Title:  Claim
Author: Sierra Cartwright
Publisher/Year: Totally Bound Publishing 11/28/14
Length: 215 pages
Series: Bound #2

Overview

It had to be her. He won’t be satisfied until he claims her.

Kennedy Aldrich has perfected the art of dodging any romantic entanglement that will lead to marriage. That is until he sees Mackenzie Farrell at a BDSM gathering.

When they meet, he’s entranced by her intelligence and submission, not to mention her stunning good looks. For the first time, he has met a woman who captivates his interest on every level, someone he wants to share his life with.

Mackenzie is overwhelmed by Kennedy’s attentions. A failed marriage taught her to distrust men, and she’s vowed never to walk down the aisle again.

It takes all her resolve to resist the devilishly handsome Dominant. After all, the whole world knows of his legendary reputation with women. Every feminine instinct warns that this man will demand more than she can offer.

But she hasn’t counted on Kennedy’s determination to claim her and prove that love is worth any risk.

My Thoughts

I have to say that i have the same thoughts coming out of this 2nd installment to the Bonds series that i had from the first – that we get exactly what we have come to love and expect from our author in terms of the characters and story line, yet i think that there’s so much more that could have been done that it felt like a novella v. a 2nd installment.

So like the summary tells us, we have 2 characters that have their own fair share of relationship issues.  Kennedy is the successful member of the  boys club, and it’s his turn to step up to the relationship game – although it’s not something that he really went out looking for.  His mom wants him to get married off and while that’s not his motive in life, some of this friends (outside of the boys club) are taking it upon themselves to help him out.  In a way, it helps him since there has been gossip tied to him lately and that’s something that while he doesn’t care about it, he’d like to diffuse it.

That same night when Kennedy is trying to diffuse, he re-meets Dar as we meet her here, real name Mackenzee – or Zee as he likes to call her.  She’s damaged – coming out of a relationship where her husband cheated on her and while she knows that it wasn’t her, she isn’t in the market to ever get married again.  Meeting Kennedy, a dom that clearly knows what he wants and how he wants it it becomes a huge challenge for her and a sexual draw.

The journey that we go on with these 2 is a nice one – we see that Zee really needs to be pushed by someone, to be challenged since she’s really been the one to put the limits on everything in her life.  from professional to personal.  She calls the shots, she says when, and Kennedy is definitely not the sort to even abide by any of that.  Kennedy goes out of his comfort zone in the sense that he’s allowing a woman to distract him from life – to get absorbed into the romance of things and that’s a great transition for him.

There’s great scening, the way that the story is written from within The Hub (the BDSM club that things kick off in) is hot – there’s really a great variety of what can be done there, who’s involved and the rules and safety tied to it.  Maybe not as hard core as a lot of other stories in the genre, but still hot enough to make you feel like you’re right there tied up to the cross or square with these D/s relationships.

The anxiety and tension that we get comes in the form of an ultimatum which is something that Zee can’t stand for and doesn’t – and the resolution is up in the air on who will make the move, if either will and what it will mean.  While the story takes the expected path, i think that it felt a little rushed to me.  Again back to the notion that this felt more like a novella than a novel, i think that it’s because the story takes place over a path of just a few weeks to get us to this climatic place, and while in erotica that’s normal, it felt like it was still hurried.  we get great kink and sex, but i don’t know that we were taken to the level that we could have if it were expanded on.  Regardless, i think that we get to see a lot more of Kennedy and get to learn quite a bit about Zee and that in itself is a success.

The question remains as to which of the boys is next, and i kind of hope that Julien’s pilot Svetlana continues to play a role and that we get to see her as a main one of these days as well.  so….Enjoy!