Introduction

Under his new pen name, C. Travis Rice, New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice offers tales of passion, intrigue, and steamy romance between men. The third novel, SAPPHIRE STORM, once again transports you to a beautiful luxury resort on the sparkling Southern California coast where strong-willed heroes release the shame that blocks their hearts’ desires.

Ethan Blake has dedicated his life to satisfying other people’s appetites. At forty-three, he’s finally landed his dream job—head pastry chef at an exclusive resort. Now he’s got a jet-setting career that’s taken him to romantic locations all over the world. But years before, after his parents threw him out for being gay, Ethan supported himself in a manner he’d rather keep under the covers today.

Roman Walker is a twenty-five-year-old fitness celebrity awash in thirsty followers. But when he walks through the doors of Sapphire Cove, it’s not just to oversee the menu for his celebrity client’s wedding. Decades ago, Roman and Ethan crossed paths on a New York street corner during a terrible, life-changing moment that scarred them both. Now Roman’s back for revenge.

But when his plan goes wildly off the rails, Roman suddenly finds himself at the center of an even stranger and darker plot concocted by his most famous client. Well-versed in the ways of the wealthy and the entitled, Roman’s former target offers to be his strongest ally during a moment that might derail the young man’s newfound career. But the experienced older man’s offer also ignites an irresistible and forbidden attraction that threatens to consume them both, even as it exposes old secrets and incurs the wrath of the powerful and the famous.

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Excerpt

Telling himself he should keep his eyes on Roman, Ethan did his best to put one foot in front of the other as he watched a paraglider and their accompanying pilot literally run toward the edge of the cliff, the parachute lifting behind them so weakly he was sure they’d plummet to their death in an instant. Suddenly, the wind caught and they went sailing as Ethan’s heart roared.

He focused on the stunning view. A coastline made up mostly of bluffs extended north and then a little way’s west. He could see all the way to the smokestacks of the desalinization plant in Carlsbad and farther up the coast to the sudden jagged mountains of Camp Pendleton that marked the boundary between San Diego and Orange County. The only clouds were high white cotton puffs sailing briskly across the cornflower blue. For miles and miles, the ocean sparkled. And if he kept his gaze up and not down, everything was big open skies filled with nothing but promise.

Look up and not down. The words settled into him, almost as if they’d been spoken by someone else—the encouraging parents he’d never had or the deep, intuitive voice some folks called God.

Inside the trailer, Roman excitedly talked over procedure with the attendant, who handed him two helmets, but he kept looking back over one shoulder at Ethan with delight in his eyes.

Roman didn’t just want to fly, he’d wanted to fly with Ethan. This knowledge filled him with a warmth that drowned out his anxiety, a feeling more powerful than his terrible fear of heights. Roman, in all his wild, restless enthusiasm, wanted to share something with Ethan that brought him joy, and that fact alone brought Ethan joy before they’d even left the ground.

When Roman emerged onto the trailer’s porch, helmets in hand, he said, “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Ethan said firmly, but this time he didn’t have to work very hard to keep the fear from his voice.

He wasn’t sure they would survive. Wasn’t even sure he might not lose the contents of his stomach. What he was sure of was that he wanted to do whatever he could to fill Roman with more of this intoxicating enthusiasm.

The next thing he knew, they were standing a few yards from the cliff’s edge while his pilot-to-be strapped him into the chair, which was really more like a double harness. He could barely feel his feet, and he was nodding a lot to hide the fact that he was having trouble breathing and wasn’t hearing much of what Roman said.

“Cold?” Roman asked before snapping a buckle closed.

“Perfectly comfortable,” Ethan lied.

“Really? ’Cause your hand’s shaking.”

“I’ll heat up once we get going, I’m sure.” Once I piss myself, Ethan thought.

Then the two of them were fully strapped in. Roman’s warm body pressed against his back was a soothing balm for his paralyzing terror.

Turning him to face their destination, the cliff’s edge and the shining sea beyond, Roman said, “Now, don’t worry. That fifteen-minute training class I took online was super comprehensive.”

