~~~ Walk Another World ~~~

Love Under All-New Moons & Stars!

Welcome to ILoveShape-shifters.com!

Paranormal/Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Romance Author

Michele Hart
Seeks
Danger, Thrills, and Adventure.

Bad Good Guys. Scary Bad Guys.
And unforgettable chills.

Shadow, risk, and mystery...

Can I interest you in a sssexy and dangerous shape-shifter escaped from a prison-planet for your winter affair? How about a brawler with a badge who can read your thoughts? Imagine yourself trapped on a space station with your high-school crush and only hours to live.

Find me when you’re ready for a risky mind control adventure battling the CIA. Feel like fighting the Mob today? Does your heart secretly desire to be frightened by demons, rescued by angels? A gangland executioner named Heretic awaits you.

Discover passion, dare, and adventure under all-new moons and stars. Investigate me.


Who are the Nephilim?


Nephilim - The offspring of the marriages (or rapes) of the daughters of Man by the sons of the Maker, the fallen angels.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Welcome, Angels Versus Demons Blog Hop!


Ride the Angels versus Demons Blog Hop!
Drop a comment on this blog
and your name will be added to a drawing for
a Kindle Touch  and a drawing for
a $60 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card.
 Comment on each blog (all 103) and be entered 103 times.
SO PLEASE WRITE YOUR NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS
IN YOUR COMMENT POST.



Greetings, Blog Hoppers and Romance lovers!

Welcome to my blog.

 If you're looking for angels who aren't exactly angels,
check my heavenly warriors for a helluva time.

If you want demons, they are all around you,
looking just like us.

Pick up a FREE novella below and drop your email address into a comment for a drawing to WIN an e-book copy of one of my angels and demons/sci-fi adventures!






Who will stand on the front lines
against evil
in the future?

Daniel Tierney and his fellow I-Marshals take down the organizations producing the most dangerous substance in the Alliance. But reporter Faith Vedder turns up at the worst times, including Danny’s near-assassination. He’s had enough of her interference and requires her source of information.

Faith won’t tell him anything that compromises her Pulitzer-worthy story, not even under the magic of hot attraction. She doesn’t know she’s surrounded by fallen angels at war. Danny’s not finished making demands. She doesn’t understand until a giant, snorting, winged monster slobbers down her back, threatening to flay her.

The gangbusters can’t delay in their mission to shut down gangs until Danny learns the new criminal kingpin of their world is a man who once held Faith’s heart. In the guise of a gangland executioner named Heretic, Danny will destroy him. Even if it destroys Faith.

Angels are watching. Demons are plotting. Faith is the key.

***

Are you in the mood for heat?
Here's a steamy excerpt from Gangbusters.

***

[This excerpt is rated R for just the beginning of unabashed sexual stimulation.]





“Stand over here, in the candlelight.”
Faith went to the spot where Danny pointed, and she stood in her Pulitzer gown for his inspection. He gained his feet, produced a thornless red vine rose from the side table, and he twisted it around the dress strap, then he returned to the bed and took in the sight of her. A rose was a gift of love, not a gift of acquaintance or friendship. The flowery fragrance enhanced her longing for him. The candlelight silvered his gray sight in a tactile way, but she always did feel his eyes when they were fixed on her.
“Do you like the gown?” she couldn’t help asking. His concentrated attention through overlong salt-and-pepper bangs caused her nipples to rise and brush against the soft cloth, quickening her for his capture.
“Very much. You look stunning in the dress, Faith,” his baritone voice murmured. His lips pressed together, revealing the tension it gave him. “The threads of the lace shimmer in the flame glow.”
Oh… Soft, flickering light seemed to cling to him instead of illuminating much else in the room. His breathing livened. His study of her lasted so long, she began to shy from his devoted gaze. “Have you had enough yet?”
“No. You aren’t enforcing a time limit, are you?”
She broke into an embarrassed smile, and his sly gaze said he enjoyed his torture of her.
“I’m divided. I want you to eat, but I want to take that dress off you.”
“Some people think they have problems.”
Rising from the bed again, he collected the covered plate and eating utensil, and set them in her hands held out before her. Then he removed the cover to present a dish in the meatball family. His smile bordering on the diabolical, he loaded the utensil and put it to her mouth. Her sharp eye on him, she accepted a flavor she’d never encountered before, savory, mysterious, delectable. So was Danny.
Stalking, he roved around until he was behind her, and he leaned, pressing his nose to her exposed neck, inhaling her freshly bathed scent as she chewed. The act carried such an animal-feel to it. The alpha-male predator had brought his chosen a meal...and he savored his upcoming reward for that.
Having already been beneath him, arrested and detained by him, she chewed quicker. Was she sweating yet? She soon would be. Oh, gawd, she already throbbed, her body programmed now and eager for his possession. Did he know he owned her? She bet he knew.
His hair danced over her bare shoulder. “You smell like delicious dinner.”
Every word he uttered with that deep voice was verbal chocolate, making her ache all the more for him. “You always have an invitation to feast upon me, Danny.”
She felt his lips thin into another secret smile against the sensitive flesh as he pressed sizzling kisses up her neck to her ear. “Every night I’ll figure out a way to put you in my bed.”
