I married Selene to secure the water rights that would keep my ranch alive, nothing more than a calculated claim on her land and future. But the dust-filled hayloft at high noon changes the terms when I reach past her for the rope, our bodies aligning without a single word between us.

Her yielding is immediate, the same response that has always drawn me in, yet it exposes the dread I keep locked away behind every command. I have never needed to possess anyone the way I need to possess her now. Once the possession moves beyond the legal deed into the raw binding I crave, there is no way to protect myself from what she might discover about the hold she already has on the life I built.

The marriage was meant to bind her to me, but I fear it has already begun to bind me tighter.