Ethan dug his feet into the dirt. “Fifteen minutes?”

Roman cackled. “I’m kidding. It was a bunch of training sessions. I know what I’m doing. Ready? On three.”

If he waited that long he’d chicken out, so he started running right away, and by the time Roman got to two, they’d left the edge and Ethan was howling as his feet cycled through open air.

Every fiber of his being was braced for a terrifying plummet through the void below. When it didn’t happen, his desperate yell turned into a high, barking laugh. The force that filled the parachute behind them, lifting them above the cliff’s edge at the last possible second with a confident yank, felt otherworldly, divine.

They were floating. Then they were flying. Sailing. Soaring.

It felt suddenly like they could touch the sky. The air that had looked so empty and dangerous before revealed itself to be full of texture. Levels and currents they rode in the gentlest and smoothest of ways. An invisible miracle made possible by the right wind, the right equipment.

The right man.

After a few minutes, he realized he’d been laughing hysterically since they’d first taken flight. Roman was laughing, too, and there was pure, unbridled joy in the sound. Joy to which Ethan could well become deliriously addicted. When they both ran out of breath, the peaceful quiet embraced them, save for the occasional ruffle of the wind in the parachute overhead. Thanks to Roman’s steering, they’d turned south and were traveling along the top of the cliff, occasionally swerving to the right until beach and white surf appeared hundreds of feet below their dangling feet.

They swooped to the left, inland, over a colossal Italianate mansion that sat perched on the edge of the cliff like some emperor’s summer palace. He realized he was breaking his vow not to look down.

When he lifted his gaze, he saw the expanse of the coast sweeping south. Familiar to him from years before, but never from this angle, this awe-inspiring height. There was the mansion-studded rise of Mount Soledad, the little cluster of buildings at its base that made up La Jolla’s Village on the shore.

A man who’d been in his life for only days had given him a new perspective on a place that had been familiar to him for years, and that seemed as miraculous as the power with which the wind had given them flight. When Roman started to turn them around, the slow revolution added some nervousness to Ethan's joy. But his coordinated pulls on the dual handles were smooth and confident.

“How you doing up there?” Roman asked.

“Amazing.”

“What?”

“This is amazing,” Ethan said louder. “You’re amazing.”

With no way to turn in the seat, he couldn’t clutch Roman’s face. Couldn’t bring their lips together the way he wanted to, but he felt Roman press them as close together as he could.

“Maybe you could learn to pilot someday and then you could sit behind me and steer.”

“You’re doing a fine job.”

“Yeah, but if we switched places, we could fuck up here.”

Ethan laughed. “The things I need to do to your body require more privacy than that.”

Roman sighed. “A boy can dream.”

“I’ll give you plenty to dream about. On solid ground.”

Roman managed to bring his lips to Ethan’s ear. “You already are.”

In another few minutes, they came in for a landing. The second Roman freed him from the buckles, the minute he could turn to him, Ethan kissed him wildly. The deflating parachute gave them cover from potential onlookers.

I did it, Ethan thought. I did it for him. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

SAPPHIRE STORM explores the complicated issue of sex work. How much information do you think a sex worker is obligated to have about their clients?

In SAPPHIRE STORM, Roman thinks he knows the whole story about a traumatic event from his childhood only to discover as an adult that he barely knew the half of it. As an adult, have you ever learned things that changed your opinion of the past?

If you were Roman's mother, would you be able to accept Roman and Ethan's relationship in the end?

Roman's grief for his mother motivates many of his actions in the first part of the book, and Ethan helps him work through that grief. Who is your Ethan? Who is someone special whose helped you through a difficult time — either with romance or just emotional support?

In a later chapter, a character points out that making adult films in the United States is legal whereas escorting is not. Do you agree with this?

The Sapphire Cove series is set around a single resort on the Orange County coast. Talk about the most magical hotel, inn or bed and breakfast you've ever stayed in.

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