A warm welcome to author Jess Anastasi who joined us today to talk about new release “Burn It Down”, part of the Texas Heroes series.
Jess shares an exclusive excerpt with us below.
Welcome Jess 🙂
Jared let the park ranger, Troy, go ahead of him up the slight grassy incline toward where the SUV was parked. He told himself it definitely wasn’t so he could check out the guy’s ass in those indecently tight khaki pants. He told himself that, but he was totally lying. He’d always thought park ranger uniforms were dorky and decidedly un-sexy. On Troy, however… oh baby.
Who could blame him, though? Troy’s perfectly muscled butt should come with a warning label. He was fairly certain he’d burned through more than a few brain cells when Troy had bent over to collect his clothes a few minutes ago, completely oblivious to how tempting he looked in that position. In his mind, all Jared had been able to see was himself yanking down the trunks molded to Troy’s ass like a second skin and thrusting into the tight heat of his body.
Well, the morning was certainly looking to be more entertaining. When his commander had gotten caught up with some kind of family emergency, Jared had volunteered to take the meeting to assess the mounting fire risk the drying Sam Houston National Forest presented.
It wasn’t so much the forest itself but the recreation taking place within its confines that was the problem. Under the right perfect-storm conditions, anything from a stray piece of broken glass to an engine spark or even a damned birthday cake with candles could turn into the kind of wildfire that destroyed homes and lives indiscriminately.
The US Forest Service had conducted an 1100-acre prescribed burn in midspring to hopefully minimize the hazard and create breaks for any fires that did occur, but the risk of something catastrophic was climbing along with the temperature every single day. The devastating wildfires in California that’d killed so many and destroyed countless homes were still fresh in people’s minds.
He hopped up into the white SUV with Park Ranger blazoned along the side in yellow-and-green stenciled lettering, grateful when Troy immediately cranked the AC to blasting. His wet underwear had practically snap-dried within a few minutes of climbing out of the lake; the sun was that intense. The dip had been refreshing—even if the reason for it had been unfortunate. Plus, the added bonus of seeing Troy walking out of the water in nothing but those tight gunmetal gray trunks had pretty much made his year. Daniel Craig had nothing on Troy Hurst.
Broad-shouldered, muscles for miles, and half a head taller than him, Troy had smooth tanned skin that obviously saw a lot of the sun—probably not surprising considering his line of work. He had dirty blond hair, intense brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles across his nose. Basically, he was all kinds of delicious.
He thought he’d detected a hint of interest in the man’s gaze, but it’d been tempered by confusion, which told him Troy was either straight with some deeply buried curiosity or possibly identified somewhere else on the sexuality spectrum and hadn’t quite figured himself out yet. Or the guy was so far in the closet, not even Adam Lambert himself could drag him out of the shadowy depths.
Either way, Jared wasn’t particularly interested in being the one to help him figure it out, no matter how hot the guy was. He’d played that role once before and unsurprisingly it hadn’t ended well.
Burn It Down is Now Available!
When an arsonist targets a kind-hearted park ranger, a firefighter steps up to protect him… and overcome his fear of dating in the process.
Park Ranger Troy Hurst has his hands full with a long, hot summer causing fires to break out all over the Sam Houston National Forest, and it looks like the weather isn’t the only culprit. But helping two abandoned teenage boys and facing the memory of his own difficult childhood will require all Troy’s strength and courage—he doesn’t have anything left to deal with the increasingly dangerous fires.
Firefighter Jared Winters has never been one to turn his back on those in need, and Troy and his young wards are in more danger than they know. Even though Jared is still reeling from an abusive relationship and Troy’s never acted on his attraction to men, the heat between them is impossible to extinguish, and before they know it, they’re planning to become foster parents—a family.
But first they’ll need to find and stop the dangerous criminal threatening homes and lives in Everness.
Buy Links:
Dreamspinner Press https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/burn-it-down-by-jess-anastasi-11496-b
Amazon
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/burn-it-down-5
Jess Anastasi has been making up stories ever since she can remember. Though her messy handwriting made it hard for anyone else to read them, she wasn’t deterred, and now she gets to make up stories for a living. With a multi-award-winning science fiction romance series to her name, her books feature larger-than-life heroes with relatable vulnerabilities who find themselves in situations that push their resolve to the limit. Jess is a tea addict who loves loud music, dancing in her kitchen, and a good book on a rainy day. A fangirl at heart, she probably spends too much time watching too many TV shows. Jess lives in regional Victoria, Australia. Find out more about Jess and her upcoming releases at www.jessanastasi.com.