Mmmm... Alpha Males...

Welcome, lovers of the Alpha Male!

     I’ve always thought of Romance as a worship of the alpha. The determined man, the take-charge, fight-for-what's-right, gotta-save-my-woman guy. I’ve seen some hot beta heroes, but it’s the alphas who make me stay up at night reading and breathing heavily. (Kisses to my alpha male in Port Charlotte today!)

     I hope you’re having a marvelous time hopping along the Alpha Male Blog Hop. Did you hear about all the fabulous prizes? THREE HOT Grand Prizes!

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $130 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: The following Swag Pack!

Sweet!

     What must you do to enter the drawings for these fine prizes? Follow the links below this blog entry, and drop your email address into the comment section of every blog, and you'll be entered 230 times! (GASP!)

     For extra fun, I'll draw a few names Wednesday the 24th, and give away a few ebook copies of my Angels and Demons/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure, Vigilant.
(Check out Vigilant here.)

     While you’re hanging out, click here for a
FREE READ!

This is my
Greek Myth Fantasy Romance novella,
No Funny Stuff!
*A Mission for the Muse of Comedy.
Take it home for an afternoon of chuckles.

      

      Now, about my alphas....

    Suppressing dark thoughts and frightening fantasies, my alpha men hunt demons by orders of the angels. To the  mortal realm, they are I-Marshals, law enforcement with unlimited jurisdiction to police the wildlands of Alliance space. But in the war played just above the mortal realm, the I-Marshals serve as Nephilim demon hunters, the sons of fallen angels, their disgraced bloodlines spawned at the beginning of mankind's history. The Nephilim, the bad and the good, live among us in a future where crime and the hellish forces behind it have no boundaries but the galaxy. Demons, the source of most human misery, are in possession of human forms and at work to drive souls into hopelessness.

     Today, I give you Gangbusters, Book 3 of I-Marshal Stories, a tale of a dark hero who uses his Nephilim talents to accomplish heavenly duty, though he considers his soul condemned. He doesn't even care to be happy in this life as long as he can make up for his crimes.

     Danny is a deep and murky thinker. Disturbed by a childhood of gangland wars and street executions, he can't help it that his mind spins to acts of cruelty when he holds a demon in his fists. Danny is demonseed. Even his role as angel of death cannot deter him from his love of torture. The highest of angels, Metatron worries for Danny's soul.

   And Danny worries for Faith, who will wander, unprotected, into a den of devils for something as stupid as a story. The expose' she wishes to write will turn a hidden war of angels versus demons into a galaxywide apocalypse of the mortal realm. How will the I-Marshal keep her quiet?

     He'll start with a hot kiss.

     Daniel Tierney and his fellow I-Marshals take down the organizations producing the most dangerous substance in the Alliance. But investigative 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.

 

 Also available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
almost everywhere exciting adventures await you.

Let's see how bad my alphas get.
Readers, this is Danny.

[ This excerpt is rated R for nasty threats of punishment. Just awful stuff.

And that’s coming from the Good Guy. He means business. ]

     Wherever Calderon went, he opened a gun shop, even on the planets where guns were outlawed. It was his screw-you to the authorities.

    The I-Marshal had a screw-you for Calderon from the entire Alliance, hand-delivered. This was Danny's favorite part of the job, having custody of an invisible super-suit. Hurrah for Alliance technology secrets.

      Unseen, Danny paced into Calderon’s gun store, walked right past the gangster’s bulky guards and into the firing range, not needing to kill the guards to keep them from spotting his talk with their boss.

     The oily Calderon stood alone in a shooting booth, firing a variety of firearms, both projectile and beam weapons. The mobster’s range time was the only time he was without his posse in attendance or women on his arm. The familiar smell of gunpowder made Danny smile. He watched for a while to see if Calderon was a good shot. He was. But it wasn’t going to help him.

   When Danny felt like it, he walked up to Calderon unsuspecting, and he clocked the mobster, sending him to the concrete floor.

