Page 10

9

Shiloh

The ceiling fan’s shadows dance across unfamiliar crown molding, each rotation matching the throb between my thighs where Jackson left his marks earlier that day. His guest room is too quiet, too perfect—like everything else in his controlled world. No creaking floorboards, no whistling wind through worn window frames. Just the whisper of expensive air conditioning and the weight of knowing he’s down the hall.

I can feel him there, a predator’s presence that makes my skin prickle even through walls and distance.

He hadn’t come looking for me when I failed to go to his bed tonight. I stroke my fingers over the bruises on my neck, my hips. He’d fucked me hard earlier, then let me walk out of the tack room as if nothing had happened, and somehow, that hurt more than the contract itself.

My phone glows through its cracked screen. 2:37 AM. No new messages from my contacts, from Walsh, about Daddy’s other debts, the ones Jackson doesn’t know about. Yet. My fingers itch to check my email again, but it won’t change anything. The walls of this gilded cage press in, each red light on the security cameras a reminder of my captivity. Of my choice to be here.

When I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, the bruise on my hip throbs. Beneath my oversized T-shirt, my skin remembers everywhere he touched, claimed, marked as his. Heat floods my cheeks—shame tangled with something darker, hungrier. Something I don’t want to name.

Get it together, Foster.

I need air. Space. Something real and dirty and alive to remind me who I am beyond these silk sheets and security cameras. My body moves before my mind can catch up, betraying me like it did this afternoon in the tack room, arching into his touch even as I cursed his name. Even now, thinking about his hands gripping my hips, his teeth marking my throat, sends heat flooding between my thighs.

I press my fingers against the bruise on my hip, hard enough to hurt. The pain should ground me, remind me of what I’m fighting against. Instead, it only intensifies the hollow ache his absence has left. I want to hate this feeling, this need. Want to hate him for creating it.

But that would be another lie, and I’ve told myself enough of those lately.

The hardwood is cool under my bare feet as I pad to the door. I should put on more than sleep shorts and this ancient Garth Brooks shirt, but more clothes means more intention. This is just a midnight wandering. Nothing more. Nothing to do with how my body still hums hours after he touched me.

The dark hallway stretches endlessly, my path tracked by tiny red lights. I imagine Jackson watching. My nipples harden against soft cotton, and I cross my arms, hating my body’s response to even the thought of his gaze.

I need distance from these thoughts, from this hunger that seems to grow rather than fade. The night air beckons through the windows, promising escape, if only temporary. It hits like salvation when I slip out the French doors of the dining room. My toes curl into manicured grass, seeking real earth beneath the perfect landscaping. The stable looms ahead, solid and secret in the moonlight. Its weathered wood and sweet hay smell call to something deep in my blood, an ancestral memory of what home means.

Movement catches my eye as I approach—a shadow against shadows. My heart stutters, then settles. I know that silhouette, the broad shoulders and coiled strength. Of course he’s here. Of course he’s watching.

Jackson stands in the doorway of the barn, as sleepless as I am. His white T-shirt glows in the darkness, stretched across muscles I try not to remember beneath my hands. The moonlight silvers the dark hair at his temples, softening him into something almost human. Almost approachable.

“Couldn’t sleep?” His voice is gravel and smoke, rougher than his usual corporate polish.

I lift my chin, claim my space. “I had a rough day.”

His eyes rake down my bare legs, lingering on the bruises peeking beneath my shorts.

A nervous wicker breaks our stalemate. Beyond him in the shadows, one of his new mares paces her stall. Even in the dark, I recognize the restless movement of a troubled horse.

Professional instinct overrides everything else. “How long has she been like that?”

“Since sunset.” He steps aside, letting me enter his domain. “Thought about calling you, actually.”

“Good thing I couldn’t sleep then.” The words slip out bitter, exposing more than I meant to reveal.

His smile is sharp in the darkness. “Maybe.”

The mare’s stall is at the end, separated from the others. Smart. She’s a gorgeous blue roan, all power and nerves. I see why Jackson bought her—she’s exactly his type. Wild and valuable and in need of breaking.

Hmm.

The mare’s ears pivot toward me, nostrils flaring. Her coat gleams with nervous sweat, muscles trembling beneath. Quality for sure, but there’s a wildness in her eyes. I keep my movements slow, deliberate as I approach her stall.

“She was fine during transport,” Jackson says, his voice pitched low. Professional. For once he’s not trying to remind me who owns what. “Started acting up after we moved her to this stall.”

I scan the space, taking in details through the mare’s eyes. The stall is immaculate, like everything else Jackson owns. Fresh straw, clean water. But something has this horse spooked enough to leave gouges in his precious woodwork.

