Page 50 of His to Claim (The Owner’s Club #2)

Delilah

I’ve been locked in before.

But never like this.

This isn’t duct tape and a piss-stained mattress in some basement while a man whispers threats through yellow teeth. This is worse.

This is luxury. This is marble floors and a wall of windows overlooking the Manhattan skyline. This is Graham Ellsworth, billionaire bastard, locking me in a gilded cage and calling it protection.

The second the elevator doors seal shut behind him, I test every lock in the penthouse.

Nothing opens.

The front door? Deadbolted from the outside. The elevator panel? Disabled. The stairwell access? A solid metal security bar that won’t budge.

I grab a knife from the kitchen and try to jam it into the seams of the elevator panel.

That’s when his voice comes through the intercom system.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Graham’s voice echoes through the speakers, followed by the low sound of him laughing. “Come on, sweetheart. You really think I’d leave you a way out? That would defeat the whole point.”

My blood boils.

I hurl the knife across the room; it clatters against the marble floor.

His voice continues, maddeningly calm. “Why don’t you pour yourself a drink? Watch some TV. Break a vase if it’ll make you feel better. Just don’t hurt yourself, baby. That would really piss me off.”

“Fuck you!” I scream at the nearest camera.

No response. Just silence, the kind that taunts.

I pace the apartment like a caged animal, fury building with every breath. Is he doing this for my safety? Sure. That’s what he’ll say. But all I hear in my head is Stanley’s voice from years of nightmares.

Graham thinks he’s protecting me? No. He’s just another man deciding what’s best for me without asking.

By the time I hear the lock click open hours later, I’ve been stewing in my rage long enough to reach a rolling boil.

He steps inside and his eyes lock on me immediately.

Mine narrow.

“You locked me in.”

His jaw tenses. “I did.”

“Without a goddamn word.”

He sets his jacket on the table calmly. “You wouldn’t have let me go.”

“You’re damn right I wouldn’t have!”

“Exactly.” He moves closer, and I can see the exhaustion in his eyes despite his controlled demeanor. “Which is why I did it.”

“You’re not my fucking father, Graham! You don’t get to make decisions for me.”

“No. But I’m the one they’d hurt to get to you.”

I shove him. Hard.

He takes it, doesn’t even flinch. “You were safer here.”

“I was terrified here!”

“Of what?” he bites out, genuine confusion flickering across his face.

“That you were dead! That I’d never get to scream at you again! That I let myself care about you and then you’d just be gone.”

He freezes, and something shifts in his expression—surprise, maybe even vulnerability.

I don’t stop. “You don’t get to make me fall for you and then decide when I’m allowed to feel things. I’m locked in here like a prisoner, pacing the floor while you’re out being a hero. I don’t need you fighting my fucking battles.”

He closes the distance in two steps, his hands coming up to frame my face.

“Too fucking bad,” he says, voice rough with emotion. “You’re mine. I protect what’s mine.”

“Then maybe I don’t want to be yours.”

His grip tightens slightly, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “Lie to me again.”

My nostrils flare. “Fuck you.”

I spit it like a weapon, but it lands like a dare.

Graham’s jaw clenches. His thumb brushes my lip, slow and claiming, like he can feel every curse I’ve ever thrown at him stored there.

“You sure about that?” he asks, voice low. Dangerous.

I don’t answer.

Don’t have to.

Not when I grab the front of his shirt and drag him forward.

Our mouths collide in a brutal kiss, all teeth and tongue and fury. He tastes like copper and adrenaline and something I can’t name, something that burns me alive. I bite his lip, and he groans against my mouth, fisting a hand in my hair and yanking my head back just enough to make me gasp.

“Tell me you hate me,” he growls.

I rake my nails down his chest, catching the open buttons one by one. “I hate you.”

“Good.” His hand slides under my shirt, callused fingers skimming over my ribs. “Now tell me you want me.”

“I want you.”

His mouth is on my neck before the words finish leaving my lips—hot, wet, unrelenting. He licks a stripe up to my ear, then bites the lobe just hard enough to make me whimper.

“I’m not stopping tonight, Delilah,” he says. “Not until every part of you knows who you belong to.”

“Then stop talking.”

He drives me back until the wall kisses my shoulder blades. My shirt goes over my head in a rough arc. His gaze drops. Darkens. He drags his knuckles between my breasts like he’s trying to decide where to start and failing on purpose.

“Figure it out, Ellsworth. I’m not waiting forever.”

He huffs a laugh, then drops to his knees.

Heat licks up my skin as he maps open-mouthed kisses across my stomach. A flick of tongue at my navel. A sharp nip at my waistband that says he’s done negotiating.

“You wore these pants to drive me insane, didn’t you?”

“Did it work?”

His eyes lift. Stormy. Wired. “I’ve been hard since I walked in.”

Before I can gloat, he hooks both thumbs under denim and drags everything down. Air hits me. So does the look on his face.

Then his mouth is on me. Hungry. Worship and punishment in equal measure.

“Graham—” My palms slap the wall. Fingertips scrabble for purchase. I feel him flatten his tongue against my clit and pull once. The world tilts. My knees threaten mutiny.

“Eyes on me,” he says, voice muffled, mouth still working me like he’s owed interest.

I look down. Wild eyes. Wicked intent. He does it again and my head knocks the wall.

“Jesus—”

“Wrong name.”

He stands in one clean lift, palms under my thighs. I climb him on instinct. He carries me toward the bedroom like the oxygen lives there and we’re both running out.

“I’m going to ruin you, Delilah.”

“You already did,” I say, and it lands softer than I expect.

