by Lili Zander
“Traitor.” Raiht’vi looks ready to tear Beirax apart from limb to limb with her bare fingers. “There is no higher authority than Lenox.” She glances at the cockpit and sees something on the screen that causes her to gasp out. “No,” she whispers. “That is the prison planet. You cannot mean…” Her eyes go wild, and her voice rises in pitch. “What are you doing, Beirax? No ship can survive the asteroid belt. We will all die!”
At her side, Mannix seems to shrivel, but I barely notice. What does Raiht’vi mean—we will all die? What is Beirax planning?
Beirax draws himself to his full height. “For a thousand years,” he intones, “we have sinned against the Draekons. We have used them and imprisoned them. We have exiled them to a harsh and hostile world.” His eyes glow with an inner fire. “And we, the Order of the Crimson Night, have sworn never to forget.”
What the hell kind of fucked up politics have we landed in the middle of? Sinned. Imprisoned. Exiled. Whatever Beirax is talking about, it isn’t giving me the warm and fuzzies.
As I watch, my heart pounding in my throat, the ship’s trajectory changes. A red planet looms in the view screen, and the nose of the ship tilts inexorably toward it.
We start to descend.
Scratch that. Descend suggests that we’re landing with a measure of control. From the panic etched on Raiht’vi’s face, from the way my stomach’s churning, I don’t think we’re landing.
We’re crashing.
“The Draekons are dead, Beirax.” Raiht’vi tries again, one last desperate appeal. “You must let me correct our course before it’s too late. Our ship cannot survive this landing.”
Beirax remains unmoved. “I chose exile and even death so the Draekons may live again.” His voice rises to a chant. “It is foretold. The humans were the seed that gave life to the Draekon. And I, Beirax, will provide the seed anew. The human women will restore the Draekons to the glory that is their birthright.”
Part of me struggles to understand what’s going on. The other part of me is frozen in horror. We’re going to crash on an alien world. One that’s reduced Mannix to a blubbering mess, one that’s caused Raiht’vi’s face to whiten with terror.
The hum of the engines grows louder. We’re definitely falling now. Asteroids hammer at the body of the ship from every direction. I cling onto the ridged walls of my stasis pod, trying to hold on. I don’t know if the others are awake. All I can do is hope that they’re safe.
With a dreadful screech, the right wing breaks off. I see it on the view screen, the metal hurtling away from us. The ship immediately rolls into a spiral. Panels spring open, their contents erupting into the main area.
It is chaos.
The ship gets hotter, and it becomes difficult to breathe. My stomach is churning. A sudden reel of the ship has me flying through the air, tumbling toward the walls.
Then I collide against a hard surface with a sickening thud, and everything goes dark.
Start reading Draekon Mate, book 1 of the Dragons in Exile series, and find out how Viola, Harper and the other girls arrived on the prison planet. The book is a standalone MFM menage romance with a guaranteed HEA!
A Preview of Dirty Therapy by Tara Crescent
My O is missing. Two therapists are going to help me find it.
Two hours after Dennis proposes, I find my fiancé with his d*ck buried in Tiffany Slater’s hoohah, and he has the nerve to suggest it’s my fault.
Because I’m frigid.
Sure, I’ve never had an orgasm with him, or with anyone for that matter, but relationships are about more than good nookie. (Not that it was ever good. Adequate is more like it. Okay, who am I kidding? Dennis couldn’t find his way down there with a flashlight and a map.)
Now I’m determined to find my missing O with the help of two of the hottest men I’ve ever set eyes on. Therapists Benjamin Long and Landon West. If these two men can’t make me come, then no one can.
I shouldn’t sleep with them. I shouldn’t succumb to their sexy smiles. I shouldn’t listen when their firm voices promise me all the pleasure I can handle.
I can’t get enough. But when a bitter rival finds out about our forbidden relationship, everything will come crashing down.
CHAPTER 1
Mia:
I’m going to sum up the suckitude of my life with a three-point list.
