Page 18 of His to Hunt (The Owner’s Club #1)

Seventeen

LUNA

The moment the bathroom door clicks shut behind him, I drop.

Not gracefully, not slowly. My knees hit the shower floor with a painful thud, the unforgiving tile biting into my bare skin as water pounds against my back.

What had felt comforting minutes ago now turns suffocating, the sound too loud, the pressure too intense.

My breath catches somewhere in my throat and refuses to settle.

What the fuck have I done?

It's not just tonight. Not just the Hunt. It's everything. Every decision that led me here, every calculated risk I convinced myself I could handle, every lie I layered over truth and sealed with desperate hope.

This place. This man. This world.

I didn't sneak into it. I belong to it. Whether I like it or not.

Whether my parents still claim me or not.

I was raised in homes like this, trained in their etiquette, sculpted for their ballrooms. And still, I thought I could outplay it, outrun the part of me that was built for this, control what should never have been mine to command.

But now I'm here. Trembling on the floor, aching everywhere, and filled with him.

Two hundred fifty thousand dollars that would have bought me freedom, a new identity, a life far from Christopher's reach. All I had to do was make it until dawn without being caught.

And I failed. Spectacularly.

I didn't just get caught.

I surrendered. I begged. I broke.

The money that was meant to save me is gone. The escape route I mapped out has vanished. The careful scheme I constructed over sleepless nights has crumbled to ash.

And it's not just Beckett that haunts me now, it's Christopher too.

His voice whispering in my memory. His hands, always grasping. His hunger disguised as affection. The way he looked at me like I owed him obedience simply for existing.

"You'll learn to appreciate what I do for you," he'd said once, fingers digging into my wrist. "No one else will ever want you quite like I do."

The prize money would have bought me a new start, an apartment with security, a lawyer to keep the restraining order enforced. It would have paid for the debt I accrued hiding from him the first time. It would have given me six months, maybe more, to establish myself somewhere he couldn't find me.

And now? Now I have nothing.

No money. No freedom. No escape.

Just another man who's decided he owns me.

And yet... it doesn't feel the same. Not even close.

Beckett didn't pretend to love me. He didn't sweeten the blade. He took what he wanted, told me what I'd become, and made no apologies for it.

And somewhere inside me–deep and quiet and terrifying–I felt safe.

Safer than I ever did when I was being "protected," when I was being courted, than hiding behind gallery openings and fake smiles and carefully curated rebellion.

That's the worst part.

Because this was never supposed to feel safe. I didn't come here to be taken care of. I came here to disappear and to earn my freedom, to paint, to build a life out of my choices, not someone else's desires.

The Hunt was supposed to be a transaction. A risk, yes, but a calculated one.

All for nothing.

I never thought it would end with me crawling out of the woods with someone who looked at me like I was already his. Like who I was didn't matter, and I didn't have a choice in the first place.

Because that's what an Owner does, isn't it? He claims his Possession. And that's exactly what I am.

Beckett's Possession.

My hands move like they belong to someone else as they scrub at my skin fast, almost violently. But it's not that simple. There's no washing it all away.

Beckett has carved himself into my skin.

I rinse mechanically, barely noticing the water anymore.

When I finally step out, my skin burns from the contrast of air against wet flesh. I grab the largest towel I can find and wrap it around myself like armor before walking into the bedroom.

It's dim in Beckett's bedroom, just a lamp casting warm gold over slate-gray sheets and walls dark enough to swallow sound.

And he's there. Of course he is.

Sitting up in bed like this is routine, like I'm just another night folded into a schedule. One hand holds his phone as he scrolls, calm and casual, like I'm no different from the walls or the view or the wine he probably drinks without checking the label.

I stop in the middle of the room, grip tightening on my towel. My shoulders draw back instinctively, and when I lift my chin, it's not for him. It's for me.

I'm holding on to every last shred of dignity I have.

"Where am I sleeping?" I ask, my voice quieter than I want it to be.

He doesn't look up. Doesn't blink. Just gestures lazily to the space beside him with a flick of his fingers, like it's obvious. Like I should've known better.

I don't move, my feet feel like cement, because what he is insinuating is baffling.

"You thought you'd be anywhere else?" he asks eventually, still scrolling through whatever has captured his attention. "Silly little thief. I didn't think you were stupid, too."

The insult doesn't land hard because it's not meant to. It's just... true. Delivered without venom or emotion. Clean. Precise.

"Did you expect your own room?" he continues, thumb still moving across the screen. "Or perhaps the couch? Some grand gesture of chivalry after I fucked you against the shower wall?"

I don't answer. There's no point.

"Or did you think this was a hotel? That you'd be offered options?"

"Do you always assume silence is agreement?" I ask instead, shifting my weight slightly.

His eyes finally lift from the screen, slow and deliberate, like it costs him nothing to look at me.

"I told you," he says, voice dropping lower. "You're mine."

Each word lands soft but weighted. A lead anchor wrapped in silk.

"You say that like I'm supposed to know what that means."

"You sleep where I sleep. You breathe when I let you. You come when I say." His gaze slides down my body, unhurried. "This isn't a negotiation."

My throat tightens involuntarily. I swallow but don't look away. "I need something to wear."

"You don't."

The words land like a blade between us.

I blink, momentarily thrown. "I don't sleep naked."

"You do now."

His voice remains calm and absolute. Like it isn't a question. Like it never was.

I grind my teeth as I grip the towel tighter, weighing my options. Defiance seems futile after everything that's happened, but surrender feels too much like acceptance.

His stare drags down my body like a physical touch. Heat blooms unwillingly at the base of my neck, crawling lower, spreading beneath my skin even as I fight it, like I didn't just come on this man's cock ten minutes ago.

But I already know what I'm going to do. Not because I've accepted this or because I agree, but I lost the right to protest the second I let him own me in the dark.

My fingers loosen deliberately. The towel falls in a soft whisper of cotton against the polished floor.

I don't give him the satisfaction of watching me hesitate or cover myself. I lift my chin and walk forward. Each step is slow and steady, like I'm the one in control, not him.

His gaze follows every inch of exposed skin like he's carving me into memory, cataloging each curve and shadow with meticulous precision.

But he says nothing.

I slide under the sheets without a sound. The fabric is crisp and cool against my bare skin, and the contrast hits hard–too clean, too smooth, too untouched for what I just let him do to me.

I face away from him deliberately, my back a barrier between us. My spine locks rigidly. My muscles stay tight, bracing for something that never comes.

He doesn't touch me. Doesn't shift closer. Doesn't even breathe differently.

But I feel him regardless. His presence massive in the silence and spilling over me like shadows, pressing against my back without laying a single hand on me.

And somehow, even surrounded by everything that should feel foreign and threatening, the sheets still smell like him–sandalwood and clean cotton and something darker underneath. Something that reminds me of the forest.

I close my eyes, determined to stay awake, to remain alert, to not surrender this last piece of myself.

But exhaustion takes me like gravity–heavy, sudden, cruel. My limbs grow heavier with each breath, my mind slipping despite my best efforts to hold on. I don't even hear him as he gets up to shower himself and then returns and gets into bed next to me.

I fall asleep next to the man who chased me down. Next to the man who fucked me like I asked for it.

Next to the man who now gets to decide what happens to me next.