Should she tell him how easy that will be?
Weakened, she scooped up a forkful of dinner and fed him over her shoulder. He groaned his approval, and he sent his big hands to span and stroke her figure in the silky gown, a sensuous experience that blotted out everything for the moment but his contact and body heat. She would memorize a list of the things that made him groan. Hearing it launched cascades of thrill through her. His exploration slipped downward from behind her and onto her belly, pressing her against his long, hard physique and sliding downward to the heat between her thighs. She almost dropped the plate.
Mm…Danny and good food together. That was total pleasure.
Again, he commandeered the fork and sent a bite to her mouth. As she chewed, he placed a sucking kiss below her ear. Then she forgot to chew, taken by the fantastic shower of ecstasy he inflicted, and she had to remind herself again to chew. His breath on her body enticed her to a new level of want.
Another bite administered, he drew the zipper of the dress all the way down her back, and he slipped his hands into the dress, around her, and cupped her breasts.
Oh…” The rough surfaces of his palms and fingers abrading her tender flesh played with her nipples, stoking the fire.
“Take another bite.” His whispers rushed lightning through her.
Hands slid from her dress, and she turned to watch him pull his T-shirt from his torso, all iron-worked muscle, pale flesh, a thin scatter of body hair she wished to feel scrubbed against her. Again. His lion’s mane skimmed broad shoulders. His silvery sight never left her. Before, they’d made love in shadows, and she hadn’t seen him wholly nude. Just shirtless, he was beautiful, blessed with a holy kind of glamour that activated her soul.
Oh…
He fed her another bite of dinner, then he released the clip holding back her freshly dried hair, and his long, tapered fingers caught her tumbling tresses. Stirred to a corrupt snicker, he took in the scent of her hair as though it told him everything about her, as if it fed every hungry part of him.
“How can your T-shirt say you’re faster than light when you’re so torturously slow with me?”
“I know, the longer I take with you, the more you’ll moan in my ear. And I like that a lot. It’s a triumph to feel you under my power, Faith.”
That just made her moan.
He took the empty plate from her hands and set it aside on the table, then he put her in his arms. He’d said he wouldn’t let her go to Max’s without making love to her. The intent in Danny’s eye revealed his plot to ruin her freshly bathed scent.
“Are you enjoying the moment of marking me for the demons to detect?”
“Enormously. I’ll kick them in their heads if they touch you.” His demon-slaying grin gave away his entertainment. She knew he meant for Max to get that message, as well.
“This is like unwrapping the most fun present.”
She loved being explored by him, adored it, and she noticed each lithe movement of his heavenly warrior-body, marveled at how well he’d been put together for hunting criminals and hellish merchants of misery. She’d never discourage him from doing that duty. Those monsters better run and hide.
Danny wasn’t a monster. Was he?
She reached for his jeans and unbuttoned them, feeling him hard beneath the metal teeth of the zipper. He pushed the jeans to the floor for the unwelcome interference they were. Her mouth went dry at the unveiled sight of him, worthy of an artist’s sketch, all muscle, brains, instinct, skill, action.
Danny was better than perfect. He was physically superior.
But what was he on the inside? The progeny of an angel, the breed of a demon. She recalled her brief study of the heavenly races. If Danny turned out to be more angel, what would that mean? Angels did many benevolent things, but they also struck down populations with disease, disaster, and genocide. A single angel wielded the power to destroy cities, cause famine, flood a planet.
Angels were heaven’s hit men.
Danny snatched her up by the waist, capturing her, pressing her against him, and snickering over his plans for her.
Oh… She could barely wait.
***
Don’t stop. Read more.
Is Danny a monster?

Even the highest of angels
worries Danny is a monster.

What are you waiting for?
The angels of madness are calling.

Drop a comment with your e-mail address, and I'll draw a name for a free e-book of Vigilant, my angels and demons/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure. Explore Vigilant.




Have a heavenly time following
the Angels Versus Demons Blog Hop.

Read and live an adventure.
Michele Hart

 In the end,
  it’s either you or the demon that comes for you.
 


Saturday, May 5, 2012

Happy Chocolate and Roses Day!



 There should be at least five days dedicated to celebrating chocolate and roses, two of the best things in a woman’s life, don’t you think? Five days a month sounds righteous to me. ;-) I hope you’re loving the Chocolate and Roses Blog Hop and discovering great new authors and fresh stories. Stick around for a chance to win a copy of my latest release. Thank you, Lea Barrymire, the goddess-author who brought us this wonderful blog hop! If you’re not coming from her blog, do check her out.

My name is Michele Hart, and I write gritty, high-action Paranormal/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure and Suspense. Welcome to my blog. I have angels & demons, shape-shifters, monsters, horrendous villains, hunky heroes who love risk, and the smart heroines who love them for it.

Pick up a FREE READ here! http://www.MicheleHart.com/b22-book.htm

In celebration of chocolate and roses, I’ve chosen an excerpt for you coming from my Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure Luminous Nights, a book filled with chocolate… No, that came out wrong. Let’s say, the hero Jack wields wicked alien chocolate bars. And they aren’t his only incredibly sexy tools, believe me. Not by a long-shot. This mystery man commands a frightening arsenal of skills and technology to complete his mission. Part of his mission is Rachel.