Though I haven’t had sex with my boyfriend for over a month, he proposed last night in an extremely crowded restaurant, and I said yes. Because everyone was looking at me and I didn’t want to be the girl that broke his heart in a public setting. Even though I wasn’t really sure I wanted to marry Dennis.
Once I got back home, I started thinking about whether we were doing the right thing. So, I went over to his place to talk to him, and I found him plowing his dick in Tiffany Slater’s willing pussy. That wasn’t good.
I started yelling. Instead of groveling, he yelled back. “You’re frigid,” he accused me. “I’ve never been able to make you come.” Right. As if it’s my fault that I have to draw him a map to my clitoris.
(Okay, I lied. This is a four-point list.) Worst of all, when I threw his stupid engagement ring at his pasty-white butt, I missed. Big dramatic moment—ruined.
“So there you have it,” I finish reciting last night’s humiliating events to my best friend, Cassie, while unpacking a new shipment of cocktail dresses. “Can my life get any worse?”
It’s eleven in the morning, or as I like to think of it, ‘Treat Time.’ Usually, this is my favorite part of the day. The store is quiet, and I can arrange the clothing neatly on hangers, organizing them by color and function. I can fiddle with the display cases of costume jewelry and make sure that everything is perfect.
Cassie, who runs the coffee shop next door, is my supplier of treats. She’s watching me now, her eyes wide. “Dennis never made you come?” she asks, honing in unerringly to the most embarrassing part – the lack of orgasms. “Mia, the two of you dated for a year.”
“I know.”
She takes a bite of her muffin. Chocolate chip, if I know my friend. “Why on Earth did you keep going out with him?” she demands. Crumbs fall on my ornately tufted vintage velvet loveseat. Normally, I’d shoo her out of the way and bust out my hand-vac, but today’s not a normal day. “The guy’s not a looker, and he has the personality of a wet towel.”
I feel strangely compelled to defend my ex-boyfriend, but then I remember Tiffany, and I clamp my mouth shut. “I tried to tell him what turned me on,” I mutter, my cheeks flushed with humiliation. “At the start. He called me a pervert.”
Cassie’s eyebrow rises, and she gives me her ‘what-the-fuck’ look. “He called you a pervert?” Her voice is dangerous. “And you still dated him after that?”
Worse, I almost married him.
I avoid Cassie’s gaze. This situation would never happen to my friend. She’s bold and uninhibited, and she has every guy in our small town wrapped around her finger. Me? I’m the boring one in the corner, grateful for any scrap of attention that comes my way.
“Anyway.” Cassie dismisses Dennis with a shrug of her shoulder. “Forget Dennis. You dodged a bullet there. Let’s get you back on the horse. Friday night happy hour at The Merry Cockatoo?”
Normally, even the mention of The Merry Cockatoo would get a giggle out of me. The newly opened bar is on the same block as my clothing boutique and Cassie’s coffee shop. My landlord, George Bollington, has been waging a low-grade war with the woman who owns the bar, trying to get Nina Templeton to change the name.
“We’re a family-friendly town,” he grouses every time he sees me. “What kind of woman calls her bar that name?” Mr. Bollington is so uptight he can’t even say Cockatoo out loud. Because I’m the town’s resident good girl, he thinks he’s got a sympathetic audience in me. I get to hear him grumble about Nina, about the sex therapists who’ve just opened a practice in town, about people who chew gum and listen to loud music, about people who litter… you name it, and
my landlord probably disapproves of it.
I agree with him on the litter, but the rest of it is Mr. Bollington being a grouchy old man. Except for the sex therapists. That’s professional jealousy. Mr. Bollington is a psychiatrist, and he’s grown accustomed to being the only option in town. He now has competition, and he doesn’t like it.
Speaking of Mr. Bollington, the door bells chime, and my landlord walks in. When he sees Cassie sitting in my store, he frowns. Cassie is another person Mr. Bollington doesn’t approve of. “Mia,” he says, ignoring my friend, “I just saw your window display.” His forehead creases with disapproval. “It’s very unsuitable. This is a family-friendly town.”
