I want to thank everyone who has participated in this blog tour. The comments on the blogs have been incredible and fantastic. There’s been so much support and fun ideas shared and I feel truly blessed.

With Twisted Up being my first solo print book, and with the release of Malachi’s Word this week as well, I’ve been a bit in…OMG land. I’ve tried to stop at every blog and comment back to the readers who have been wonderful enough to comment in the first place.

This book is special to me for different reasons. The hero is a character fashioned from a dear friend of mine. As I mentioned, it is my first solo print book. It’s the last book my former editor at Samhain Publishing, Bethany, and I worked on together. And it was the first Samhain Publishing cover my friend Kendra Egert designed for me. I love this book.

This is a blog tour and it’s also a giveaway. The different blogs had a different post. Music, characters, rope, sex toys, coffee, etc… So, the way the giveaway part of this will work is that whichever topic a particular blog had, the prize will have something to do with that.

So, for instance, All I want and more… That post was about coffee and coffee bowls. The prize: A coffee bowl.

I often write themed topics for my guest appearances on blogs and often it’s more than just about the book because I want to have some way to connect with the readers who stop by. Below you’ll find the list of other giveaways:

For the Love of Reading: A print copy of Twisted Up

Romancing Rakes: A length of rope, your choice of color (I hear Neon Green is an awesome color)

RR@H Novel Thoughts: A $15 gift card for Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or iTunes

Day Drmzzz: A gift card to Eden Fantasies Adult Toy Store (online)

Simply Ali: A print copy of Twisted Up

I really do want to thank everyone for participating, be it hosting the blog tour or being a reader commenting. You’ve all made this fun for me and it’s been awesome. I also have to thank Brandy for taking care of the details and contacting the blog owners and asking if they’d host me. She’s done such a great job for me and deserves the shout out.

Now, how ’bout an excerpt? It’s a little…naughty.

“I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“You can’t force me to go with you.”

“No. You’ll come willingly enough.”

Her head shot up. “And you think that, why?”

“You want me, and I want you. This is real, Ella. You know it, you felt it.”

“Sex, Justin.”

She didn’t even believe her own words. He could see it in her eyes—hear it in the lack of conviction in her voice. “More than, Ella.”

Her gaze drifted from his face to his hand on his cock again. She watched him stroke the skin over the shaft and licked her lips. He wasn’t sure she was even aware of the move or that she moved her own hand up over her belly to her breast. She toyed with a nipple for a few seconds then stopped. She shook her head and looked him in the eye.

“I can’t come to Texas. I’m on my way out to catch a flight for business to New Orleans.”

“But you don’t have to be there for your training classes for another two and a half days.” She started to say something but shut her mouth before anything else came out. Justin smiled. Caught. “You forgot you’d told me about that, didn’t you? That you like to get to the location a day early to prepare yourself, to gauge the hotel’s surroundings?”

She nodded.

“So, cancel or change your flight and come back home with me.”

“Justin…”

“You’ve not given me one good reason, Ella. So, if you can’t follow the simple command of changing or canceling your flight today, then…” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the piece of rope he’d coiled before knocking on her door and let it unwind in front of her face. “I’ll have to tie you up until you agree.”

“You wouldn’t?” she whispered.

He raised a brow and smiled, just a slow stretching of his lips. “No?”

“Dammit, Justin.” She stomped her foot. “This is not how friends behave.”

“Friends? That’s what you think we are?” He stalked forward and pressed her against the wall with his body, his hand leaving his cock to let it rest against her belly. He put both his hands on the wall beside her head and leaned in, the rope dangling over her chest and between her breasts. “We are so much more than friends, Ella. Your body and mine know that, even if your brain is unwilling to admit it.”

She was silent for so long, just stood there between him and the wall, her breathing erratic, her fingers toying with the edges of his shirt, every so often brushing against his skin. The bright green rope against her skin, alongside the pink of her bra and the spring colors of her clothes did dirty things to his mind. He loved the innocent, sweet, outward appearance she presented, but when you stripped her to her bras and panties and even further to her nudity, she was more sex kitten than he’d ever imagined. She was his fantasy.

The rope turned her on. The thought of him spanking her until she gave in turned her on too. He didn’t need her to tell him that. Not again, at least. They’d emailed at length about those naughty desires after their first time together. They’d explored them a little the next few times they met up. Being kinky in those swanky hotel rooms she’d gotten them into at no charge because she worked for the company was like a dirty little secret.

She knew he wasn’t teasing about tying her up. She knew it was more than sex between them too. He’d made his feelings for her clear countless times over the last nine months and every once in a while she’d slip up and drop the walls around her heart, admit she had feelings for him too. For some reason he couldn’t put his finger on though, she was skittish about trying to have more.

That’s what he needed to find out. That’s what he was hoping having her in Texas would do. Give him some advantage over her. Give him some way to make her more vulnerable, at least enough that he could figure out what in the hell spooked her so. He knew about her failed marriage, her divorce, but both were done and over with. At least, that’s what he thought. Maybe feelings for her ex still lingered.

The groan that inadvertently slipped from his lips brought him out of his thoughts. He looked down to find that she was caressing the head of his cock with her thumb. He dipped the head on his shoulders down a little to find a small smile on her lips, conspiring and teasing. Drive. Him. Insane.

One minute guarded and defiant. The next trying to get her way. “Naughty girl, Ella.”

“Please, Justin. Just let me come once, please and I’ll go with you.” Her voice was a breathless whisper against his chest, her teeth nipping at his right nipple.

He tightened his lips and grunted. She played so damn dirty. “You’ll go with me regardless of whether we screw once or half a dozen times before we get out the door. But, you’re not in charge here.” He brushed his lips against the edge of her hair at her temple and carefully stepped back again. It was harder than he thought. He wanted that touch so bad he could literally taste it on his tongue from her last kiss.

“You’re impossible,” she grumped.

He grinned. “That’s what you said the first time you saw me naked and looked down.”

~lissa