I took Gemma as my wife to keep the homestead from the bank's grip, a practical bargain I thought I could control. Her strength and the birthmark high on her breast quickly became my undoing.
Now the storm traps us in the cellar beneath the barn, lantern light guttering across the boards. Her skirts are already raised, my palm pressed warm against the curve of her hip, and she trembles not with fear but with the need to yield to me.
One strike will cross the line we have circled since the day she arrived. It will mark her skin and bind our partnership in ways no legal paper ever could, or it will shatter the fragile trust I have never dared to give.
