menage - what are the chances?

Now that my first book is out I'm starting on another, and it's going to be a menage! Which got me wondering, why is the idea of a menage a trois so popular? Novels are driven by conflict, and the menage relationship introduces a whole built-in set of conflicts such as jealousy. More people in the relationship means more interesting conflict, not to mention hot passion x 3.

Menage can take many different forms. The 3 people can meet for the first time or one person can be added to an existing relationship of 2. The existing relationship could be m/m or m/f. There are so many possibilities, it's like rolling the dice...

...Which brings me to Madison Blake's latest release, Playing for Real, which was released the same day as my book. This story features a woman with two sexy male friends in a relationship which just might have room for her too.

Title: Playing For Real
Author: Madison Blake

Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing
Buy Link: http://www.jasmine-jade.com/p-5054-playing-for-real.aspx
Url: http://madison.thelovechronicle.com/

Playing For Real by Madison Blake - All Rights Reserved

Blurb:

Shelli can never have foreseen how one revised board game is going to change her life forever.

It all begins when she prepares to attend her company’s annual dinner and dance party with her best friends, Adrian and Ethan, but she gets more than she bargains for when lust hits her right between the eyes the moment she catches them in flagrante delicto. She is so shocked she denies the attraction and thinks herself a voyeur, then is totally thrown out of her depth when she is tormented by fantasies of threesomes. But how can she risk their long-time friendship for sex?

Adrian and Ethan are happy as a couple, but they want Shelli too. After several failed seduction maneuvers, they decide to give it one last try by seducing her with an erotic board game especially designed to set them all afire.

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes with same-gender sex.

Following are 2 excerpts. The second one is adult/explicit.

Excerpt 1:

After asking for directions from hotel staff, they stood at the entrance of the Pearl Ballroom, the biggest ballroom in the hotel. It was bedecked with multicolored strings of crêpe paper hanging from the ceiling with a flashing disco ball right in the center and a huge glittering banner announcing the company’s name and event at the opposite end of the room. The entire room was noisy with conversation and laughter, and the lights reflected off sparkling jewels and sequins on the women’s gowns.

Adrian was stunned at the crush of bodies inside the room—there didn’t seem to be enough space left to breathe. The logistics committee didn’t seem to have done their job very well. Having gone to more than his share of company events, he realized that Shelli’s company must have invited their suppliers and valued customers as well as their staff, and the numbers had gone out of control. He was just wondering, if maybe, they should go home and watch National Geographic instead, when several people right in front of them shrieked with laughter and pointed above their heads. “Kiss, kiss, kiss!”

He looked straight up and, lo and behold. Mistletoe. Bunches of it decorating the whole doorframe, an unexpected trap for the unwary. He stared at them, nonplussed and wondered why there should be mistletoe. Someone’s idea of a bad joke, or an innovative ice breaker to get everyone in the party mood.

“Oh,” Shelli glanced first at her colleagues, then up at the mistletoe, dismayed, then spread her hands helplessly, “but they’re my—”

The distress on her face registered in his mind simultaneously with one other thing. If she admitted they were only friends, then all was lost. He and Ethan might as well have not come. He spun her toward him before she could complete her sentence. “Give in gracefully, Shell,” he said, laughing, playacting for the benefit of their audience. “It’s tradition.” He slid his hands from her shoulders up to cup her head and brought her inexorably closer. Her head, her entire body strained away from him and her eyes communicated mute panic. “You stupid fool,” he hissed near her mouth, willing her to relax, to trust him. “Don’t give the game away, not when we’ve come this far. And it’s just a kiss. We might have to play it up to make it look real…”

His lips brushed hers, once, twice. He had meant for it to end there but her lips were so soft, so sweet, so intoxicating, he just had to taste them again. He was drawn in and unable to pull himself away. He forgot that they had an audience. He forgot that he’d suggested for them to work at making the kiss look real, because it was suddenly all too real…

He pressed his mouth more fully against hers and nibbled and licked and begged for a taste of the rich flavors he was sure she was keeping from him in her mouth.

He wanted in.

Excerpt 2 (Adult):

“She’s been at it since three this afternoon,” Adrian pointed out. “It’s no surprise if she reaches the finish line first.”

“I know, still…” Their eyes met in the mirror and there must have been something in his eyes because Adrian turned around and they were face to face.

Helplessly, Ethan took the necessary step to bring them within an inch of each other. His breath caught at the intensity in his lover’s eyes, now that he was looking into them directly. His head reached across the space between them.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” Adrian murmured, just before their lips merged. They tasted each other’s mouth with soft, licking kisses, before Ethan parted his lips and drew first Adrian’s upper, then lower, lip into his mouth and sucked on them. He forgot everything and buried his hands in Adrian’s hair to press him closer, moaning with need and desire, and in response, Adrian angled his head and they shared an open-mouthed kiss, tongues playing and chasing in the caverns of their mouths.

“Hmmm…” Gripped in his lust and never breaking their kiss, Ethan pulled Adrian’s shirt free of his pants, threw it over his lover’s head, then buried his fingers in his lover’s luxurious chest hair. Moments later, his lips replaced his fingers and his nose snaked a sizzling path down Adrian’s chest, ending when his tongue darted in and out over Adrian’s turgid nipple. Adrian groaned and gripped Ethan’s shoulders tightly when he sucked on the nipple and the sounds that Adrian released affected his groin directly, making his cock ache with furious longing. The hand gliding down his back did nothing to assuage the painful ache.

There was no one like Adrian. Ethan felt the same dizzying wonder as he had many times before, that this magnificent, breathtaking man loved him, lived with him and was willing to grow old with him—as both lover and friend. The amazing thing was that he’d known Adrian for years but never in his life had he imagined that their friendship would grow deeper by their becoming lovers. They’d shared a lot with each other when they were merely friends—hopes and dreams, joys, sorrows, ambitions—but as lovers, they’d opened up their entire souls and nothing was secret from the other.

Ethan unfastened Adrian’s trousers and lifted his head. “I want you, now, here, right this minute.” The trousers fell unheeded to the floor as Ethan cupped his hand over Adrian’s straining erection. “God, Adrian, I can’t wait anymore. I want to suck your cock, to ride you hard and fast—” His chest was so tight he couldn’t continue and he let his fingers do the talking. His hand wrapped around Adrian’s rigid cock and pumped with firm, deliberate strokes. Up, down. Up, down. Feeling Adrian growing longer and harder made him salivate. He wanted to take Adrian’s thick cock into his mouth, to feel his mouth engulfed by Adrian’s hot, pulsing rod.

Adrian’s green eyes were molten with desire as he stepped out of his trousers and maneuvered them toward the bed. Ethan never relinquished his hold on Adrian’s cock, he continued pumping and stroking as they shuffled toward the bed. Finally, Adrian was lying spread-eagled in the center of the mattress and he invited huskily, “Come, lover.”

Ethan took a moment to shrug out of his clothes, as they constricted his movements. He knelt in between Adrian’s legs and lowered his head to rub his lover’s stiff cock on his cheek, enjoying the heated, silky sensation of Adrian’s cock against his skin and heightening the sense of anticipation and sexual tension that hovered between them.

“Agh…Ethan, you tease,” Adrian roared. “Suck my cock, damn it.”