His Property: A Billionaire Possession Romance

Aria didn't sleep that night either.

Her body hummed with leftover heat, her lips still tingled from the kiss, and her mind played the moment on a loop like a broken reel.

Leon had kissed her like she belonged to him.

And then he walked away like she never would.

She stood in front of the mirror, brushing her hair slowly, the silence of the penthouse pressing against her like a second skin. She could feel him—his absence like a ghost in the walls. His words echoed.

"Now you know why I shouldn't have started."

And yet…

He had started.

And that kiss hadn't been the start of something casual.

It had been a crack—deep, dangerous—splitting the line between want and need.

The next morning, the tension between them wasn't just palpable.

It was suffocating.

Leon sat in the dining room reading a market brief. Aria entered wearing a silk blouse and tailored slacks, sleek and controlled, like armor.

She poured her coffee.

Didn't speak.

Neither did he.

But when she walked past him, his hand reached out—reflexively, possessively—and closed around her wrist.

"Aria."

She looked down at his hand. Then up at him. "You don't get to do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like last night didn't change anything."

His grip tightened. Just slightly. "It did change something."

"Then say it."

He held her gaze, jaw tense, muscles coiled like a man barely holding himself in check.

"I can't."

She pulled her wrist free. "Then don't touch me like you already have."

He didn't speak to her for the rest of the day.

But he watched her.

She felt his gaze at every turn—when she laughed with the staff, when she took a call on the balcony, when she bent over a document in the office.

He never looked away.

It was maddening.

He acted like she belonged to him but refused to claim her.

And the worst part?

Her body loved it.

It loved the tension. The way his gaze burned her skin. The way silence became foreplay between them.

She hated how easily her pulse betrayed her.

That evening, she entered the library and found him there.

Not reading. Just standing by the window, back tense, tie loose around his throat.

She should've walked away.

Instead, she asked, "Are you punishing me with silence now?"

His voice was low, strained. "If I speak, I'll say too much."

She stepped closer, arms crossed. "You already said too much last night. And not enough."

He turned slowly.

And when he looked at her, it wasn't anger on his face.

It was torment.

"You don't know what you're doing to me," he said. "You act like this is some power game, but it's not. You're undoing me."

Aria stared, heart hammering. "Then stop hiding behind control."

He laughed—sharp and humorless. "Control is the only thing keeping you safe."

"From what?"

"From me."

He stepped forward. "Do you know what I've done to keep myself in check since the moment I saw you at that auction? How many times I've rewritten the contract in my head just to give myself one excuse to touch you again?"

Her breath caught.

He was in front of her now, towering, tense, vibrating with restraint.

"I want you, Aria. Not just in my bed. In my head. Under my skin."

She swallowed. "Then take me."

He exhaled sharply, almost like pain. "Don't tempt me."

"Why not?"

"Because if I start, I won't stop until you forget your own name."

The air shifted.

One second they were arguing.

The next, she was against the bookshelf, his mouth inches from hers, his breath hot and hungry.

"You think this is a game," he growled. "But you don't play with a man like me and walk away unscarred."

"Maybe I want the scar."

That broke him.

His mouth crashed down on hers like a storm—fierce, wild, consuming.

She moaned against him as his hands explored—hips, waist, thighs. His control unraveled in her grip, and hers in his.

He kissed her like obsession. Like ownership.

Like she was the first thing in the world he'd ever truly wanted.

And she responded with the same reckless fire.

But just as his hands slid under her shirt, just as she arched against him—

He pulled back.

Again.

Chest heaving.

Eyes dark.

"I need you to understand something," he rasped. "This isn't about sex."

"Then what is it?"

His fingers trembled at his sides.

"It's about everything."

Later, after he disappeared into his office again, Aria stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Her lips were swollen. Her pulse still racing.

She didn't know if she wanted to scream or cry or march into his office and throw herself at him just to break whatever leash he'd wrapped around himself.

This wasn't love.

Not yet.

But it wasn't lust, either.

It was… dangerous.

An obsession they both fed in silence.

Down the hall, Leon sat alone, glass of scotch untouched beside him, staring at nothing.

He hated how much he wanted her.

How much of himself he lost when she touched him.

He hadn't planned for this.

He had planned for power.

For control.

He'd bought her to win.

But somehow, she was the one undoing him.

And the worst part?

He didn't want it to stop.

Not anymore.