The Road to Hell series welcomes author DRAVEN ST. JAMES

Please welcome Author Draven St. James onto the Road to Hell. Draven St. James is the author of Grey’s Hidden Fire.

Now, it’s time to create a little hell and get to the good stuff by revealing all of Draven St. James’s wicked secrets while on the Road to Hell. LOL  Yeah, you wish! ;-D 

Grab your favorite drink, sink your teeth into something decadent, sit back, relax and enjoy getting to know Draven St. James…

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GRACEN:  Tell me three things about yourself that we cannot find on the internet or in your bio?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES:  Wow, so you want me to know what lies behind the public façade, huh?  Well, the first night I went out when I turned twenty-one I attended a fetish ball. That was definitely an eye opener!  I’d do just about anything for a slice of cheesecake dripping with cherry sauce.  I suppose, lastly, a good eighteen year scotch goes a long way toward soothing the nerves of a bad day.

GRACEN: What hobbies and interests do you participate in when you’re not writing?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES:  There are times when I’m not writing?  Oh, in those rare moments I’m generally researching or spending time with my family and friends. I think a huge part of the joy of writing is having a fantastic excuse to go do crazy things in the name of studying a certain topic for my books.

GRACEN: Do you have any writing quirks or certain things you MUST have or do before beginning the writing process?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: First and formost I must have my coffee in the morning.  Without my coffee my characters just cannot get it up.  That is primarily my only writing quirk.

GRACEN: If you were plotting to take over the world, how would you do it?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: I’d send all the kids to Disney land and slip a powerful aphrodisiac to the adults so that while they were all getting their sexy on I could become the ruler of the world. J

GRACEN: If you could make one statement that the entire planet would hear and remember, what would it be?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES:  Never be afraid to write what you love.

GRACEN:  What genre do you write and why that genre?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: Grey’s Hidden Fire is M/M contemporary.  I write in that genre because I love the fact that men have both powerful external and internal emotional responses. There resides so much action and passion without filters. It is rough and raw without apology.

GRACEN: For those who are not yet familiar with DRAVEN ST. JAMES, can you please give us some details about the book and/or series? 

DRAVEN ST. JAMES:  Grey’s Hidden Fire will be part of a series on firefighters who deal with the prejudice of finding love and being gay in their profession.   I plan to branch off into related fields but I’m going to let my characters develop with each book and lead me there.

GRACEN:  Do you have any new stories in the works and can you tell us a bit about it/them?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: I have a m/m paranormal book in the works. I also have a sequel to Grey’s Hidden Fire working its way through my mind and onto the screen.

GRACEN: If you could describe your writing with one word or brief phrase, what would it be? Please delve into the core of your writing to tell us what word or phrase you want readers to take with them when they’ve finished reading your story.

DRAVEN ST. JAMES:  Unbound.

GRACEN: What, in your opinion, makes your story unique and what makes it stand out from other stories in your genre? Think of this as a pitch to convince readers to pick up your books.

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: I think my story has a unique twist in that it is about one man discovering is sexuality late in life with the introduction of one particular man into his life. 

GRACEN: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: I dressed in dom gear and went to fetish night to try to get an idea of what those interactions were really like off of the page.

GRACEN: Of all your books, which character did you have the most fun creating and why?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: I’m going to take the easy answer here because I love all my characters. I couldn’t write them if I didn’t. Now, I am looking forward to developing some of them maybe a little more.  Outside of Grey and Mica,  I am having a great time developing Simon’s story. He’s just a fun quirky character and to put depth and deminsion within his personality has been exciting. I love molding characters because when their personality are complete the story almost folds around them.

GRACEN: If you had the opportunity to meet just one of your characters in real life, who would it be and why?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: I think I’d like to meet Mica. He just has those qualities of being both serious but with a wicked sense of humor. I believe he’s one of those people you could get into a lot of fun trouble with. 

GRACEN: Which of your characters would you never want to meet under any circumstance and why?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: Oh, I would never want to meet the villains, but to name them would kind of give away the story.  So you’ll just have to read the book to understand why!  J

GRACEN:  If you were interviewing yourself, what is the one question you would ask yourself and please give us the answer to that question?

DRAVEN ST. JAMES: Why do I write?

I write because my mind is constantly buzzing with worlds and people who are shouting their stories. I think that some people get bored in life and need an escape from the humdrum of it all. I have always wanted to provide that for others. I have a degree in psychology, so I suppose it is just in my nature to want to lift peoples’ spirits and help them find their bliss.

GRACEN:  Thanks so much for joining us, DRAVEN ST. JAMES!  It’s been a treat getting to know you better! 

Website: http://dravenstjames.wordpress.com

Buy Link: www.loose-id.com

https://twitter.com/DravenStJames

www.facebook.com/draven.stjames

http://pinterest.com/dravenstjames/boards

Gmail: Dravenstjames@gmail.com

BLURB:

Grey's entire life is wrapped around his job as a firefighter. It is all he has ever wanted. That is until his new coworker Mica Cruz saunters through the door with his smoldering dark looks and dimpled grin. Suddenly he finds himself wanting to get to know what Mica looks like out of his gear and between the sheets.

Mica has one rule…keep his work life and his personal life separate. It was easy enough to follow until he meets Grey and finds that his rule can't stand up to the fire that Grey ignites. There's one big thing standing in the way of all of his lust filled musings. Grey is straight.

In a profession where being gay is often kept quiet Grey must come to terms with his growing attraction to Mica. How much is he willing to sacrifice? Can they come together before someone's hatred threatens to destroy them both?

