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.”
Sarah.
That name seemed to echo through the club, drowning out the music, slamming everything else straight out of his head. It seared through Hunter’s whole body like a lightning strike, only much darker. Much worse. Much more damaging.
He should have known.
If he hadn’t been so thrown by the appearance of Zoe Brook—like a jolt of caffeine, dressed in slick dark colors that only emphasized the powerful punch of her smoky, blue-gray eyes and lips painted a dusky shade of red—he would have seen this coming, surely. She was wearing too many too-expensive clothes, for starters, which meant she wasn’t flashing any skin. She hadn’t thrown herself at him in lieu of a greeting. There was absolutely no reason at all she should get to him, much less make an entire club filled with far more conventionally beautiful and accessible women simply...fade.
And yet she’d been the only thing he could see, from the moment she’d locked eyes with him.
But women like Zoe didn’t approach him at all these days, much less in places like this. They didn’t seek him out. They thought they knew all they needed to know about him, and he went out of his way to confirm their low opinions. They condemned him from nice, safe distances, way up high on their moral high grounds, and he liked it that way. He didn’t want to be near anyone he could ruin, not ever again.
He should have known.
Sarah was still the noose around his neck, all these years later. Forever. Deservedly—and he’d been kidding himself, thinking that he could avoid it now that he was back in New York. Imagining he could ignore the terrible truth. Blowing off his old friends’ attempts to finally do something