Two weeks of manual labor and I'd officially reached my breaking point.
Not the dramatic kind where you collapse in the barn—more like the slow-burning realization. That if I didn't feel like a human being instead of a ranch hand covered in perpetual horse hair, I might actually lose my mind.
"I'm going into Cedar Falls tonight," I announced over dinner, keeping my tone casual. "Tommy mentioned there's a bar party. I need to breathe. Two weeks of nothing but ranch work is making me crazy."
The fork in his hand stilled. When he looked at me, something dangerous flickered in his expression. "No."
"Excuse me? I wasn't asking permission."
"Then let me inform you of mine."
His voice dropped to that low, dangerous register that made my spine straighten.
"You're not going. I'm responsible for you to your father, and I won't let you compromise me by getting drunk and making a spectacle in a town where my reputation matters."
"Your reputation," I repeated slowly, letting each word land with maximum sarcasm. "Right. Because God forbid the great Jake Sullivan be associated with a girl who wants one normal night out."
"You don't know these people. You don't know that bar—"
"And I never will if you keep me locked up here like some kind of prisoner." I stood, chair scraping loudly against the floor. "I've done everything you asked. Two weeks of mucking stalls and hauling feed and waking up at ass o'clock in the morning. One night. That's all I'm asking."
"You're not a prisoner. You're a guest who needs to follow rules." He stood, clearing his plate with movements that were too controlled. "The answer is no, Adison. Drop it."
Oh, I dropped it.
Right into my plan to sneak out the moment he went to bed.
Tommy thought it was hilarious that I was defying Jake's direct orders. He picked me up at the end of the driveway, his truck idling while I climbed in wearing the one dress I'd packed—short, black, definitely not ranch-appropriate.
It earned a low whistle from him.
"Boss's gonna kill me," he said cheerfully, while I fixed my makeup in the visor mirror. "Like, actually murder me and hide my body in the south pasture."
"Jake doesn't own me," I shot back, though my heart hammered with guilt mixed with exhilaration. "Besides, he'll never know."
"Right," Tommy said, clearly unconvinced, but he drove anyway.
Cedar Falls' idea of nightlife was a bar called The Dusty Boot that looked exactly like every rural Texas bar in every movie ever made. Neon signs, pickup trucks in the parking lot, country music bleeding through the walls.
But it was loud and crowded and blessedly free of Jake Sullivan's disapproving stare.
I made it approximately ten minutes before the guy named Brent materialized.
Tall, decent-looking in that generic cowboy way, with the kind of confidence that came from being a big fish in a very small pond. He bought me a drink without asking, leaned too close when he talked, and had that look in his eyes that said he thought I was a sure thing.
"You're that girl staying at Sullivan's place, aren't you?" he said, hand landing on my lower back like he had a right to touch me.
"Word travels fast."
His grin widened. "City girl. I like that."
The thing about spite is it makes you stupid. And I was riding a wave of pure, crystallized spite directed entirely at Jake Sullivan and his controlling bullshit.
So when Brent asked me to dance, I said yes. When his hands got a little too familiar, I didn't pull away. And when he suggested we "get some air," I was actually considering it.
Not because I wanted him, but because the look on Jake's face if he found out would be absolutely fucking worth it.
Then of course Jake walked through the door.
I saw him before he saw me, and the expression on his face made my stomach drop. He looked… God, he looked furious. Not the cold, controlled anger I was used to. This was something primal, dangerous, barely leashed.
His eyes found me on the dance floor. Found Brent's hands resting on my body, dangerously low. Found how close we were standing.
The temperature in the room dropped about twenty degrees.
Suddenly he was there, grabbing Brent by the collar and shoving him aside like he weighed nothing. Brent stumbled, mouth opening in protest, but whatever he saw in Jake's face made the words die.
Then Jake's hands were on me, yanking me against his chest hard enough to make me gasp. His arm banded around my waist like iron, forming a wall between me and the world.
He leaned down, his mouth at my ear, breath hot against my skin.
"You are my problem," he snarled, his voice a low whisper. "And I decide when you are loose. Not you. Not some cowboy with more hands than sense. Me. Do you understand?"
His. Like he owned some piece of me I hadn't agreed to give. The territorial, possessive tone made my heart hammer.
This wasn't the cold, distant Jake. This was something raw and claiming and terrifying. His grip tightened, and I felt every hard line of his body pressed against mine.
He didn't wait for a response. Just grabbed my hand and dragged me through the bar, ignoring Tommy's wide-eyed stare, ignoring the whispers that would reach every corner of Cedar Falls by morning.
Then I was in his truck, the door slamming with enough force to rattle the frame.
The silence felt alive, pulsing with fury and something darker. I watched his profile—the rigid set of his jaw, the white-knuckle grip on the wheel, the muscle jumping in his temple.
"What gives you the right?" I finally demanded. "To control where I go, who I talk to? I'm not your daughter. I'm not your wife. What gives you the right to act like you own me?"
"Your father asked me to protect you," he said through gritted teeth, eyes fixed ahead. "That's the right he gave me."
"From what? A night out? Dancing? Actually having fun for once in my miserable—"
"From everyone," he confirmed, and something in his tone made my stomach flip. "Including yourself, apparently."
I should have stopped there. But the memory of his hands on me, the possessive growl, the way he'd yanked me against him… it ignited something reckless.
"You act like some kind of bodyguard," I said, shifting in my seat to face him. "But I saw your eyes in that bar. The way you grabbed me when Brent had his hands on me."
I let my voice drop, deliberately seductive.
"Was that all duty, Jake? For my Daddy? Or was some of that for you?"
My breath warmed against his shoulder, deliberate and testing. I watched his throat work as he swallowed, saw his grip tighten until I thought he might break the wheel.
The truck swerved before he corrected, pulling over with a spray of gravel.
He turned to me, and his hand came up—gentle but firm—pushing me back into my seat, creating distance. When he looked at me, his eyes were cold, glacial.
"Those little tricks might work on your trust fund boys back in Manhattan," he said, voice cold as winter. "But I'm no young boy to be manipulated by the games of an immature girl. You want to test boundaries? Do it with someone your own age who doesn't know better."
The words felt like a bucket of cold water.
Immature. Girl. Not a woman—girl.
Like I was nothing but a child throwing a tantrum, using sexuality as a weapon because I didn't know any better.
I leaned back in my seat, but fire raising behind my ribs—dangerous and determined. He thought I was immature? A girl playing games? Fine.
I'd show him exactly how much of a woman I was. I'd prove my strength, my maturity, and I'd break that iron control he wore like armor.
I'd make him admit what we both knew he felt, even if it killed us both.