“Can you hold me for a while?”

I sucked in a breath. I was so raw right now I didn’t know if it was a good idea. She’d feel the tension in me, and that wouldn’t relax her. But the idea of denying her anything right now seemed wrong.

“Okay.”

I got up and she was lifting the covers on her bed even as she scooted over to the left. I crawled in behind her and wrapped my arm around her waist. She sighed as she pressed her full body against me.

“That feels so good.” Her bottom wiggled against my crotch and I had to bite down on the urge to make a sound.

“It’s the drug,” I said tightly.

It’s what MDMA did. Increased pleasure and feelings of emotional warmth.

She was stroking my arm that was over her stomach, and I thought maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

“I don’t care. It feels so good.” She did this full-on body wave and it felt too damn good to me too. So good I squeezed her a little, telling her, I hoped, she needed to stop.

“Jake…”

“Try to sleep.” The sooner she fell asleep, the sooner I could get back to the floor.

“I can’t. I’m too awake.”

That was the drug too. I was going to have to suck it up. For her.

“Please,” she said.

“What?”

“I’ve… I’ve never… I mean I’ve tried, but I’ve never…”

“What?”

“Had an orgasm.”

I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything else except what Ellie would look like coming. It didn’t work. I remembered that night I saw her, heard her. I remembered that last groan of frustration.

“I can’t stop thinking that if Bobby did that to me, that would be my first experience. Then what if I could never do it again? I would never get to have an orgasm. Ever.”

“Shh, shh,” I said, trying hush her. It was the drug. It was still in her system. She was feeling the effect of it, but it didn’t make hearing what she was saying any easier. In fact it was making it a hell of a lot harder.

“I feel like I could now. With you. If you were touching me. I know we can’t have sex, but maybe you could do that for me. Just that.”

That was it. I needed to get up and get out of the bed now. Go back to my room and let her suffer the effects of the drug on her own. Except I could hear the desperation in her voice.

“Please, Jake.”

Fuck.

I tried not to think about how right or wrong this was, but in the end I thought if I could make her feel good, if I could give her her first orgasm, that might be what she remembered most about this night.

I just needed to stay in control. This was just about her and getting her off. It had been a while, but I was pretty sure I remembered how to do that.

I slid my hand that had been around her waist down her stomach. I closed my eyes and tried to be as removed as I could be. I felt the soft hair of her pussy and pressed my fingers against her. Immediately, she pressed back as if she was seeking them out. I dipped further and I could feel that she was already slick. Her neck arched and her body pressed against me. Then she was spreading her thighs, lifting one over mine.

It was the trust that killed me. After what had happened to her, she still trusted me implicitly to do this for her and take nothing else.

I dipped my hand lower and she gasped. I started with gentle strokes just to open her up, and that had her thrashing a bit. I pushed my other arm under her neck and wrapped it over her breasts to hold her more firmly against me, even as I started to slip my middle finger inside of her.

“Jake,” she cried. “Please. More. I can feel it. It feels so good.”

I pushed my hips away from her. I didn’t want her to know how hard I was. Between her arousal, the adrenaline, and the violence that were still pulsing through me, it was impossible to not be fully erect.

Instead I just concentrated on her, and what she liked by the sounds she made. She was so slick and tight, but she was moving her hips in rhythm with my thrusts, pushing my finger deeper inside her.

I pulled away.

“Nooo!” she wailed and brought her hand down over mine. Pressing it against her.

“Trust me, Ellie. Let me do my thing.”

She moved her hand away and I brought my thumb down on her clit. It was a hard little nub and her whole body tightened like a bowstring when I found it.

“Oh, Jake. That’s it. Please don’t stop. Please don’t stop. So good!”

I sent two fingers inside her this time and she bucked. She was so damn wet. I tried not to think about how she felt, how she sounded. Only on what I was doing. Her breaths were coming faster, her hips were pumping. I pressed down on her clit again with my thumb.

“Jaaaaaaake.”

“Come on baby, come for me. Just let go.”

And then she did. I could feel her body jerk. The tug of her pussy squeezing my fingers. Her soft cries as the pleasure overtook her. It was unlike any other sexual experience I had ever had.

