The Pleasure Principle

by Calista Fox

“We will, too.”

  “Only if you help me. I need to know how to please you. I need to know what makes you feel good.” Damn him, he already knew what hurt her.

  “Everything you do feels good.”

  Now, she’d started lying outright. She couldn’t think she’d fool him with that. She only hoped to put off the conversation. Well, he wouldn’t allow that any longer. His body craved hers like a drug. If they didn’t do something soon, he’d go mad with wanting her.

  “My darling, I know you’re reluctant to talk about this, but—”

  The coach stopped suddenly, nearly throwing him across the seat and onto her lap. Outside, tack jangled, and the horses whinnied and stamped their feet. He regained his balance and stuck his head out the window. “Ned, what’s going on out there?”

  “A stranger, Mr. Sinclair. I swear, he jumped out at us.”

  “Make yourself known,” Edward called. Most likely, the fellow wasn’t a highwayman. If he had been, he’d be issuing orders by now. More likely a farmer who’d drunk too much and had gotten himself lost.

  The man who approached the carriage was no farmer, though. He wore a finely cut suit of black wool, every bit as expensive as Edward’s own. When he removed his hat, he revealed dark eyes and gleaming black hair a bit too long for fashion.

  Q and A With Alice Gaines

  1) Please tell us a bit about yourself:

  First off, I’m an old, widow lady with bad knees. My generation was on the front lines of the sexual revolution and it’s been said, we think we invented sex. I don’t know about that but we did make it very popular. “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with” was a hit when I was coming of age.

  I still wear my hair hippie-style – straight and long, parted down the middle – even though it’s pure white now.

  2) How many books have you written, what genres?

  Five of the books I’ve finished, have never been published. When I add those to the published ones (do I have enough fingers here to count?), I get ten all together. Three were historical romances (one of those paranormal). One was a paranormal contemporary romance. One was a fantasy with no sex at all but a strong romantic element.

  I’ve lost count of how many shorter works I’ve published. All are romances, though and all erotic/ultra-sensual. My first publication was a fantasy novella in Secrets 1. I had historical novellas in Secrets 6 and 8. Of course, I’ll have a fantasy romance with ERedSage.com in November. I really loved this story, and I’m thrilled that it’ll be part of the launch.

  3) What prompted you to become a writer, (erotic)?

  My imagination has always run wild. Since I was little, I’ve told myself stories, and they were often more satisfying than the ones I read or saw in movies and on television. When personal computers became popular, I had an easy way to write my stories down. Immediately, I discovered that I wanted to write romance and the hotter the better. That probably comes from my background on the front lines of the sexual revolution and my natural optimism. I like happy endings. I don’t care what the “serious” world thinks of them.

  4) What are your plans for future books?

  My next project will be a full-length romance that takes place in an alternative universe. My heroine discovers herself in a place that on the surface looks like her home, Oakland, California but here, the anti-sex vigilantes have taken over the government. She has to save this universe before she can return to save her own. The future of her children depends on it.

  5) How did becoming a writer change your life?

  What way did it not change my life? I can have Christmas every day. Only, people behave the way I want them to, my presents are perfect, dinner cooks itself and the day has a happy ending.

  Writing gives me insights all the time. To show my heroines through my heroes’ eyes, I had to learn to look at a woman as the object of sexual desire. As a heterosexual, that was new for me and it’s enriched my appreciation of women. By training, I’m a PhD psychologist and I learn so much about people by writing. True, they aren’t “real” people, but they have to behave like real people to be believable. Often, they have to be more real than actual people, who act pretty strangely a lot of the time.

  Plus, I love my characters. It thrills me when someone else loves my characters, too. They’re like my children but without the fighting and the college tuition.

  6) Which if any, favorite, authors played into your wanting to write yourself?

  I still remember the impression, C. S. Lewis made on me as a child and a teen. I wanted to be able to create worlds as magical as his. The Chronicles of Narnia and the Perelandra trilogy are what influenced me to want to write fantasy.

  Of course, I read romantic literature like Jane Eyre, Gone with the Wind and The Once and Future King (the Arthur legend). Shakespeare rocks my world, especially MacBeth and The Taming of the Shrew. There’s no one better in the English language. He takes my breath away and makes me feel as insignificant as the dust collecting around his writing table. I admire the plays of Arthur Miller, too, especially, The Crucible. That play gave me a lifelong obsession with the Salem witch trials.

  In romance, I adore Laura Kinsale, Anne Stuart, and Penny Williamson, although I’m sure there are others I should mention here, as well.

  7) Any plans to step out of your usual genre?

  I have done one fantasy. I may do more, especially if that book is successful. I honestly think, though, that my main interest is in writing romance inside fantasy worlds.

  Alice’s Cincinnati Chili

  I love to cook. It’s my second obsession, next to writing. Most of my favorite recipes are either copyrighted or too much work for someone who doesn’t love to cook. I make my own pizza and pasta regularly. You really need a pasta roller to make pasta often.

  My favorite thing to make on an evening when I’m too exhausted to cook or go out and buy something is my version of Cincinnati chili. It sounds weird but it’s really yummy, easy and fast.