EXCERPT:

Mica walked into the dark room that contained two bunk beds. Grey’s huddled form made a silhouette against the darkness on one of the lower bunks, and Mica stretched out on the other. Grey’s shifting sent the sounds of a creaky mattress across the small space.

“Are you gay?” Grey’s words shattered the silence with their quiet intensity.

Mica felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. No one had ever out-and-out asked him if he was gay. He was fairly certain it was because he didn’t look like the stereotypical gay man. He also didn’t act like what his coworkers had always described as a gay man. He wasn’t effeminate. They were never cruel, but there was a level of mocking when they spoke about the topic. The reaction to the answer to this one question could screw his whole world up, but he didn’t feel like he could lie to Grey.

“Yes,” he responded in a low voice. He held his breath and waited for some kind of verbal or physical explosive response. There was nothing, just the soft sound of Grey’s breath.

“Was I any good?” Grey asked.

Mica sat up and stared into the darkness, his mouth hanging open. “What?” he asked in a loud whisper.

“In your fantasy, I must have been pretty good, right?” There was humor in the other man’s voice. Humor, but not ridicule.

“Yeah, you were pretty good,” Mica conceded. He lay back on his bed and laughed softly. “You were really good.”

“Is that what you are? Dominant?”

“What do you mean?”

“I…” Grey hesitated. “Are you a top?”

Mica snickered and smiled broadly at Grey for having the courage to ask that kind of question. “Yes and no.”

Grey chuckled. “How does that work?”

“I wouldn’t mind bottoming for the right guy,” Mica confessed. He had never said that to anyone. He had actually never bottomed, but if given a chance with Grey…he’d be tempted.

“Oh…” Grey murmured.

Mica glared hard into the darkness. He wished he could look into Grey’s eyes, see what was in Grey’s mind. It was damn difficult to judge what a man was thinking simply by the tone of his voice. Grey didn’t seem to have much of a problem with Mica’s being gay. If anything, he sounded intrigued.

“I take it you’re straight?” Mica asked.

The weight of the silence was heavy. Had Grey gone to sleep that quickly? Mica wanted to get up and turn on the light, but he didn’t think Grey would appreciate it. It would feel too much like a spotlight during an interrogation.

“Yes,” Grey admitted. Although the brief moment of hesitation was curious.

“Thank you, then, for not freaking out about earlier,” Mica said into the void. His face heated at the words. He wanted to add to that, but he didn’t know what to say. Apologizing for using someone to get off was a new thing to him. In his early days of coming out he’d had his one-night stands with no apology. Somehow this entire situation held a higher level of intimacy. Maybe it was the sharing of secret thoughts in the dark.

Grey shuffled. “Mica?”

“Yeah?”

“What was I doing?”

Mica’s eyes widened. He couldn’t have heard that right, or he’d processed it incorrectly. “Huh?”

“I mean, what was your… What was the whole fantasy?”

Mica had to sit up to hear the whispered words. “In the shower?”

“Yeah.” Grey sighed. “I mean, I know I was…I mean…in the end…sucking…”

Mica could practically feel the heat of the other man blushing across the room.

“Are you seriously asking for the setting of my jack-off session?” Mica chuckled.

“Well, when you say it like that…” Grey’s voice filled with discomfort. “I guess it was an odd question. Never mind.”

Grey sounded mortified. Mica didn’t know what drove Grey to ask the question, but Mica wanted to share the fantasy with him. After all, Grey had asked. No one could fault him for handing over information that had been requested.

Mica lay back and closed his eyes. “You came into the locker room as I was taking off my T-shirt. You wanted to know if I needed any help cleaning up, or if I had any pain from the fire.”

He paused to see if Grey would stop him. If Grey had changed his mind about wanting to know Mica’s hot fantasy. A fantasy where Grey was the star. He heard nothing but Grey’s breathing. “Are you with me?”

“Yes.”

If Mica hadn’t been listening so closely, he wouldn’t have heard the response.

“Okay, so I told you my shoulder was really hurting from when I pushed against the door frame to make it outside. You came up behind me and ran your fingers over my shoulders, massaging. I could detect the faintest touch on my neck, where it felt like you’d kissed me. My cock twitched, and I barely managed to keep from groaning. You felt my body tense, so you pulled away and turned me around. You asked if I was okay, if I needed any other help.” His voice became hoarse with arousal.

“That’s when you looked down and saw my cock, rock hard against my briefs. You reached down to lightly stroke it through the fabric and asked if I required help taking care of any other special needs.”

Grey chuckled softly and said, “Sounds like a line from a porn video.”

“Well, it is a fantasy. Give me a break.” Mica laughed. “Anyway, of course I was shocked by your offer, but so fucking hard because your hand was stroking my dick that I nodded. You pushed my briefs down and wrapped your fingers around my cock. Your hand felt amazing. It was so warm and rough. I rocked my hips into it.” His cock leaked. The arousal was ten times what it had been in the shower. Describing the fantasy for Grey was hotter than he could have imagined.

“And?” Grey asked, his voice ragged.

Mica propped himself up on his elbow. Was it his imagination, or did Grey sound turned on?

“Then you swiped your finger over the head of my dick, getting a drop of precum. You brought it to your lips and sucked it off. You told me it tasted sweet and salty and that you wanted more.”

Grey’s breath came faster from across the room. Holy shit. Just the thought of Grey getting hot from the fantasy was enough to make Mica’s cock throb.

“Then what?” Grey whispered.