I held her as she came down from the pleasure of it. I held her as she started to cry softly. I held her until I knew she was asleep. Then I forced myself to get out of the bed and lay down on the floor next to her instead.

I did that because I liked holding her too damn much.

Soundlessly, I moved the fingers I’d used to make her come under my nose and inhaled.

I think that’s when I knew I was completely and totally fucked.

* * *

I woke up feeling as if someone had taken all the joy out of the world. Wow, this sucked. I couldn’t believe people actually chose to take drugs like that if the aftereffect was this.

I guess the same could be true of drinking and a hangover. I had never had a hangover, so I couldn’t be certain.

Cautiously I looked over the side of my bed. The blanket and pillows were gone. So was Jake.

I tried to wrap my head around what happened between us and how I felt about it. It was going to be super awkward to see him, that was for sure. Also not exactly up on the sexual etiquette of what to do the day after you begged someone to make you come.

Was a thank you enough? Should I be thinking more along the lines of a gift?

What I wasn’t thinking about… Bobby.

Or at least not thinking much about him.

Truthfully, there was a certain comfort in doing that with Jake. Yes, this thing had happened. He’d touched me. He’d put his fingers inside me. Made me come. It was all super intense. Although in some ways it had seemed… okay. Even right.

At the end of the day, there was no one I trusted more. Who respected me more. Jake wouldn’t tease me or taunt me with my confession. He wouldn’t use what he’d done to press anything between us. He was the one who understood how powerful sex could be and why we needed to be careful about it.

I understood that better. The physical pleasure of what he’d done to me had been awesome. Amazing. I really hoped now that I’d crossed that barrier I would be able to figure out how to do it myself.

But it was the intimacy of it all, I thought, that was really profound. Feeling his arms around me, hearing his voice close to my ear. It was like he’d completely wiped away the horrible memory of what Bobby had done by replacing it with a caring and devoted Jake.

If we’d been having sex since June, when I wanted to change our relationship, and he decided at some point he wanted out of the marriage—it would be as devastating as a real divorce for me.

Which meant I needed to move forward with my plan sooner rather than later. Because knowing what it was like to be held by him, to be pleasured by him… I shivered. It was only going to get worse.

I pushed myself out of bed and forced myself through my morning ritual, much like I had through my nightly one. I needed coffee though, if I was going to work up the energy for a shower, and I couldn’t help but think the caffeine would help clear this funk I was in.

Downstairs, Jake was sitting at the kitchen table reading one of his scintillating (not—so boring) animal husbandry magazines.

“Hey,” I said, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, hesitant of what his mood would be.

Come on baby, come for me.

The words were suddenly there in my head. His breath in my ear. The way he made my body feel. I might have been drugged, but obviously I hadn’t forgotten anything about last night. I could feel my cheeks flame.

He looked concerned. Not aroused. Sure. Because he hadn’t wanted to do that to me. Not really.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Like I’ve swallowed everyone else’s sadness.”

He huffed. “It’s the…”

“Drug. I figured.”

“More water,” he grunted.

I did as he suggested, because if water would fix this I would gladly drink a gallon of it. Then I got my cup of coffee and sat down across from him.

He was looking at me again, only this time I could see it in his expression. We’d moved on from the physical impact of the drug to something else.

“So… awkward much?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Is it?”

I glanced up at him. He was still just Jake. My Jake. That hadn’t changed.

“Maybe not as bad I thought.”

“Good. You’re… okay then with… what happened?”

I nodded.

“You don’t think I took advantage…”

“No,” I stopped him. “If anything I’m the one who… you know, who took advantage.”

“You didn’t,” he said tightly. “We both know what it was about. We can leave it at that.”

“Right. Let’s blame the drug,” I offered.

He seemed to like that idea because his eyes got wider. “Yes. It was… the drug.”

I nodded, then bit my lip, remembering all the stuff I’d said to him.

“Sorry for all the begging and pleading.”

He actually managed a tight chuckle. “Trust me. Guys like the begging and the pleading… at least in bed.”

“Uh… thank you for the… you know. It was good.”

His mouth got tight, but he said nothing in response to that.

“I understand… better now,” I continued. “Why you wanted to keep things platonic. It’s super intimate. Us splitting up is going to be hard enough. For both of us, I think.”

He didn’t say anything to that either.

