Mine to Serve will be here Nov 25th!! YAY!! There will be a cover reveal soon. But in the meantime, I thought I'd share an excerpt. If you enjoy the excerpt and love sci-fi, you can pre-order it here.
He reached out a hand
and unclipped her hair. As her blonde tresses fell halfway down her back, his
breath hitched in his throat and he whispered, “Jesus, you’re gorgeous.”
She’d always thought words
were cheap, but right then she felt ten feet tall and totally invincible. She
was no longer some lowlife prisoner aboard a ship going to a new world and an
uncertain life. She was a woman desired by a man.
A man she desired
equally as much.
“Thank you.” Her hands
moved almost of their own volition as she reached up to unbutton his shirt. He
stood still, though his body thrummed with tension as he watched her, like a hungry
predator waiting to attack and devour.
She pushed his shirt
back with unsteady hands, slowly baring his lean, corded body to her stare. He obviously
worked out in his spare time, though she’d bet his physique was mostly due to
great genetics.
His shoulders were
broad, his pecs defined and his abs lightly muscled. A faint trail of hair
arrowed down past his belly button, and her fingers itched to explore farther
south.
But it was the flaming
phoenix tattooed halfway across his chest and over one shoulder that captured
her attention. She traced the red and gold ink with her fingertips, enjoying the
ragged, indrawn breath he took before he explained the tattoo’s origin.
“When the Earth
started to go to shit, I wanted a symbol that represented rebirth and hope. The
phoenix was perfect.”
She shivered. She’d
bet it had become an even more powerful symbol when his wife had been taken
from him. Her chest tightened, then she buried all thoughts of the pilot’s wife
to the back of her mind. She wanted only to bask in the moment, treasure the
short time she’d be with him.
Jarred’s eyes locked
with hers. “I still have hope that our planet will one day regenerate.”
She believed that, too
… but only once humankind had been wiped out and Mother Nature took over. It’d
take hundreds, maybe even thousands of years to reverse the effects of people’s
self-destruction.
It seemed hard to
believe that perhaps one day, long after whoever remained on Earth had died out
from starvation, chem-lung, and other diseases, people from Solitaire might
return to Earth, and this time nurture the planet.
“I love it,” she
breathed. “And I hope you’re right … I hope the Earth does survive.”
Even if we’re no longer there to claim it as
our own.
“You and billions of
other people,” he said huskily, his hands clasping her hips before he bent and
his mouth again took possession of hers.
