Danita Minnis

Welcome to the very first Marketing For Romance
Writers Erotic Tour!

Join us erotic romance authors in the Let’s Get Lucky
Blog Hop from now through April 14th. You can jump on the hop at any stop but
remember to leave your email address and a comment for a chance to win some
fabulous prizes.

Now, here’s Angel and Falcon in a scene from my paranormal
romance Falcon’s Angel. Angel gets lucky when she finds out who her lover Falcon
really is, or should I say who he isn’t? Read on to see that sometimes luck is,
well, not so lucky. When Angel’s done (and you’ll know when that is) tell me how
you view luck: good, bad or no such thing? Leave your email address for a
chance to win my site’s prize: a $5 Amazon gift card.  Enjoy the MFRW Erotic Hop!

 

                            ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞

Angelina’s eyes moved to the gun belt filled with
ammunition hanging from the straight back chair Tony sat on. “What did you do,
threaten Signor Parisi? An apartment or death?”

“Angel…” Tony moved towards her. He had on a pair
of sweat pants and nothing else, which only served to remind Angelina of the
night of passion she had spent cradled in his arms.

They had stopped briefly when the pizza delivery
guy knocked on the door. She had been satiated and just drifted off to sleep,
and must have been sleeping soundly when he left their bed. That must have been
his intention.

“Don’t come near me!” She took a step back and
held out her hands. “I don’t even know who you are.”

Tony glanced at what she held in her hands and
stopped a few feet away. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I know how
this looks to you, but I can explain…”

Angelina swiped at the tears. “First tell me who
you are. Wait for it … are you Todd Forster from New York City?” She hurled the
passport at his bare chest. “Yes, I think you must be as it seems you’re going
back to your life there. Or, maybe you are Juan Garza from Madrid?” That
passport hit him on the abs.

“Baby…” Tony’s tender tone prompted more tears,
but she raved on.

“Not Juan Garza? Well, then, maybe Hugh Delacorte
of Australia?”

She aimed for his face, but he sidestepped that
passport. “Oh no! You must be Gage Martin of Paris, France! Tell me, Mr.
Martin, have you been watching my grandparents also?” She shrieked.

Tony ducked, and the passport went sailing past
his ear to hit the wall above the computer screen behind him.

Angelina pushed the hair out of her eyes and
glared at him.

“Calm down.” Tony’s eyes moved over her breasts
rising and falling under the clinging tank top, which left her midriff bare.
His arousal was bulging against the sweats, despite her anger and his apparent
remorse.

“Don’t you look at me that way, you liar!”
Angelina wrapped her arms around her chest. “I could kill you for deceiving
me.”

“My name is Armand,” he said quietly.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“He’s telling the truth,” the voice on
speakerphone chimed in.

“Who is that? Your partner in crime?” She looked
past him at the speakerphone.

“That’s Granger.” Tony took a step toward her,
and said across his shoulder, “Shut up, Granger.”

“Is it really? The so-called mute has a voice and
a name after all, but still no earring. Well, Granger, how is your ear? Still
bleeding, I hope!” She spat out towards the speakerphone.

Her lover, the thief whose name she did not know,
was slowly moving closer. She started to back away out of the bedroom.

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” the
speakerphone drawled.

“Shut up, Granger!” they both shouted, turning
toward the speakerphone.

Granger shut up.

Tony held up a hand, silently asking her to stay
put. He stopped, leaning a hand against the doorframe. “Angelina, what are you
talking about?”

“You want the Stradivarius!” She jabbed her
finger in the air towards the speakerphone, her next statement louder so
Granger would hear. “He tried to take it from me that day. You’re working
together.”

“It’s not what you think. I’m trying to protect
you.”

“Oh, that’s original! You’re not trying to
protect me, you’re lying. You lied about everything!”

“No, tesoro, I didn’t lie about us. I love you.”

“Great, just great.” The lament from the
speakerphone rang out in the silence.

Angelina looked into Tony’s eyes. She wanted to
believe him. She wanted to rewind the last twenty-four hours of her life and go
back to living with him, loving him, when she felt safe with him.

But the proof of his deception was all around
her. She was standing in the apartment he’d claimed to have missed out on. The
detective’s words played over in her mind, a subliminal message.

“No…” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you
Tony, or Armand, or whoever you are. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t have
lied.”

“You know I love you. You love me, too. You feel
it, like I do.” The calm conviction in his voice made her pause. But he moved
towards her once again. “You’re mine, Angel, you always will be.”

“No! I believe the detective. He said you wanted
the violin!”