Here’s your blurb:
Cop or convict?
How many faces can one man own?

An assassin wearing a holographic mask and a prison tattoo boards Rachel’s freighter during a prison riot, intent on collecting gadgets capable of changing a man’s identity from the black-market gang who'd stolen them. Rachel’s never sure of Jack's identity nor his goal, but he claims to be an Alliance I-Marshal. Cop or convict? The clues never stop contradicting. She's horrified to find the bright holographic mask conceals the gruesome face of a monster. And the badge doesn’t slow him from murdering people right before her eyes.

When Rachel learns Jack will trade innocent lives for the digital miracles, she determines to make the mercenary grow a heart.  How could a stone-cold killer kiss her so hotly? How could she kiss such a dangerous deceiver?

Jack has done years in prison to learn who’d stolen the remaining Gemini ticks, 3-D magic. Nothing will keep him from gaining extreme technology capable of unleashing galaxy-wide chaos. Forget feelings for Rachel. She can’t stop him from killing everyone involved.
***
What the heck, watch a video...


 Here's a chocolate excerpt for you.
Jack forever has a trick up his sleeve. He’s a master at bending circumstance to his will. He must tell Rachel he’s going to kill someone she loves, but first…
[ This excerpt is rated R because Jack is a bad boy in nearly every way. ]

“I’ve a new treat for you.” 

The look in his sky blue eyes touring her in her black nightie hinted of mischief and debauchery. Whatever his treat was, no doubt it was designed to put what Jack wanted right in his hands. He seemed to hold unlimited weapons built for that purpose.

Rachel stretched out on her side atop the bed, watching him and the ballet of his bare-chested sinew beneath sun-kissed flesh. He lay opposite her on his side, facing her, very close, pitching sizzle in his gaze. His finger traced the wrinkles of the black silk she wore. The alien chocolate lay an arm’s reach away, lending the moment its delicious aroma. Her eyes roamed his half-naked form, every cell of her body reigniting to his silent bid. Goose bumps raced over her flesh, shooting a pulse of pleasure through her.

“You always wield the most powerful incentives, Jack.”

Smiling as though he held all the secrets to the universe, he reached into the same hip pocket of his pajama pants where he’d earlier carried chocolate, making it melty, and he drew another gold foil-wrapped treasure. This time the foil was wrapped with a green ribbon, and she didn’t know what it was.

“This is Eltanin’s best mint chocolate.” His eyes flashed, upcoming ecstasy there.

Her head fell backward, experiencing the expiration of resistance at mention of such a thing. Returning her sight to him, she confessed, “I’ve never had it.”

He peeled the wrapper away to find the mint chocolate gooey. He took a glob of it on his finger and, his eyes daring her, set the finger a fraction from her lips, the aroma of mint tickling her nose. 

“What do you want for a piece of mint chocolate, Jack?” She was eager to hear the deal on the table. She could see his joy in her question. 

“Everything you have.”

“I believe I’ve been giving you that for the last few days.”

“No, you’ve been lending it to me. I want it all to be mine.”

She took his teasing finger into her mouth and sucked the chocolate from his fingertip. Her taste buds flooded with delight of the finest aphrodisiac chocolate and a mint flavor so powerful, it turned every breath into an arctic wind blowing through her body already set afire by his nearness. The sensation filled her head with conflicting reports of hot and cold throughout her being. His smile was pornographic.

His arm propped up to support his head, his prismatic vision wandered over her nightgown, seemingly very disappointed.

“Rachel, no work of art should be hidden.” His expression was long-suffering to teach her that lesson. “What had I been thinking when I’d bought the nightie? As pretty as it is on you, the nightie has to go. You can wear it another time. Art must be displayed.”

He snickered as he sat up beside her and tugged the soft fabric from her body. The swatch rode the air down to the floor beside the bed. She fought the urge to cover up, but his gaze and the artwork he’d put on her body made her feel so beautiful, she surrendered to his sight. She lay nude before him, leaning against the headboard of the bed, atop a mound of pillows. To be fair, he said, he stripped himself of his pajama bottoms in record time and rejoined her on the bed. His unveiled golden body made her throb. The sight of his ready erection struck her with the most hungry, empty feeling. The heat he generated won over the arctic breeze of the chocolate.

He surveyed and approved his inspired work, red-berry-and-ink swirls and symbols still vivid on every section of her body, drawn like the scars of Aztec warriors. She liked the way he filled his sight with his artistic enhancement of her. He made her feel…ethereal.

“Are you cold? I’ll heat you up, my Aztec goddess.” His smooth, deep voice shot her through with anticipation.
“Nobody heats me up like you do, Jack. I’m not cold at all.” 

His talented hand went to her side, stroking the hourglass of her figure, sending the most engaging tension through her. Her breath quickened as his hand took accounting of his new territory.

He took up another glob of the mint chocolate onto his finger and redrew the sun over the berry stains on her breast. Her heart pounded so hard for him, she could see its thump in her chest. Then he sucked the mint chocolate from her breast, lighting thrilling fireworks of tension and pleasure through her, making her call out for him as she locked her fingers onto the blond spikes of his head. The lap of his tongue, his capture of her with his lips, the gentle suck of his mouth stole her mind from the room. 

