OUT NOW!
Ah, the last of my dog park babes, but not the least. Harper. Here's her story and how she finds her happily ever after because here that's what I'm all about. She meets her match in rough and tumble Caleb Shaw. You might need an oven mitt for your e-reader as it's going to get overheated.
There will be a release event from October 21st-26th, so if you're interested in participating, you can sign up here at:
But this isn't the end. Oh, no. I've got four wedding novellas for you coming up with Poe's wedding day and honeymoon in Fetched, out October 28th. Then there will be Ian, Conner, Aiden, Jesse, Nate, and finally Mak and their poor, but tough and challenging heroines. These heroes put the word alpha into AlphaGroup Investments. And let's not forget the dogs--we've got a Great Dane, Doberman, Bearded Collie, Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, Weimaraner/pitbull mix, Border Collie, along with many other breeds and maybe a cat or two. I'm sure there will be more engagements and marriages coming up as I go into the second set of books. And, what's to stop me from going into a third set and a fourth, etc. Bwahahahahah! Nothing!
Please take a moment to add Collared to your Goodreads Shelf
Genre: Contemporary Romance, light mystery
Release Date: October 14, 2013
Description:
Diamonds are a dog’s best friend.
Harper
Sinclair discovers that her champion, award-winning standard poodle,
Ch. Edgewood Sky High Blue is missing her $50,000 diamond dog collar
that was given to her by Harper's eccentric, indulging grandmother along
with valuable pieces of jewelry. Harper calls the robbery division of
the NYPD and reports the thefts. The detective they send is surly and
tough with a pair of brown eyes that make even this calm, cool
socialite's lungs claw for air.
Rough and tumble
Detective Caleb Shaw has better things to do than run over to the
penthouse of a frigging socialite to find a frigging collar for a
frigging pampered poodle---award winning or not. He has real cases to
solve, but when he gets a load of the poodle's owner, his interest in
the case...heats up. Satin sheets or not, he wants Harper. But there is
more to this robbery than the dog collar. Has someone close to Harper
pulled an inside job?
Can a lovely socialite collar a hard-boiled detective or are they worlds apart?
Where to buy:
Amazon
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Itunes: Coming soon!
Excerpt:
Caleb walked into McGinty’s looking forward to throwing back a few beers, playing a little pool, and catching a few innings of the Yankees on the tube. When he walked in the door there was a mob of guys near the pool table. He’d already sent out feelers regarding Harper’s jewelry and was letting the street work its gritty magic while he hunted down his main snitch, Lang. He smiled at Mickey the bartender and ordered a beer. Mickey slid it down the bar, and Caleb lifted it to his mouth.
But before he could swallow, he sprayed the beer out in utter shock and horror.
The knot of men had opened, and there was Harper Sinclair, bent over the pool table in painted-on jeans and a frilly white top that left her gorgeous shoulders and back bare.
He looked down the length of her body, over the incredible curves of her ass to the backs of her shapely calves, to her three-inch animal skin sandals.
He wanted to devour her, to start at her delectable, full-lipped mouth and inch his way down to her pink, polished toenails.
He set his beer on the bar, while his gaze still wandered around her body. He was hovering on the edge of seducing her. He didn’t think it would take much if that impromptu dance last night was any indication of how much she wanted him.
“F**k,” he said soft and slow under his breath.
“She a friend of yours, boyo?”
“I wouldn’t classify her as a friend.”
“Well, it’s past time she hit the road, don’t ye think?”
“Yes, I do. Leave it to me.”
He strode over there, the anger at her recklessness building with each step. She had no idea how much danger she was in, with half these men being drunken louts and the other half lecherous bastards. He ogled her when they’d first met, but you could bet the rest of them were already at least one giant step ahead of him. He shouldered the men aside and grabbed the pool cue right out of her hand.
Her blue eyes collided with his and his heart ratcheted up a couple notches. Damn…why did she have to do that to him?
“Hey, buddy! You messed up her shot.”
“She’s done,” he said over his shoulder and some of the guys took one look at him and backed off, but there were always men who either weren’t smart enough or were too drunk to recognize the danger they were in.
