Something changed after the belt.
Jesse didn't say it.
Didn't show it outright.
But I saw it in the little things.
Like the way he stared too long when I laughed at someone else's joke.
Like how he started driving me home after shifts even when I lived three blocks away.
Like how his hand landed on my lower back when we passed through doorways—firm, subtle, possessive.
And how he scowled when I smiled too easily at anyone that wasn't him.
---
"You're getting bold," he murmured one night after pressing me into the side of his truck in the dark. "That look in your eyes… you want to be chased."
I smirked. "Maybe I want to be caught."
He didn't kiss me.
He bit my lower lip hard enough to bruise it.
---
At work, we didn't speak much.
But the way his eyes tracked me across the shop?
It wasn't subtle anymore.
Everyone noticed.
And I liked it.
I liked knowing he was wound tight beneath that calm.
That he could bend steel but wanted to bend me more.
---
Then it happened.
The town's new mechanic, Mark, a little too eager, a little too sweet, offered me a ride when he thought I'd be walking home.
Innocent.
But Jesse saw him touching my shoulder.
And when I got home later, he was already inside my bedroom.
Sitting on the edge of my bed.
Dark eyes. Tensed jaw. Silent.
"Door was unlocked," he said.
"You broke in."
"Don't do that again."
I raised a brow. "What? Talk to people?"
He stood.
No words. Just motion.
Grabbed me by the jaw. Not rough. Just sure.
"You're mine," he said, voice low and dangerous. "You don't get to act like you're not."
I swallowed hard. "Are you jealous, Sir?"
"No," he said. "I'm possessive."
Then he pushed me down onto the bed, crawled over me with the weight of someone who had claimed something and wasn't giving it back.
"Take off your shirt."
I obeyed.
He kissed every inch of my chest—slow, wet, biting at the skin until I was arching.
Then his tongue dragged over the bruise on my hip from the last time he'd fucked me over the hood of his car.
"This," he whispered, mouth hot. "All of this? Mine."
---
When he finally slid inside me, deep and unhurried, he didn't fuck.
He claimed.
With every stroke, he pressed those words deeper.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
And I let him write them across my bones.
---
After, I was wrecked. Silent. Shaking.
He wiped me down with a warm cloth, pulled me onto his chest, and let his hand rest over my collar.
Still on me.
Still locked in place.
"Someone touches you again," Jesse murmured, voice drowsy with danger, "I'll ruin them."
I closed my eyes.
I should've felt afraid.
But all I felt…
Was wanted.