He must have heard enough of his name in pleading tones because he pressed her into the pillows, and he filled her mouth with his mint chocolate kiss again, passionate and hungry. As though he couldn’t wait another minute just to be there, he fit his body between her legs, and she trembled. Her knees came around his hips in welcome. She could feel his erection hard against her and growing stronger, multiplying the craving and ache within her. Her hands spread over his hairy chest, and she savored the friction of their bodies. Then she noticed their hearts pounding in unison. His weight atop her turned her on entirely. She slid her hands down to the hard river-rapids of his stomach, stroking the soft hair there, enduring the tension and lightning he gave her. 

He finally broke his marauding kiss. The air she sucked in, enhanced by the mint, chilled her again, then quickly thawed to the wildfire he set in her body.

His weight taken on his strong arms, he delayed, just sent his sight wandering down her decorated body, drinking her in. Then he buried his nose in her hair, taking in a deep breath.

“Rachel,” he said low into her tresses from above, “I can just imagine myself as a warrior-priest about to give an offering to an Aztec goddess upon her altar.”

The vision was fabulous. Rachel dressed in feathers and beads lying upon a stone altar, Jack wearing war paint above her, taking her like a holy sacrament.

Then he penetrated her, launching an explosion through her body and soul. She forgot to breathe, gasped his name, experienced the wild wave of pleasure he put into her. When she sucked in a breath again, the cold sensation of the mint flooded her body, sending shock and splendor through her again at the collision of fire and ice. 

Locking her in his arms, he squeezed her in the ecstasy of his filling of her. She didn’t have to stay quiet this time, so she let it out in an unrestrained cry. He held her there, nestled in his firm embrace, giving her time to experience that pleasure fully. Waves of rapture finally ebbed. For now.

Delaying, he propped himself up on his elbows to gaze down upon her, and he swept stray hairs from her eyes.
She recognized his supernatural glow, thinking him an unbelievable sight. Smiling, he dipped his finger in the mint chocolate again and put it to her lips. She sucked the cool delight from his finger, refreshing her body’s response to the delicacy, its cooling infusion, while his hard body dominated her. Then he gave her another hot kiss, and the chocolate and Jack mixed together filled every cell of her body. 

Powerful above her, he unleashed himself, making her cry out his name with every plunge of his body into hers and driving the most exquisite waves of pleasure she’d yet endured. The cool and hot multiplied every sensation into shivering bliss.

When he’d reduced her to sweaty, sated moans calling on Heaven, he gave up his fight to hold back and his embrace of her tightened, giving her one last soar through imaginary mountain breeze, the power of his orgasm shaking her. 

After waning flights of release brought them back to the room, Jack rolled onto his side against the bed pillows and tugged Rachel into his arms, settling her close to him, throwing a leg over hers to keep possession of her. Quiet, he propped an elbow over her head to bear some of his weight, and he sent that hand to slide through her hair. The other hand roved down her breasts, over her belly, and over her thighs, tracing his deifying artwork. His contact was the most incredible thing. 

She stretched her legs against his hard thigh wrapping them. “I love the way you capture me, Jack. You wrap your whole body around me as though you’re containing me.”

“I have you under my arrest.”

She giggled at his employment of law enforcement metaphors. He’d probably spent half his life cracking cop jokes. 

He’d probably spent the last five years in prison fantasizing of touching a woman again…

“Is this a cop-and-criminal fetish of yours? Maybe a domination scenario that gives you power?” 

She pulled from his arms just a little and gave him a interrogative smile. “Jack… Does your job turn you on?”

He burst into an amused chuckle of denial, then he pressed her back into his arms, back to her place, and he nuzzled his face again into her hair. 

“No, it doesn’t have a thing to do with my job,” he said, very close to her ear, his breath brushing her neck. “I think it’s more about wanting to make contact in every way with something that’s all mine.”

She was all his. For once, she didn’t question his sincerity, chose not to search his words for meaning. It was such a beautiful thing to say, and she didn’t want to ruin the music of it with any negative thought when he was the source of so much light within her. 

Jack was all she wanted now. What could take away their ecstasy?

The end was seconds away.
 *** 
[ Now for shameless self-promotion. ]
Don’t stop. Read more.
Luminous Nights
finaled in the Golden Quill Contest for Best Sci-Fi.
Find out why.
Explore steamy, peril-packed excerpts, check out awesome reviews:
  http://www.michelehart.com/b15-book.htm
Read the First Chapter:
http://dreneebagbypresentsfirstchapters.blogspot.com/2010/08/luminous-nights-by-michele-hart.html

Buy Link: http://www.BookStrand.com/luminous-nights
Available @ BookStrand, Amazon Books, Barnes & Noble,
nearly everywhere exciting adventures await you.

Leave me a comment and tell me about your favorite chocolate—dark, milk, white, with caramel, with peanut butter—or your favorite roses, and I’ll draw a name every day of the Chocolate and Roses Blog Hop and give away an e-book copy of my newest, hottest release, Gangbusters. Check out Gangbusters here! http://www.MicheleHart.com/b28-book.htm

Love, chocolate, and roses to all the ladies!
