Hunted: A Claiming Novella (The Claiming) Read Online Free

go through that pain again.
It still hurt. And that night transpired two years ago. Here in this very same
spot. Of course he would bring her here. To their spot.
    Ryon wrapped his hand around the nape of
her neck and gently tilted her chin up. Their eyes met and locked. He had dark
brown eyes like wet mud—and they saw through her—scaring her far worse than any
Ava ever could.
    He was large and virile, tougher than a
bull. All things she wasn’t, but craved in a man. Those deft hands covering her
body could hurt her in an instant, could steal the life from her body, or crush
her heart into a million pieces. The last he’d already proven he could do with
a few choice words.
    He may be strong and all-powerful, but
she wasn’t. Her strengths were limited and she knew where they lie—and relished
in them, as a matter of course. But she didn’t have the power to deal with Ryon
every day. He was dictating. He’d crush her spirit whether he meant to or not.
He couldn’t even deal with her profession. On more than one occasion he’d asked
her to consider other work because he didn’t like the way men ogled her. When
she’d tried to explain that they were supposed to watch her, he’d shaken
his head in disapproval.
    That happened years ago. And here they
stood today, still fighting the same battles.
     She’d played the different
possible scenarios in her head too many times to count, and each time it came
out with a bad ending for her. And so, she stayed away from the tempting
general as much as she could. When she didn’t see him for days on end, she
found herself laying up at night in bed thinking about him, wondering what he
was doing, wishing he was there next to her.
    Yes, she had it bad for him.
    But she couldn’t bring herself to be
with him.
    Penelope recognized, thanks in part to
her sisters’ constructive support, that she was too strong for Ryon. She and
Ryon were both demanding and strong-willed and too stubborn to back down. It
would never work between them. Still, he did possibly have a few qualities she
liked very, very much. Which made him all the more dangerous to her heart.
General Ryon Amadeus Ward had a special, albeit strange, place in Penelope’s
heart. But that’s exactly where he needed to stay.
    Ryon dipped his head low. The close
proximity snapped Penelope back to reality. She froze as his mouth neared,
waiting on bated breath.
    Agony. Their soft breaths collided and
mixed, his moist breath wickedly close. Every muscle in her body pulled tight
in anticipation for what was to come. A kiss. Would he really dare to try after
two, long years? And would she let him?
    Ryon closed the final inches separating
them, giving her all the time in the world to move away. Her stomach was a
jumble of nerves. She still had yet to decide what she was going to do if he
actually tried to kiss her.
    Then it came. Warm lips grazed the
corner of her mouth. He turned a touch into it, smearing his lips across her, a
brush of heat that was there, then gone so quickly she might have imagined it.
    “Say my name.” He spoke in a harsh
voice.
    This game between them had never gone
this far before. To give in to him would be to lose. She had too much at stake
to risk.
    “Say my name,” he repeated much slower
and with more force than before.
    Her legs trembled. “General.”
    This was her other problem with
Ryon. With the simplest of touches he had her panting and ready to submit.
Liquid heat pooled between her legs as tensions grew. She wouldn’t live her
life under the thumb of a dominant man. Not like her mother had. If Penelope
did one thing right in her life it was this. She could not be with Ryon. He
didn’t know how to give an inch, let alone give her the kind of freedom she needed
to thrive.
    There was a ruthless tug on her nipple.
She couldn’t fight a moan as pleasure warmed her skin.
    He was winning. Slowly she was slipping
under the spell of his seductive touch. He kneaded her breast while he held