    Minutes later, Calderon awakened to find himself hanging upside down a half-meter in the air at the target-end of the shooting range, his hands cuffed behind his back, his body wrapped in and suspended by the cables that operated the target-retrieval system of the range. His eyes rolled upward to find Danny’s gold I-Marshal badge jammed in his mouth and no one in the room.

      No one visible.

    “Go ahead,” Danny spoke loudly into the gangster’s ear. “Scream all you want.”

   Calderon did. He screamed as much as he could, his mouth stuffed with a big eight-point star, and it wasn’t enough to penetrate the soundproofed range. He looked terrified. Good.

    When the criminal scourge of planet Reigna wore himself out squealing like a pig, Danny plucked the badge from his mouth and wiped it on Calderon’s expensive suit.
     “I’m here for a few reasons, demon. First, to avenge the wholesale death, corruption, and misery you’ve caused the mortal worlds for millennia. I’m going to visit all your brothers connected, and I’m going to destroy every one of you.”
   Calderon thrashed in his bonds to no avail. He only swung for his efforts like a pendulum blade.

   “Secondly, I’ve been sent to avenge your wife’s murder, and that of her family.”

   “Who sent you?” the gangster spat, livid to find himself in this vulnerable position.

   “Faith Vedder. You remember her, the reporter who’s on you like…blasphemy on a devil’s lips. You met her today.”

    The crook snorted. “I recognized her right away.”

  “I thought you might have. That’s why I’m here to dismantle you. She actually hasn’t asked me to kill you yet. But she will. That you will be dead before she calls the shot is just a trick of time. Going against you.”

   Calderon shouted again for his boys, and rocked himself in an effort to bring his body down from his bonds. When he tired, he gave up, still swinging from side to side.

   “Keep calling for your buddies. I’ll pick them off like duck targets.”

    “Why are you waiting to destroy me, Marshal?”

   “I want some information from you. What do you know about a street manager on planet Valdeya called Freak? Lie to me, and I’ll call upon Metatron to get the truth from you. If you make me call upon my master, I’ll cut your tongue out, and he’ll have a hard time understanding your answer. You don’t wish to give the highest of angels a difficult time, do you? He will consign you to the Fifth Heaven where your punishment will last an eternity. He has no mercy for corruptors.”

   Calderon sweated like a turkey shown the chopping block. “Freak… He’d been a high-level employee of the Juicers. I’d sold him the job of killing Faith Vedder. I’d been told he’d taken the contract to Boss, who’d given it to Heretic.”

   It didn’t surprise the I-Marshal. Contract killings were often passed through a chain of criminals to erase the true originator.

    “Clearly, Heretic hadn’t done his job. I found him at the woman’s side earlier today.”

   Danny disengaged his invisibility, removed the helmet and the cowl beneath it, and set them down beside him on the floor. The gangster sucked in a slow breath of shock to see him and put it together that his long-time associate from the black-market underground was an undercover I-Marshal.

     “I always do my job. You’re not making any more plans for Faith. She’s fantasizing of your destruction now.”

    “Is a third-rate reporter calling your shots now, Heretic?”

    “Keep mouthing off, and I’ll put my C-breaker down your throat and cook you from the inside out. When was the last time you heard from Freak?”

   The click of Heretic’s switchblade rushed the monster into saying, “Weeks ago.”

     “Before or after Boss’s crew got hit on Valdeya?”

    “Before. A week before, I’m sure of it. I’m guessing Freak died in that hit.”

   Heretic knew Freak had survived his destruction somehow, and he knew Calderon lied.

     “So you didn’t kill Faith Vedder…and you’re screwing her now… Isn’t that against I-Marshal rules?”

       “Don’t provoke me, demon. I’m not a man of limits.”

      The gangster’s vision roamed the target range and his position in it. “Are you planning some shooting practice on me?”

     “What good would it do? We both know that won’t end your sick existence. You’ll just regenerate in a day or two in that body. Unless I give you a thorough destruction.”