Last week, I’d received some incredible hand-made silk lingerie from a small French manufacturer. Each piece was so gorgeous that it should have been in a museum. I’d spent most of Saturday setting up a window display for the bras, panties, and slips. I should have known Mr. Bollington would get his knickers in a knot about it. (Ha ha. See what I did there?)
“Mr. Bollington, I run a clothing store.” I try and keep my voice firm. “Window displays are an important part of my marketing strategy.”
He’s unmoved. “Need I remind you about the morality clause in your lease, young lady?” he demands. The threat is unmistakable. Take the offending display down, or my landlord will make trouble.
Cassie snorts into her muffin once he leaves. “One day,” she gripes, “I wish you’d stand up to him and tell him his stupid morality clause isn’t legally enforceable. You’re going to take the lingerie down, aren’t you?”
“Probably.” I’m a people-pleaser. I want everyone to like me. And it seems easier to give in to Mr. Bollington’s demands than fight him. It’s just a window display, after all.
Cassie lets it go. “Back to more important things,” she says. “Friday night. We’ll get drinks, get tipsy, and go home with unsuitable men.” She winks in my direction. “The kind that will have you screaming with pleasure. The sooner you forget about limp dick, the better.”
I feel my cheeks heat. “Yeah, about that,” I mumble. “Dennis might be right.”
She frowns. “Right about what?”
Oh God. It’s mortifying telling Cassie the truth. “I’ve never had an orgasm with a guy in my life.”
Her mouth falls open. Thankfully, she’s finished chewing her muffin. “With any guy?” she asks, her voice astonished.
I think back to the three men I’ve slept with. Brett, my high-school boyfriend, who I went out with for two weeks before he dumped me to date Gayla, a big-breasted blonde cheerleader. Tony, my college crush, who slept with me once before confessing that he preferred men. And of course, Dennis, who buried his cock in Tiffany’s twat less than two hours after proposing to me. “Nope.” I lower my voice. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”
“Apart from your horrible tastes in men, no.” She gets to her feet and muffin crumbs cascade to the floor. “Friday. Meet me at six. Prepare to party your brains out.”
Once she leaves, I stare blankly at the rack of beaded and glittering dresses and think about my ex-fiancé. Even at the beginning of our relationship, I’d never felt the kind of passion for him I read about in books. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am frigid.
Cassie isn’t going to tell me the truth. The best-friend rules clearly state that she’s supposed to say supportive things.
But there’s another way to get the truth. As I vacuum up chocolate chip muffin residue, I make a decision. I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps with a guy she picked up at the bar. Even if I wanted to have sex with a stranger, they never tended to notice me. That kind of attention is reserved for Cass.
No, I’m going to solve my orgasm problem the responsible, adult way. I’m going to see a therapist. Not just any therapist. I’m going to see the sex therapists that Mr. Bollington hates. Benjamin Long and Landon West. Maybe they can figure out what’s wrong with me.
CHAPTER 2
Benjamin:
It’s been two months since Landon and I opened our practice in this small town, and I can’t say that I’m enjoying it so far. While the pace of life is a lot more peaceful than Manhattan, I’m used to the anonymity of the big city. In New Summit, everyone has their noses in our business all the time. Given what we do, that’s a problem.
Landon, my partner and best friend, comes into my office at ten in the morning. “I need to talk to you about Amy,” he says without preamble, taking a seat opposite me and propping his legs up on my desk.
I give him a pointed look, one that just makes him laugh. Landon knows I like my office tidy and organized, and he takes delight in messing with me. “Make yourself at home,” I say dryly. I look him over. His hair is tousled, he hasn’t shaved, and his eyes are red. “You look like hell by the way. Late night?”
He grins. “Samantha came over,” he says. “She's a tiger, that one. She kept me up all night.”
It’s far too hard to keep up with Landon’s dating habits, but I could have sworn he was seeing someone else. “Weren’t you sleeping with Claire?” I ask him.
“Not anymore,” he replies with a shake of his head. “She was getting clingy. Talking about clingy, how's Becky?”
