Blog Tour: Bullet by Jade Jamison Excerpt & Playlist
An Epic Rock Star Novel
What if you discover the man you want is toxic?
She tasted a little bit of heaven with him, and now they’ve gone through hell and back, but can their relationship take anymore?
Valerie Quinn is a naïve college freshman when she meets on-the-rise rock star Ethan Richards. He’s an idealistic, handsome, reckless young man, but he’s captured her heart. She doesn’t give up on him and eventually his walls crumble down. By the time Valerie has given herself to him completely, she discovers he’s damaged and may be beyond help. Can she save Ethan and their relationship before he implodes, or will he self-destruct and take her with him?
Once he sat down next to me, he started laughing again, this time uncontrollably. I couldn’t figure out what was so funny, but his laughter was infectious. Soon I started giggling at him, and I didn’t finish until my stomach ached.
But then his face got serious again, and he stroked my cheek. “Sorry about earlier. I guess we put you in an uncomfortable position. I didn’t know you didn’t smoke pot.”
“I was accused of being prude in high school more than once.”
He placed his hand on my thigh. “Oh, I don’t think you’re prude, Val. You just haven’t met your drug of choice, and you definitely haven’t met the right guy.”
His hand was warm. I was staring at it and deciding if I wanted to push it off my leg or not. As usual, though, I couldn’t resist Brad…flirting with him or anything else. So I said, “Meaning you’re the wrong guy?”
He smirked at me, and I wished I could figure out what he was thinking. “Yeah, I’m sure I’m the wrong guy, but I can feel like the right one if you let me try.”
I don’t know why, but his words were exactly what I needed to hear in that hazy state, and I felt like the most special girl in the world then. Brad had that effect on me, and I think it’s because I’d never seen him with another female…ever. It allowed me to believe him. Someone like Ethan, though…it was evident that he loved women, but he loved allof them. Whether Brad had designs on other girls or not, I didn’t know, because I’d never seen him hit on other girls when I was around. It was like he only had eyes for me. And I don’t have any idea why, because—even though that sexual attraction was there—I didn’t feel like I was encouraging him at all. He knew I was hung up on Ethan. He’d known that from the first day I’d met him.
“Did I tell you already how much I like this skirt?”
In spite of my muddled emotions (or because of them), I liked his hand on my thigh and a deep, dark part of me that I would never admit to thought I wouldn’t mind if he moved his hand even higher. But I struggled to maintain control. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from flirting. “Your eyes did.”
He took his hand off my leg and placed it on the back of my neck while his lips touched mine. The passion—yes, it was still there, murky and bottomless, threatening to consume us both, but somehow he had a grip on himself. I didn’t know if it was the pot helping him to slow down, but this kiss was notlike the kisses we’d shared in the past, as few as they’d been. This kiss felt like an exploration…not just of my mouth but of what was between us. It was questioning, probing, moving slowly, hoping to find something.
And, yeah, whether I wanted to admit it or not, my judgment was impaired, although I don’t think Brad could have been considered a bad choice for anything. But my code—the notion I had that I needed to love the man I lost my virginity to—was thrown out the window with the too hot air in his van.
And after luxuriating in his sweet kisses for several minutes, he kissed my neck, and those nerves must have been connected to my nipples and my pussy, because the sensations vibrated to those places and past them to my core. Oh, God, I wanted Brad like I’d never wanted anyone else. To hell with the code. So when he said, “Come on up here,” and placed his hands under my arms to help lift me on his lap, I went with the flow. My legs were bent at the knees as I positioned myself on top of him, straddling him. Oh, it would be so easy, and I tingled all over in anticipation of what was sure to follow.
He started kissing me again and, in spite of my feeling of relaxation, I could feel my muscles respond to his touch over my entire body, and I could tell I was breathing heavier too. I’d been running my fingers through his thick, soft hair, but now I decided to act with abandon. I felt my way to the bottom of his shirt, but I wasn’t just going to be coy and run my hand on his skin underneath. Oh, no. I was going to take his shirt off. I wanted to feel all of his skin. I’d never done it, and I knew he had a firm body and just the slightest amount of hair on his skin to make him look deliciously masculine. I’d seen it enough times that I wanted to touch it. He leaned forward to help me and grabbed it too to help pull it off. And then he thrust his fingers in my hair followed by his tongue in my mouth again, and I felt as though every nerve fiber in my body was ready to start singing. So when I felt his hands on the bottom of my t-shirt, I just pulled my head away from him and lifted my arms. He set my shirt on top of his on the seat beside us and placed his hands on my cheeks to pull my mouth to him again.