   Calderon nervously chuckled, his peace disturbed. “You’ve a bit of a reputation as a torturer, Heretic. Wouldn’t you rather take your anger out on me and let me live, giving you a source of information?”

     “I’d like to take my anger out on you. Especially since I saw you put your grubby demon lips on Faith today, attempting to defile her. I’d carve my initials in your scaly chest for that. Maybe force you to transform completely, let your wings sprout…so I can slip my blade beneath them and cut them from your demon back. Carve the horns from your demon skull. Pull the fangs from your demon face.”

    Calderon shuddered, probably imagining himself stripped of his evil tools.

   “But letting you live for what little info you could provide violates my mission to destroy you and your kind. I’ll do what I must to end your existence. By the way...” Heretic lifted the gold chains hanging around Calderon’s greasy neck with his blade. “I arrest you in the name of the Draco Alliance. Now it’s official.”

   “Stop pretending to be a cop, Heretic,” Calderon growled. “You’re formed from the same dark and wicked flame as me…son of fire.”

    “I guess it’s in my nature to see you suffer.”

    “It’s a sin you love too much.”

***

Bookmark this page and read more later.

Investigate steamy, peril-packed excerpts:

http://www.MicheleHart.com/b28-book.htm

 

Don’t hold back.

The angels of madness are calling.

Buy Link: http://www.BookStrand.com/gangbusters

Would you like to watch more book trailers? Click here.

Have a great time discovering brave new heroes on the Alpha Male Blog Hop.  

Read and live an adventure.

Have a thrilling day,

Michele Hart

All you need do to be eligible
for all those cool prize drawings
is drop your email address
into a comment box below.

Enjoy all those HOT alphas.

Let's Romance This Blog.

Welcome, blog hoppers!

I hope you're having a great time surfing the blogs and finding new authors and stories you'll love, reread, and relive.

Check out the swag for Romancing the Hop. Believe it or not, that's the 3rd grand prize. Plus, nearly every author is giving something away.

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $130 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Large Swag Pack

That's a sweet haul.

Follow the links below this blog entry, and drop your email address into the comment section of every blog, and you'll be entered 209 times! (GASP!)

For extra fun, I'll draw a name Tuesday the 4th, and give away an ebook copy of my Angels and Demons/Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure, Gangbusters.
(Check out Gangbusters here.)

Caught up in hurricane weather? Me, too.
Have a
FREE READ,
my Greek Myth Fantasy Romance Novella,

No Funny Stuff!
*A Mission for the Muse of Comedy.
(I hope you find it a-musing.)

Here's my contribution to Romancing the Hop, an amorous excerpt from probably my most romantic book, my Sci-Fi Romantic Adventure, Luminous Nights. Here's a nibble of that:

 a 2011 Golden Quill nominee for Best Sci-Fi

 

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.

 ***

 Watch an adventure.

 ***

Here's a big romantic bite.
[ This excerpt is rated PG-13, but Jack is rated Rrrrr. ]

Coaxing her with flashes of his potent bedroom eyes, Jack broke the trade seal attesting to confection’s origin and taxed status. His sky-blue vision still hadn’t left her. He peeled away the foil at a slow pace, revealing four squares of dark chocolate made from a recipe responsible for starting bloody wars in the past and trade wars presently. The smell of the cocoa brandy wafted into the air, loosening her grip on her will.

“I still have a few surprises left for you.”

His smile revealed his thrill of possessing something few women could resist. His flashy eyes told her he reveled in teasing her, and Rachel never knew such joy. He was a one-man miracle to make her feel what she felt right now. Goose bumps ravished her just sitting beside him. Or was it the cocoa?

“Tell me,” the too-handsome Imperial Marshal said, seduction lacing his words, and he leaned closer to her. “What would you give me for a square of chocolate?”

Rachel smiled.

“Chocolate.” Spoken slowly, even the word flowed thickly over his tongue. His eyes portrayed rapture. Alone, he was a cauldron of temptation. With chocolate, he was irresistible. He worked to cut a deal. She’d noticed Jack was always negotiating an advantage for himself.

