Excerpt of Scandalize Me by Caitlin Crews

Ten years ago, one devastating night changed everything for Austin, Hunter and Alex. Now they must each play their part in the revenge against the one man who ruined it all. Read Caitlin Crews's glittering contribution to the Fifth Avenue trilogy in: SCANDALIZE ME

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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.

"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, 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 the 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 made herself smile. "I know about Sarah."

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The second step to revenge in the Fifth Avenue trilogy. Hunter has the money... July 2014

Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.