Page 17 of Meeting Melody
He inhales deeply, his shoulders moving.
When he rises back up, his eyes are dark. He sets my bag in the foot space and steps back, letting me move my legs back into the truck. He closes the door gently, and I watch him go all the way around the front of the truck and climb in the driver’s seat.
“This is wrong.” I reach for the handle. My regrets are sharp. “I’m sorry, Jacob, but this is completely inappropriate—”
“Melody.” He catches my wrist. “You either come with me now, or I’ll keep repeating last night. I drugged you and you never even saw me, songbird. What makes you think I can’t do it again?”
My mouth dries.
“And then I’ll sneak into your house and I’ll come inside your tight cunt next time. Over and over again, until you’re driven mad by it.” He leans in and pinches my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. “And one day, you’ll realize your period hasn’t come. You’ll remember that the birth control alarm on your phone is gone, and the packet of pills that you keep in your medicine cabinet went missing… well, you don’t even know when.”
I can’t breathe. I never found my birth control this morning—then got so distracted trying to get to work on time, I didn’t go back to search more.
Because he stole them.
There’s a part of me that wants to go along with his sick fantasy. That wants to fight him just to see if he’ll actually do that to me.
“You stole my birth control,” I say instead.
“I did,” he confirms. “Now, are you going to get out of the truck?”
He releases me, and I fall back against the window. My brows lower, and I contemplate… everything. Do I really want that for myself? His promise of violence—it’s unlike any I’ve encountered before. It’s refreshing, actually, that he just put it out in the open like that.
The shame hits me a second later when I register that his words have turned me on.
I press my thighs together and flatten my lips, too. Instead of speaking—becausefuck, I don’t trust my voice—I pull the seatbelt across my chest and click it into place.
“You’re ashamed of your choice,” Jacob says.
I glance at him. The truck rumbles to life, and he pulls out of the parking spot. He navigates the tight turns with ease, and a few moments later, we’re outside. The snowflakes are big and thick, the snow coming down fast. Jacob’s truck cuts a path through it without trouble. I focus on him as he drives.
He’s reclined in the seat, one hand on his thigh and the other on top of the steering wheel. He glances at me, then switches hands. His now free hand comes across and snags mine, threading our fingers together.
“Why are you holding my hand?”
He smirks. “Because it makes you uncomfortable.”
I grimace. He’s right about that.
We go past the stadium toward the point. There’s a famous little cliff in Crown Point that the town is named after. It overlooks a stunning lake. Although now, as we get close to it, it’s hard to tell that there’s anything behind the edge of the cliff at all.
We’re trading glances, as awkward as teenagers.
My cheeks flame. God, he practicallyisa teenager. And it occurs to me again that this is completely wrong. That I shouldn’t be in the same room alone with this guy, let alone a car, letting him drive me anywhere he wants.
I’m at his mercy.Again. And I hate that I’m not objecting more to it. That I’ve let myself do whatever the fuck he says. Let him break into my house and—and fuck me. Let him lock us in my office and kneel between my legs—
It isn’t me, but I’m fucking turned on by it all the same.
And I don’t think this is normal behavior for him either. He doesn’t just seduce professors.
“Is this an ego thing for you?” I extract my hand from his. “Going after an older woman?”
Did I even just say that?
Jacob chuckles. “Ego? No. I saw what I wanted, and I took it.”
“You saw something you needed,” I correct. “And you found a way to take it.”
