RELEASE EVENT~COLLARED By Zoe Dawson
The Adult Contemporary Romance/Mystery, Collared (Book #4, Going to the Dogs) by Zoe Dawson has been release! To help celebrate, we have an excerpt and giveaway below.
Title: Collared (Going to the Dogs, #4)
Author: Zoe Dawson
Release Date: October 14, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Mystery
Age Group: Adult
Cover designed by: Robin Ludwig
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?
EXCERPT
Someone jostled him and pushed him roughly into her. He caught her against him to keep them both upright just as the music softened into a slow dance. She grasped his shoulders to maintain her balance and discovered they were rock-hard with muscle. Her breasts were pressed against his chest.
He didn’t let her go.
“What’s happening here, Ms.—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, call me Harper. I think you can figure it out. I heard you were a hotshot detective.”
He laughed and that earthquake inside her turned into a tsunami, an overwhelming force of nature.
“How about I call you princess? That tone makes you sound like you’re sitting on a throne and I’m your doting subject. As long as I don’t have to curtsy when I’m in your presence.”
“I have other ways to bring you to your knees.”
He bit his bottom lip and shook his head. “You are coming on to me.”
“If there was any doubt, I must be doing it all wrong.”
“Wrong isn’t exactly the word I’m looking for here. Stupid. Now that’s a word.”
Was he actually turning her down? That was something else that had never happened to her before. This man was full of surprises, but she liked it. Men didn’t really play hard to get. That was a woman’s thing, so what was going on with him? “Aren’t you attracted to me?
“F**k, yeah, but I like my job, and getting involved with you isn’t a good idea.”
“How would this affect your job?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but when the commissioner pulls me in from medical leave to work a case with a missing dog collar and a socialite, I have to think that he’s not going to be too keen about me messing with said socialite.”
She draped her arms over his shoulders as they moved slowly together. Her hand played with a lock of his soft hair. “You’re not afraid of the commissioner.”
He just stared at her.
“That would mean you were afraid of me.”
He gave a short laugh. “I’m not afraid of you.” She moved closer to him. “Look, I get it. We have some chemistry, and you’re a very beautiful woman, and a man would have to be blind not to notice.”
“Ooh, I like the compliments better than the sarcasm. You do both well, though.”
He chuckled. “Charm has its uses.”
“As you so recently implied, I’m a brat and I do like to have it my way, so I think I will call you Caleb.”
“As long as you say my first name with the same regally bored tone you use when you say ‘detective.’”
“There is nothing boring about you.”
“But.”
“There’s always a ‘but.’”
“But, Harper, truth of the matter is you don’t fit into my life and I certainly don’t fit into yours. I work the streets and you live in the clouds. So you stay on your pretty side of the tracks my side is much too gritty.”
“I don’t accept that. If this was reversed, and you were a rich man and I was a cop, there wouldn’t be any need for this discussion.”
“But it’s not reversed. Like I said, you wouldn’t last five minutes in my world. So, Harper, back to the subject at hand. A list of your staff and friends.”
Anger suffused her and made her stomach churn. She was even more determined now to show him that he was wrong.
Author’s Favorite Quotes from Collared
Part 2
“Either you’ve gotten much furrier overnight, and that’s terrifying, or I’m feeling up your poodle.”
Zoe: This quote just makes me laugh every time I read it. Yeah, funny.
_____
He left and Harper went up to a mirror that was near the locker room. She checked her hair to make sure it was all still in place. Then she narrowed her eyes at her reflection and brought her hands up in a fighting stance. She started dancing back and forth and thumbing her nose. “Do you feel lucky, punk?” She jabbed at the mirror. “Take your best shot. Yeah, that’s right. You look yeller.” She jabbed again. “I’m taking that championship belt and there’s nothing you can do about it, punk. It’s KO time.”
“Hey, Rocky. You’re intimidating the hell outta that mirror.”
Zoe: This whole exchange takes place at Caleb’s fighting gym as one of Harper’s “fitting into his world” challenges and shows their character so well. Love the way she checks her hair in the mirror before going into her Rocky stance. And, Caleb’s short quote is so “him.”
_____
She pushed back her chair and headed toward him. When she got there, she went right for his mouth, no greeting, no preamble, just heat and moist lips.
He crushed her to him. Her hand went into his hair.
“I was just thinking about you,” she whispered against his mouth. “Are you busy?”
Zoe: Sigh, love the way they are together, intimately and without words before she says something.
_____
“You’ll never fit in here, Shaw. No matter how you try. You and Harper won’t last. What the hell do you have to offer her?” He eyed theScotch in Caleb’s hand. “She has expensive tastes. How are you going to handle that?”
Zoe: This hits Caleb hard and is his black moment. Little does he know that Harper has all the money in the world. What she doesn’t have is love and money can’t buy that.
**BUY LINKS**
About the Author
Zoe Dawson is the alter ego of Karen Anders, award winning, multi-published author. Her writing journey started with poetry and branched out into fiction. With a couple of college English courses under her belt, she penned a historical, then moved onto contemporary romance fiction. Today, she is happy producing romantic suspense, romantic mystery, urban fantasy and paranormal novels. The words feed her soul and the happily ever afters feed her heart.
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