Scandalise Me

Then he started to move past her, headed for the door, dismissing her that easily.

“Wait.”

Zoe rose and reached out for him as she spoke, but he saw her and shifted, throwing out one of his remarkable hands—widely held to be miracles in their own right, or so she’d read—to clasp hers in midair. As if they’d choreographed it.

And sensation poured into her, a white, wild heat, turning her to stone where she stood. Turning her body against her. She felt that simple touch like a hammer. It coursed through her, and before she could think better of it, before she could think, she jerked her startled gaze from their hands to his face—

And everything sizzled. Bright. Hot. Painful.

Impossible.

Hunter’s gaze narrowed. Turned dark.

Hungry.

It took every single bit of hard-won pride and determination Zoe had not to rip her hand out from his much bigger one, to reclaim it, to shut off this insane thing that lit her up in the worst possible places, from the hollow of her belly to the secret places below. Behind her knees. The curve of her neck. The suddenly taut and aching crests of her breasts, thankfully hidden behind the thick wool of her dress.

But she didn’t kid herself. He knew.

And she hated that she could react like this to a man like him. That her body didn’t seem to care what she knew about him. That she’d learned nothing from all these long, hard years. That she simply burned.

“I prefer not to be manhandled, thank you,” she said, her voice even and precise, as cold as the winter winds in the concrete canyons of the city outside this club, and he would never know what that cost her. “Particularly by strange men renowned for their long years of compulsive promiscuity and generally loutish behavior.”

He dropped his hand, but there was still that new light in his eyes, intense and certain, focused on her as if he saw all the things she’d hidden, her secrets and her scars. As if he knew she wore a mask. As if he could see it—and therefore, her—when no one else ever had.

That shook her, hard, but she fought to keep it from her face. Her eyes. Her rigid body that wanted things she’d never wanted, that she didn’t know how to want.

“I’m renowned for other things, too,” he pointed out, almost gently.

And she’d read about that, of course. His supposed sexual prowess. And she hated the fact that she could imagine it, too vividly now. Insistent. As if she was like other women, and could yearn—

Enough.

Zoe made a small noise that was too scornful to be laughter.

“Rich, bored men are remarkably predictable, Mr. Grant. I can assure you, I’ve seen every possible permutation of human perversity, and what has to be almost every last ‘dungeon’ on the island of Manhattan. Whips, chains, spanking benches, it’s all so tiresome.” She smiled, big and fake. “And though I’m sure your particular kinks are fascinating, I’ll just take your word for it.”

He laughed then, abruptly. And she didn’t understand why she imagined she heard something there in that sound, something more and deeper than the tawdry, tedious legend of Hunter Grant, professional asshole. Something that suggested he was more than that when she knew, firsthand, that he wasn’t.

He was the key to her revenge. That was all he was. And nothing else mattered. She wouldn’t let it.

“There’s only one way you’re going to learn about my particular kinks,” Hunter was saying, his voice shifting into something smoother, darker, connecting directly to that thing still too bright and too dangerous inside her, making her painfully aware that it was her own hunger. An impossible, alarming hunger for the very things she refused to let herself want. That she didn’t want. He waited until she was looking at him again. “But you’ll have to ask nicely.”

She told herself she felt nothing then. No lick of fire. No kick of need.

Nothing, damn it. Not for a man like this.

“There is absolutely no chance of that ever happening.” Her voice was flat. Cold.

He shook his head, though his blue eyes gleamed, and it was still like a shower of sparks inside her—and would terrify her, she was sure, if she let herself think about it.

“If you say so, Ms. Brook.” But he smiled, confident and sure despite that darkness she sensed in him. Or maybe because of it. “Yet I find I’m suddenly much more interested in your...services.”

It was time to remember who she was, who she’d become. What she’d been through. She wasn’t sure why being near this man made her forget. She arched a brow.

“I don’t ask nicely, Mr. Grant. I’m the one who’s asked. And honestly? I prefer to be begged.” She smiled then, the way he had. “You can start on your knees.”

This time, he really did laugh, and yet he still didn’t look anything but hungry as he regarded her from far too close, like some kind of ravenous wolf. Zoe couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this. Daring, off-balance. Something other than in complete and total control.

When she knew perfectly well she would die before she’d let that happen. Never, ever again.

“I don’t need any PR,” he said, very softly, as if it was an endearment. “If that’s really what you’re offering.”

She didn’t know why she couldn’t seem to pull in a full breath, why her eyes felt too bright, why the way he was looking at her then made her feel as if she was turned inside out. Exposed and vulnerable. How was that possible?

“It is.”

“That’s too bad.” He was so big and entirely too beautiful, and she’d never been aware of another man the way she was of him—of every single part of him, especially that heated way he looked down at her. “Because if you wanted to see for yourself what the fuss was all about? Regarding my particular, predictable rich-man kinks? That, I could probably do.”

It wasn’t the first time a man had propositioned her. But it was the first time she’d felt a burst of flame lick over her when he did, and she was terribly afraid he knew that, too. That he felt the same slap of heat.

She couldn’t let that happen, it was impossible, so she shoved it aside.

“Is that caveman code for ‘sleep with me so I can put you back in your proper place?’” she asked, cool and challenging and back on familiar ground, because she knew this routine. She could handle this. Jason Treffen had taught her well, one painful lesson at a time. “Because you should know before you try, dragging me off by my hair somewhere won’t end the way you think it will. I can promise you that.”

Hunter looked intrigued and his head canted slightly to one side, but that wolfish regard of his never wavered—bright and hot and knowing. Reaching much too far inside her, deep into her bones, like an ache.

It was that last part that made her wonder exactly how much control she was clinging to, after all.

“I don’t want to drag you off somewhere by your hair and have my way with you, Ms. Brook.”

The smile on her lips turned mocking, but she was more concerned with the sudden long, slow thump of her heart and the heavy, wet heat low in her belly. “Because you’re not that kind of guy?”

There was something more than predatory in his eyes then, hard and hot, a dark knowing in the curve of his mouth that connected with that deep drumroll inside her, making it her pulse, her breath, her worst fear come true.

“I’m absolutely that kind of guy. But I told you. You have to ask me nicely.”

He smiled, as if he was the one in control. And she couldn’t allow it.

“No,” she said, furious that it came out like a whisper, thin and uncertain. His smile deepened for a moment, like a promise.

“Your loss,” he murmured, and that aching fire swelled inside her, nearly bursting.

And then he laughed again, dismissing her that easily, and turned to go. Again. For good this time, she understood, and she couldn’t let that happen.

Zoe had no choice.

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Grant.” She didn’t know why that dryness in her mouth seemed to translate into something like trembling everywhere else, when she’d known before she’d approached him that it would probably come to this. She waited until he looked back at her, and pretended the blue gleam of his eyes didn’t get to her at all, with all that weary amusement, as if he could see right through her when she knew—she knew—he couldn’t. That no one could. She made herself smile. “I know about Sarah.”