Her Master's Collar (On the Hunt) Read Online Free PDF Page B

tell me when you’re damn good and ready. I should have known. Guess some things really don’t change.” She pushed out of the chair, shouldering aside the waiter as he tried to enter the small cubby area to refresh their drinks.
    Roland’s voice sounded behind her, but she pressed on as she didn’t possess the courage to face him. His refusal to answer said it all. She’d been a fool to think everything could be normal between them. Pretending would be impossible. There were too many unanswered questions hanging between them. Too many raw emotions.
    The small electronic passkey unlocked the door to the suite. Her breath came in loud pants in the emptiness of the large room. She closed her eyes against the building burn low in her gut. She would not lose it. Not here and most definitely not now.
    “Korene, are you all right?”
    Roland’s deep voice resonated through the wall speaker. Her chest constricted, making it hard to breathe. Her stomach rolled, the elegant dinner she’d had just an hour ago threatening to rise. She thought she’d been ready to talk to him, convincing herself of it after her outburst in the car. But the moment he’d shut her down, the last ten years had crashed into her. The weight of each and every year suffocated her, making her feel as if his departure had only happened yesterday.
    At least in her office, with other people around, she’d been safe. Here, surrounded by strangers, she felt vulnerable and reduced to nothing more than a quivering mess who didn’t know how to hold a simple conversation with a past lover.
    “Korene.”
    The gentle caress of his voice saying her name shocked her into movement. She gave a tight-lipped smile as she decoded the door. Lines of worry drew his eyebrows down on his forehead, aging him far more than his forty-three years. She backed away to allow him to step fully inside the room, but he stopped just across the threshold and waited.
    The press of silence spread between them, causing her to struggle with asking him to leave. She’d asked for him to help her. They had to work together because of her choice to contract his team. Demanding an answer from him had been wrong and she needed to rectify things. “I have to spend time in close quarters with you until this is over. I thought knowing would help to clear the air, but I was wrong. You don’t have to answer me.”
    She started to put distance between them, but he reached out to wrap his hand around her arm. The heat of his touch caused her to shiver despite her annoyance. “You need to sit down so I can explain.”
    The command and authority in his voice irritated her, erasing some of the desire that kept flaring deep in her core. The way she kept reacting to him pissed her off even more. She ground her teeth together, yanking her arm from his firm grip. “You lost the right to order me around when you uncollared me, Roland.”
    “Is that so?” Evidently losing his grasp on his temper as well, he slammed the door and crossed to her with two quick strides. She inhaled sharply when he stepped near, his body pressing hard against hers. He smelled of a damp, chilly autumn breeze swirling through maple, pine and cedar trees.
    Christ, she’d missed his scent. It still made her knees weak after all this time. Her body warred with itself, ready to punch him one minute even as her pussy clenched tight at the thought of how mindless he could make her. Memories of what their life together had once been like nearly choked her with their power. Those memories became more pronounced when his thumb slid along her jaw.
    His alluring touch reminded her of the excruciating agony he’d caused with his abrupt exit. She used it to fuel her anger instead of the arousal coiling low in her abdomen. She couldn’t afford to give herself over to those emotions and feelings. To the tingling heat building between her legs. To the emotion clenching tightly around her heart.
    “I spent years dealing with how you left.