Weakness overcame her, and she laid back on the rug, pretending to expire from just the pleasure of the cocoa aroma. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the air.

He stretched out on the ratty rug beside her, balanced on a bent arm, close enough for her to smell his sandalwood scent mixing with the aroma of cocoa brandy. Rachel’s desire for the confection became a synergetic force acting on her, sparked by just the smell. Or was it his proximity? She didn’t know and was robbed of the care. Chocolate and Jack mixed an intoxicating cocktail.

Fiendish, he waved the square just above her lips, letting its smell seize control of her.

“Mm…” she murmured low, barely spoken, her voice hoarse. “Chocolate.”

Her eyes closed, and the scent of the chocolate, its cream, its cocoa smoothness, its erotica induced a sudden addiction, triggered a craving.

“You sadist.” Her smile was indelible.

Lying on her back, she opened her eyes, unable to suppress the pleasure of his nearness nor desire for the confection and his velvet voice, which now she imagined entwined. She closed her eyes again to cut out all other stimuli but the aroma of the chocolate and Jack, to experience them fully. Tingles cascaded through her body, pleasure and hunger coursing through her veins and settling into the core of her. She’d never felt that before.

“Come on, Rachel, face the sweetness.”

He wagged a square of chocolate centimeters from her lips. The best in Draco, and it was her favorite treat in the galaxy, though she’d only tried it once before and probably not so high a grade, at that. It had turned her to mush then, but she’d not admit that to him.

She reached for the square waved before her, and Jack yanked it away. “Oh, no! There’s a price on this chocolate.”

The smile fell from her face.

“Of course there is. What do you want?”

“A kiss,” he declared, intently watching her reaction.

A kiss? What’s a kiss? He’d kissed her before on her ship, an offer of his bedroom talents in exchange for information. She flushed, remembering that kiss. It had preset her to respond to his every sensual move, notice his walk, want him to stand a step closer.

He’d kissed her again when she’d saved them from Desmonda’s security force. A hot kiss that had almost made her forget he’d blackmailed her, had nearly cost her her life on Desmonda. But each of those kisses had been surprises, and she hadn’t responded to them.

When the aroma of the cocoa brought her back to his offer, it softened her fear of the high-tech mask he wore. The smell of the confection was hypnotic. Relief tickled her, made her thankful he didn’t require her full sexual services for a small piece of chocolate. She wouldn’t have done that, but it was what she’d expected of Jack. She was mildly disappointed to have been wrong.

“It’s a deal.”

When she reached again for the chocolate square he used to taunt her, he again snatched the candy back.

“Not just any kiss. No copping out, commit to it. I want a hot, full-participation kiss of passion and want from you. And your offering is subject to my approval. All or nothing.”

Rachel pursed her lips, a little worried. What would happen to the holographic mask he wore to maintain his golden false identity if they shared another full-contact kiss? If she opened her eyes so close to him, would she see the hideous cracks, the drips of blood on his tattooed face below the nanocomp trick and never want him to touch her again? Testing the mask was a worthy excuse to kiss him, but she was reluctant to see the scarred and horrific face of the killer again. Wasn’t it a research thing?

“Okay, a full-contact kiss, no holds barred.”

“And I get to put my arms around you.”

“Okay. All right, already. A kiss! Don’t write a laundry list of conditions.”

He held the little square out to her. If she took the chocolate, she couldn’t wiggle out of the kiss, assuming she really wanted to get out of her end of the deal. She’d be crazy to wish to escape that fate. He was a fantastic kisser. What was a little kiss anyway after he’d given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to save her life at the hot springs?

If she allowed him this one deep kiss, would she be able to put a stop to him if he pressed further? What if the chocolate was drugged? Would he do that to her? He’d once said in plain language he wasn’t worth trusting, but she couldn’t believe he’d harm her.

She watched him mash the chocolate square between his finger and thumb. The chocolate clung to his fingertips, shiny and thick, wonderful and melty. The newly released scent of the cocoa brandy floated to her nose again, compromising her strength.

