Chapter 15
Ruin Me
Summer
The truck growls to life, headlights carving through dusk.
My chest is still pounding, not from fear—at least not the kind I can name.
From the kiss. From the way he lifted me like I was nothing, slammed me into steel like I belonged there, and kissed me until I forgot my own name.
But that isn’t what claws at me now. It’s what he said after.
“I need you—fuck… I love you.”
The words loop in my head, relentless, like a song I can’t turn off. I stare at the windshield, hands locked in my lap, thighs squeezed together so tight I can barely breathe.
He said he loves me.
Jacob Darnell. Sheriff. Executioner. Captor. The man who dragged me into his world and called it protection. Who punishes me for glances, who burns hotter than hell itself when I resist, who’s spent every day proving he’s too dangerous to love anything. And now he’s said it. Love.
The word guts me—warm and brittle, a knife I can’t decide if I want pulled out or driven deeper. I should be scared. I should laugh in his face. But all I feel is ache.
The same ache he started last night when his hands stripped away every wall I had. The ache still humming beneath my skin, restless and alive, like my body remembers him even when he isn’t touching me. And God help me—I don’t want it to stop. I don’t just want his hands. I want him. All of him.
Jacob doesn’t do soft. He isn’t built for gentle. He’s built to ruin.
I’m about to give it to the man who could cave a man’s ribs with a single punch. I can’t stop myself from imagining, from wondering what’s going to happen the second we step through that door.
I want the danger, the hurt, the stretch, the way he’ll hold my hips like I’m something he’s anchoring to this world.
I squeeze my thighs tighter, trying to stop the pulse between them. It doesn’t help. I’m throbbing. Desperate. But I’m also afraid. Scared to the core that he’ll know he’s not my first. But I won’t ask him to slow down, because deep inside, I want it to hurt. I want him to break me open.
And I want to love it.
We head down the long stretch of road that leads to his house. He pulls into the driveway without so much as tapping the breaks.
The truck slows to a stop.
He doesn’t move. Neither do I. His hands grip the wheel, knuckles white, like he’s holding something back. Then he turns, dark eyes dragging over me like fire catching dry grass. He looks like a man seconds from breaking every promise he’s ever made.
He leans in, voice rough enough to scrape skin. “You know what’s coming when we walk through the door. If you don’t want this, tell me now. If you do, get inside.”
And I do. God, I do. I open the door. My legs tremble, my panties are ruined. I step out knowing the next time I walk; I’ll know exactly what it feels like to be fucked by the devil.
He’s behind me—always behind me. His presence crawls up my spine. The door slams. The lock clicks shut behind us. My breath stutters. My feet move anyway. I make my way to the den. I stand at the sofa. Too nervous to sit.
He doesn’t hesitate. He shrugs out of his jacket and throws it onto the sideboard, eyes locked on me. His voice comes low, lethal. “You know what happens now.”
The words fall heavy between us, the air thickening until it hurts to breathe. He steps closer—slow, dominant—until the heat of him is everywhere. Two fingers lift my chin. His gaze pins me in place, dark and certain.
“I’m going to destroy you, Summer. And you’re going to love it.”
The words hit like a slap and a prayer all at once. My breath catches. Fear tangles with want until I can’t tell which is which. My body burns under the weight of his words. My pulse thrums so violently it feels like my skin can’t hold it. Because I know exactly what he means—and worse, I want it.
“Take your clothes off,” he orders. “Now.”
The command slices through the air like a blade. I can barely strip the dress over my head. It drops at my feet, leaving me in red lace. He doesn’t move, watching me like I’m something he’s earned.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“I’m scared,” I admit, throat tight.
The smirk fades from his mouth. He steps closer, heat radiating from him. “Good.”
The word shouldn’t make me shiver, but it does. He wants the fear—the proof that I still know what danger feels like. That I still know he could break me.
“I want you to remember this,” he murmurs, voice low, threaded with something darker than lust. “Every time you think about running. Every time you look at another man. I want you to remember that no one else will ever touch you like this. No one else will ever have you like I do.”
His hand moves down to my chest. Palm flat against my heart. “You feel that?”
I nod.
“That’s mine now. Your body. Your soul. It belongs to me.”