Michele

Here’s your kick-off for more chocolate and roses.


Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Welcome to Carrie Ann’s Birthday Hop!



     It’s Carrie Ann’s birthday! A kabillion people here on Earth are celebrating. And nearly everyone’s walking away with a prize. That’s my kind of world-wide party! Check out the birthday excerpt, throw down a comment about your favorite chocolate along with your e-mail address. I’ll put your e-mail address in a contest drawing to win an e-book of my high-action, high-sizzle adventures with sexy, daredevil heroes you’ll not soon forget. There’s even a free read at the end of this excerpt, so hang in there to the end. Let's see if I can interest you along the way.
     Carrie Ann, dahlink, I wish you a thrilling day infused with minor, harmless wickedness and great memories that last a lifetime.
     How old is our blog hop mistress, you ask? (I heard you ask.)
      And a beautiful 21, I must add.
     Here’s a birthday scream for the Birthday Girl. Please join me.

An authentic birthday scream, generated at my surprise birthday party.
1995, I think. Somewhere around there.
     In honor of the lovely and talented Carrie Ann--twenty-one years old, I swear--I present to you a birthday excerpt from my gritty, sexy, roller coaster Sci-Fi Romance Luminous Nights. LN was a Golden Quill Contest finalist! Find out why. The reviewers consistently swore they’d never forget the chocolate love scenes. Can’t figure out why they stuck in the mind. What’s so compelling about an artist painting his heroine’s body with seductive alien chocolate? Do I have any chocolate in the house? It's time to search my hiding places.
     Isn’t it great when someone gives you the exact gift you need in the best possible timing? What if it was the most expensive the giver ever gave? What if it cost him everything?

Beware avenging angels.
Cop or convict?
How many faces can one man own?
     An assassin wearing a holographic mask and a prison tattoo boards Rachel’s freighter during a prison riot, intent on collecting gadgets capable of changing a man’s identity from the black-market gang who'd stolen them. Rachel’s never sure of Jack's identity nor his goal, but he claims to be an Alliance I-Marshal. Cop or convict? The clues never stop contradicting. She's horrified to find the bright holographic mask conceals the gruesome face of a monster. And the badge doesn’t slow him from murdering people right before her eyes.
     When Rachel learns Jack will trade innocent lives for the digital miracles, she determines to make the mercenary grow a heart.  How could a stone-cold killer kiss her so hotly? How could she kiss such a dangerous deceiver?
     Jack has done years in prison to learn who’d stolen the remaining Gemini ticks, 3-D magic. Nothing will keep him from gaining extreme technology capable of unleashing galaxy-wide chaos. Forget feelings for Rachel. She can’t stop him from killing everyone involved.
     Here’s your birthday bite.
     Jack’s a mystery to Rachel, a hot, cold mystery. She believes the only things on his mind are vengeance and lust and trickery. She’s wrong about that. In this scene, he gives her an unusual birthday present:
***
     The boy led Rachel, symptom list and diagnostic wand in hand, into the hallway leading to Jack’s new prison cell. 

     All business, she stalked into the library to find Jack sitting in a big chair before a roaring fire, studying a book of odd drawings. Triad detainment light-bars were positioned around his chair and table, restricting his movement. The collar preventing his passage over the light-bars blinked under his chin. The remote control punishment-torture switch lay on a faraway table, tempting when she thought of the trouble Jack had given her.
     “Luminous,” she addressed him, halting before him on the safe side of the glowing bars…and loathing to call him by his fake identity.
     He looked up from his book and gave her his soul-stripping azure eyes, inflicting a rash of goose bumps and a flush of her cheeks. For a second, she went weak. His butchered and chaotic blond spikes of hair made his eyes more powerful. Oh, Gawd, every time she looked at him, he stole her mind, and she had to take it back again. She should never have submitted to his hypnotic chocolate kiss. Now she had to guard her heart and soul against his skillful manipulation.
     All her mind thought of was his chocolate kiss when she wasn’t focused on something else. Luckily, she had a thought-stealing problem.
   “These children are dying, Jack. I need the ship’s medical computer.”
     He lifted his wrist, mashed the appropriate button on the communications watch he’d stolen from her, and spoke to the ship, “Evie, allow Rachel access to all medical databanks.”
     “Yes, Jack,” the Caprice replied in the feminine voice simmering with want he’d programmed in his takeover of her ship, but Rachel was too tired to give him the jealousy he wanted. She still fantasized of taking back that communicator, fruitless brain work when he was very tall, full of muscle, half again her size in every direction. She didn’t have a chance against him.
     Then he unstrapped the bulky watch, tossed it through the barrier to her, and she caught the watch with ease. No protest, no defiance. No ridiculously high price would he demand for what she needed. She'd expected more of a fight. She’d already pre-approved begging and tears for this purpose. He could have gotten anything from her. Even what he wanted. Funny that he hadn’t sensed that. He hadn’t even put a selfish proposal on the negotiating table.
     She sat on the couch beside a wonderful churning fireplace crafted from marble, unscorched by the raze Quattro had given most of the buildings. Jack quietly spectated from his cell as she uploaded the diagnostic blood test report and entered the list of the children’s symptoms.
