Chapter 3: Collared By His Obsession

The silence in the penthouse was suffocating.

Savannah sat curled on the velvet chaise in Damien’s study, wrapped in a cashmere throw, though the room wasn’t cold. It was her heartbeat that wouldn’t calm. Her fingers still trembled from the message.

“You look stunning in black. He won’t keep you forever.”

She had worn the black slip last night. Damien’s choice. The person watching her… knew.

Across the room, Damien was speaking quietly into his phone, his voice cold and clipped. “Trace the number. I want every camera on the building combed for the last 24 hours. And I want eyes on Savannah. No blind spots. No mistakes.”

His jaw flexed as he ended the call.

Then, he turned to her.

“I won’t let anyone near you,” he said.

Savannah swallowed. “Do you think it’s someone from your past?”

Damien didn’t answer right away. He crossed to her, crouching so they were eye level. His hand came up, slow, and brushed her hair behind her ear.

“I have enemies, Savannah. People who would love to use you to get to me. This is the cost of being close to me.”

She met his eyes. “Then maybe I shouldn’t be.”

His hand tightened ever so slightly in her hair.

“Too late for that.”

---

Damien didn’t sleep that night. Not in bed. Not beside her. She heard him pacing the hallway just before dawn, his voice low and sharp in more phone calls. And when she woke again at sunrise, he was already dressed—in another crisp black suit, his expression unreadable.

“Get dressed,” he told her. “I’m taking you with me today.”

“To where?”

He looked at her like she should already know.

“To my world.”

Savannah had never stepped into a boardroom like this.

All glass and steel, perched high above the skyline, the entire floor belonged to Knight Holdings, Damien’s empire. She sat in a corner chair of his private office, feeling more like an ornament than a person. Still, her eyes couldn’t leave him.

Damien was a different man here—imposing, calm, and terrifyingly efficient. His voice was quiet but sharp as a blade. Executives scrambled to meet his gaze, terrified of disappointing him.

And yet, every few minutes, his eyes would flick to her.

Claiming her, even in silence.

He’d made her wear a silk blouse with a collar he fastened himself, and a pencil skirt that hugged her hips with no underwear underneath. His voice had been low, commanding, as he knelt before her that morning:

“Don’t wear anything beneath. I want to be the only thing you feel all day.”

She thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

---

After the meeting, he dismissed the room and waved her over. “Come here.”

She hesitated.

“Savannah,” he warned. “Now.”

Heart pounding, she crossed to him. He leaned back in his leather chair, watching her approach like a predator watching his favorite prey.

He took her hand, pulled her to straddle him. Her thighs settled over his lap, her knees against the chair, the city behind them all glass and distance.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, breath shallow.

Damien’s hands slid under her blouse, fingertips teasing the curve of her waist. “Rewarding you. You stayed quiet. You obeyed.”

“And if I hadn’t?”

His voice dipped. “I would’ve made you beg for forgiveness.”

Her pulse spiked. She shouldn’t want this. But her body already responded to him, his control igniting something dark and needy inside her.

“You’re mine,” he murmured against her lips. “You don’t get to forget that just because I put you in heels and sit you in meetings.”

Then he kissed her.

Slow. Deep. Possessive.

One of his hands curled in her hair, the other slipping between her thighs where she was bare, exposed, aching.

Savannah gasped. “Damien—someone could see—”

“That’s the point,” he whispered darkly.

Savannah was still breathless when she slid off Damien’s lap, her cheeks flushed, lips swollen from his kisses. He adjusted his cuffs like nothing happened—like he hadn’t just touched her with the kind of intensity that made her entire body thrum.

She turned to head toward the bathroom, heart pounding, when the office doors opened without warning.

A woman stepped in.

Tall. Red-lipped. Elegant in a blood-red dress that clung to her body like it was stitched to her skin.

Her eyes found Savannah instantly.

“So,” the woman said with a half-smile, “this is the new one.”

Savannah froze.

Damien stood slowly. His face changed. It wasn’t softness or anger—it was calculation. Cold, measured calculation.

“Valeria,” he said. “You weren’t invited.”

The woman walked toward him like she belonged there. “When have I ever needed an invitation, Damien?”

Savannah stepped back, unsure what to say—unsure what she was even witnessing.

Valeria’s eyes dragged over her again, full of amusement. “She’s pretty. Raw. A bit… unbroken, though.”

Damien’s jaw clenched. “You’re not here to judge her.”

“Of course not. That was my job when I wore the collar.”

Savannah’s heart dropped.

Collar?

Valeria turned to her with a wicked smirk. “Let me guess… he started soft. Polite. He’s giving you rules, isn’t he? Little rewards when you obey?”

Damien moved between them. “Enough.”

Valeria ignored him. “And when he loses control, darling—because he will—he’ll break you just right. He likes the ones with fire. But fire burns, doesn’t it?”

Savannah found her voice. “Who are you?”

Valeria smiled, teeth gleaming. “I’m what came before you. And what may come after.”

Damien snapped. “Get out.”

Valeria looked amused, not angry. She leaned in, kissed Damien’s cheek—lingering.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” she purred. “You always come back to the ones who know how to bleed for you.”

She left without looking back.

Savannah stood frozen. The collar. The warning. The look in Damien’s eyes.

“You lied to me,” she said softly. “She was yours.”

Damien exhaled, dark shadows under his eyes. “She was a mistake.”

“And what am I?”

His voice was low. Dangerous.

“Mine.”