Page 35 of His to Claim (The Owner’s Club #2)

Graham

The skull masks disappear into the trees, and the forest remembers how to breathe. Crickets start up. Leaves whisper. I click the safety back on, holster the gun, and only then look at the bigger problem.

Delilah.

She’s pressed to the rock, dress in strips, hair a wrecked halo, eyes bright and feral.

My choker circles her wrist like a raised middle finger.

The sight of her—bare feet, dirt on her calves, mouth swollen from adrenaline—makes my cock kick hard against my zipper.

The sight of the choker on her wrist keeps my jaw tight.

She lifts her chin first. “If you’re about to give me a lecture, make it quick. I’ve got better uses for your mouth.”

“Don’t talk,” I say.

She smirks. “You’re new to me thinking that’ll work.”

I pull off the bone-white mask, hook it at my belt, and go to her. Close enough that her nipples brush my shirt through the sheer. Close enough to smell her sweat and want and the faint copper of fear she tries to hide beneath attitude.

“You ran smart,” I say. “Then you ran stupid. You wore my claim like a question and invite hyenas.”

“You like me disobedient. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

“I like you alive.”

“Semantics.”

“Color.” I put my palm at her throat, thumb under her jaw—no pressure yet, just possession.

“Green,” she shoots back. “Neon. Try me.”

“Hands on the rock.”

She makes a show of rolling her eyes, but plants her palms on the stone and arches, thrusting her chest forward like she’s offering me a problem and daring me not to solve it. The dress is almost nothing—sheer, ruined, revealing. Her nipples are hard. Her pussy outlined and already damp.

I fist the hem and tear.

The sound runs hot down my spine. I tear again. Again. The skirt sloughs into ragged ribbons that whisper against her thighs.

She gasps, then laughs—breathless, cocky. “You owe me a dress, Ellsworth.”

“I’ll buy you ten.” I run my knuckles slow along her clit and press. She sucks air. “You can wear one when you learn not to paint a target on yourself and call it strategy.”

“Maybe I like the target.” She tilts her hips into my hand. “You were the one who found me.”

“Always will.”

I drop to a knee and bite the inside of her thigh. She shivers and tries to grind on my face.

My gaze drops to her ankle—the delicate silver anklet glinting in the moonlight. She follows my eyes and lifts her chin like a dare.

“You planning to rip that off too?” she murmurs, voice all venom and velvet.

I crouch, fingers curling around her ankle. “No.”

Then I yank.

The chain snaps with a sharp metallic bite.

“I’m not planning,” I say. “I’m claiming.” I pocket the proof that she is mine now.

Her breath catches. “You still angry?” she asks, voice shaking with the effort to sound smug.

“Yes,” I say. Her pussy’s right there—slick, flushed, swollen for me. My mouth waters.

She looks down, lips parted. “Careful. If you start something, you’re finishing it.”

“I finish what I decide.” I pluck my choker off her wrist. “Wrists.”

She holds my stare for a beat, testing, then offers both wrists together.

I wind the fabric around and fasten it. Not too tight—just enough to remind her that she gave them to me.

I slide my thumbs over her pulse until I feel her settle under the restraint, that particular drop in the body that means yes.

“Now it’s where it belongs,” I say.

“Around my wrists?” She smiles like sin. “Kinky even for you.”

“You have no idea.”

I put my mouth on her pussy.

She moans and tries to grind. I pin her hips and work her exactly how I want: slow licks from her opening to her clit, a lazy circle, then a hard flatten of my tongue over her clit that makes her thighs shake.

She tastes like adrenaline and trouble and the lie she thinks she got away with.

She tugs at the choker, remembering too late that she’s given up her hands.

“Keep them there,” I say into her. “Or I tie you to this rock and make the deer my audience.”

“You wouldn’t,” she gasps.

I smile against her clit. “You want to find out?”

She swears. It sounds like worship on her.

I slide a finger into her pussy. She’s hot and tight, clenching down like she wants to keep me.

I push in to the second knuckle, then all the way, then add a second finger and curl them until I find the spot that makes her knees go faithless.

Her head thumps the rock; I catch the next hit with my palm and never stop.

“What did you do wrong?” I ask, fingers working slow and ruthless.

“I ran from you,” she pants.

“What else.”

“I wore your claim wrong. On purpose.” Her breath hitches when my thumb starts a tight circle over her clit. “Because you’re fun when you’re feral.”

“You wanted me angry.”

She smiles hard, eyelids heavy. “Look at you. Mission accomplished.”

