WELCOME JA KONRATH

Please welcome my guest, Joe Konrath. I feel honored that he decided to visit this blog on his tour. He's the author who doles out sage wisdom and keeps us on our toes with his well known blog, A Newbie's Guide To Publishing. Today he'll talk about the different aspects of a sex scene and how he incorporated this into his upcoming release through the view of his villain, a woman named Alex. Then in his own unique style, and almost in it's entirety he'll give us a rare sneak peek into this sex scene from CHERRY BOMB.

This is going to be good, so take it away, Joe!

My name is Joe Konrath. Under JA Konrath, I write a thriller series about Chicago Homicide cop Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels. All of the books have drink titles. The sixth, CHERRY BOMB comes out in July. Under the name Jack Kilborn, I write horror novels. My next book, AFRAID, comes out March 31. It's pretty scary.

Now, the Jack Daniels books aren't for the weak of heart, either. Though they have a lot of humor, there are also some scary parts. In the new one, there are also some sexy parts, and previously this month I posted a sex scene on romance author, Beth Ciotta's blog.

This is a different sort of sex scene from CHERRY BOMB. The villain in the book, a woman named Alex, is a serial killer. Half of her face is badly scarred, and she's pretty angry about that. There have been hundreds of books featuring men as sexual predators. I thought it would be interesting, and fair, if I made a woman a sexual predator.

Here, Alex kidnaps a man she used to date, because she wants sex. She's been in jail a long time and information (the man, Lance, has access to something she needs to take her revenge on my hero, Jack Daniels.)

Besides the obvious role-reversal in this excerpt, my goal was three-fold. First, I wanted to establish Alex as a woman in control, who gets whatever she wants, by whatever means necessary. Second, I wanted to show she's a stone-cold psycho. Third, Jack has a sex scene later in the book, and I wanted to show how different they are, accentuating the contrasts between good and bad.

Alex is very bad. We've all had to endure countless books where the women were treated like sex objects. Here's one where the men are.

(Graphic Excerpt!)

Alex holds the Cheetah stun gun against Lance’s stomach long enough to drop him to his knees. Before he can recover, she hits him in the temple with the meat of her palm, hard enough to jerk his head to the side. He collapses.

She drags Lance into the hotel room, locks the door behind her, and muscles him over to the bed. He’s heavy, cumbersome, but she lifts with her legs and jerks him onto the mattress. He begins to moan, so she juices him with the stun gun again, causing his limbs to twitch and contract. She holds it there for a few seconds, and when she kills the power he’s limp and a line of drool is running down his chin.

It takes a few seconds to start the roll of duct tape, but when she does she uses a long strip to bind his left wrist to the leg of the bed. The other limbs follow suit, until he’s spread-eagled and immobilized.

Using the utility knife, she starts at his cuff of jeans and slices the fabric upward to his belt line, careful not to nick his skin. Then she does the other leg. Then his shirt, until all he has on are his shoes, socks, and Duff Beer boxer shorts. Alex tosses the knife aside, and tears off the shorts with her hands, feeling the excitement build, feeling herself get wet.

It isn’t necessary for Lance to be naked. Alex could have gotten what she wanted just by unzipping his fly. But she likes seeing men naked. Especially good-looking men. It’s been a long time.

Since being out of prison, no one has stepped up to the plate. One came close, until he got a good look at her face and sarcastically demanded she wear two bags over her head, “In case one fell off.” She left him in a Chicago bar with two teeth in his mouth and a broken pelvis.

But things are definitely looking up. Alex runs her fingernails through Lance’s chest hair, then pinches his nipples. He stirs, glassy eyes focusing, and calls her by a name he knew her by.

“Hi, Lance. It’s been a long time.”

Lance tries to move, sees he’s taped to the bed.

“What’s going on?”

“Shh.” Alex puts a fingertip to his lips. “No talking, or I’ll gag you. I need a few things from you, Lance. First, I need you to fuck me. Hard. Then, I need to know where your EOD Lieut lives, where he keeps his van, and what kind of toys you boys have in there.”

“What the hell are you—”

Alex grabs his ear, jerks his head to the side.

“I said no talking.”

He looks terrified, which is a terrific turn-on. Alex wants to kiss him, but doesn’t want to risk being bitten, or worse, rebuffed. Instead she runs her teeth across his neck and nibbles her way down his body, across his chest, to his belly button. He tastes good, like a man, tangy and hot. Alex grabs him, feels that he’s responding even though he’s frightened. This pleases her; she won’t have to use the Viagra she stole from the coffee shop guy.

She moves her head down, holding his cock in both hands, running her tongue up along the side of the shaft. A thought hits her: Will I be able to function normally? Half of her face muscles are gone. But when she takes him in her mouth he offers no objections to her technique. And as she lowers her head further, opening her throat, Lance’s hips begin to pump.

Alex matches his thrusts for several strokes, then releases him, both of them breathing heavy. She’s hot, hot and wet, and she wants to climb on and impale herself. But they had done this dance, many times, in the past. And though Lance may have gotten better since those days, Alex doesn’t want to have to rely on his staying power. She reaches for the nightstand, tears open the bag of rubber bands, and winds a fat one around the base of his dick.

Lance makes a noise of protest, and Alex gives the rubber band a snap, shutting him up.

She straddles him, guides him into her, and moves down slowly, deliciously, until she’s filled. Hands on his chest, she begins to raise and lower her hips. Easy at first. No need to rush. At the bottom of each stroke she presses into him, grinding her hips, which makes her gasp with pleasure each time.

Alex wants to draw it out, to tease herself. But it’s been too long and the rhythm becomes involuntary, unstoppable. She pushes into him, harder, faster, and all too quickly the first spike of orgasm seizes her, building into a large peak that forces a cry, and then spreading to envelope her entire body like a shock wave, prompting a throaty scream that makes her feel whole again.

Alex doesn’t stop at one. Or two. Or four. She goes at him from many positions, and he’s so into it that by the second hour he’s begging her to undo the rubber band, to let him come. Alex promises she will, and as she rides his face and his probing tongue works her into a frenzy she orgasms a fifth time and almost considers keeping her promise. Instead, Alex climbs off the bed, heart hammering and legs shaky, and gives him a gentle pat on the cheek.

“Jesus, I really needed that.”

“What about me, babe?” Lance looks so desperate, so pathetic. He wants her, even though she’s a hideous freak.

“Consider it payback for all the times when you got yours and I didn’t get mine. Now it’s time to move on to the second part of the evening. If you tell me what I need to know, I promise I won’t kill your wife and family. Hell, you may even live through this, if Jack is fast enough.”

Lance stares at her, his face a snapshot of confusion. Alex goes to the nightstand. She flicks on the butane torch, adjusts it to a blue flame, and gives him a quick, two-second taste on his thigh. Lance howls.

Sex is a terrific way to learn about a character, and the type of person they are. By its very nature, sex is a private, revealing, and vulnerable act. There are four sex scenes in Cherry Bomb, in between the funny stuff and the scary stuff, and as a writer I had a lot of fun using sex to propel the story, enhance characters, and hopefully increase a few heart rates.

Hope to see you guys at Romantic Times in April. I'm hoping to read the infamous toe-sucking scene from AFRAID, my horror novel. It seems to freak out a lot of people.

In the meantime, you can read excerpts from my books on my Website and check out my Blog to keep up with my latest news.

Thank you, Joe, for stopping by on your blog tour. It's been great having you here!

Kaye