Saturday, March 2, 2013

Welcome Angel Payne today/Contest

My eyeballs and my hair are still recovering from a minor hurricane we had in Orange County, California last weekend. All right, all right, so it was nowhere NEAR a hurricane. It only FELT like one, as I struggled to keep a small card table upright in front of our local grocery store. Oh, did I mention that the table was loaded with Girl Scout cookies too? I didn't? Uhhhh yeah...

Well, as I was sitting there, groaning with the torment of trying to keep the damn Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Sandwiches from becoming grocery cart roadkill, a beautiful thing was happening. My daughter (the token "Girl Scout" in this equation) was connecting with the wind.

No. Seriously. I mean it. I would have wrestled with those dastardly boxes through a REAL hurricane, just to watch my gorgeous little wild one, her hair flying into a billion tangles, twirling on each gust as if it was the greatest gift from the Universe. Every time the Santa Anas threatened to tear me off down the sidewalk, the most delighted scream erupted from her lips. "Wind, I welcome you!" she shrieked. "I heart you!"

In a bizarre way, it reaffirmed exactly why I write what I write. CONNECTION. It's one of the most powerful forces on earth. And it's why many of us crave the dynamic of a D/s relationship, too. I feel damn lucky to be reminded of it in ways other than my books--but I certainly hope that you'll feel as connected to my new hero and heroine, Garrett Hawkins and Sage Weston, as I do. They are an extremely special couple to me, and their journey has been an honor to write.

Here's an excerpt from the book, available now on Amazon and soon at your other favorite e-retailers:

Sage dug her nails into her palms. Gazing at him was torment. It was worse than watching him get beat up, because he was the one doing the damage. And nothing she said could make him stop.

“You’re right,” she rasped. “On one thing. There’s no kid this time. But there is someone here who calls you hero.”

“You think it’s just a cute catch phrase for me, Garrett? You think it’s something I don’t believe with all my heart? Still?” She couldn’t stand the distance anymore. In two steps, she was pressed against him. She looked up and spread a hand to the side of his head. “And no, you haven’t crumbled. Dear God, in this moment, you’re more strong and amazing to me than ever. You’re my hero in a million more senses. Confronting your truth takes as much guts as facing insurgent fire or an enemy grenade.” She smiled. “Or a slime bag in a jungle, selling women into slavery.”

His eyes went stunningly wide. In their blue fire, Sage caught the intensity of real horror. “Shit, Sage!”

He tried to turn away. She grabbed him harder. “No!” she pleaded. “Don’t close me out, damn it! Don’t run from this, Garrett. Don’t run from us.”

He curled his hands around the backs of her elbows. His fingers quivered, keeping time to the hard breaths pumping beneath his chest. “Sage.” He dipped his face, every cliff and valley of his features etched in the agony of a new creature bursting from its chrysalis. “Sage, I love you so much.”

“And I love you.” She flattened her hands to the ridges that defined his lower torso. “But right now, I also need you.” Using his body for balance, she slid downward. Then down even more. She didn’t speak again until she kneeled fully, her head dropped between her upstretched arms. Just achieving that position made her mind shift into another place, where peace and power mixed together in a beautiful ambrosia. The elixir started spreading through her body, igniting her nerve endings, feeding the pulsing need in the deepest tissues of her sex. “I need to give it all to you, my hero. My body. My heart. My power. Take them. Use them to transport me. To transport you. You have all of me, Garrett. Everything.”

She felt and listened to every part of his reaction. The tremors in his thighs, shaking like the tree he’d pinned her to this afternoon. The breath entering and exiting his body like whooshes of a wind storm. The sound that vibrated up his throat, rough and tortured, as he stroked the top of her head.

“You really want this?” His growl was part savoring predator, part intent lover. Oh God, that voice. If that’s what the devil sounded like when he’d approached Faust, she didn’t blame the guy for inking the deal on his soul.

“Yes.” She finally got the word out on a dry whisper.

His grip on her head changed. By slow degrees, he tightened and twisted until he had her more by the hair instead of her scalp. “Tell me again, sweet sugar.”

Oh, God. The growl that took over his voice…it belonged to the same beautiful, dark creature he’d untethered that first night back in Bangkok. Between that tone and the increasing torque of his hold, her skin began to tingle, her heart began to soar.

Angel is offering 10 e-copies of the book with swag and a grand prize of a $40 Gift certificate to either Amazon or www.myhotshoes.com. Winner's choice. Winners will be chosen from the below rafflecopter. For the best chance of winning, follow the tour and comment on each blog stop. Winners will be chosen and notified the week following the tour.

Hi there! I'm Angel: weirdo, pop-culture geek, hopeless romantic, and totally OCD writer. I've loved reading all my life, and have been writing nearly that long, too. I think it started when I penned an 80-page novel about a time-traveling family for a 5th-grade school project. You could say I was hooked. In middle school, I moved to the hardcore stuff: the paragraph-at-a-time "swap-stories" with all my besties. (C'mon...don't lie...you remember those too!) Needless to say, the stories featured lots of French kissing, mindless groping and angsty drama - but I knew I'd found a niche when I was invited to participate in several more swap-stories on campus.

Some years, various entertainment writing gigs and a half-dozen historical romances later, I discovered the world of erotica - and a place my adventurous mind finally felt fully at home (not to mention a great outlet for all that angst I never gave up.) I love this genre, and hope my stories speak to your heart as well as your blood pressure.

And where do I weave all my wild tales? Well, if you ask my hubz, he'd likely say "on another planet," especially if I'm in story-brewing mode! The rest of the time, I live in Southern California with him and our gorgeous child, where I'm abnormally interested in travel, coffee, wine, shoes, super heroes, fetish wear, ridiculous pop culture trends - but most of all, hearing from fellow readers and erotica lovers like you. Drop me a line at my website or my Facebook page!

6 comments:

THANK YOU so much for the lovely words, Michele. They mean so much. I don't know about "talent," but I DO know about having characters and stories in my heart that won't let go. I feel so lucky for the opportunity to share them.

Ohhh, yummy, can't wait to read it. Looks good. Thanks for the chance to win. And i feel ya, on selling cookies, i spent 4 hours out in the freezing cold with some fabulous little cookie sellers yesterday. They don't let the weather slow them down.