He mashed the chocolate a little more before he brought his thumb to his mouth, and he consumed the glob of alien chocolate on one finger, his little groan of pleasure hammering at her resolve to keep this an impersonal kiss.

She was acutely aware he didn’t want an impersonal kiss.

“You’re a vicious tease, Jack.”

His eyes sparkled in delight.

Slow torture, he sucked the almost black sweetness from his thumb. She wished she was his thumb. Then he broke off another square and dangled it just above her lips.

Rachel closed her eyes and took in the chocolate from his hand, felt it melt and spread in her mouth, seducing her taste buds with the most exquisite cocoa experience, giving her entire body the sensation that she soared through the air on a spiritual lightness. Every cell of her being quickened, hypersensitive and at attention. The sweet taste took over her senses and made her weak. She made the chocolate last as long as possible, enjoying it fully.

She opened her eyes to see Jack above her, the look in his sky vision longing, the flames of the hearth boiling in his eyes. And she wanted him.

Commanding the moment, he slipped a hand into her loosely bundled hair and lowered his lips to hers. The persuasion of dark chocolate on his breath stole her into his kiss. She lost herself in a rush of ecstasy, the fine taste of Eltanin’s best splendid on his tongue, and his delicious weight pressed against her. Her hands went to his bare chest, and she savored the hard feel of him beneath her palms, his hair tickling her.

The soft exploration of his tongue excited her, breaking down her defenses when she’d thought herself spineless already. He made the chocolate taste better. His hand caressed her tresses, and he moaned as though just touching her that way held some ecstatic fortification. She wanted nothing more than for him to keep pressing her to the dirt floor with his big, hard body, insisting on his price. No man had ever kissed her like this. He awakened something long asleep inside her.

Parting from her much too soon, he released her from the chocolate kiss, his hand warm against her neck. She was bewitched by the sizzle of fingers stroking her from below her ear to her collarbone. Her eyes fluttered open to his golden masculine beauty, and her heart sank, aching a bit from his kiss too short. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her breath ran quick. She wanted him to kiss her again, an unignorable desire building inside her now. She’d forgotten to open her eyes during the kiss to see under the projected mask, but under his spell, she didn’t care. She just wanted him to kiss her again.

His fluid vision swept over her features, hinting he might be feverish seconds away from another arousing kiss when they both heard the faraway song of Davi’s whistle playing the show tune they’d taught him.

Jack had done it, she recognized in quiet defeat. She’d fallen victim to his predatory eyes without much of a fight, his enticing kiss without battle. She’d fallen for all his I-Marshal mind tricks and charisma, and she hated herself for it. And loved herself for it. And hated herself for it.

Now, the arrival of Davi’s people was the moment she needed to reverse all this, take the safety of the planet’s natives out of the cop’s dangerous hands. She needed to snatch a clear mind from the spell of Jack and the chocolate, mingled. Just when they’d taken control of her.

Now Rachel would arrest Jack. And she already knew controlling the I-Marshal was an illusion. She'd never met a slicker manipulator than the one behind the 3-D shape-shifter mask he wore. Despite the fact she'd put cuffs on his wrists, she shuddered in consideration of Jack's next move. He'd already proven, there was little he couldn't control. And his plan to recover dangerous technology would cause the deaths of millions. A few million unimportant natives to save the hundred billion citizens who write his paycheck.

She had to stand up to him. Here was that moment.

*** 

Bookmark this blog and read more later.

Explore steamy, peril-packed excerpts here.
Discover awesome reviews here.

Read the First Chapter here.

Buy Link: http://www.BookStrand.com/luminous-nights

ISBN#: ebook 1-60601-884-1 * Print 1-60601-885-X

Available @ BookStrand, Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
nearly everywhere exciting adventures await you.

 All you need do to be eligible
  for both prize drawings is
  drop your email address
 into a comment box below. 

Have an exciting day,
Michele Hart

~ Have fun hopping the blogs! ~