Page 48 of His to Hunt (The Owner’s Club #1)

Forty-Five

BECKETT

She fucking marked me.

The gold paint dries on my skin, a claim more intimate than any I've allowed before. She turned away as if what just happened between us was ordinary—as if tracing my deepest scar with her color wasn't an act of possession that's left me unable to draw a full breath.

I watch her at the canvas, her movements fluid and focused. So calm. So centered. So beautifully untouchable in her concentration. Each stroke of her brush deliberate, as though the moment we just shared hasn't altered everything between us.

And it wrecks me.

I've been wanting her like this for so long—both feral and soft, both broken and whole.

And now that she's finally taken her claim, marked me as deliberately as I've marked her, I can't let her pretend it didn't happen. I can't let her act as though she hasn't carved her name into every corner of my restraint.

My body moves before my mind catches up, like gravity finally remembering its purpose.

I stop behind her, close enough that she must feel the heat radiating from my skin, the current between us impossible to ignore.

She doesn't turn around.

She doesn't have to.

I slide my hand into her hair, feeling its silk between my fingers. I curl them just tight enough to warn her about what's coming, tight enough to send a clear message—that I'm done with distance. Then I pull, not roughly, but with unmistakable intention.

The gasp that escapes her lips is pure music—startled and wanting all at once. Her body arches, tipping back against mine as if it has always been meant to fall this way, as if this trajectory was inevitable from the moment I claimed her in that ballroom.

I don't hesitate.

My mouth finds hers in a collision that feels like coming home to a place I've never been. The kiss holds all the chaos she's been holding at bay—heat and hunger and gratitude and the pure, unrestrained possession that's been unleashed since I watched her paint my tattoo in gold.

Her lips part on a moan that vibrates through me, and her hands find my bare waist, nails digging into my skin like she's been waiting for this just as desperately as I have.

This isn't the calculated claiming of our first night. This is messy. Desperate. Primal. Everything I didn't realize I needed until she touched me with paint and claimed me .

I break away just enough to breathe against her mouth, my voice rougher than I intend.

"You think painting me makes me yours?"

The question hangs between us, her eyes wide and dark as she searches my face. She doesn't speak, but the rapid rise and fall of her chest tells me everything I need to know.

I reach down, my gaze never leaving hers, and dip my fingers into the gold paint she used on me. With deliberate slowness, I drag them across her collarbone, marking her as she marked me.

"You're wrong," I whisper, watching the paint shimmer against her skin. "It makes me obsessed."

She still doesn't answer, but her pupils dilate and her chest rises sharply—like she's drowning in the same hunger consuming me and can't decide whether to surrender to it or let it devour her completely.

I trace another streak of gold across her collarbone, slower this time, a whisper of touch that leaves goosebumps in its wake. The brush remains in her hand, but I'm the one painting now—claiming territory with each stroke of my fingers.

I reach for the strap of her overalls, watching her closely as I pull it down. I move deliberately, savoring the way her breath catches, the way her body responds to my touch even before she says a word.

She doesn't stop me. Doesn't pull away. Doesn't speak.

I lower the second strap, and the soft rustle of denim against skin sounds like permission as it slips down her sides and hugs her hips. Beneath it, she wears just a simple shirt—thin, faded, familiar.

My fingers find the hem, slipping beneath to touch warm skin as I lift it, inch by measured inch. Not rushing. Revealing.

Skin. Breath. Shivers .

Her arms raise in surrender, allowing me to pull the shirt up and over her head and remove her bra. She lets me see her—all of her—with a trust that nearly breaks me.

"You made a mess of me," I say, my voice low and wrecked as I trace the gold still clinging to her skin. "Now I get to make one of you."

Her breath stutters, her pulse visibly racing at the hollow of her throat, but she doesn't pull away. Instead, she watches me with eyes that hold too many emotions to name.

I smear black paint along the fading lines of gold, tracing over the art she created in solitude, claiming the parts of herself she never meant to show anyone.

"I see it," I tell her, almost reverently. "What you made out of the wreckage. The storm you weathered."

She looks down at the paint on her skin. Looking at the dried marks from the early hours and the new ones I've just made.

Her voice, when it finally comes, is barely audible. "I like what you've added."

Something shifts in my chest at those words—something long dormant breaking loose. I press my thumb to her ribs, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to anchor us both to this moment.

"Then let me add more."

She stands before me, her chest rising with quick, shallow breaths, lips parted like she's searching for words she can't find.

Her fingers move to the waistband of her overalls, and with a deliberate slowness that makes my blood burn, she steps out of them.

She doesn't rush. Doesn't look away. Doesn't hide.

She stands there in nothing but soft cotton panties, her skin a canvas of memories—paint streaked across it like promises and confessions.

And it fucking ruins me.

Not because she's half-naked, though God knows that sight alone could bring me to my knees.

