The silence after my words was absolute, save for the faint hiss of the dying embers.
Gran Rosalinda remained seated, her spine straight as a blade, but the crack in her composure had widened into something dangerous. Her clever eyes, usually so cool and calculating, now burned with a fury that was no longer entirely cold. There was heat there—rage, yes, but also the sharp intelligence of a woman who had just been handed a weapon she intended to turn back on its wielder.
She studied me for a long, measured breath, her gaze traveling slowly from my face down the length of my body and back up again, as if appraising livestock at market.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low, steady, and laced with a mocking sweetness that made my skin prickle.
"So that's your grand play, Jake? To paw at an old woman like some rutting stag in heat and threaten to 'remind' me of what a real man feels like?"
She let out a soft, derisive laugh that didn't reach her eyes.
"How predictable. How utterly boyish. You think a few filthy words and a hand on my chin make you powerful? You think you can intimidate me into surrendering my daughter with your idiotic boasts?"
Gran leaned forward in her chair, closing the small distance I had created when I stepped back. Her hands unfolded from her lap and rested on her knees, fingers spread like claws ready to strike. The firelight danced across her face, highlighting the fine lines of age and the unyielding strength beneath them.
"Very well," she said, her tone shifting into something sharper, more challenging.
"If you truly believe you are such a man—the kind who can own my daughter, ruin her nights, and now crawl into my face with your stench of lust—then prove it.
Right here, right now."
She paused, letting the words sink in, her eyes locking onto mine with merciless intensity.
"Make me squeal your name, Jake. Fuck me until I scream it loud enough for the rafters to shake. Make this old body betray me the way my daughter's does. If you can do that—if you can wring even one broken moan of 'Jake' from my lips while I'm under you—then I will admit you are a man. A real one. And I will step aside. No more schemes with Eskar. No more whispers to Chelsea. No more webs. You can have her. Both of us will let you have whatever twisted life you want with her."
Her mouth curved into a slow, predatory smile, the hate in her eyes twisting into something far more calculated and cruel.
"But if you cannot…" She tilted her head, her voice dropping to a velvet whisper that dripped with venom.
"If you spill inside me like the pathetic, overeager boy you are—too quick, too weak, too demented to last even long enough to make an old woman cry out—then you will know exactly who you have messed with. You will drain every drop for me, boy, until there is nothing left in you but shame. And then you will leave. Quietly, forever. You will never touch Chelsea again. You will disappear from our lives, and I will ensure Eskar sees to the rest if you even think of crawling back."
She sat back slightly, but her gaze never wavered, pinning me in place like a specimen on a board.
"Those are my terms, Jake. A challenge worthy of the pervert you claim to be. No bribes. No letters. No reeve. Just you, me, and this cold hearth. Prove you are more than the sickness that has poisoned my daughter's life… or break against me and slink away like the whelp I always knew you were."
Gran Rosalinda spread her knees a fraction under her skirts—just enough to make the invitation (or the trap) unmistakable—her expression a perfect mask of composed disdain mixed with dark amusement.
The clever woman had flipped the game in a single breath.
She wanted to break me. To exhaust me and make me empty myself uselessly until I realized the depth of the hole I had dug.
The air between us crackled with raw tension.
My heart slammed against my ribs, the thrill of her dare mixing with the cold edge of danger.
She was no longer just the grandmother plotting in the shadows. She was daring me to take her, knowing full well she planned to drain every ounce of my strength and use it to destroy me.
I could smell the faint lavender on her skin. Could see the subtle rise and fall of her chest beneath the wool.
The house was quiet upstairs—Chelsea sleeping, unaware that downstairs her mom and the boy she raised were about to cross a line that could shatter everything.
Gran's eyes gleamed with wicked intelligence.
"Well, boy?" she whispered.
"Do you accept? Or are you already too afraid to even try?"
And I couldn't help but wonder, was this all part of her plan, to get me to fuck her?