     In a few short seconds, the medical computers confirmed a hyperactive death of protein in the patients’ cells and recommended several common antibacterials, many of which she’d recently purchased to replace expired stock. If she’d been in a rush to shelve the shipment, it would not have been left on the counter. Luckily, it all had been swept into the medical bag she’d brought with her. It was her first instance of procrastination paying off in a big way.
      Jack didn’t launch a challenge or say a word.
     When she formed a battle plan against this bug with the computer’s help, she signed off and placed the communicator on his side table. There was no use in keeping the comm watch. He’d locked her out of nearly everything else on the Caprice.
     But he’d enabled her to do the one thing she really needed, help the sick children. His swift capitulation made her believe, if she needed the medical computer again, he’d hand the wrist communicator back to her, despite her capture of him and the ongoing battle between them.
     She owed him, even though he’d put no debt to his concession. Hundreds of sickened children would recover because of his mercy this moment.
     Rachel cast her sight to his light eyes, and she could watch the flames of the hearth reflected there, boiling, tempestuous. She loved watching fire in his eyes. She was divided on whether she should apologize to him for taking him captive, but what good could it do? She wouldn’t release him. He wasn’t trustworthy.
     “Thank you,” she said genuinely, then she turned and headed for the door to put the cure into play.
     “Happy birthday, Rachel Marie,” she heard Jack say. “Sorry your gift was late.”
     She paused at his words. On her birthday, they’d been on Desmonda Station running from crooked police in an all-out fire fight through the port. Jack had killed a half dozen men or more. They’d narrowly escaped.
     She could barely believe he’d set no price on access to the med comps he controlled, had handed it to her without strings. He’d immediately given up territory in the war between them when she’d needed him to. He didn’t have to cede the power he held. He could have made it cost her much. He must possess some kind of heart working with the cold mind of a government assassin. And, unfortunately for her waning resistance, the kiss of an angel, the hands of a demon.
     “It was a generous gift perfectly timed, Jack,” she replied, grateful for his mercy for the children. “It was exactly what I wanted.”
     Then she paced out the door.
* * * *
     Watching the door close behind her, Jack rose from the chair, dragged himself to the side table, and stared at the communicator. Then he cast his sight to amber eyes peering from the darkness at him. Jet, the big black dog nearly invisible in a shadowed corner, watched him. He’d forgotten the security canine guarding him was in the room when Rachel strolled in with her everything-Jack-wanted.
     “I remember the exact moment she’d mentioned her birthday. I’d been busy saving our lives at the time. I’d promised her a nice gift. I hope she likes it.”
     Strapping the comm watch on his wrist, he went back to his seat and dropped down wearily.
     “She’ll never know just how damned expensive that gift is, what it’ll cost me personally, professionally, and spiritually. She just got the best of this deal, and probably doesn’t know it yet.”
     Jet gave a mournful moan for his plight, and Jack raked a hand through his spiked hair.
     “If I ride out the hostage game with Rachel, I’ll be postponing, maybe surrendering the one thing I’ve wanted all my life, the thing I’ve trained for, my hardwired goal. To kill a man who should’ve died twenty-three years ago. How many people have suffered these past twenty-three years since that kid missed the shot?”

    Jet moaned an answer, but he didn't know. No one knew how many lives might have been saved.
     Jack stared into the fire, his too-vivid memory of missing the shot when he’d been twelve, looped and repeating in his head, until he became cognizant of a furry chin on his knee. He hadn’t noticed Jet rise to his side, settle at his feet, and offer his sympathy. He scrubbed the Dane’s big-boned head, thankful for the company of another soul.
     “Everything changed somewhere along the way, buddy. I think it was the moment I stepped onto the Caprice. I’ve found something I want more than I want vengeance. Bigger than my demands on justice.”
     Jack wanted Rachel and the freedom of soul he still didn’t possess, though he’d left prison bars behind weeks ago.
     Jet couldn’t speak to him, but the canine could communicate. In the ear-flicker sign language taught the canine officers, Jet told Jack to hold his cards, play his game.
     Hold your cards, play your game.
     Jack decided he’d do just that. Play his game.
     Rachel’s going to gasp when she sees his full hand. She didn’t have a chance to win this game. The deck was stacked when she drew her cards. He wanted her, and it wasn’t about five years in prison without a woman. He’d mastered the mental and physical training to deal with that. This magnetism he felt with Rachel was something much stronger than physical things. It was about life, breathing in beautiful moments with her in his arms, living through the bad times holding her hand.
     He was going to have her. He’d make her love the idea. He had plenty of magic chocolate to change her point of view.
     “It’s your fault, you know…”
     Jet put his knobby paws over his head and issued a bay.
     “You should feel guilty…I’m here because of you, you troublemaker. And I’m still killing Quattro and his men. She can’t stop that. Nothing can stop that.”
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
     C’mon, read more. Jack has more tricks up his sleeve to melt Rachel’s ice. I didn't mention chocolate love scenes earlier, did I? Does anyone have any chocolate? Not that my mind is easily redirected....
Find out why Luminous Nights finaled in
the Golden Quill Contest for Best Sci-Fi/Futuristic/Fantasy.