“When exactly did the behavior start?” I rest my hand on the stall door, letting her catch my scent. Behind me, Jackson shifts closer. Always closer.

“The moment the sun set.” His breath stirs the hair at my nape. “She was calm all afternoon, then?—”

A sharp gust rattles the window above her stall. The mare startles, whites showing around her eyes. My body moves on instinct, years of experience taking over. “Easy, girl. Easy.”

I’m through the stall door before Jackson can stop me. The mare drums her hooves against the floor, torn between fight or flight. I keep my voice steady, my posture relaxed. Let her read the calm in my body language.

“Shiloh.” Jackson’s voice carries a warning, though it’s genuine concern rather than control.

“She’s not dangerous,” I say, though we both know that’s a lie. Every horse is dangerous when they’re scared enough. “She’s telling us something. We just need to listen.”

Another gust rattles the window again and the mare backs into the corner. That’s when I see it—the play of shadow and moonlight through the glass, casting moving patterns across her stall. Basic prey instinct triggering her flight response.

I turn to Jackson, forgetting for a moment how we’re supposed to be predator and prey ourselves. “The window. It’s casting shadows that look like?—”

“Movement in her peripheral vision.” He finishes my thought, already moving to the exterior wall. His hands find the roll-down shutters I hadn’t noticed. Of course he has custom blinds on his stable windows.

“We could be partners in this, you know,” I say impulsively. “Instead of antagonists.”

His hands pause on the blinds. “I don’t need a partner. I need obedience.”

The words sting more than they should. “Then you’ll never get my best out of me.”

His only response is the metal clicking as he lowers the shutters, blocking the shifting light.

The mare’s breathing steadies, her posture softening. I croon nonsense until the fear bleeds out of her bones. Each exhale brings her closer to calm.

“Good girl,” I murmur, letting her choose to approach. “That’s it. No more scary shadows.”

When she finally drops her head to lip at my shirt, I risk a glance at Jackson. He’s watching us with an expression I’ve never seen before—something raw and real beneath his usual mask. For a moment I glimpse the boy who grew up with nothing, who built all this through sheer force of will.

“You’re good with her.” His voice softens, like he’s forgetting to maintain his carefully constructed walls.

“She just needed someone to listen.” I scratch under her forelock, earning a contented sigh. “Sometimes the biggest problems have the simplest solutions.”

When I meet his eyes again, the mask is back in place.

“Coffee?”

My throat tightens at the casual offer. At the domesticity of it. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“And we’re both awake.” He steps back, giving me space to exit the stall. “Unless you’re afraid of having a civil conversation?”

The challenge in his tone raises my hackles, even as something warm unfurls in my chest. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

His smile shows teeth in the darkness. “That, little hellcat, is the goddamn truth.”

The walk back to his house feels different somehow. The security cameras seem less menacing, more like silent witnesses to this strange predawn truce. Jackson walks beside me, his solid frame outlined by moonlight, and I try not to notice how easily my steps fall into rhythm with his.

His kitchen is all gleaming granite and stainless steel, warm light spilling from lights installed under custom cabinets. It should feel sterile, but there are hints of life beneath the perfect surface—a cookbook with a broken spine, a ceramic mug with a chip in the rim. Small imperfections that make him seem human. Almost human.

I lean against the counter, watching him measure coffee beans into a grinder that probably costs more than the monthly feed bill at my own ranch. The domestic routine feels strangely intimate, more exposing than being naked beneath him.

“Two sugars, no cream.” Same as he’s been making it every day since I arrived. This time, it feels more intimate.

Heat floods my cheeks. “You’ve been watching me that closely?”

“I watch everything that’s mine.” He turns, catching my gaze. “But you already knew that.”

The grinder’s whir breaks our stalemate. I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware of my bare legs, my threadbare shirt, my tangled hair. As he reaches for mugs, his shirt pulls across his shoulders and I remember how those muscles feel under my hands, how his skin tastes when?—

Stop it.

“Your mare’s going to need the shutters adjusted before sunset every day,” I say, desperate to steer us back to safer ground. “At least until she learns this is home.”

“Home.” He sets a mug in front of me, and our fingers brush. Static electricity or something more dangerous sparks between us. “Is that what this is becoming for you?”

“This is a business arrangement.” The coffee’s perfect temperature, perfect strength. Of course it is. “Nothing more, as you reminded me yesterday.”

His eyes soften as he watches me drink. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you that I’m negative, too.”

I blink. Then blink again. Laughter explodes out of me, a harsh bark I can’t contain. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you would force me into this contract, then force me to have sex without protection, and that you wouldn’t be.”

I guess I trusted him that much.

His lips tilted up in a smile, as though he were thinking the same thing. “Was it really nonconsensual yesterday?” he asks quietly.