I laugh into her cunt; she clamps around my fingers like her body wants to own the sound. “Careful,” I say. “I’ll make this last until sunrise.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

I keep her right there: building, shaking, lips open on my name. When I feel her start to tip—belly fluttering, breath breaking—I pull my fingers out and lick them clean while she watches like I’ve robbed her at gunpoint.

She bares her teeth. “You absolute menace.”

I stand. My cock strains against the zipper; her eyes drop, then lift, mouth wet, calculations turning filthy. She rises to her toes and hisses against my mouth, “Let me suck your cock and I’ll forgive the lecture.”

“No.”

She blinks. “No?”

I bracket her throat again, thumb under her jaw, and step into her until the rock takes her weight. “You haven’t earned my cock. Not tonight.”

“Untie me and I’ll take it.”

“You’ll try,” I say, then turn her by the shoulders.

She goes—mostly. She grinds her ass back against my cock on purpose, and the pressure makes the edges of my control spark. I catch her hip in a rough grip and hold her still.

“Hands stay put,” I say. “Or I make you say please so pretty the trees blush.”

“Overpromise,” she mutters, but plants her palms again.

I slide my hand between her thighs from behind and rub her clit with my thumb—small, brutal circles. She pushes back hard; I step away so she can’t use my body, so every ounce of friction comes from my hand and not from my cock.

“Please,” she breathes. “More.”

“You’re going to come on my hand,” I say, breath even while mine pulses thick and heavy against my trousers. “You’re going to mess my palm with it. And you’re going to do it without my cock inside your pussy.”

“That’s not a claim.”

“It is when I make it.”

“What if I walk straight out of these trees and sit down on the lawn and spread my legs until someone useful volunteers?” she shoots back, voice shaking and sharp. “Plenty of cocks in tuxedos with fewer lectures.”

“Try it.” I slide two fingers into her again. Her breath breaks on the first push. “See how far you get.”

“You’d lie to the Owners’ Club?” she asks, half-laugh, half-pant. “Go ahead. Tell them you?—”

“Funny you suddenly care about lies.” I curl my fingers and stroke her g-spot with obscene patience while my thumb never leaves her clit. She claws at the rock; grit grinds under her nails. “Focus.”

“I am focusing,” she snaps, then loses the thread on a moan that sounds like surrender and hate tangled together.

Her legs shake. Her pussy grips me like she’s trying to climb my hand and jump. I press the heel of my palm up, tighten the circle on her clit, and growl at her ear, “Come for me.”

She comes—hard, helpless, messy. Her pussy flutters around my fingers, wetness spilling hot over my hand and down her thighs. She cries out into the night and bites her lip to catch what’s left. I ride her through it, then take my hand away the instant she reaches back for more.

Her head whips over her shoulder, eyes gone glassy mean. “Do that again and I’ll bite you.”

“Where?” I ask, amused. “Pick a spot.”

She lunges for my mouth; I let her catch it for a beat, then take the kiss over—deep, filthy, owning—until her body softens in that tiny, involuntary way that means victory. I break it, turn her, haul her onto me.

“Straddle my thigh,” I say, sitting on the low lip of the rock.

She plants one knee, then tries to slide higher to line her pussy with my zipper. I lift her by the ass and set her exactly where I want—right over hard muscle. “Here. Rub.”

“You’re joking.”

“Earn it.”

She hates that. She does it anyway. She grinds her pussy on my thigh—raw, obscene, soaking my trousers—hands bound, breath ragged against my mouth.

I grip her ass and dictate the rhythm: up, down, tighter, slower, fast enough to blur her clever tongue.

She tries again to shift higher, hunting my cock; I bruise her with my fingers to keep her where I want her.

“Say what you want,” I say.

“I want your cock,” she says, fierce and honest. “I want you to fuck my pussy until I scream your name loud enough the band stops playing back at the mansion.”

“Vivid,” I say. “Denied.”

“Asshole.”

“Accurate.”

I slide two fingers back into her while she rides my thigh. Her pussy takes me like it misses me already, hot and greedy. I angle up, stroke exactly where she likes it, and keep her grinding on me. Her nails dig crescents into my shoulders; I want them. I want every mark.

“Look at me,” I say.

She does, eyes fever-bright, mouth red and wrecked. I rub her clit with my thumb while my fingers stroke inside and watch her shatter again. She comes with a harsh sound, soaking my leg, body trembling against my chest.

I slide out and lick her taste from my fingers while she watches—flushed, furious, shaking. She goes for my belt—pure mischief, pure war. I catch her wrists mid-grab and pin them above my shoulder so she arches, breasts pushing into my chest, nipples dragging my shirt.