He turns me slowly, his hand trailing down the length of my spine. When his fingers find the clasp of my bra, it slips free with a soft snap. The air feels colder without it. His palm follows, skimming lower until he reaches the thin lace still clinging to my hips.
He doesn’t tear them away yet. Instead, he steps in behind me. I can feel him—solid, unyielding—pressing against the small of my back.
“You ready?” He breathes.
I close my eyes. And I nod. Because pain from him is different. It’s not cruel. It’s claiming.
He leans close, his breath a rough whisper at my ear. “You trust me?”
It takes me a moment to find my voice. “I think so.”
My heart is a drumbeat against the silence of the room, loud enough to fill it. His voice follows, breathy and deep.
“You belong to me, Summer. Say it.”
I hesitate—only a heartbeat—but it’s enough.
He grips my jaw, forcing my head back, my face angled just enough that I can feel the edge of his breath.
“Say it.”
The words come out small but certain. “I belong to you.”
His exhale shudders against my skin, and for a moment, I feel it—something that almost resembles tenderness. The quiet between us hums with danger and devotion both.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, almost reverent.
The sound of it unravels me. He slides his hand down the front of my panties. I gasp—arching against him as his fingers find me. He groans, teeth grazing my neck.
“You’re fucking soaked,” he mutters. “God, I knew you were soaked in the truck. I saw the way you squirmed.”
He strokes once—lightly—and I moan, unable to stifle the pleasure he’s creating inside of me. He pushes me forward—his hands a command, not a guide—and I stumble against the wall, I feel his chest pressing behind me, with a force that knocks the air out of my lungs.
There’s no path to gentleness here. He could take me right here. Against the wall. On the floor. The thought flickers, and heat rushes through me—violent and shameful.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he turns me and lifts me. My legs wrap around his waist out of instinct. His strength isn’t just impressive—it’s unholy. I feel it in the tension of his muscles, in the way he carries me up the stairs like I weigh nothing.
The bedroom door slams open. Then we’re in the dark.
Not just in the room—but in something else. Something deeper. The kind of dark that breathes. The kind that presses into your skin and whispers things you’re not ready to hear.
He lays me down like he’s placing a weapon on display. Stands back and lights the candle on his nightstand. Then he looks at me. His eyes have turned almost fully black, his pupils blown so wide that they could drown me—part of me wants them to.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs, unbuttoning his shirt, “what I’ve had to fucking resist.”
My breath snags, because I do know. I saw it in the way he watched me. In the way his hands hovered too long. In the way he looked at Benny—not as a man— but as a threat to his property.
He shrugs off his shirt. Undoes his belt and steps out of his jeans and underwear.
The sight of him—towering, thick, already hard—makes my throat close. Yeah, I slept with Tyler, but he wasn’t even half the size of Jacob, and even that hurt. There’s no way that will fit. No way it won’t break me. And maybe that’s the point.
“Every inch of this is yours to take. And you will take it.”
The words slam into me, heat and dread colliding in my veins. My mouth opens, but no sound comes. All I can do is stare—at him, at the threat, at the promise.
My body burns. Fear curls in my stomach, relentless, but it’s drowned by the ache clawing lower, hungrier. I shake my head before I even realize it, but it isn’t no. It’s disbelief. Awe. Terror. Want.
He kneels between my legs and yanks my panties down, rough and fast. They tear a little at the seam, but he doesn’t care. I’m exposed now. His hand grips my thigh—spreads me open—and I brace for pain. But he doesn’t enter me. Not yet. Instead, he lowers his head.
And licks.
The first stroke of his tongue is brutal in its precision, sending memories flooding back of how much I wanted him to continue when he had me laid across the table. I jolt like I’ve been struck, a sound escaping my throat I didn’t even know I could make.
My hips try to jerk away. He grips them down.
“Oh no,” he growls. “You’re not going anywhere.”
His tongue moves again, firmer this time. Slower. He doesn’t rush. He devours. I look down and see his whole mouth cupping me, he moves his head, sucking, licking, bringing every sense in my body to the area he feasts on.
I cry out, hand flying to my mouth. He pulls away, eyes dark with warning.
“If you hide your sounds again,” he says, voice flat, “I’ll stop.”