  Start a big pot of water boiling. For one person, open a 15 oz can of good chili with beans and dump half of the contents into a frying pan. Save the rest for another night. Warm gently until hot. Cook your favorite pasta until al dente. (I use spaghetti. I’ve been known to do this with homemade fettuccine.) Using tongs, transfer undrained pasta to the pan with the chili and mix. A little at a time, add pasta water until the chili makes a bubbling sauce around the pasta.

  Put into a bowl, top with freshly grated jack or cheddar cheese. On the side, have sour cream and hot sauce. If you have mild onion, you can also add some finely chopped.

  Other Stories Featuring Trey

  Reckless Exposure by Anne Rainey

  As fashion photographer, Rand Miller listens to all the reasons why his sexy lover must move out of not only his apartment but also his life, he decides to give her the going away party of a lifetime. The list of party goodies includes: massage oil, margaritas and their mysterious neighbor, Trey Madison. But when dawn creeps over the horizon, will Rand be able to watch the only woman capable of taming his wicked ways walk out of his life forever?

  Renegade and His Rebel by Titania Ladley

  When her deserting cad of a husband Renegade LaMarr reappears in Moose Junction, tomboy Cassandra “Rebel” Thatcher’s as spitting mad as a peeled rattler and prepared to shoot the handsome coward right out of his boots. She’s got her rifle at the ready and a fine-looking, mysterious drifter named Trey to warm her between the sheets and guard her jaded heart against Renegade. Armed with a secret and determined to get rid of Trey, Renegade plots to finally claim Rebel, chaps, spurs, boy breeches and all. Only problem is, before he can draw his six-shooter and declare a challenge, Renegade finds himself falling under Trey’s magical spell right along with his passionate, spitfire wife.

  Triple Threat by Mia Varano

  Vegas showgirl, Brandy Tate, is on the run from the mob and the FBI. When stoic FBI agent, Ridge Coltrane, tracks her down he puts them both in dan
ger until a mysterious stranger named Trey rescues them. Brandy opens her heart… and her bed… to both men. Will her desire to trust end in heartache, or will it introduce her to a world of seductive delights at the hands of two men?

  Hard Harvest by Selah March

  In twenty-second century America, war, disease and pollution have wiped out three-quarters of Earth’s population and left most women sterile. Scientists are battling the specter of human extinction. Now they’ve devised a DNA test and built a database to help each of the remaining fertile females find her perfect genetic counterpart, thereby ensuring healthy, hardy offspring.

  For Midwestern farm girl Hannah Jenkins, this means accepting a stranger as a potential mate. Unfortunately, the handsome Dr. David Cabot isn’t everything she’d expected. Distant and humorless, he spends all his time in the makeshift laboratory he’s set up in the family barn. He and Hannah use more energy sniping at each other than communicating their wants and needs. After a few months of passionless monthly encounters with no pregnancy to show for it, Hannah is certain David will abandon her at the end of their trial marriage.

  Then a stranger saves Hannah from robbery at gunpoint, and Hannah hires him to work as a farmhand. The mysterious Trey intrigues both Hannah and David, but can he show them how to make love without making war?

  And Charlie Makes Three by Jane Thompson

  It’s 1953 and Ann Reynolds can’t seem to get into the expansively perky spirit of the new decade. After the struggles and derivations of the past twenty years, she feels guilty she’s not as happy as everyone keeps telling her she should be. There’s something missing from her life and she thinks it might very well be her. After dropping her sons off at summer camp, Ann sets out on a journey to discover what’s left of her life when she removes her kids, their schedules and, maybe hardest of all, Charlie Atwood.

  Charlie is Ann’s ex-husband’s ex-golf buddy. He likes to tell people Ann got him in the divorce settlement along with the dog and a stack of old Saturday Evening Posts. Ann isn’t sure why Charlie has stuck around to help since her husband left three years ago but she knows the time has come to relieve him of active duty. If Charlie was interested in a permanent place in her life he would have let her know by now, and Ann can no longer pretend that what they have between them is enough to sustain her.

  When Charlie finds out about Ann’s plan to take a solo driving trip down the coast, he is relieved. After three years standing in for his old golf buddy, a break is exactly what he needs. And if the break becomes permanent, well, Charlie can’t say he didn’t see it coming. He isn’t husband material and it’s become increasingly obvious that Ann needs more from him than he can ever give her.

  Then Charlie hears Ann’s added a passenger to her journey, Trey, a man no one has ever met before. As the gossip regarding the scandalous behavior exhibited between the normally oh-so proper Ann and her handsome stranger reaches him, Charlie feels honor bound to make sure the man isn’t out for just one thing. Ann deserves better, which is exactly why he’s kept his hands to himself all these years.

  But if all Ann is looking for is a summer fling…well, hell, Charlie isn’t opposed to helping her out one last time. And he’s got no problem if her new friend wants to come along for the ride.

  Check the “Coming Soon” page at www.eRedSage.com for more previews of upcoming stories in the Three Kinds of Wicked series!

  And check Trey’s website at www.threekindsofwicked.com for inside information, letters from Trey, sneak peeks, and other deliciously wicked treats!

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  Visit our website and discover delicious temptations and spicy fantasies!

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