“Persistent,” I say.

“Effective,” she shoots back, breathless. “Drop the act, Graham. Your cock is hard enough to cut glass. Let me on it.”

“I’m hard because you’re a menace,” I say, and nip the underside of her jaw. “You’re done.”

She inhales slow, smile thin and mean. “Then I’m going back to the party and seeing who else is feeling charitable.”

“You won’t make it ten steps.”

“Watch me.”

I let her slide off my thigh. Her knees buckle; I catch her hips before she kisses the dirt. She glares like she wants to stab me; her body sways toward me like it’s already forgiven itself for that betrayal.

“Turn,” I say, palming her lower belly and steering her toward the faint gold of the lawn lights beyond the trees.

“Like this?” She glances down at her bare pussy kissed by the breeze, at the ribbons of her dress swinging against her thighs. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Correct.” I slide my hand lower so my thumb brushes the top of her slit—barely pressure, just reminder. She jolts.

“Graham,” she warns, breath hitching. “Don’t.”

“Keep walking,” I say softly. “Feel what you did to yourself. Feel what I did to you.”

She reaches to cover her breast where the fabric’s shifted. I catch her wrists, unbuckle the choker, rub the faint indentations the fabric left, then put her hands down at her sides.

“Wear it,” I say. “Let them look and know exactly who did it.”

“You’re such an arrogant bastard.”

“Obsessive bastard,” I say. “Specifically for you.”

That steals a breath from her. She tries to hide it behind attitude. “You’re going to put your shirt on me now, or I’m staging a full-scale scandal right next to the champagne tower.”

“In a minute.”

“When I’ve earned it?” she says, mocking.

“When I’m done looking. I rather like the view of you walking naked through the woods, come dripping down your thighs, your pussy aching for my cock.”

Up ahead the lawn glows like money. Music drifts over the hedges—smooth, careless, wrong for the dirt on her knees and the moisture on my thigh.

I keep my palm low on her stomach and move her forward.

Three steps in, she slides her hand inside my shirt and drags her thumb down my abs, lower, over the thick line of my cock through my trousers. It twitches for her, traitor.

I catch her wrist and flatten her hand to my belly. “Don’t test me.”

She looks up, defiant and starving. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m choosing,” I say. “There’s a difference.”

She licks her lower lip like she can taste the choice. “Then choose to be useful.”

“Tomorrow,” I say into her hair, mouth grazing the shell of her ear. “You’re going to come to me, and you’re going to say please like you mean it. You’ll ask for my cock. You’ll ask to take me in your mouth. I might tell you no. I might keep you hungry until you forget your name.”

She makes a sound that’s half hatred, half need. “And if I go to someone else?”

“You won’t,” I say, calm, deadly certain. “But if you try, you’ll learn how I deal with men who touch what’s mine.”

“Big talk.”

“It’s not talk baby. It’s all truth.”

We stop where wild turns manicured. The lights catch the sweat on her collarbones, the fresh bites blooming purple at the top of her breast, the dirt smudged high on her thighs where I’ve lifted her. She looks like sin I’ve signed.

“Say please,” I tell her.

She squares her shoulders, chin up, eyes glittering. “Put your fucking shirt on me.”

My cock throbs so hard I have to breathe before I trust my hands. I pull it up over my head. Her breath trips. Good. I shrug out of the material and hold it over her, not granting mercy but awarding her with a brand.

“Beg prettier,” I say, just to hear the edge snap.

Her smile goes razor-sweet. “Please put your shirt on me before I start screaming about your cock and ruin Preston’s lawn party.”

“Better.”

I slide the material down her body. I look at her for a moment before I grasp the neckline and tear it open. She gasps, not expecting that.

“There,” I say, leaving it open enough to frame the hickey I’ve put on her breast. “Now I can see my handiwork.”

She looks up, still mouthy, still sparking. “Happy now?”

“Getting there.” I palm her jaw, kiss her slow and shameless in the edge-light where anyone could see, and speak against her lips. “You’re mine. Act like it.”

She bites me—sharp, possessive, a promise. “Make me.”

“Oh, I will,” I say, turning her toward the party with my hand firm on her stomach. “Tomorrow.”

“And if I run?” she asks, all sugar and siren.

I smile into her hair. “I’ll catch you again.”

In front of us, laughter rolls across clipped grass like nothing ugly ever hides in these trees. She straightens my shirt at her shoulders like she owns it. She doesn’t. She wears it because I let her.

And if anyone doubts who she belongs to when she walks back under those lights with dirt on her knees and my taste on her skin, they haven’t been paying attention.