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LENGTH: Mid Novel
SENSUALITY: Carnal

Cover art (c) Kat Richards 2005
ISBN 1-58608-956-0
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Trade Paperback ISBN 1-58608-885-8
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In the continuing erotic narrative of Stella Rice, Stella embarks on a journey of sensual discovery that awakens her in ways she's never imagined. In an ironic twist of fate Stella, the woman who started the year committed to the ideal of giving up men, has managed to acquire not one, but two very sexy, very domineering lovers. And to Stella's delight, both men are committed to making her innermost fantasies a reality.

But just when Stella begins to think she is the luckiest of women, her ultra conservative mother demands to know who her daughter has been entertaining into the wee hours of the night.

Between nights of erotic play with her lovers and days spent shopping with her girlfriends, Stella must decide if she cares enough about the new men in her life to risk letting them meet her family.

Rating: Contains graphic sexual content, adult language, mild bdsm, m/m sexuality, and some situations which could be offensive to sensitive readers.

The Chronicles of Stella Rice:

CARNAL HEAT

By

Adrienne Kama

© copyright September 2006, Adrienne Kama

Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright September 2006

ISBN 1-58608-956-0

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Authors note:

The Chronicles of Stella Rice is a work of fiction. While casual sex is not lethal in Stella's world, it is deadly in our own. Please practice safe sex.

Dedication:

For Amy, Kat, and Melsy, who throughout the years have showed me the meaning of friendship. You mean more to me than you’ll ever know.

Chapter One

Journal Entry 3/5/05; 7:19 AM

My name is Stella Rice. I’m thirty, I live in Baltimore, and I co-own and run a successful business support services company with my friend Ann. AIR--Accurate Individualized Resources--is one of the most important things in my life. Between creating multi-media presentations for large corporations and writing eye-catching resumes for job seekers, I stay pretty busy. Add to that regular dinner dates with my three best girlfriends, Ann, Katarina, and Meagan and anyone can see I have a very happy, very fulfilling life. Anyone, that is, except maybe my mother, my sisters, and my extended family. It’s knowing what my family would think of me if they knew what I’d been up to that makes me to wonder what in the hell I’m doing.

Okay, so I know what I’m doing. I’m dating two men. But why am I dating two men? Because they’re fun, sexy, handsome, fantastic in bed, funny, intelligent, I could go on. I could list dozens of reasons why Jake and Dev are important to me. What I can’t do is come up with a reason good enough to tell my mother.

I’m dating two men!

How long can I hide this from my family?

* * * *

7:31 AM

So I’m dating two men. Big deal. I’m sure I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last. Hey, men do this kind of thing all the time--dating two women at the same time. Sure, usually one woman doesn’t know about the other, but that’s beside the point. It’s 2005 for crying out loud! There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing. I must be doing something right if I’ve managed to attract not one, but two incredible men. Right now I’m feeling pretty damn good about myself and I’m determined to enjoy it. Who knows how long this’ll last?

I am woman, hear me roar!

I’d met Jake back in January when I’d joined his gym, Fit For Life, as a way to meet men with Katarina. Unfortunately, Katarina and I made the mistake of taking Jake’s kickboxing class. He’d been the kickboxing instructor from hell and each class was so exhausting that we were always too tired to do anything afterwards except escape. Then, something unexpected had happened. Jake, fitness guru of Baltimore, seduced me. Or should I say SEDUCED, all caps, because what he did to me had truly blown my mind. And that’s not all. Big, tough, strong Jake wasn’t just a sexual genius, he was also bisexual and in love with a man. Initially I’d been crushed to find out Jake was in a long-term relationship with someone else. I hadn’t felt so connected to a guy since I’d been with my high school sweetheart, Steven Howard, and that was saying a lot. Finding out Jake not only lived an alternative lifestyle but lived it with someone he loved was a blow. Then another, far stranger thing occurred. I’d met Jake’s boyfriend, Dev and … well, they both sort of seduced me. And I’d sort of been seeing them both ever since.

My sex life has never been better!

Oh crap, the phone.

I hope it’s not my mother. Haven’t told her about the new turn my life has taken … and I don’t plan to. I’m not telling her or any of my sisters. They’d kill me.

Argh! There it is again.

Maybe it’s one of the girls.

Let’s hope.

* * * *

8:23 AM

Argh! Why did I pick it up! It was her, my mother. Crap! And I know she knows something’s up. She was asking questions. How’s my personal life? Do I have plans for the weekend? Stuff like that. I’m convinced my mother wasted the best years of her life not studying law. She knows good and well she could have had a lucrative career at the NSA. Nobody can scope out information better than my mother … well, maybe Oprah Winfrey.

I dodged as best as I could but I think she’s on to me. I cannot let her find out I’m dating two men. That would be a disaster. I have enough to think about as it is, i.e., how to keep two very large, very healthy, very sexual men happy.

Gotta go for now. The shower and coffee are calling … and my mom said she’ll be here at noon.

* * * *

3:22 PM

“Stella! Are you still single, girl? You better hurry up and find someone. You know you’re not getting any younger.”

I raised my flute of Riesling and tried to focus on the crisp, fragrant liquid sloshing around the glass. I hadn’t been home for two hours and already I’d been asked if I’d found a man, was pregnant yet, and had been informed that I was gaining weight.

Have I said how much I hate going home?