The mattress takes my back. He strips—shirt, belt, trousers—like he’s shedding the night and the blood on his knuckles with it. My heart ratchets up because this is the point of no return and I know it. Not just sex. Redefinition.

He’s beautiful in a ruthless way. Scar at his hip. Heat at his throat. Hard everywhere. My mouth actually waters, which feels unfair.

“Don’t stare if you’re not going to use it,” he says.

I crawl to the edge of the bed and sink to my knees. The first slide of his cock over my tongue steals my breath. He fists my hair, not to force. To anchor. The sound he makes when I take him deeper hits a place inside me that has nothing to do with pride and everything to do with need.

“That mouth,” he grinds out. “Sin.”

I hum for him. He curses. For a second I’m high on power. On the way his control frays under my hands. Then he pulls free with a wet pop and hauls me up.

“My turn.”

He flips me, kisses down my spine in patient, claiming bites. He teases my pussy with his cock like he has all night to ruin me and no mercy to spare.

“You ready?”

“Yes,” I say, and I mean more than the question.

He still pauses. “Color.”

“Green.” My voice doesn’t wobble. My ribs do.

He pushes into me slow. Not brutal. Not this time. The stretch burns and then melts. I breathe through it with my forehead pressed to the sheet and his breath hot at my shoulder. He fits deeper. I make a sound I’ve never heard from my own mouth.

“Fuck,” he says against my skin. “Tight. Perfect. Mine.”

I should be furious that the word thrills me. I should be worried I’ll like this too much. I am both and neither because my body chooses for me. He moves, and something inside me unlocks like a door I’ve been leaning on for years finally gives.

He starts a rhythm that feels more like a vow than a conquest. The headboard taps the wall. My breath stutters to match. Each thrust knocks loose a little anger I’ve been hoarding like a weapon.

“Still hate me?” he asks, voice sanded down to the truth.

“Yes,” I pant, and it’s almost true. He drives in deeper. “No.”

He reaches under me and circles my clit with that terrible patience he uses when he’s winning. White sparks crowd my vision.

“Tell me you love me,” he says. Not a demand. A raw edge.

The old fear rises like a reflex. Say it and everything changes.

Say it and I’m not safe from myself. Say it and he’ll own pieces I can’t take back.

But then I remind myself that this is not that.

This is the man who locked me up in a cage tonight because he was terrified too. This is Graham, and I do love him.

“I’m scared,” I breathe.

He stills. His hand flattens over my ribs like a promise. “Of me?”

“Of this,” I say into the sheets. “Of how much I want you. Of what it means if I choose you and you get hurt because of me.”

His forehead presses between my shoulders. “I’m sorry I locked you in,” he says, quiet like confession. “I did it because I love you and it was the only way I knew to walk out that door. I hated it. I hated knowing you were scared and I couldn’t fix it.”

Something in my chest unknots with a small, fragile snap.

“I’m sorry I said I hated you,” I say. “I push people away so I don’t have to admit I’m terrified of needing anyone. I wear targets and call it strategy. I’m tired of being brave the wrong way.”

He exhales like I’ve just given him a key. “We’ll do it better,” he says. “I’ll ask. You’ll answer. We’ll fight the world, not each other.”

“Okay.”

“Say it,” he whispers. “So I have it.”

I turn my head so he hears me like a secret. “I love you, Graham Ellsworth.”

His body shudders. He kisses the back of my neck like gratitude.

Then he moves again and it’s different now.

Less rage. More worship. He keeps one hand under me, circling, coaxing.

He holds me like breakable glass and pounds me like he wants to etch his name into my bones.

The contradiction lands as the only thing that ever felt like home.

“Look at me,” he says, and I do. I twist so I can see him over my shoulder. Eyes wide. Mouth soft with something I don’t have to fear anymore.

“Come for me,” he says at my ear.

I fall apart. Not pretty. Not polite. Real. The orgasm tears through me in hot waves that make my vision go white at the edges. I shake and he holds and I cry out his name like it’s a prayer I finally believe in.

He follows with a rough sound that’s half relief and half possession. Heat pulses deep. His hips stutter. He says my name again and again like he’s stitching us together with it.

Silence stretches. Not empty. Full.

He collapses beside me and drags me to his chest. We breathe. We recalibrate.

“Still mad at me?” he asks with a soft chuckle.

“Yeah,” I say, and the corner of my mouth quirks. “At both of us. Less now, though.”

“We’ll earn the rest back,” he says. “I’ll earn it.”

“You already started.” My throat tightens. “I meant it, you know.”

“I know.” He presses his mouth to my hair. “I meant it before I had a name for it.”

Anxiety flutters once more—small, persistent. The life I pictured for myself doesn’t fit around this man. Maybe that’s good. Maybe I never wanted that life, I just wanted safe. I slide my palm over his sternum and feel the thud under my hand like proof.

“This was…” I start, then laugh because the word won’t come. “The best I’ve ever had,” I say, and the truth of it scares me a little.

“Me too,” he says without swagger. “By a mile.”

I tip my chin up. “We’re going to have to figure out how to be us without the explosion every time.”

“We will,” he says. “We’ll fight smarter. We’ll keep the fire.”

“And the teasing.”

“Non-negotiable.”

He grins, finally, and I feel it against my temple. I nudge his jaw with my nose like a truce. He rolls, tucks me under his arm, and pulls the sheet over both of us like a shield.

“Sleep,” he says.

“You’re so bossy,” I murmur, then thread our fingers together so the apology has a shape I can hold. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” he says, and for once I don’t argue.