I gave him a puzzled look. “We broke up. Didn’t I tell you?”
A faintly hurt expression flashes across his face. “No,” he says. “You forgot to mention it. When did this happen?”
I do the math in my head. “Three weeks ago.”
“Why did you break up with her? The two of you seem to get along well enough.”
Landon knows me pretty well, so he’s guessed, correctly, that I initiated the break-up. I think about the lawyer I dated for six months. Landon’s right—Becky and I got along just fine. We never fought, we never argued, and we never even bickered. It had been an amicable, adult relationship, and it had bored me to tears.
“She wanted to move in,” I explain.
Landon raises an eyebrow. “Let me guess,” he says, his voice amused. “That suggestion filled you with horror. You thought about Becky’s stuff all over your place, her toothbrush next to yours, her pretty lingerie in your closet, and you ran for your life.”
“You don’t need to psychoanalyze me,” I tell him. Landon and I have been friends since college. He knows my flaws, and I know his. After a childhood filled with chaos, I’m almost pathological in my desire for calm. Landon’s father cheated on his mother and slept around like a randy tomcat, and as a result, Landon avoids relationships, convinced he wouldn't be able to stay faithful. “I’m quite aware that I’m a little stuck in my ways.”
“That’s not what I was going to say,” he replies, his expression serious. “I was going to tell you that you only pick women that you aren’t truly attracted to, so it’s easier to walk away from them when you’re done.”
I glare at my friend. That assessment is a little too close to the truth for comfort. “Didn’t you say you wanted to talk about Amy? What has she done this time?”
Amy Cooke is our receptionist. She’s new; the receptionist we had in Manhattan hadn’t wanted to leave the city. She’s still on probation, and at the rate she’s going, she’s not going to last very long.
“She outed Natalie to her sister-in-law.” Landon’s voice is angry. “Nat called me in tears this morning. It seems that Amy ran into Doris in church, and proceeded to ask her if Nat’s husband knew what she did in our office.”
I see red. Our practice specializes in sex therapy, and Natalie is one of our best surrogates. We use her to help clients who are having issues with their sex lives.
Unfortunately, surrogacy is still considered similar to sex work, and while Natalie’s husband knows what she does for a living, the couple would prefer that no one else does.
Now Amy has outed Natalie to her family.
“We should fire her,” I say flatly. “Amy knows how important confidentiality is. If she can’t respect the most basic rules of our profession…”
Lando
n winces. He’s kinder than I am. “Give her a warning,” he says. “Tell her that she’s out of second chances.”
I frown. “You do it then,” I tell him. “I’m too angry.”
“Not a chance,” he says promptly. “She has a crush on me. She'd be more terrified if you yell at her.”
“Fine.” Amy has to realize how important discretion is in our profession. Otherwise, she is going to get herself fired. Already George Bollington, the psychotherapist in town, is gunning for us. We don’t need any more hassle.
My intercom buzzes just then. “Dr. Long? Dr. West?” Amy’s voice sounds in my office. “Your ten thirty appointment is here. Mia Gardner.”
“Thanks Amy.” I put the phone on mute and grin at Landon. “I hope you’re ready to put your thinking cap on.”
“New patient?” he asks. Landon and I see new patients together, at least until we have a treatment plan in place. ”Let’s go.”
Landon:
There’s only one word I can use to describe the woman who waits in my office. Hot.
She’s in her mid-twenties. Her eyes glitter like green emeralds. Her hair is dark and lustrous, cascading in long, loose waves down her shoulders. Her body is the kind that a man dreams of, curvy and lush.
Except she’s a prospective client, for fuck’s sake. And though Ben jokes that I’ll screw everything in a skirt, I have some boundaries. Clients are always off-limits.
“Ms. Gardner,” I greet her with my most professional smile. “I’m Dr. West. This is Dr. Long. Please, sit down.”
I wave toward the deep burgundy couch, and she perches on the very edge of it. Her fingers are clenched into fists, and she’s yet to say a word.
“What brought you in today, Ms. Gardner?” Ben asks encouragingly.