One of them shoved him. Caleb pivoted and grabbed the guy by the shirtfront, giving him a back down or else look. His best I’m-a-f**king-badass-and-I’ll-f**k-you-up look, that he’d perfected not only on the streets of the Bronx, but also in the mean, unforgiving streets of New York City, as a rookie cop, and now as a detective.
The dude backed off, but in the tussle someone else grabbed Harper, and she let out a soft cry of surprise when the other guy pushed her against the wall.
Caleb’s protective instincts gripped him and he lunged forward, hauling the guy off her. That was it. That was all it took. Harper had these guys so jacked up, it had been only a matter of time before someone threw the first frustrated punch. The whole bar erupted into a free-for-all. Harper was frozen against the wall, her mouth in a little O of surprise, her eyes wide with alarm
A chair came flying out of nowhere straight towards her and Caleb jumped in front of her, grunting as he took the impact against the side of his body. It drove him back a few steps, and he snarled in pain as the chair slammed into his hip and glanced off his injured shoulder. He grabbed at his shoulder and stood there trying to breathe around the agony. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t completely healed. Pain radiated up and down from his shoulder to his calf, his hip throbbing where he’d taken the brunt of the blow. A bottle flew at them and he ducked it, grabbing Harper’s hand and dragging her low.
Trying to will the excruciating pain away, he met her eyes, and the sympathy there made his heart skip a beat. He didn’t need her feeling sorry for him. He rose and started to shove their way to the back alley door. She clutched at him like he was a lifeline.
Someone grabbed her again, and he reacted instantly, ignoring the pain. This time the guy was big, and he didn’t look intimidated by Caleb’s six-two, muscular build.
Then the guy hauled off and punched him in the face. Caleb was thrown sideways, swearing as pain vibrated through his cheekbone and he tasted blood from a cut lip. When he turned back around, he ducked and led with an uppercut, his knuckles stinging, the impact sending more pain into his shoulder, and he clutched it again. The guy was hardly fazed. Damn, this was going to require more than just a punching contest, and he had to get Harper out of there. Now!
The next punch the mountain man threw, Caleb got behind him, grabbing onto his thick neck, and wrapped both arms around the guy’s throat, ignoring his shoulder’s screaming agony. But he held on until the guy’s knees buckled and he passed out. Caleb glanced up to find Harper standing there staring at him like he was as dangerous as a crocodile, her eyes still wide and so blue. He grabbed her hand again and pulled her toward the side exit into the alley. When they exploded out the doors, he swung her around and pressed her back up against the brick wall.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?!” He was beyond pissed. As much because she could have been seriously hurt with all those meatheads in there throwing around punches and chairs and beer bottles. His gut clenched thinking of even a scratch on her.
“You told me to meet you here!” Her eyes were blazing, and he had a feeling some of her reaction was adrenaline
“I wasn’t serious!” He scoffed. She got in his face then, and his breath caught. Geezus! She was lucky he’d stopped by. She would never have gotten out of that bar alive, not with that face and that body and her freaking annoying attitude.
“Well, I was!” She shoved at his chest, but he had no intention of moving away from her just yet, not with all that racket still going on in the bar. The movement dislodged the silky braid thing she had going on with her hair, though, and more hair slid down around her flushed face.
It wouldn’t take much to get all that plaited hair to come tumbling down. And suddenly he was hard-pressed to stay on task.
“Do you hear the ruckus you started in there?” She shoved him again, this time with both hands, but they didn’t budge him an inch. Her eyes blazed blue flame, and he knew it was really messed up that he couldn’t get enough of feeling her fire.
“That wasn’t me!” she yelled. “That was you!”
“You started that bar fight the moment you sashayed in there looking like that.” He gestured with his hand up and down her body.
“Like what? Isn’t this the appropriate attire for a night playing pool?”
“
Attire?” He ran his hands through his hair. “
Unf**kingbelievable! Are you under the impression you were playing ‘billiards’ with gentlemen?”
“They were on their best behavior until you came along and did that snatchy thing with my pool cue.” She realized what he had just said and she made an indignant face. “And what’s wrong with how I’m dressed? It’s appropriate for a bar.”
