A CALCULATED RISK - Bernadette Gardner

Amber Heat - www.amberheat.com

ISBN: 978-1-60272-000-8

March 2007

Erotic Sci-Fi Romance - Short Story

Heat Level: 2

Sensuron, Decatur and Envira-Guard - Future

When Nola first sees Tarrant Kane, he is dressed only in black swim trunks. He is positively gorgeous and she wants very much to test his assets. She only wishes that she were free to be herself instead of being a pawn in a dangerous game. She is to bed him, collect his sperm and leave for In-Teron, the company that demands her loyalty.

Kane knows that Nola Rule is up to something, but decides to let her play her game to its end. He is recently retired as an Earth-Sec Defenses General and welcomes a challenge. They enjoy sex that scorches their surroundings, then Kane finds out the real reason she has targeted him as a lover. Inside her, she carries receptacles that will collect enough sperm to form twelve clones of Kane. He wants her to go with him to Envira-Guard and let the scientists there take the embryos and put them in a bio-creche.

Kane does not know when he wakens the next morning that Nola has been kidnapped by Hathan, one of In-Teron's watchdogs. He just thinks she has left him and taken his sons with her. Will Kane find her? And what about the embryos?

A CALCULATED RISK is a thought provoking story. When does benevolent science become malevolent? Where does one draw the line regarding reproduction? And when is a price too high to pay? Bernadette Gardner tells a danger-filled story with smoothly flowing elegance. Out of war and deceit, love can blossom and humanity will grow in the most barren of places. There are many twists and turns of the plot. Kane and Nola are opposites who come together in spite of the way they met. A CALCULATED RISK is a very good read. Even those who are not especially fans of science-fiction should enjoy this one.

Maggie Anderson