Explore steamy, peril-packed excerpts and a tense first chapter,
check out awesome reviews, watch a kick-ass book trailer:
http://www.michelehart.com/b15-book.htm
 Buy Link: http://www.BookStrand.com/luminous-nights
ISBN#: e-book 1-60601-884-1 * Print 1-60601-885-X
Available @ BookStrand, Amazon Books, Barnes & Noble,
nearly everywhere exciting adventures await you.
CONTEST!   CONTEST!   CONTEST!

     Drop your e-mail address in the comment section of this entry, tell me your favorite kind of chocolate, the brand, variety, (dark or milk?). Any chocolate stories you'd like to tell? Bring on your chocolate porn, ladies! :-), and you’ll be entered in a drawing for my butt-kickin’, angels & demons/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure Gangbusters, the third book in my trilogy I-Marshal Stories.
      Check out Gangbusters here: http://www.MicheleHart.com/b28-book.htm
     Here, have a free read:   http://www.MicheleHart.com/b22-book.htm
     Everyone, have fun on Carrie Ann’s Big Day!
Love, passion, and peace on Earth.
Michele Hart

     Here are more authors around the world celebrating Carrie Ann’s Big Day. Hop around, explore new authors. Pick up a book or two, and live new adventures you’ll never forget.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Welcome, St. Patrick's Day Blog Hop!


     Hi, everyone! Happy St. Patrick's Day! We're Number 103!
(We're just jazzed to be in the show! Scroll down for hot, unpredictable heroes, harrowing adventures, and free stories!)


(Pretty, huh?)

    My name's Michele Hart, and I write gritty, high-action Paranormal/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure and Suspense. If you love angels and demons, cop stories, subjects just below the radar, wander through my universes.    


     I hope you’re having a fabulous time discovering new and great authors to fill your days and nights with risk and reward, steam and surprise. Follow the directions at the end of this blog entry and learn how to enter the contest for a FREE BOOK! In the blog entry below this first one, there's a FREE READ you can take home.

     Let’s start off with my favorite Irish joke:

     An Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walk into a bar and order pints for all. The Englishman spots a fly in his pint, and disappointed, he sets the glass aside. The Scotsman spots a fly in his pint, ignores it, and guzzles it down. The Irishman spots a fly in his glass, snatches it up, hangs the bug over the glass edge, and shouts, “Spit it out, ye bastard!”
 (I love that one.)

     I’ve great memories of St. Patrick’s Day 2003. Dressed in our green Ren Fest garb, my boyfriend took me to Four Green Fields, an incredible Irish bar in Tampa, and I was mistaken for someone famous. It was shoulder-to-shoulder packed with people! I wish I were there right now. If you’re ever in Tampa, stop by Four Green Fields for an authentic Irish bar. It’s good to be Irish! If you’re not, you can pretend you are on St. Patty’s Day. If you can throw a good Irish brogue, all’s the better.

***


     Don’t you love the name Danny? I always think of it as an Irish name, and I’m pretty sure that’s exclusively due to Oh, Danny Boy.  Daniel is my favorite angel name, and I couldn’t resist writing a hero named Danny with an angel on his shoulder. So here’s a blurb from my Angels & Demons/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure, Gangbusters.


In the end, it's either you or the demon that comes for you.

     Daniel Tierney and his fellow I-Marshals take down the organizations producing the most dangerous substance in the Alliance. But reporter Faith Vedder turns up at the worst times, including Danny’s near-assassination. He’s had enough of her interference and requires her source of information.
     Faith won’t tell him anything that compromises her Pulitzer-worthy story, not even under the magic of hot attraction. She doesn’t know she’s surrounded by fallen angels at war. Danny’s not finished making demands. She doesn’t understand until a giant, snorting, winged monster slobbers down her back, threatening to flay her.
     The gangbusters can’t delay in their mission to shut down gangs until Danny learns the new criminal kingpin of their world is a man who once held Faith’s heart. In the guise of a gangland executioner named Heretic, Danny will destroy him. Even if it destroys Faith.
Angels are watching. Demons are plotting. Faith is the key.

Here’s a big bite of Danny:
***
[This excerpt is rated R for just the beginning of unabashed sexual stimulation.]

     “Stand over here, in the candlelight.”
     Faith went to the spot where Danny pointed, and she stood in her Pulitzer gown for his inspection. He gained his feet, produced a thornless red vine rose from the side table, and he twisted it around the dress strap, then he returned to the bed and took in the sight of her. A rose was a gift of love, not a gift of acquaintance or friendship. The flowery fragrance enhanced her longing for him. The candlelight silvered his gray sight in a tactile way, but she always did feel his eyes when they were fixed on her.
     “Do you like the gown?” she couldn’t help asking. His concentrated attention through overlong salt-and-pepper bangs caused her nipples to rise and brush against the soft cloth, quickening her for his capture.
     “Very much. You look stunning in the dress, Faith,” his baritone voice murmured. His lips pressed together, revealing the tension it gave him. “The threads of the lace shimmer in the flame glow.”
     Oh… Soft, flickering light seemed to cling to him instead of illuminating much else in the room. His breathing livened. His study of her lasted so long, she began to shy from his devoted gaze. “Have you had enough yet?”
     “No. You aren’t enforcing a time limit, are you?”