He just stared at her, speechless. Didn’t she get it? She looked so warm and alive. Her mouth so soft. The curve of her jaw so delicate. Her cheeks, the silky fall of the unraveling braid against her throat were he wanted to put his mouth. The wind played with the long strands, dancing on the white ruffles of her top. He planted his hands on his hips to buy time to get a grip, but his chest just grew tighter. She was so female, she had to bring out every primal instinct in any man who looked at her. Including him. Especially him. He wasn’t civilized. He was a cop and he had cut his teeth on the street. Rough, coarse and brusque. He didn’t know how to handle a delicate and refined princess like Harper.
She was elegant, sophisticated and cultured, and he was a guy who ate ravioli out of a can and slept in the buff, for chrissake. He couldn’t have her. Hell, he didn’t even know her, and if she was half as smart as he thought she was, she sure as hell wouldn’t want to know him—and he didn’t blame her. He was no catch, even on a good day, even if she could overlook the fact that he was just a cop. This case that brought them together would eventually be over.
So that just left hot, sweaty, out-of-control sex.
“Everyf**kingthing! Do you have any idea how your ass looks in those jeans, especially when you were bent over the pool table putting it on display for everyone…and that top leaving your shoulders bare! Awww, hell, you could have walked in there wearing a burlap bag. It wouldn’t matter! It’s the way you look.”
She wasn’t just pretty. She was beautiful, and he was insane. There was no other way to account for his slow, unstoppable landslide into desire. It was impossible for any sane man to look at her and not think about satin sheets, naked skin, and getting deep inside her.
“I always look like this!” she shouted, like he’d just insulted her.
“That’s exactly the problem!” he bellowed back. They stood there for a few minutes, both breathing hard.
“You need an escort for that kind of bar, and any fool man who brought you here deserves to be throttled.”
“What? I don’t need an escort.”
“Harper! That’s a rough bar and it was open season on you. I knew you wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“I was playing pool for thirty minutes before you got here!”
“I don’t care!”
She gripped his polo shirt. “Stop yelling at me! You are the most exasperating man I have ever met!”
He got right in her face and shouted. “You are the most exasperating princess I have ever met!” Too close. He was too close, and that was completely the end of his patience. His resolve broke at nothing more than a whisper of her heated breath between them.
With a soft exhalation, he said, “F**k!” and he dropped his mouth on hers, his kiss hard, a bit out of control. She tasted amazing, rich, forbidden, and decadent. Something raw and consuming overtook him. Whether it was a part of his nature or his reaction to the taste of Harper, he didn’t know. He didn’t give a flying f**k. He had to have her. He pressed into her, and her response tightened everything in his body.
Her low sob broke against his mouth, and he shoved his hands into her hair, and all of it came tumbling down, warm and silky. Strands of buttery yellow cascaded over the backs of his hands, jacking up his breathing and the fierceness of his mouth sliding over her lips.
The flowery scent of her filled him like invisible energy with a complex mix of light, wild musk that said “woman” to him, one-hundred-percent pure female. And a deeper, un-nameable element that was simply her. Now that he’d breathed her deep into him, he wasn’t sure he could do without it.
He held her still as his mouth sizzled, hungry, and ravaging against hers. Locking her arms around him, she yielded, melting against him like hot, expensive chocolate, her hands delving into his hair, trailing fire over the nape of his neck. Her touch drove him bonkers.
Widening his stance, Caleb dragged her up against his groin, his dick so hard it ached. He forgot where he was. Forgot who he was and just sank into the sensation of her.
He was so f**king crazy, he told himself. He couldn’t think of a damn thing she’d done to slay him like this. In truth, she hadn’t done anything except be herself, and he might have accused her of being provocative, but that was just her nature. But he was slain at her feet all the same.
He gave himself up to the biggest mistake of his life. He was in so much trouble. He needed somebody to come and save him—because he wasn’t going to save himself.
No f**king way.
Here are the other Going to the Dogs series books
Leashed for Callie and Owen's story (Currently free)
Amazon
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords
itunes
Groomed for Murder for Brooke and Drew's story
Amazon
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords
itune
Hounded for Poe and Jared's story.
Amazon
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords
itunes
And, here's the first book in my New Adult Romance A Perfect Secret series:
A Perfect Mess
Amazon
Nook
Kobo
Smashwords
itunes
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