I’d grown up in Laurel, Maryland, in a big old Victorian on Montgomery Street a few blocks over from Main. Despite how much I loathed going home, the house itself was nice. Quaint even. There was a pretty side porch where I used to spend summers as a little girl, playing with dolls and staring up at the violets my mother hung from the picket rails. The house had three, tri-level gables, a three-story turret that could have been taken straight out of a fairy-tale, and a lushly landscaped front lawn that in the summer was bright with yellow roses and pink orchids. For as long as I’d been alive it had been home to me, my four older sisters (Alyssa, Jackie, Reese, and Robin), and my mom. I’d had some of my best experiences in this house. My first kiss with Steven Howard, first time I’d had sex had been in my attic bedroom … again with Steven Howard, my first sleepover had been in this house with Katarina and Meagan who’d both grown up a few houses down from me. A lot of great things had happened in this house. Unfortunately, because it was so large, it was also the congregation spot of choice for my extended family. That meant seeing my annoying cousin Sadie on a regular basis.

“Shut up, Sadie,” my sister Alyssa said, nudging Sadie with a pointy elbow. She set the bowl of cooked potatoes she was holding on the dining room table, and then slid into the seat beside me to mash them. “My baby sister doesn’t need a man. She owns her own business, owns her home, and is perfectly fine being by herself. Isn’t that right, baby girl?”

(Yep! You read that right. She called me baby girl. It’s one of the indignities I’ll have to suffer through for the rest of my life. I’ll be ninety-nine and my older sisters will still be calling me ‘baby girl.’)

Sadie rolled her eyes and fingered her shoulder length, brown hair. “I’m sure. All I know is that by the time I was her age,” she jabbed a finger in my direction, “I was married with my fourth baby on the way. Maybe if you fixed yourself up a bit, Stella. You know you can’t go out wearing a bun. Men won’t be paying you any attention if you look like that. And those jeans look about two sizes too big for you.”

Have I said how much I hate my cousin Sadie? The cow! Having mistaken my mother’s house for a nightclub, she’d come wearing a micro-mini, Chaka Khan hair, a frilly red blouse, and fuck-me pumps.

“I like my bun,” I offered, wondering who she’d bribed to watch the aforementioned spawn. She’d shown up at my mother’s door without them or her husband. Come to think of it; lately, I hadn’t seen that much of Stanley. Maybe he’d finally had enough of Sadie and her whiny offspring and hit the road. Couldn’t say I’d have blamed him.

“Don’t take offense, Stella. I’m just saying. You know you better hurry up and find yourself a man. You know I’m right.”

“Maybe I don’t want a man.”

Dressed in her signature Chic jeans, my mother stumbled into the room, hand fixed melodramatically to her breast. Her short, raven hair bobbed as she cantered to the left, lost her footing, and nearly smacked her head against the glass doors of the china cabinet.

Alyssa was on her feet and at my mother’s side in two strides. Reluctantly, I followed. “Are you all right, mommy?”

She slapped the steadying hand I’d placed on her shoulder as though I were a troublesome gnat. “Don’t you ever say that, Stella,” she roared, peering heavenward as though God would curse me to eternal spinsterhood for daring to say such a thing. “Of course you want a man. You just haven’t found the right one yet.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Stella Marie Rice. How long has it been since you’ve been to church anyway? You never rolled your eyes when you lived at home and went to church. You were a good girl when you lived at home and went to church.”

Argh! It was like being sixteen all over again. “I didn’t roll my eyes,” I explained, lying through my teeth. “I must have gotten an eyelash in my eye or something.”

“You can’t give up,” Sadie continued, doggedly. “There’s a man out there for you.”

Ha! That’s where she was wrong. Turns out there were two men out there for me. For about a millisecond I considered telling them as much, but quickly decided doing so wouldn’t be in my best interest. In her present state, my mom was likely to faint dead away. Instead, I asked Sadie, “So where’s Stan?”

The cow’s face went blank. You’d think she’d never heard the name before.

“You know, Stan. About this tall,” I raised a hand over my head, “and married to you. The father of your children ... am I ringing any bells?”

Her upper lip curled. “You think I don’t know my own husband? He took the girls to the aquarium.”

“Likely excuse.”

My mother eyed me. “Stella, Stella.” She shook her head sadly and sighed. “Stop annoying your cousin. Go to the kitchen and help your sisters.”

Thusly chastised, I walked into the kitchen, side-stepped my sisters, snuck out the far side, and went in search of my purse.

Five minutes later I was locked in the upstairs bathroom with my cell phone, staring out the window over the bathtub at the steadily falling snow, and trying desperately to speak quiet enough so I wouldn’t be overheard.

“We’ll see you tomorrow night,” Jake was saying. “Just think about that.”

“I know,” I whispered, “but I want to see you now. I can’t take it anymore. My family is going to make me crazy.”

“You’ve only been there a couple of hours. It can’t be that bad.”

I’d hoped calling Jake would help me to feel better, but hearing that deep, sultry voice was making me even more desperate to get away from my family. “They keep telling me I should meet a man.”

“Well tell them you have. Tell them you’ve met two.”

Just the thought of what my mother would do were she to find out about Jake and Dev made me break out in a cold sweat. “Are you crazy! She’d kill me.”

Jake laughed. “Are we really that bad?”

“Of course not. It’s not me, it’s her. She wouldn’t understand. She’s Catholic,” I said that last bit as though it would explain everything.

Apparently it did. “Oh. Well, you do realize you’ll have to tell her sometime, that is if you intend for this relationship to go anywhere. You can’t hide us forever.”

Forever, hell. It had only been a few weeks. Give a girl some time to adjust to being in a ménage for crying out loud. “I don’t intend to. It’s just … shit! Someone’s coming. I gotta go.” I flipped my phone shut and was on my feet so fast I got light headed.

“Stella! Baby girl, are you in there?”

My sister, Jackie. “Yeah. Is dinner done already?”

A few seconds ticked by before she answered. “Yeah. And you’ve got a visitor.”

A visitor?