Adison’s POV
Hay dust exploded when I hit the stack. For three seconds I just lay there processing the audacity.
Then fury ignited like someone had lit a match to gasoline. Scrambled up despite my coordination being absolutely shit.
"What the fuck, Jake? You dragged me to a barn? What are we, in some kind of western movie where the cowboy—"
"Now we talk." His voice was wrecked. Raw. "Without you making a spectacle of yourself in front of the entire town."
Oh, he wanted to talk about spectacles?
After what I'd witnessed? After he'd spent the evening with his hands all over some blonde while I—
"What about that whore you were having fun with?" The words came out venomous. Drunk. Hurt disguised as rage. "I want to have fun too! I want a man who doesn't run away from me every time things get real!"
Started hitting his chest. Not slaps—actual fists fueled by weeks of being pushed away, pulled close, then shoved aside again like I was some problem he couldn't solve.
"You have no right to command me!" Each word punctuated with another hit. "No right to act like you own me when you won't even admit you want me! No right to—"
He caught my wrists mid-swing.
One second I was attacking him. The next my back slammed against the rough barn wall hard enough to knock air from my lungs. Wood scraped through my tank top.
His body caged mine—close enough that I could smell whiskey and anger and desperation.
"No right?" His voice dropped to that dangerous register. But this time it was shattered. Control is completely gone. "You think I don't want you? You think I ran to that bar for any fucking reason except trying to stop wanting you?"
Oh.
Oh fuck.
"You climbed into my bed." Closer now. Mouth near my ear. "Wearing that fucking shirt. Asked if I thought about you. Then spent an entire day making it impossible to think about anything except—"
"Except what?" Challenging him even though my pulse was everywhere. "Say it, Jake. Stop being a coward and actually say what you want."
His laugh was bitter. Sharp. "I want to pin you against every surface in my house, princess. Want to show you exactly how you can belong to me. Want to stop pretending I'm not completely fucking gone for Richard Ward's daughter."
My breath caught. Core clenched involuntarily.
This was Jake Sullivan saying things I'd only imagined in my most frustrated moments.
"So I ran." His grip on my wrists tightened. "Because the alternative was this. And this…" he pressed closer, “…this destroys everything."
"Maybe I want it destroyed." My voice came out breathless. Honest. "Maybe I'm tired of you acting like wanting me is some kind of moral failing instead of just... wanting me."
Something in him snapped. I felt it in how his body went rigid then liquid.
How his breathing changed. How his eyes went dark with something that looked like surrender and hunger mixed together.
And then he kissed me. Greedy and claiming. Branding me with his mouth in ways that screamed possession louder than any words.
This wasn't the tentative bedroom kiss. This was weeks of denial exploding into something raw and desperate.
His tongue swept in—demanding, taking. I kissed him back with equal fury. Teeth catching his bottom lip hard enough to hurt because I wanted him to feel this. Feel what he'd been doing to me.
The groan that came from his throat hit me somewhere south of rational thought and landed right between my thighs.
When he pulled back we were both breathing hard. His eyes were completely black. Pupils blown, swallowed hazel almost fully. Whatever control he'd maintained—gone.
"Did your daddy send you to re-education?" His voice was rough. Almost cruel. "To learn humility? How to be a good girl?"
"Fuck you, Jake—"
"I'll take care of it." His hands slid down my body—possessive and sure, mapping curves like he was memorizing territory he'd already claimed mentally. "Teach you exactly what happens when you push me too far."
His mouth found my neck. Not gentle—bites that would definitely mark. Claiming me. Making sure everyone would know tomorrow that someone had thoroughly wrecked Adison Ward.
"Jake—" My head fell back against the wall.
Giving him access even as my brain screamed that this was insane. Both drunk. In a barn. Every bad decision wrapped in one explosive package. But I couldn't care.
Not when his teeth scraped my collarbone. Not when his hands were everywhere.
He moved lower then. Mouth tracing my tank top neckline.
"You wanted a man who wouldn't run?" Bit down where the neck met shoulder. "Careful what you wish for."
My knees actually went weak. Standing required more coordination than I possessed and thank god for walls.
His hand slid between my thighs—bold, possessive, zero hesitation.
Even through jeans the pressure made me gasp. Made me arch into his touch without conscious decision. Made me want things I'd been too scared to want before.
"Jesus Christ." He groaned against my neck. Hand pressing harder. "You're soaking through denim."
The crude observation should've embarrassed me. Should've made me push him away and demand some kind of respect. Or decorum. Or literally anything except this barn and his hands and the way my body was betraying every defense I'd built.
Instead it made my core clench so hard I saw stars.
"Are you really that eager for me to defile you with my cock?"
The words were crude. Raw. Exactly the kind of thing that should've shocked me into sobriety. But they didn't.
They made me want him more. Made me want to prove that I wasn't too young or too innocent or too whatever excuse he'd been using to keep distance.
"Yes." Came out desperate. Needy. Completely honest. "God yes. I want you to take what we both know you want."