     She broke into an embarrassed smile, and his sly gaze said he enjoyed his torture of her.
     “I’m divided. I want you to eat, but I want to take that dress off you.”
     “Some people think they have problems.”
     Rising from the bed again, he collected the covered plate and eating utensil, and set them in her hands held out before her. Then he removed the cover to present a dish in the meatball family. His smile bordering on the diabolical, he loaded the utensil and put it to her mouth. Her sharp eye on him, she accepted a flavor she’d never encountered before, savory, mysterious, delectable. So was Danny.
     Stalking, he roved around until he was behind her, and he leaned, pressing his nose to her exposed neck, inhaling her freshly bathed scent as she chewed. The act carried such an animal-feel to it. The alpha-male predator had brought his chosen a meal...and he savored his upcoming reward for that.
     Having already been beneath him, arrested and detained by him, she chewed quicker. Was she sweating yet? She soon would be. Oh, gawd, she already throbbed, her body programmed now and eager for his possession. Did he know he owned her? She bet he knew.
His hair danced over her bare shoulder. “You smell like delicious dinner.”
     Every word he uttered with that deep voice was verbal chocolate, making her ache all the more for him. “You always have an invitation to feast upon me, Danny.”
     She felt his lips thin into another secret smile against the sensitive flesh as he pressed sizzling kisses up her neck to her ear. “Every night I’ll figure out a way to put you in my bed.”
     Should she tell him how easy that will be?
     Weakened, she scooped up a forkful of dinner and fed him over her shoulder. He groaned his approval, and he sent his big hands to span and stroke her figure in the silky gown, a sensuous experience that blotted out everything for the moment but his contact and body heat. She would memorize a list of the things that made him groan. Hearing it launched cascades of thrill through her. His exploration slipped downward from behind her and onto her belly, pressing her against his long, hard physique and sliding downward to the heat between her thighs. She almost dropped the plate.
     Mm…Danny and good food together. That was total pleasure.
     Again, he commandeered the fork and sent a bite to her mouth. As she chewed, he placed a sucking kiss below her ear. Then she forgot to chew, taken by the fantastic shower of ecstasy he inflicted, and she had to remind herself again to chew. His breath on her body enticed her to a new level of want.
     Another bite administered, he drew the zipper of the dress all the way down her back, and he slipped his hands into the dress, around her, and cupped her breasts.
     “Oh…Danny…” The rough surfaces of his palms and fingers abrading her tender flesh played with her nipples, stoking the fire.
“Take another bite.” His whispers rushed lightning through her.
     Hands slid from her dress, and she turned to watch him pull his T-shirt from his torso, all iron-worked muscle, pale flesh, a thin scatter of body hair she wished to feel scrubbed against her. Again. His lion’s mane skimmed broad shoulders. His silvery sight never left her. Before, they’d made love in shadows, and she hadn’t seen him wholly nude. Just shirtless, he was beautiful, blessed with a holy kind of glamour that activated her soul.
     Oh…
     He fed her another bite of dinner, then he released the clip holding back her freshly dried hair, and his long, tapered fingers caught her tumbling tresses. Stirred to a corrupt snicker, he took in the scent of her hair as though it told him everything about her, as if it fed every hungry part of him.
     “How can your T-shirt say you’re faster than light when you’re so torturously slow with me?”
     “I know, the longer I take with you, the more you’ll moan in my ear. And I like that a lot. It’s a triumph to feel you under my power, Faith.”
     That just made her moan.
     He took the empty plate from her hands and set it aside on the table, then he put her in his arms. He’d said he wouldn’t let her go to Max’s without making love to her. The intent in Danny’s eye revealed his plot to ruin her freshly bathed scent.
     “Are you enjoying the moment of marking me for the demons to detect?”
     “Enormously. I’ll kick them in their heads if they touch you.” His demon-slaying grin gave away his entertainment. She knew he meant for Max to get that message, as well.
     “This is like unwrapping the most fun present.”
     She loved being explored by him, adored it, and she noticed each lithe movement of his heavenly warrior-body, marveled at how well he’d been put together for hunting criminals and hellish merchants of misery. She’d never discourage him from doing that duty. Those monsters better run and hide.
     Danny wasn’t a monster. Was he?
    She reached for his jeans and unbuttoned them, feeling him hard beneath the metal teeth of the zipper. He pushed the jeans to the floor for the unwelcome interference they were. Her mouth went dry at the unveiled sight of him, worthy of an artist’s sketch, all muscle, brains, instinct, skill, action.
     Danny was better than perfect. He was physically superior.
    But what was he on the inside? The progeny of an angel, the breed of a demon. She recalled her brief study of the heavenly races. If Danny turned out to be more angel, what would that mean? Angels did many benevolent things, but they also struck down populations with disease, disaster, and genocide. A single angel wielded the power to destroy cities, cause famine, flood a planet.
     Angels were heaven’s hit men.
     Danny snatched her up by the waist, capturing her, pressing her against him, and snickering over his plans for her.
     Oh… She could barely wait.
***
Don’t stop. Read more.
Investigate steamy, peril-packed excerpts, a tense first chapter,
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What are you waiting for?
The angels of madness are calling.


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Happy St. Patty’s Day to all, and have a blast on the Blog Hop!

Read and live an adventure.

Michele