I have been busily working away at Rings of Fire…Book 2 in the Apocalypse series and the sequel to The Arrangement.
Thought I would share a few ‘secrets’ about this one…
Some of my fav movies are cheesy, end-of-the-world sci-fi shit. The obvious one is Day After Tomorrow, but my REAL all-time fav in the genre is a BBC docu-drama about Yellowstone called Supervolcano. I could watch that thing…I was going to say a dozen times but I probably have already.
In fact, volcanology is a hobby of mine. I watch documentaries on them…read books on them…and when the writing starts to pay off…I will travel to visit them.
The hero in this book, Brent Jacobs, whom Samuel and Daniel nicknamed Doc, is based upon a REALity TV (National Geographic) star…Dr. Travis Taylor from Rocket City Rednecks. You see besides my Vikings nothing gets this girl hotter than a Bubba. That is what my older daughter and I call good ole’ boys with winsome grins and a heart the size of Texas. And from the moment I saw Travis Taylor in the docudrama When Aliens Attack on National Geographic it was love at first sight and I knew I had to write about this model good looking, sweet Southern drawl speaking, boy genius. I only hope I do the man justice.
So that’s a bit of the background on this story. I am hoping to finish it in time for a Earth Day release (April 22nd), but considering the ideas that came to me this morning…it is going to be tight. But it is definitely my current WIP…along with a touch of Ægir’s and re-releasing my other works to Nook, iBooks, AllRomance and others. Busy lady right now…
So here is a taste of Brent Jacobs and the woman he has loved for a lifetime…and will until the end of all time…
While Lauren Masters was not willing to cede to Brent’s predictions of Apocalypse just yet, her own predictions were alarming enough. “Fuck,” she spat in frustration at the utter and irrevocable power of Mother Nature over even the most brilliant of minds. Man, whether he liked it or not, was nothing more than another of her creatures and just as much at her mercy as every other species out there.
She moaned as the strong fingers that knew her body in a way that no one else ever had…or likely ever would…sank deep into the tight muscles at the exact point where her neck met her shoulders. “That bad, sweetheart?” his deep Texas drawl teased her ear as his warm breath caressed her cheek.
She chuckled as she turned her head enough to stare into those striking baby blues, “What makes you say that, Doctor Jacobs?” How had she so easily fallen back into the gentle teasing they had once shared?
Brent kissed the tip of her nose. His favorite freckle he had always claimed was the one right in the center. “Because, my love, outside of our bed, when you are begging me to do just that, I have only heard you use that word once.”
Her throat tightened at the memory. She shared a lifetime of them with this man. But that one was one of the worst. Thanks to Jason’s skill as a pilot and some luck they had managed to be the first outsiders to arrive at a coastal village in Sumatra, barely a day after the most devastating tsunami in modern history. She had stepped from the plane and one look around her and she had known they were dealing with something the likes of which they had not imagined…and were not prepared for.
She sighed as she reluctantly admitted that even if the worst of his predictions were not to come, Brent might just be better prepared for what was to be than anyone else. She frowned at the implications of that thought.
Brent pulled back and moved to lean against the desk next to her, crossing his arms across his impressive chest, “Okay, Lauren, I know that look too. It means, you don’t want to admit it, but I might be right. So what have you found?”
She shook her head, “I did not say you were right, Brent.” She pulled the original simulation model that he and Monique had worked upon back up onto the computer screen, “The truth is we don’t have enough points of data to make an accurate prediction.”
“In other words, more eruptions,” he sighed. “Damn it! How many more?”
She shook her head, “One, maybe enough to make some sort of guess. But realistically two more.”
“But by then, it might be too late to get some of our people to safety,” she watched the play of muscles as he ran his fingers through his hair. The tightness around his mouth spoke volumes about this man’s stress.
As always, it brought forth in her some primal deep-seated need to comfort and even protect him. So it was only natural to offer what solace she could as she pulled back up her own simulation, “But, even if you are wrong about more eruptions and a new Ice Age, you should see this.” She hit the run button as he bent over her shoulder and together they watched the numbers run. Red eruptions triggering climatic changes that in turn could trigger socio-political ones.
His frown deepened, “So you are saying that even the present eruptions at Katla and Laki could have…”
“More drastic effects than even those scare monger reporters are aware of,” she finished as she minimized the screen. “I used your basic algorithms and just scaled them back for the data we do have. So my confidence in this model is close to ninety-percent.”
“Fuck,” it was Brent, who cursed as his fingers once more laced through blond hair. “So what do we do, Lauren?”
She nodded, “I have sent my calculations to colleagues at the Met and USGS.” She tried to soften her next words with a gentle hand on his arm, “When they learned that you and Monique had done the original…”
“They discounted it all, right, Lauren?” he shook his head. “I suppose you warned me about this…”
“…but it does not make it right, Brent. Like I said, I am almost certain about these calculations. I would and am staking my professional reputation on it.”
“But it is not enough, is it, sweetheart?” he smiled tightly as his hand covered hers on her arm.
She shook her head, “No, no, it isn’t.”
“Now you see, sweetheart. We are scientists. We deal with simple things like theories, calculations and probabilities. But there is something else, a much larger factor that we cannot account for in any of that…human greed, avarice and hubris. The ‘powers that be’ do not want our facts, unless they further their own agendas.”
Tara Cox - Literary Erotica 