Threesomes can work if done well and if they fit the plot and characters. If just tossed into a sex scene for tittilation factor, with no prior thought to what it means to the characters, I believe it can really turn off a reader (it does this reader, anyway).

A menage should never be taken lightly when written into a storyline. I’ve written a few stories where it’s been included, but it’s always an integral part of the plot. It’s been a requirement of a marriage contract (in both Kismet: Winterland Destiny and in Mountain Moonlight), the determination of vampire/werewolf bloodline in Out of the Darkness, and the chance for a woman to live out a fantasy (one of the novellas in my upcoming Berkley Heat release, Wild, Wicked & Wanton).

In each case, I planned ahead for the menage, making sure it flowed with the story, the characters, that it would blend and make sense. Pulling in a third party for no reason when the two main characters are utterly committed to each other can destroy a reader’s enjoyment of the story, and her love of the characters.

I do believe menage can be extremely hot. It’s the ultimate fantasy–a woman being pleasured by two men–and an incredible turn on. We live outside the box in our fantasies, things we wouldn’t dream of doing in our ‘real world’, so we want to experience them in our reading. But in the end, we want nothing more than the love of a good man who cherishes us, protects us, and in many instances, doesn’t in any way want to share us.

It’s getting past that ‘sharing’ that is the difficult part in a menage scenario. And that’s where you have to make a menage scene believable. If you have a strong, dominant, possessive hero, the reader is not going to believe he’s going to grab his best friend and bring him in on some action with the woman he cares for. Just doesn’t happen. There has to be a compelling reason for this to occur, either before the relationship and commitment is cemented, or because he’s doing it for the heroine, fulfilling one of her fantasies, giving up his possessiveness to pleasure her, to satisfy her needs instead of his own. There are reasons for a menage to occur, you just have to make them damn good reasons.

Make it compelling, make it believable, and menage can be explosive. Toss a menage scene in a book for no good reason and no matter how hot it is you’ll disappoint the reader.

**Jaci Burton’scurrent release is Surviving Demon Island from Bantam and her Berkley Heat release Wild, Wicked & Wanton will be out May 1st. **