When Susan Hayes Gives into her Muse, All Bets are Off!

A Confessional by Susan Hayes

I’m going to start this off with a little confession. I’m a geek. I have the official Star Trek cookbook. I can quite capably debate the merits of warp drive vs. wormhole travel and my phone’s ringtone is the theme song to Dr Who. So it’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I’ve written a science fiction themed erotic romance. I think they’re more surprised that it took me this long to get around to it.

Blind Bet started off as a bit of flash fiction inspired by a picture of a woman wearing a blindfold as her lover leans in to kiss her. That brief story intrigued me, and I knew I had to make it into something longer. Who was she? Why was she blindfolded? How had this scene come to be? My muse stamped her foot and demanded I tell the rest of the story. Then she stamped her foot again (she’s a demanding creature) and informed me that I would have to write at least part of the book with the heroine deprived of all sight.

Now I was really intrigued.

I knew almost immediately that I would make this a science fiction story. It was the right time and I will admit that the idea of having four men pleasuring one lucky woman in a world where gravity can be varied at the touch of a button was just too tempting to resist.

Then came the challenging part, I needed to write a sex scene from the heroine’s point of view, without using any visual descriptions. She had to rely solely on her other senses to tell her men apart. Scent, taste, even the differences in the way they touched her were the only clues she would have to their identities. It all came together in a sensual, erotic scene that might just be my new personal favorite. I hope when you read it you enjoy the results as much as I did.

Blurb:

Four men, three days, one chance to win it all.

Technician Laurli Corbin has spent the past six months on an asteroid-mining ship on the far side of the galaxy. The problem is she is stuck with four hot men and under strict orders not to mess with crew morale. That means if she gives in to her desires she can only choose one, and that’s an impossible choice.

The captain has set strict rules that he expects his crew to follow, but when he and the other three men on board realize they have all fallen for the fiery beauty those rules come back to haunt him...

When a cosmic storm hits, fate conspires to put the crew to the ultimate test. The men are given one chance to change the rules and make a play that could give them all what they want most, but can they bet on losing the one thing that matters most?

Excerpt

“Damn it, I don’t know why I play this re’veth game with you bunch of cheats!” Laurli Corbin dropped her cards on the dented metal table in disgust. She went to drown her sorrows with more of Jax’s hooch, only to discover her mug was empty. “Great, I’m out of money and booze. This really hasn’t been my night.”

“You play with us because it’s the only game in the sector and the only entertainment we have unless you want to spend another night in the sim pods.” G’arn grinned at her from across the table that took up most of their cramped dining area and pushed a small stack of chips her way. “Jax, refill her drink before she gets really grumpy and tries to stab someone.”

“No stabbing, Corbin.” Cass snapped from the far end of the table. Cass was their crew chief and captain of the mining vessel they all called home. He narrowed his gaze at Laurli until his sky-blue eyes were almost hidden behind his lids. “I’m not filling out another vething incident report because you yahoos can’t play nice. Next one who requires a write-up is going to be sucking vacuum, because I will cheerfully throw any one of you out an airlock before I pick up another pen. We clear?”

“Damn, someone get the chief more to drink too, he’s even crankier than Laurli!” Mattero said before breaking into booming laughter that nearly deafened Laurli. He was grinning so broadly his elongated canines were showing. His black eyes were gleaming with good humor and Laurli found herself laughing along with him. It was said there was nothing more contagious than a torski’s laughter, and since knowing Mattero she’d have to agree.

Then again, he was only half torski, a thought that often made her wonder just how brave a woman his mother must have been to take up with one of the massive species. Even with his human blood, Mattero was nearly six and a half feet tall and claimed to be over three hundred pounds, The torski were heavy gravity worlders, powerfully muscled and built like a brick wall, and by all reports they were big all over.

Not that she’d ever get a chance to find out…

 The chief had made it very clear when she’d signed onto his crew that while he had no problem having a woman on staff, he’d shove her on the first pod back to Earth if she started any trouble between the guys.

“No bed hopping,” Cass had told her in one of the baldest conversations she’d ever been part of. He’d crossed his thick arms across his massive chest and scowled at her from across the desk, his entire focus on her in a way that had made her feel about three inches tall. “If you want to sleep with one of my guys, go for it, but that’s it, just one. You have to choose and then you have to stick by that choice for the rest of the tour. I don’t need my guys tearing themselves apart over a woman again.” Cass had never said another word about it, but Laurli remembered the rules and had lived by them. She just wished she’d known going in that she’d never be able to choose between them.

They were a five man crew, and her four crewmates were all of the panty-meltingly hot variety. Six months later she still couldn’t choose, which had resulted in the longest sexual dry spell of her adult life. If it weren’t for the personal simulation pods and her private collection of high-end, fully interactive sim programs, she probably would have lost her mind by now. Asteroid mining paid well, sure. It had to, otherwise no one would risk their neck out here. It was dangerous, tedious work, and being stuck in the ass end of the sector on a one year contract meant she’d discovered new levels of boredom. By the time they got back to a civilized part of the galaxy she was going to be horny enough to jump a Jeskyran, body thorns and all.

“Drink up,” Jax told her as he nudged her now-refilled mug toward her hand. “This is a new batch. I think you’ll find it more to your liking. I sweetened the mix a fraction and added something special.” The big, blond engineer winked at her and Laurli felt her mood improve. Jax was a wizard with machines, and he applied that magical touch to his brewing projects. He was all about the details, and as she cautiously sipped his newest creation she caught herself wondering if he was as detail oriented in bed as he was everywhere else. Lust ignited a fire in her blood and for the thousandth time since coming on board the Kessell Queen, she found herself wondering what it would be like if she didn’t have to choose between them. In my dreams, maybe. But sadly it’ll only be in my dreams…

Buy Link: http://www.bookstrand.com/blind-bet

Author links:

website/blog:  http://www.susanhayes.ca

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Susan-Hayes/551945384831723

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6444700.Susan_Hayes

Amazon: http://amzn.com/e/B008KWT574

Twitter: https://twitter.com/capricia13

Contest Time

Time for your own confessional.  Susan Hayes is giving away an ecopy of Blind Bet to one lucky comment below.  Be sure to leave your contact info for her! Contest ends Monday, Sept. 9 at midnight.   So here is the question, from  Trekkie/Whovian herself:  

"Would you rather be whisked away to space by your sexy alien hero, or have him crash land on Earth so you could show him your world?"