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.

Glitter Graphics

     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.)

Glitter Text Generator

      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.

A super review of Luminous Nights here.

     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.

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,

 watch a woe-filled book trailer @:

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

What are you waiting for?

The angels of madness are calling.

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

Throw down a comment,
and I'll put your name in the hat to win
an e-book copy of my sizzlin' hot
angels and demons/Sci-Fi Romance, Vigilant!
Check out Vigilant here!

Snatch up the FREE STORY in the blog entry below!

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

Read and live an adventure.

Michele

FREE READ! A Greek Myth Romance novella for you.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

 

I’d like to present to you my spicy Greek Mythology Romance novella,

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Something's Rotten at the Gates of Heaven

 

Under conspiratorial inspiration of Olympian thrones,

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accidentally launches the magic

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Thalia must force to light buried secrets of a millennia-old family curse and face down a most vengeful Immortal on his own battlefield

if she wishes to free both Drew and Daisy from an unjust fate.

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loves only one thing as much as he loves bloodshed....

How's Thalia supposed to make THAT funny?

At least, she's wearing her best sandals!

***

Want a closer look? Read the first chapter, discover sexy excerpts,

explore great reviews, watch an amusing book trailer:

http://www.michelehart.com/b22-book.htm

No Funny Stuff! is FREE for Valentine’s Day!

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Gangbusters is here! I'm releasing the demons!

I’m released! And so are my angels and demons. Just when you’d counted on the monsters going away.

Greetings, lovers of monsters everywhere.

Here’s a steamy excerpt of my brand-new angels & demons/Sci-Fi Romance release, Gangbusters, coming to you from BookStrand. Hot off the presses.

Be the first to review Gangbusters. Get in on the 15% new release price! Sweeeeet. Monsters on discount. The best kind. Storming villagers can afford new rakes with prices this low. :-)


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?
***

          Wrapped in her bathrobe and feeling pretty silly for taking a gun with her for a bath, Faith came from the shower room to find all the lights out in her home. She was sure she’d left at least some of the lights on. The only visible thing was a red read-out of the clock mounted on the wall.

          “Bedroom lights on,” she told the computer system that operated the rented home. The room lit up, and she discovered the furniture rearranged.

          There was no imagining this. She held her gun up for business. If someone were there to hurt her, why did he wait to do it?

          “This sooo isn’t funny,” she said to her unseen tormentor, not expecting an answer.

          She heard a deep masculine chuckle in the room with her. Then a resonant, seemingly disembodied voice said to her, “It’s funnier on my end, I know. The surprised expression on your face is priceless.”

          A shiver swept through her. Her trigger finger itched. “Who’s here?”

          “Who I am is less important than my mission. I’ve been sent to kill you, Faith.” It was a smooth baritone voice with a particular unnamable element that moved through her like a hot wind.

          She turned the gun toward the voice and pulled the trigger, only to hear and feel the click of an unloaded gun. She heard him laugh again.

          “Kitty has claws.” His voice sounded sinister. “I couldn’t leave you ammo.”

          Dumping the gun, she scrambled to her side table where she picked up the lamp, pulled it free from its power source, and she brandished it as a weapon. Her sight swept the room for some hint of his position. She couldn’t see him in the two mirrors in the room.

          “You better believe I have claws, buddy. If you’re planning to rape me, you’ll get the roughest time you’ve ever had.”

          “I’ll take your warning. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

          Her brow crashed into her vision. Going somewhere with an invisible man? She was better off remaining on her turf than submitting to his. “I’m fine with getting dressed, but I’m not going anywhere with you if you won’t show your face. If you plan to rape and kill me, let’s get it over with right here.”

          “I’m not a rapist.”

          “No, you’re a killer. You told me you’ve been sent to kill me.”

          She scanned the small room for a better weapon. There were knives in the kitchen. Could she get him to move this debate into the kitchen? She left her cell phone by the computer keyboard. Attempted murder was a great reason to call the cops.

          “I’m going to make you disappear, Faith.”

          The lamp was yanked from her grasp, and, before she had a moment to respond, he had her wrist hand-cuffed to the headboard of the bed. She didn’t have a split-second to fight back. He moved faster than her tired brain operated.

          “Instead of killing you,” the voice, now beside her, said, “I’m going to relocate you.”

          The drawers of her dresser slid out, and clothes flew from them onto the floor.