No, it's because she's allowing me to see her like this—open, unmasked, stripped down to bone and breath and choice.

No pretense. No armor. Just Luna, offering herself not as a sacrifice or submission, but as an equal in this claiming.

"Luna..." My voice breaks on her name, and for once, I don't try to hide it.

I step around her slowly, taking the brush from her hand. For a moment—just one fleeting second—she looks up at me with an expression I've never seen before, like she's not sure who's in control anymore.

And that's perfect.

I press the brush to the hollow of her throat, dragging it down between her breasts, watching the gold paint smear across her skin like an oath we're both taking.

"You left your mark on me the second you touched me," I murmur, voice low. "Now I'm branding you with mine—so you feel me every time you fucking breathe."

She doesn't flinch or pull away. Doesn't break our gaze. She just watches me with that same intensity that drew me to her across the ballroom—the look of someone who sees the monster and chooses to face it head-on.

I find myself kneeling before her, not because she commanded it, not because she asked, but because I need to. Because something in me recognizes this for the sacred thing it is.

My hands find her thighs, fingers pressing into the soft skin as I spread them slightly. I drag paint down the inside of each one, tracing patterns like a roadmap to her destruction—or perhaps her salvation. Maybe they're the same thing.

Her hands fly to my shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

"Beckett..." My name on her lips sounds like both warning and plea.

"I know," I answer, my voice breaking against her skin. "I know what you need."

And I do. I've known since the moment I saw her across that crowded ballroom, since the second I recognized her for what she was—not just another woman to claim, but someone who might actually be worth the breaking of all my rules.

I look up at her from my position at her feet, taking in the sight of her standing above me. Bare thighs. Bare skin. Dark eyes wide and desperate, like she's trying and failing to pretend she doesn't already know exactly what's coming next.

I drag my palms slowly up the outside of her legs, my fingertips pressing hard enough to make her gasp. When I reach her hips, I grip them firmly, anchoring her to this moment, to me.

"Look at you," I say, my voice rough with desire. "Standing there like you don't already fucking belong to me."

Before she can respond, I lower my mouth to her inner thigh and bite—not hard enough to truly hurt, just enough to feel her body jolt against mine, just enough to make her fingers tangle in my hair like she needs something to hold on to.

I kiss the mark I've left, then move higher, trailing my lips up her thigh in a path that leaves her trembling. Higher still, until my nose brushes against the soft cotton of her panties and a groan tears from my throat—because I can smell how much she wants this, wants me.

"You're soaked," I growl, looking up at her past the curves of her body. "You've been dripping for me this whole fucking time, haven't you?"

She doesn't answer. Her fingers tighten in my hair, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she teeters on the edge of surrender.

I hook my thumbs into her waistband and pull her panties down slowly, savoring every inch of newly revealed skin, watching her face as I expose her completely.

"I'm not stopping until you come on my tongue," I tell her, voice deep and certain. "So you better hold on, little thief."

Moving her thigh to rest on my shoulder, I dive in without warning, without hesitation—no teasing, no warm-up, just pure, consuming hunger.

I press my tongue flat against her clit, my mouth open and desperate against her, licking and sucking like a man starved. Like this is the only way I know how to survive.

The cry that escapes her is everything—head tipping back, thighs trembling around me.

"Fuck—Beckett—please," Her voice catches on my name, and it's the sweetest sound I've ever heard.

I groan against her, the vibration drawing another gasp as my hands grasp her ass, pulling her closer, burying my face deeper against her cunt.

"That's it," I encourage, my lips slick and voice ragged. "Rub your pussy on my mouth. Fuck my face. Take what you need."

And God help me, she does.

She grinds against me, hips moving in increasingly desperate circles. She writhes under my touch, her moans growing louder, wilder—like she's being destroyed and reborn in the same breath.

Her hands yank at my hair hard enough to hurt, but the pain only spurs me on. I suck her clit between my lips, flicking my tongue over it in relentless, filthy circles until I feel her legs begin to shake, her cries growing higher and more frantic.

"I'm gonna—fuck—I'm—" she gasps, the words breaking apart as she approaches the edge.

"Come on, baby," I growl against her sensitive flesh. "Let me taste you. Let me fucking have you."

And when she finally falls apart, she shatters completely.

She comes against my mouth, her entire body convulsing, her cry echoing off the walls of the studio. I hold her steady as she trembles, riding her through every aftershock, groaning my approval against her as if her pleasure is the only nourishment I've ever needed.

Only when she's gasping for air, her thighs shaking uncontrollably and her body limp in my hands, do I finally pull back.

There's paint on my cheeks, her taste on my tongue, and I can feel the smile that cuts across my face—predatory, satisfied, hungry for more.

I rise to my feet slowly, like a storm barely contained, and turn her toward the easel.

"Turn around," I command, my voice rough with need. "Hands on the easel."

I press my body against her back, my lips against her ear. "Now it's my turn."