I scoff. “It wouldn’t have mattered if it was.” I’d never admit that I didn’t know.

Jackson hums. “Keep telling yourself that.” He leans against the opposite counter, studying me over the rim of his mug. In the soft light, with his hair mussed from the night air, he almost looks approachable—almost. “I can’t sleep in this massive house, some nights.”

The statement catches me off guard. “What?” I blurt out, inelegantly, before I can stop myself.

“It’s too quiet.” His voice roughens. “When you grow up with paper-thin walls and neighbors fighting at all hours, silence feels like a lie. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop.” His hands tighten on the coffee mug. “Used to lie awake listening for my father’s truck, trying to guess from the engine sound whether he’d won or lost. Whether I needed to hide.”

Understanding hits. I know that hypervigilance—the need to stay alert, to listen for trouble. The control, the cameras, the perfect surfaces—all of it masking the boy who grew up with nothing. Who learned early on that power was the only protection worth having.

Maybe that’s why he watches everything so closely. The same reason I handle dangerous horses alone—we both learned young that trusting others means risking everything.

The realization makes me study him in the soft light. He’s letting me see this crack in his armor. Offering vulnerability when he could demand submission. Like he’s trying to earn my trust rather than claim it.

“Daddy used to say silence meant the horses were either sleeping or plotting trouble.” The words slip out before I can stop them. Back then, I hadn’t realized he was really listening for loan sharks, for men he owed money to. Even at his worst, he’d always checked the horses first. Protected them, if not himself. “He’d walk the stables at night, checking every stall. Said you could hear trouble brewing if you listened hard enough.” What I wouldn’t give now to hear his boots on those planks one more time, even if it meant another fight about bills we couldn’t pay.

Something shifts in Jackson’s expression. “Smart man.”

“Stubborn man.” Grief tightens my throat. “Too proud to admit when he needed help. Too independent to—” I cut myself off, but it’s too late.

“To what?” Jackson sets down his mug, moving closer. “To admit he was drowning? To reach out before it was too late?” His hand curves around my jaw, tilting my face up. “To accept that sometimes survival means surrender?”

My pulse hammers against his palm. “I’m not him.”

“No.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “You’re much more dangerous to me.”

His touch burns like a brand, but I can’t make myself pull away. The counter’s edge digs into my back as he crowds closer, until his heat surrounds me, until his scent—coffee and leather and night air—fills my lungs.

“Why?” The word comes out breathless, desperate. “Because I fight back?”

Something flashes in his eyes—dark and hungry and almost uncertain—before his control snaps back into place. His other hand slides into my hair, loosening what’s left of my braid. Coffee forgotten, cooling on the counter.

“Because you still think this is a fight you can win.” His voice roughens as his fingers tighten in my hair. The slight tremor in his hand betrays something he’d never admit to feeling. “Because you haven’t learned that your submission is inevitable.”

But there’s a crack in his perfect mask—the way his breath catches when I arch against him, how his grip gentles for just a moment before he remembers himself.

“Is that what you want?” My voice breaks as he pulls my head back, baring my throat. “To break me completely?”

“I want what’s mine.” His lips brush my jaw, my throat, the pulse hammering beneath my skin. Each touch precise, controlled, but his heart pounds against my palms where they’re trapped against his chest.

Heat pools low in my belly, shame and desire tangling until I can’t tell them apart. His grip is iron, but his hands shake slightly, and the contradiction undoes me.

“I hate this.” The words come out as a gasp. “I hate that you make me want this.”

“No.” His teeth graze my throat, and my hands fist in his shirt. “You hate that I see through every wall you’ve built. That I know exactly what you need before you’ll admit it to yourself.”

His words strip me bare, expose every secret I’ve tried to hide. From him. From myself. Tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you’re mine.” The possessive growl in his voice doesn’t quite mask something deeper, something that makes his hands tremble against my skin. “Because every time you yield, every time you break for me, you prove I was right to want you.” His thumb strokes over my thundering pulse. “Tell me to stop.”

I can’t. I won’t. Please don’t make me choose. I say nothing, frozen in the tender moment.

Dawn’s first light spills through the windows, painting his kitchen in shades of gold and shadow. Reality creeps in with the sun—the sound of early-rising ranch hands, trucks pulling up the drive, the world intruding on our midnight confessions.

Jackson’s hands fall away, leaving me cold. The mask slides back into place, the vulnerability in his eyes hidden once more behind calculation and control. But something has shifted between us, exposing fundamental truths we can’t take back.

“Get some rest.” His voice is gravel and smoke. “We have work to do today.”

I flee before he can see how badly I’m shaking, before he can smell the arousal that soaks my thighs. But even as I climb the stairs to my borrowed room, I know everything has changed.

He sees me. All of me. And god help me, I’m starting to see him, too.