I think he knew I needed to move slowly, because he didn’t just grab my breasts even though they were right there, and I probably would have let him. Instead, he moved his hands to the small of my back and, while still kissing me, moved them up, just feeling every square inch of bare skin below my bra strap.
Meanwhile, my hands were enjoying feeling his chest and abs. His skin was smooth but firm underneath, and as I explored, I felt him growing hard underneath me. Oh…that felt really nice, the feeling of his penis up against me, right where he belonged. His jeans and my panties were all that separated that joining, because my skirt wasn’t impeding us at all.
He moved his lips to my neck once again, and I heard a breath of air rush out of my mouth. This time, though, he kept moving down and began kissing the tops of my breasts that weren’t covered by my bra. Yeah, this felt way too good to stop. I was unaware of everything else—of the almost uncomfortable, stifling warmth in the van, of the world around us. It was just Brad and me.
FULL CD:
New American Gospel by Lamb of Godjust because I’m a huge LoG fan!
Blood by In This Moment
ITUNES | AMAZON
This album is crucial for many reasons. First off, if the character of Val in full metal persona should remind you of anyone and she doesn’t remind you of Lita Ford, she should remind you of Maria Brink. More than that, though, there are two songs that I played a lot while writing particular scenes. The song “Burn” helped me when I wrote the scene where Val realizes who she really loves (“There was a song in my head that played, one that would never be written, one I’d never sing, but one that my soul was singing for him, crying for him, one that would never not need him”—chapter 36) and “Adrenalize,” for the HOT scenes before—chapters 35 and 36).
§ Shadows are Security-As I Lay Dying: In case you hadn’t already heard, former bassist for AILD, Clint Norris, was the inspiration for Jet’s look, so I had to channel that through the music, especially the songs where he sings clean vocals: “Through Struggle,” “Confined,” and “The Darkest Nights.”
The Black Crown by Suicide
Because I imagined Fully Automatic to sound a lot like Suicide Silence, I listened to all their music, especially when I wrote the scenes where Val first meets the band (honestly, I listened to all three CDs while writing the first five or six chapters of the book!)
The Cleansing by Suicide
SONGS:
§ “Tempest”-Deftones (various Brad and Val scenes, not to mention that this is one of my new fave songs!)
§ “Moon Baby”-Godsmack (Ethan on guitar having an alpha male moment when Val first meets the band)
§ “So Hott”-Kid Rock (Sweetheart Dance)
§ “Gone Sovereign/Absolute Zero”-Stone Sour (Another new fave song, and a little angry, good for channeling Ethan)
§ “Still Swingin” and “Where Did the Angels Go”-Papa Roach (more new favorites)
§ “Pleasure and Pain”-Gemini Syndrome (Good for channeling how Val feels about Ethan)
§ “Soldierhead”-Newsted (Another new favorite song!)
§ “Chalk Outline”-Three Days Grace (Fave)
§ “Forgive and Forget” and “Relentless Chaos” Miss May I (More for channeling the “feel” of Fully Automatic)
§ “Hollow”-Alice in Chains (Fave)
§ “Crewcabanger”-Chelsea Grin (Ethan and Val get NASTY in the hallway! Also reminiscent of Fully Automatic’s sound)
§ “94 Hours,” “Parallels,” and cover of Judas Priest’s “The Hellion/ Electric Eye”-As I Lay Dying (one of Val’s favorite bands, so I had to listen!!!) § “Open Your Eyes”-Guano Apes (Wake up, Valerie!!!)
I always play music when I write, and Bullet was no exception. In this playlist, some of this music I was just listening to some of it was for inspiration (which I note below):
Jade C. Jamison was born and raised in Colorado, moved from one city/town to the next, and she’s decided she likes it so much she wants to stay…although travel is not out of the question. She lives in a big town in Colorado (not unlike Winchester!) with her husband and four children. She is working on becoming a crazy cat lady. Okay, so maybe not. Still want more? Jade has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Theater, a master’s degree in English, and a master of fine arts in Creative Writing. Obviously, she loves school and the student loan folks love her. She works in human services by day, teaches English and creative writing at night, and—in between playing soccer mom and community leader—writes like a fiend. Someday soon, she’ll narrow it down to just writing, but let’s get all those kids off to college first.
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