          “Mmm,” she heard, as she watched her lingerie held up for inspection. His choice sailed onto the bed. A favorite blue blouse hung in mid-air for a second, and he said, “Hmm, yeah.”

          Then the blouse landed in her lap. A pair of black jeans soon followed.

          “I’m not leaving, and you and your people can’t scare me away!”

          “It doesn’t frighten you, Faith…that I’ve entered your home and taken possession of you?”

          “N—No.”

          “It should.”

          She was terrified, and hoped the shaking didn’t show.

          His voice, closing in on her again but from a different direction, echoed through the old steel-frame cottage, further disheveling her. “I could easily overcome you, Faith.”

          “N—No, I’m not a child quickly frightened away. I have a decade in martial arts, and I could kick your ass!” Unable to see his expression, she couldn’t gauge if the ridiculous promise of a hard defense affected him. Maybe he was a small man, and she had a chance against him.

          “What kind of martial arts?” his deep velvet voice asked.

          “Onterie! The most deadly of the martial arts! And I have a black belt! How about that!”

          “Onterie doesn’t give out belts. I doubt you’ve spent an hour in an Onterie class. People who master Onterie don’t talk about it.”

          The breath fled her lungs. “I’m still not scared!”

          “Then you’re stupider than you look or write. I’ve read some of your stories, and you sounded much smarter than this. You’re also a rotten liar, Faith. Remember that so you don’t get into more trouble. Get dressed.”

          A pair of boots came flying toward her from her closet, missing her by centimeters.

          She grew more angry by the minute that she’d be forced to leave. “Don’t call me Faith! You don’t know me!”

          A splash of papers came from nowhere and landed on the bed next to her. She picked them up and thumbed through report after report of her, information from family connections to her library loans.

          “Your full name is Victoria Faith Vedder. You switched from Vicky to Faith at age seven when there were too many Vickies in school. Your favorite food is kung pao chicken. Your favorite drink is gold-label vodka with a splash of orange juice. Your favorite color is black, like your coffee and comedy. A solid B student, you’d served on your college yearbook staff, and you’d added your name to the rosters of nearly every team that played for the school. As a joke. Funny.”

          She heard the smile in his voice. She hadn’t known that last one had been caught and documented for the society-shaking crime it had been. It was probably a good idea not to go back for a reunion.

          Miffed he knew so much of her, she gathered the spilled papers, her best tough-girl scowl on her face. The letterhead on every page had been ripped off.

          “You hadn’t given up your chastity until college when you met a bad boy named Mako. He was not worth it.”

          Her intruder smiled again. She could sense it like a light washing over her. How could anyone learn so much about her? Did he have a record naming every man she’d slept with? She should probably get a copy of that.

          “And you’re behind on your credit payment.”

          “Not much!” It was the designer dress for her Pulitzer acceptance ceremony. She could’ve used the money for something more important, but…it was the most beautiful dress in the worlds. They’ll love her wearing it in the homeless shelter, if this story didn’t work out.

          “You’re leaving, whether you’re cooperative or not. I guarantee you I’m big enough to take you without your approval.”

          He probably was pretty big with a voice that deep. That eliminated any foolhardy hope of overcoming him physically. He was too quick—and invisible—for a surprise attack.

          Umm… He smelled like brandy. It sent a shockwave of stimulation through her.

***
Don’t stop. Read more.

Investigate steamy, peril-packed excerpts, watch a woe-filled book trailer here.

Available right now. What are you waiting for?
The angels of madness are calling.
Gangbusters Here!

Read and live an adventure.
Have an action-packed day,

Michele Hart
Paranormal/Sci-Fi Romance Author
~ Walk Another World ~ http://www.ILoveShape-Shifters.com/
GANGBUSTERS - Available Now.
In the end, it’s either you or the demon that comes for you.

Gangbusters and I are released!

Check out Gangbusters!

Then, come and get it for 15% off!

Read HOT, peril-packed excerpts:

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

Have a thrilling day,

Michele

Upcoming Appearances

I can't believe how busy I am. 
Here's my schedule:

October 16th: The Steam Room with Michele Zurlo

Steamy...

October 22nd: St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading

October 23rd: Creatures of the Night - Love Romances Cafe

 

October 29th: Halloween Bash - The Long and Short Romance Reviews

  

All through November!

November 10th: The 2011 Fall For Romance One-Day Event 

Stop by, say hi!

Check out my book trailers here. 
Want a sneak peek at the next I-Marshal story, Gangbusters?

Wishing you love and romance,

Michele