Spotlight & Giveaway: A Worthy Opponent by Katee Robert

Posted February 21st, 2020 by in Blog, Spotlight / 58 comments

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Katee Robert to HJ!
Spotlight&Giveaway

Hi Katee and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Worthy Opponent!

 
Thank you so much for having me!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

This book is a marriage of convenience story that’s got a dash of enemies to lovers. It’s the third book in my Wicked Villains series, and Hook is our hero. He’s got a plan for revenge against an old enemy, but he needs Tink to make it happen. But things get complicated when they end up in bed together.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

“I want you.” He reaches out and runs his fingers through my long blond hair, his many rings glinting between the strands. “On your knees. In my bed.” He catches my left hand and I watch dazedly as he lifts it and strokes my ring finger. “My ring on your finger.” He gives a slow grin that has my stomach tying itself in knots. “I want everything, Tatiana. Absolutely fucking everything.”

 

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

  • It’s the third book in a series that reimagines what would happen if fairy tale villains won instead of their heroic counterparts.
  • When I initially planned the book, Hook was a total jerk, but the character took on a life of his own and he’s totally giving the heroine heart-eyes the whole time.
  • I had to do some really interesting research into BDSM and bondage for some of the scenes.

 

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Hook LOVES how snarky Tink is. She’s mean and he eats it up with a spoon. He’s also a big fan of her physically as well.

Tink really enjoys Hook’s sense of humor despite herself. He’s also got a rocking body and a habit of pulling her deepest fantasies, seemingly out of thin air.

 

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

This scene is one that makes me LOL every time I read it, because their banter is so on point.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what.” He sound so mild, it makes me feel like I’m overreacting.

I know I’m not overreacting. “You’re trying to tame me.”

His eyebrows damn near disappear into his hairline. “You’re not a horse.”

“No shit, I’m not a horse. You can’t just fuck me and take care of me and expect me to fall all over myself to please you.”

Just like that, his expression crinkles and he loses it. His booming laugh bounces through the space, bouncing off the tiled walls. “Tatiana, you have some funny ideas about the uses for a horse.”

 

Readers should read this book….

If they love villains, kink, and sexy good times.

 

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I’m currently finishing up The Beast (Wicked Villains #4). This year will see the releases of the final three books in that series (Beast+Gaeton, Malone, and Ursa). I also have an amazing shared-world series with four awesome authors coming in March!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

 

Giveaway: $15 Amazon gift certificate

 

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Who is your favorite villain?

 
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Excerpt from A Worthy Opponent:

His dark gaze flicks over my face before he nods slowly. “I’m here for a reason.”
I wait. As difficult as it is to hold my questions hostage, I force myself to do it. He came to me. He can be the one to break this stifling silence that stretches between us like taffy. Sticky and binding and horrible.
Finally, Hook curses. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
“Then say it the hard way.”
“I can give you what you need.”
I blink. If I’d allowed myself to anticipate his next words, those wouldn’t even have made the list. “What are you talking about?”
“Revenge. His head on a platter, literal or otherwise.” He doesn’t smile, doesn’t do anything to lessen the offer. “If you want him chained in a basement for four years while I personally deliver every single injury that he dealt out to you, I can do that, too.”
I can’t think. Can’t do anything but stare. “You’re drunk. That’s the only explanation for you spitting this madness at me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m simply offering you something that even Hades won’t.”
Surely he can’t know I asked Hades for more than sanctuary five years ago. I begged and pleaded and wept at his feet, desperate for him to remove the threat of Peter permanently. I know better now. Hades doesn’t act directly against any of the territory leaders. It’s the only way he’s able to keep his precious neutral ground. I can respect that now, but I still can’t forgive him for denying me the very thing Hook is offering now. There’s only one question that remains; the most important one. “Why?”
“Because it’s what we both want.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t even appear to breathe. “But I require your cooperation to make it happen.”
Here it is, the trap I sensed but couldn’t see. He offers me the one outcome I want more than anything in the world as bait and slips a shackle around my ankle at the same time. “No.”
“You may not have a choice.”
“Wrong. I always have a choice.”
Hook shrugs. He’s not as big as Gaeton, but his frame is roped with muscle. “He might hesitated to cross Hades, but you’re about to lose Hades’s protection. He’ll come for you. You know he will.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right. Peter will come for me, if not because I’m a toy that was taken with him before he finished with it, then because I tried to take away his new toy. That, he’ll never forgive, and he certainly won’t forget.
It wasn’t something I was thinking about when I heard about the new girl. All I could focus on was that I knew exactly what she was going through, exactly how scared she must be to realize her Prince Charming was far more terrifying than anything she left behind. In those dark years, I hadn’t allowed myself to pray, but if I had, I would have prayed for someone to get me out. So I tried to do that, to save her, to be the person my younger self needed.
I should have known better. She’s not me. Or, more accurately, she’s not me now. She’s me five, six, eight years ago, when I attacked everyone who came close, because to do anything else was to welcome his suspicion and jealousy. To invite more pain.
Still, I can’t quite stop blaming myself for her presence in his life. If I hadn’t left, Peter wouldn’t have needed to fill my place. She’d still be free.
I shake my head as Hook’s words penetrate. “You can’t honestly think he’s going to come after me.”
He doesn’t blink. “I know he will.”
A shiver of fear works its way down my spine. I haven’t felt true terror in so long, but I recognize it intimately. “You show up here and offer me his head on a platter… Why?”
“Putting Peter six feet under benefits both of us.”
I flinch at his name. Foolish to let something as simple as a name, five little letters, take on this kind of importance, but I can’t shake the feeling that speaking his name will summon the man himself. It’s everything I can do not to look over my shoulder.
Jameson—Hook—might be here under the guise of offering me help, but I know better than to expect it to come without strings attached. No one in our world offers something for nothing. Power, submission, sex; tit for tat. The form of repayment doesn’t matter, only that repayment is expected.
I try very hard to keep the belligerent tilt to my head, to not let him see how spooked I am by the topic of our conversation, by the threat hanging over my head. “You know, if you wanted to fuck me this bad, there were easier ways to go about it.”
He booms out a laugh and, despite myself, the joyful sound chases away some of the chill in my bones. He’s always been able to do that, to turn on the charm and exude joy like it’s Christmas morning or some shit, rather than whatever bleak reality we currently occupy. It’s one of the reasons I distrusted him so intensely before—why I distrust him now; no one can survive Peter’s court with that kind of joy in their heart. It’s impossible.
He lets his laugh trail off and grins at me. “I don’t want to fuck you, Tink.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Yes, I do,” he agrees easily. His grin never wavers. “Let me clarify; I don’t just want to fuck you.”
It’s a fight to stay on my feet, to stand strong against the sheer force of him. I make myself hold his gaze despite every instinct demanding I fall to my knees. “Stop playing coy and spit it out. What the hell do you want, Hook?”
Now he moves, stalking slowly around the bed toward me. His shadow grows behind him with every step closer to the light at my back until it threatens to swallow my world whole. When he finally stops, he’s so close, I could lift my hand and touch him if I want.
I really don’t want to want to touch him.
“You.” He reaches out and runs his fingers through my long blond hair, his many rings glinting between the strands. “On your knees. In my bed.” He catches my left hand, and I watch dazedly as he lifts it and strokes my knuckles. “My ring on your finger.” He gives a slow grin that has my stomach tying itself in knots. “I want everything, Tatiana. Absolutely fucking everything.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or knee him in the balls. For saying all this shit I definitely don’t want to hear. For calling me by a name I buried five long years ago. For all of it. “You’re joking.”
“Life would be easier if that were true.”
Yeah, it really would. But Hook’s similar to Gaeton in the way he moves through our world. His charm and devil-may-care personality makes people underestimate him. It always has. There’s no amusement in his dark eyes now. No, he’s as serious as death.
I draw myself up. I have to. Standing this close to him is like standing in the eye of a hurricane. Scary. Powerful. Filled with promise of pain to come. I shiver. “You talk a good game, but it doesn’t mean anything. It never did.”
“You think I’m trying to… What? Seduce you?” He tugs on my hair. Not to hurt. Simply to let me know that he could. It should scare me. I’ve lived through a relationship gone off the rails, the home I thought I’d claimed morphing through a funhouse mirror into a nightmare prison that took everything I had to escape.
I still haven’t escaped. I simply gave myself a five year hiatus.
Hook tugs on my hair again, his dark brows lowering. “Fine. Let’s be explicit. I will give you everything I said and more, on the single condition that you marry me.”
Shock has a laugh bursting from my lips. “Marry you. You really are drunk?”
“You know better.”
I hate that he’s right. Hook might have all the appearance of a hard-partying asshole, but despite always having a drink close by, he’s never once been drunk enough to so much as change his speech patterns, let alone get sloppy. I could chalk that up to the Underworld’s strict two-drink policy for those who want to participate in scenes, but plenty of the others show up to drink in the lounge from time to time. Not Hook.
He releases me and takes a slow step back, every move telegraphing that he’s choosing this, not me. “That’s the bargain. Take it or leave it.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Once upon a time I was a girl who believed in love and happily ever afters.

Now the only thing I believe in is revenge.

Unfortunately for me, there’s only one man willing to help me. Hook. I should have known it wouldn’t be out of the goodness of his heart. He doesn’t have one. No, Hook wants his ring on my finger and me on my knees before him—and he won’t take no for an answer.

I’m willing to pay any price in order to bring our mutual enemy down…even if it means I lose my soul in the bargain.
Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Katee Robert is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Entertainment Weekly calls her writing “unspeakably hot.” Her books have sold over a million copies. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, children, a cat who thinks he’s a dog, and two Great Danes who think they’re lap dogs.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | GoodReads |
 
 
 

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58 Responses to “Spotlight & Giveaway: A Worthy Opponent by Katee Robert”

  4. Mary Preston

    Black Jack Randall for me. Nothing to love about this villain. He is the epitome of evil.

  16. laurieg72

    Darth Vader from Star Wars fame- movie

    Taka O’Brien ICE BLUE Anne Stuart- book

  21. Audrey Stewart

    My favorite book villain is Jadis the White Witch, from the C.S. Lewis book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician’s Nephew.

    • Lynne Brigman

      Loki is my favorite villain you just love to have him. Tom Hiddleston plays the part so well.

  36. Anita H.

    I don’t really have a favorite villain but if I had to choose one I’d pick Ursula

  40. Colleen C.

    No one specific… just love ones that keep you guessing till the end.

  43. Natalija

    An arms dealer by the name of Louis Ronsard in All the Queen’s Men by Linda Howard.

  45. mathlady68

    I am torn between Jericho Barons from Karen Marie Moning or Vicious from LJ Shen. Neither are classic bad guys but they are both bad bad men.

  51. Terrill R.

    I really have a hard time with villains. My empathetic nature becomes indignant for the protagonists in a story. So, I’m going to say Sean from Penny Reid/LH Cosway’s The Hooker and the Hermit. I couldn’t stand him in that book, but then the author’s redeemed him in The Player and the Pixie.