who’ll destroy me, and disgust for the part of me that wants him to. My legs clamp together, and I try to roll onto my front, to give myself some cover from his wicked eyes, but he only laughs, low and dark.
“Rolling that way just gives me access to your ass, baby. And I’m sure that’s not what you want.” He chuckles, wicked and menacing.
My breath catches, and my whole body tightens. The thought of him tearing me open from there makes my skin crawl. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to explore—with anyone. Least of all him. Least of all now. I roll onto my front, tears spilling down my cheeks, landing on the table one by one.
He leans over me, wiping the remnants of tears from my cheek, not gently, not like a lover, but like a claim. Like they belong to him, and he treasures every single one of them.
“Now. Open your legs and show me what I own.”
My core dies. My chest implodes and every bit of fight in me rises to attention.
“No,” I shout.
“Do it now. Or I’ll make you.” He cracks the belt through the air. A reminder that if he wanted to hurt me, he could.
“Please, Jacob just—”
He flicks the belt, slapping it onto the top of my foot. I let out a hiss, feeling the burn instantly.
“Now.”
So, I do what he asks, parting my legs just enough. Heat floods my cheeks, and I feel every ounce of pride slip away with it.
“Wider,” he orders, hitting the table with his belt.
So, I do.
“Don’t fucking test me, Summer. I want them wider. As wide as your little body can handle. Let me see all of you.”
“Jacob—”
He slams the belt against the table again—harder this time.
I do. I let my legs fall open, as wide as they’ll go.
A low sound rumbles from his chest, something between a growl and a purr—approval, dark and possessive.
“So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, voice rough, almost reverent. “So fucking mine.”
The last words are so soft I almost think I imagined them.
He steps closer to me, and I’m certain that in this moment he is going to bury his cock in me. But he doesn’t. Instead, he leans down and blows cold air onto my entrance.
“You’re wet for me, baby.” He groans, and I can hear the desperation to touch in his voice. “I could eat you fucking dry Summer. Lick, suck and claim every drop of you right now.”
My hips buck in reaction to his words, the sensation of the cold air, and then the heat of his breath between my legs sending me into a frenzy, desperate to feel something.
He lets out a subtle laugh to my reaction. Enjoying the effect he has on my body.
“Mmmm, you’d like that wouldn’t you?”
A moan escapes my lips in a whimper, before I bring myself to stop.
“Tell me you’re mine, and I’ll give you what you want” he growls, wickedness dripping from every word. Cold air ghosts over me again, making me shiver.
God, I need to feel him. I need something—anything. The ache inside me coils tighter with every breath, stars flickering at the edge of my vision. I’d do anything to make it stop… or to let it consume me completely.
“I… I’m.” I stop myself, unable to give myself to him.
When he realizes I’m not going to say it, he holds my thighs apart and with one movement traces the pad of his tongue from my entrance to my clit.
He does it with such slowness, such precision, halting on my clit and holding his tongue still for what feels like an eternity.
A sound escapes me—raw, startled, nothing like anything I’ve made before.
No one has ever touched me there with their mouth; the shock of it sends lightning through my veins.
He lifts his head just enough for our eyes to meet, my arousal shining on his lips. His tongue drags across the bottom one, a low groan rumbling from his chest.
“Fuck, Summer,” he breathes. “You taste incredible.”
“Jacob—” I gasp, the word breaking on a moan.
He dips his head again, and I ache for him—to feel the press of his tongue against that tender, throbbing spot—but instead, he pauses, lifting from between my legs and looming over me, his mouth centimeters from mine.
“You want to come for me so fucking bad, Summer. But—” he shakes his head and pulls away, readjusting himself in his slacks, “you don’t deserve that... Bad girls don’t get happy endings.”
He steps away, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and walks out of the room.
I collapse against the cold surface, trembling.
I was ready to give myself to him—to the devil himself. But he just left me here, like none of it mattered.
Like he didn’t just unravel me without even taking off his clothes.
For a moment, I just lie there, shaking, trying to piece myself back together.
The sting in my chest builds until it spills over, hot tears sliding down my cheeks.
I wanted him—God, I really wanted him—and he walked away.
Is that what this was? My punishment? A lesson?
Maybe he just wanted to remind me how easily he could have taken what he wanted, how my body was never really mine when he decided otherwise.
I push up from the table, gathering my torn dress and shredded underwear, covering myself as I glance toward the window. He’s outside, seated on the porch steps, a cigarette burning between his fingers, smoke curling around him as he stares out over the empty fields like none of it happened.
I slip away down the hall, back to my room. I pull on my pajamas with shaking hands and crawl into bed, the sheets cold against my skin. Alone.