Page 96 of His to Hunt

"I know," I admit, surprising both of us. "But I can cherish one. Guard one. Build something with one."

Her eyes widen at my words, and I can see the moment she begins to understand what I've been too stubborn to admit even to myself.

"What are you saying?" she asks, voice barely audible.

I reach up, cup her face in my hands with a gentleness I didn't know I possessed. "I'm saying that whatever this is between us, it's more than collars and claims and contracts."

Her lips part slightly, trembling. "Then what is it?"

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I just know that I need you. That there's something about you that breaks every defense I've built. That makes me want to give you everything instead of just taking."

A tear slips down her cheek, and I catch it with my thumb. "I thought you were going to hurt me," she whispers. "Like Christopher. Like everyone else who claimed to want me."

"Never," I vow, the intensity of my own emotion startling me. "I would burn down the world before I let anyone hurt you again. Including me."

She takes a shuddering breath. "Why me? Why am I different?"

I shake my head, at a loss. "I don't know. I just know that you are. That from the moment I saw you across that room, nothing has been the same. Nothing has mattered the way you matter."

Her hand rises to touch my face, tentative but brave. "And if I choose to stay? If I choose you? What then?"

"Then you're mine," I tell her, my voice rough with promise. "Not as property. Not as a prize. As the woman who somehow broke through when no one else could. As the only person I've ever wanted to keep safe while setting free."

She trembles against me, and I can see her wrestling with herself—with what she wants versus what she's afraid to admit.

"I wanted to run," she confesses. "But every time I thought about escaping, I saw your face. I painted you when I should have been plotting against you. I dreamed of you when I should have been planning my freedom."

"Is it really freedom if you're running from the only place you fit?" I ask, the question as much for myself as for her.

Her fingers curl into my shirt, holding on. "I don't know if I can trust this. Trust you."

"You don't have to," I tell her. "Not yet. Just stay. Let me show you that whatever this is between us, it's real. It's more than games and power and control."

She looks up at me, eyes shining with unshed tears. "And if I still want to leave someday?"

The thought cuts through me like a blade, but I force myself to say the words I never thought I'd speak. "Then I'll let you go."

A sob breaks from her throat, and suddenly she's pulling me closer, her body melting into mine. "I don't want to go," sheadmits, her voice muffled against my chest. "I want to stay. I want you. I want this—whatever it is."

I wrap my arms around her, holding her against me like she might vanish if I loosen my grip. Relief and something deeper flood through me, making me light-headed with the force of it.

"Rule One," I murmur against her hair, "don't want anything you can't leash."

My hand fists in her hair gently, tilting her face up to mine. "Rule Two—don't touch what you can't walk away from."

I brush my lips against hers, feeling her breath hitch. "Rule Three... don't keep what you can't control."

There's a moment where neither of us moves. Her lashes flutter. Her body trembles against mine. And then I whisper the truth we both already know.

"I broke them all for you."

Thirty-Eight

BECKETT

Her eyes lock on mine—wide,wild, defiant. But beneath that defiance, I see something deeper. Something she's fighting against with every ragged breath she takes.

The shift doesn't happen all at once. It's gradual, like watching a cliff erode beneath relentless waves. I track every micro-expression—the last tremble of her chest as resistance surrenders to want, the almost imperceptible tightening of her thighs as she presses them together without conscious thought, the sharp little inhale that catches in her throat when I drag my fingers up the inside of her thigh—slow, deliberate, until I'm just below her pussy, watching her hips twitch like her body's begging for me without permission.

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