Anna will be awarding a set of En Route notecards, gorgeously illustrated by Kate Pocrass (because falling in love with an Immortal Viking is a wild journey!) to a randomly drawn winner (INTERNATIONAL) via rafflecopter during the tour.
A woman desperate to achieve her dreams.
To reassure wealthy clients, Christina Alvarez Mancini invented a
jet-setting British owner for her Napa Valley wine collection service. Success
has brought her close to buying her own winery, when irregularities at a London
wine auction threaten her business.
A man in love with a good plan.
Stig, an immortal Viking thief, knows he’s found the perfect role.
The California woman who created his character won’t discover what he’s up to
in England until after he’s pocketed the money he needs. Then Christina walks
into the auction preview, ready to ruin his plans, and he knows his boredom has
ended.
Secrets that turn deadly.
By the end of the night, these two rivals must cooperate to escape
kidnappers, British authorities, media and a pair of mysterious watchers.
That’s when a game Stig’s played for a thousand years puts Christina’s life at
risk.
After Stig agrees to a steal an ancient relic for the leader of
the Immortal Vikings, he knows he’ll need Christina’s help. But first he needs
her touch.
Upstairs, he lowered her to her feet in the doorway of the bedroom
where she’d slept the night before, then retrieved another stack of sheets and
blankets from the armoire at the end of the hall. When he turned back, she
hadn’t moved.
“What are you doing?” She walked backward into the room as he
advanced.
“Getting ready for bed.” Behind him, the closed door shut out the
rest of the house, leaving the tiny room under the eaves in silence except for
their breathing.
She retreated to the far side, separated from him by the width of
two single beds and the narrow aisle between them, but he could swear that his
heart heard the beat of hers.
“You’re...you’re sleeping over there.”
He couldn’t tell whether she meant that as a statement, an order
or a question, so he proceeded to unfold the rectangular bundle in search of
two sheet corners.
“I’m going to sleep here.” That sounded like she meant it.
“That’s why I’m making a second bed.”
The moment she reached for the other two corners and helped him
shake the sheet to air it, he knew he wouldn’t have to use this bed. But he
should still go through the motions.
“I was willing to take my passport and go.” At the top of the
mattress, their heads almost touched as they simultaneously bent to tuck their
corners. “Remember that.”
“Miss Mancini, are you threatening me? It makes me shiver so.” It
did. But not for the reasons he pretended.
She rolled her eyes at him and moved to the foot of the bed. “Quit
teasing.”
He followed on his own side like a puppy behind a fence. If she
knew what hearing the word tease come out of her mouth did to him while he
watched her bend to tuck a sheet corner, he suspected she would shut up out of
sheer perversity.
She finished her side and straightened, staring at him as if
daring him to argue about whatever she was about to say. “If you want my help,
I want a cut. I deserve it.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, she was about to try to squeeze him for
millions. The uncertainty and confusion of the evening faded as he watched her,
the woman with the intensity of five people packed into her small shape. The
deep breath she took raised her chest. If he looked away to tuck his sheet, he
might miss the view.
“Five million,” she said, her tone as firm as he would be in a few
moments if she kept talking filthy lucre. “Two out of what Ivar pays you
tomorrow, three more at the end.” She exhaled, the movement hardly as
compelling as its counterpoint, and continued. “Plus Angelina’s passport.”
She had demands. They gave him urges. After last night on the car
bonnet he knew they could fulfill each other. He bent to the final corner, both
to conceal his body’s obvious reaction to her gambit and to see what she’d say
if he didn’t answer, not because he cared about a bed he wasn’t going to use.
What he wanted to do was pin her to the mattress and take her once for each
million dollars she demanded. He wanted to watch her clutch the spindly brass
rails at the headboard and cry his name as he pounded into her pussy until
neither of them could count. Five million, five minutes, he’d have her spread
and open and screaming his name.
“Is this called chenille?” Her voice didn’t shake at all as she
smoothed the tufted white blanket he’d grabbed with the linens.
Since he wouldn’t get her to bet against herself through silence,
and she wasn’t ready to jump him yet, he stroked his hands along the bumpy
blanket in tandem with hers. They both pretended the cover needed to be
smoothed a hell of a lot more than any bed ever. Their hands didn’t touch, but
they went down the fabric at the same time, her small one and his large one,
both feeling the contrast of the bumps and softness of the blanket. The little
nubs of decoration were smaller than her nipples would be, tufted but not as
stiff as what he would coax from her body. Because he’d caressed the skin of
her thighs last night, he knew his destination was silkier and warmer than this
fabric.
When her eyes locked with his in the lamplight he could see her
pupils, large and dark, and her lips, parted to help her breathe. She must
remember his touch. Like him, she struggled for air in a room that had become
too hot for blankets. And still they both stroked the bedcover, unable to step
away or crash together unless one of them moved first.
“Five,” she whispered as if her voice had disappeared.
“What does a good girl like you do with that
much money?” If she lied, he’d kiss her until she told the truth; if she told
the truth, he’d kiss her until she moaned his name. Simple plan.
Anna
lives with her quietly funny Canadian husband and two less quiet children in a
century-old house in Seattle. The perpetual drizzle is a good excuse to drink
more coffee. She’s a former US Army officer who now writes The Immortal Vikings
series from Carina Press and also the author of His Road Home, a novella which
Publishers Weekly called “Tantalizing … a raw, emotional story” and the website
SmartB*tchesTrashyBooks gave an A rating.
She
donates a portion of her book proceeds to two charities: the Fisher House Foundation,
which provides housing for families of wounded soldiers in the US and Great
Britain, and Doctors Without Borders, which delivers emergency medical care in
more than sixty crisis zones world-wide.
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Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting my excerpt!
ReplyDeleteI"m sorry I didn't visit earlier (but I was pretty distracted all day ... my novella His Road Home was nominated for a RITA award this morning from Romance Writers of America, and I sort of went down a black hole of "thank yous" all day and forgot everything, including to eat lunch.
But now I'm back together and glad to stop and take a moment to visit Stig and Christina. The man sure has plans! And they're always colliding with Christina's.
Thanks!
It was my pleasure Anna and congrats on the RITA nom for His Road Home!
Delete