“Anyway. Thanks again. For the Bobby thing, too. You’re always saving me.”

Another grunt.

Then it occurred to me. “Wait? Why were you there? It felt like I called your name and you just popped out of the door like my own version of Superman.”

“I was bored, so I thought I would stop by Pete’s and have a beer. Then if you needed a ride home, you wouldn’t have to worry about drinking. I was… just pulling up to the bar when Chrissy called me. Said you were acting funny and you had only had one glass of wine. I had a feeling… I told you to watch yourself around Bobby.”

Here it was. Now that the threat was over, it was lecture time.

“I know. I didn’t think he was… I mean I knew he was a jerk, but I never thought... Never once…”

“It might have been my fault,” Jake muttered.

“Your fault. How?”

“I told him he wasn’t good enough for you. He might have seen that as… a challenge. I don’t know. Some kind of payback against me. It doesn’t matter. He’s going to jail for it. You should go up and take your shower. Then we’re heading into town to talk to Sheriff Barling.”

I knew it was the right thing to do. But I also knew the reality of the situation. Sarah Parker, who was two years ahead of me in school, got super drunk at a bonfire. She said Jeff Tillerson raped her and no one did anything about it. Jeff said she consented and it was his word against hers.

This was going to be the same thing. Yes, my blood sample would indicate I was drugged, but all Bobby had to say was that I took the drug willingly. Still, at least by going to the sheriff everyone in town would know. Riverbend liked its gossip. If it came down to people believing me or Bobby, I had to think people would be on my side. At the very least this would also make every other girl in town cautious around him.

* * *

Jake slammed the door of the truck closed and I winced.

“That is such total and complete horseshit!”

It wasn’t funny. At all. Still, I couldn’t help but smile a little at Jake’s outrage.

Our meeting with Sheriff Barling went as I suspected. While he believed me, there would need to be a witness who saw Bobby intentionally spiking my drink without my knowledge. Sheriff Barling would talk to Pete, who had been working the bar last night, as well as anybody else who he could find who was there. But unless someone actually saw what Bobby did and came forward, there was not enough evidence to actually charge him for a crime.

“He almost… he almost….”

“Don’t say it,” I said, patting Jake on arm. “I can’t stand the word.”

“How come you’re taking this so calmly?”

“Because he didn’t get away with it. You beat the shit out of him, everyone in town is going to know what a creep he is, and I’m a feminist, remember? I’m well versed in the fact that one of the atrocities in this country is that violence against women is often difficult to prove in court.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“You’re not going to kill him, Jake. In fact you’re lucky he didn’t press assault charges against you.”

He was practically growling now.

“Thank you for sticking up for me.”

“This is wrong.”

“Sing it, sister.” I raised my fist in the air.

More growling.

“Let’s go home. You remember what Dad always used to say. A ranch can’t run itself.”

“Your father would have killed him.”

I considered that. My father would have liked to have killed Bobby. That’s for sure. But my father had way more of a hair-trigger temper than Jake did. Jake was always the reasonable and calm one. The guy who could talk two guys down from a fight.

I had never seen him like he was last night. As violent as he was. I remembered thinking if I didn’t stop him he would have beaten Bobby indefinitely.

“Jake, if you go to jail for murder think what that would do to Wyatt? He’d be devastated.”

More growling.

We were both quiet for a while when he asked me, “Ellie, do you need to talk to someone? You know you can tell me anything and I’ll listen, but if you need someone else. Someone who understands…”

“You mean a therapist? Riverbend doesn’t have a shrink, Jake. You know that.”

“You have a car, Ellie. You can go where you need.”

I knew that. I just didn’t know if I needed a therapist. I didn’t feel traumatized. Obviously there wasn’t anything sexually messed up with me or I wouldn’t have been begging Jake to get me off last night. If anything I was super pissed. That I was stupid enough to fall for Bobby’s forgive me bullshit.

“I think I’m okay, Jake.”

He reached over and grabbed my hand. “You’ll let me know if you’re not.”

I squeezed his back. Looking down at it, at his fingers and thumb, I thought about what he’d been doing with that hand last night, and I quickly let it go.

He must have guessed where I was going with that too, because he shifted in the car seat and I could see that the muscle at the back of his jaw was flexing.

Yes, it was time to act on the plan.