“What detective?” He tilted his head as if he
hadn’t heard her correctly and his eyes narrowed.

She backed away. “You know what detective! He’s
been trailing you for a long time. Detective Luciano Biagi told me all about
you yesterday at the restaurant!”

“What did he look like?”

“Stop it! Will you please just stop the lies?
It’s over, and I never want to see you again!”

Angelina ran through the living room to the front
door and turned the knob. But with the swiftness of a loping panther, Tony had
reached the door. His hand above her head held it closed. He stood behind her
hip to hip, his breath against her hair.

“You don’t mean that. And I can’t let you go.”

There was love and regret in those quiet words,
filling her with a strange ache that she was horrified to recognize as craving.

He kissed the top of her head and for just a
moment, she leaned back against him. Why does it feel so right?

She let out an agonized sigh. I’m in love with a
master thief!

Angelina pushed back, kicking him in the groin
before she jerked the door open and ran.

Blinded by her tears, she ran down the stairs,
furious for being so weak, for wanting him so badly. For giving herself to him
so completely. A horrible notion snaked its way into her thoughts. What if she
never got her heart back now that she had given it to him?

She didn’t know where she was going. She ran all the
way to the first floor and then jerked that door open. She felt like running
all night, until she was out of breath and couldn’t run anymore, couldn’t think
anymore. She was running down the deserted Piazza Avellino when she heard him
behind her.

“That hurt, Angelina!” Tony sprinted towards her
like a distance runner, his back straight and elbows bent, his long legs
effortlessly closing the gap between them. “Come back here!”

Angelina tried to run faster over the uneven
cobblestones on the ancient street that hurt her bare feet. She ignored the
pain because he was coming swiftly towards her and would soon overtake her. He
was much faster and stronger. She had to get as far away from him as possible.

The midnight street darkened even more. A shadow
fell over the moon and she looked up. There was a black fog overhead, hanging
so low in the sky it came almost to the apartment building windows.

‘Margaux…’

She stumbled, looking around for whoever had
called the name. Someone had spoken in her ear, but no one was there.

“Angelina! Stop!” Tony was gaining on her, she
had to run.

“Signorina Natale! In here!”

A Fiat was at the curb with its rear passenger
door open.

Detective Biagi waved to her from the front
passenger seat. She didn’t think twice, but jumped into the back seat and
slammed the door behind her.

She was pushed back onto the seat when the car
lurched away from the curb.

There was a loud thump on the back of the Fiat.
She turned to see Tony on the hood, shouting at her to get out of the car.

Angelina put her hands over her ears to block out
his shouts. Someone was sitting next to her in the back seat, but she couldn’t
look away from Tony.

“What about him?” The man next to her asked.

Detective Biagi glanced out the window at the sky
above, thick now with the fog blacker than night. “He’s not going to be a
problem.”

Detective Biagi nodded to the driver and the car
swerved with such force that Angelina was pushed against the person sitting
next to her. She had a terrifying view of Tony being thrown backward against
the sidewalk headfirst. He lay still on his back.

“Stop! He’s hurt!” Angelina screamed at the
driver, but he didn’t stop the car. They were speeding away.

The black fog descended on Tony, obscuring her
view of him. “What is that? What is it?” She tried to open the passenger door,
pushed against it, but it was locked.

The distance between her and Tony on the dark
street grew until she couldn’t see where he lay anymore.

In this old district of Naples, there were no
street lamps, no traffic lights. There were no rules in this section of the
city. Tony could be killed laying there at the side of the road.

She turned to Detective Biagi. “Stop!”

The car’s engine sputtered. They coasted until
the driver got the engine started again.

The detective turned. “Jacopo, put her out before
she…” His eyes traveled over her in compassion, as if she’d breached social
etiquette. “…Upsets herself,” he finished quietly. He faced forward in dismissal.

Angelina stared at his dark ponytail, speechless,
and then felt a pinprick on her arm.

She turned just in time to see the man sitting
next to her put a needle away in a leather case. When the man turned facing
front, folding his hands in his lap, done with her, she saw the gold earring in
his ear.

Angelina tried to lift her hand to pull at the
dragon loop, but it wouldn’t move. Her body felt weighted down, as if something
heavy rested on her chest. She could only move her head now, and turned it slightly,
an arduous task, it felt filled with water. 

Hardly able to keep her eyes open, Angelina tried to get a look at the
driver, who remained silent throughout this high-speed getaway. Her last
thought before she lost consciousness was that his ear was no longer bleeding.