Frost and Frontiers

By Jessica Payseur

From a snowy landscape to among the stars themselves, these three F/F erotic romance stories bring together distant lovers and give them the fantasy endings they deserve.

In “Frost and Ice,” ice queen Isolde confronts building tensions with a maligned ex-lover who is trying to turn up the heat in her kingdom.

Engineer-turned-entrepreneur Nessa is looking forward to finally meeting her long distance girlfriend Chantal in person on Europa. That is, if they can get through the “Unexpected Dilemmas” threatening to keep them forever apart.

And in “Orbits,” Ruby isn’t planning to run into her old flame Jen on the new orbital colony Raft, but neither is she planning to miss the chance to reconnect with the one woman she can’t quite shake from her head ... or her heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Dec 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781634865272

Jessica Payseur

Jessica Payseur lives and writes in Wisconsin, where she spends the long winters typing with cold fingers. When not writing she enjoys snail mail, trying not to get lost geocaching, and bicycling around the countryside. For more information, visit twitter.com/jessica_payseur.

Book preview

Orbits

Frost and Ice

Isolde pulled back the gray clouds with a flick of her wrists, the better to view the damage by the pink-orange light of the morning. Another entire field claimed, stretching from an abandoned traveler’s hut deep into a forest at the edge of the horizon. Isolde frowned, bubbling with rage as new sunlight caught the complex curls of frost, the chill spirals and frills parading over the land. Her land.

Jaq, she hissed under her breath.

You called, Highness? asked a voice behind her, smug, with the last word frigid.

Isolde turned slowly, hooking tendrils of magic into the ice crystals under her feet. She wasn’t surprised Jaq had been waiting here, though she had been expecting something more. A trap, perhaps.

She tilted up her head as she took in the cocky figure. Jaq lounged against the side of the traveler’s hut, arms crossed lightly as though relaxed, but Isolde would not be fooled. Jaq had something up her sleeve. Well, something up her vest—she wasn’t actually wearing any sleeves. Tight, skimpy leather pieces were Jaq’s preferred clothing choice, probably for the thrill of the cold. Everything was for the thrill with her, from her ice blue hair, short and spiked, to her pale grey eyes, the color of a hint of snowstorm. Isolde caught herself spending too much time considering Jaq’s blue lips, a pop of color on her pale face. Isolde shook herself; next she would be examining Jaq’s ass.

This is my land, Jaq.

I don’t know about that, said Jaq, eyes glittering like new snow. It’s my frost all over it.

Jaq leaned forward and tipped herself off the side of the crumbling shack. Immediately Isolde made a twisting motion with her fingers and a short wall of pointed icicles, tips outward, sprung up. It was only about ankle-high, but she wanted to send a message. Jaq shuffled down to her as though not even noticing the action, circling.

Isolde got the feeling Jaq was checking her out, appraising her, and it irritated her further. She stiffened her posture, self-conscious. She was curvier where Jaq was scrawnier, a fact she played up with tight dresses that displayed her hourglass figure. Today she wore a long dress the color of hardened snow, sprinkled with diamonds in flake patterns. The fabric dipped low over her chest, dangled long at her wrists. In preparation for a confrontation, she had twisted her long, silver-white hair up and fixed it in a knot on her head with an icicle. She was so pale, she always had to put color back on her face—lips red today, cheeks dusted pink, though she wondered if it was necessary with how she felt the heat rise in her as Jaq circled back around to view her backside again.

This is the third time this month you’ve attempted to take my land, said Isolde, unmoving, forcing Jaq to come around to face her.

Jaq did, amusement pulling her blue lips upward. And you hurry right out every time. It’s like you’re hoping to see me.

Don’t think so much of yourself, snapped Isolde, rotating slightly as Jaq went back to circling. "You think I could keep an entire kingdom running without handling any…incidents that occur?"

You don’t handle every incident in person, I hear.

"Most people don’t steal huge stretches of land—stand still."

Why? asked Jaq, but she stopped stalking. Do you have difficulty hitting a moving target, Highness? She grinned as Isolde scowled.

Remove your frost magic from my land.

Jaq leaned closer.

Or what? she asked.

Isolde narrowed her eyes, pulled the cloud cover back with a flick of her wrists. She and Jaq had danced around this the last two times they met, but this time she knew there would be a fight.

I won’t ask you again.

Jaq retreated some, into the field where her thick frost had made the tall grasses into fronds of delicate ice, thick sculptures of curving abstraction. She waved a hand.

My realm is too small. I need the space to expand.

Renegade, hissed Isolde. You already carved out your space. Alone. That’s where you wanted to be, remember? I allowed it.

Jaq shrugged. Isolde only noticed she was gathering wind to her when her vest flapped up, nearly revealing the left half of her chest. Isolde’s eyes were drawn to the movement, to the bare flesh, the smooth stomach. Jaq lifted an arm, the winds curling around her hand like thread on a spool.

And I’m telling you, I need more. You have plenty. Will you really make me fight you for it?

You’re the instigator here, Jaq, said Isolde, returning the icicles around her into crystals. When she pulled on them, they danced up around her, a shimmering wall of ice shards. That’s your preferred role, if you’ve forgotten.

Jaq laughed.

You keep telling yourself that, Highness. Here, catch.

She launched a ball of wind at Isolde’s face; Isolde stepped to the side rather than engage it. The wind whooshed back around, rattling her ice shards on its way to Jaq.

You’re out of practice, said Jaq, making an exaggerated disappointed face.

I’m not here to play, snapped Isolde.

Then why haven’t you ended this already? Jaq made a lazy motion with a hand, pulling up a frost-encrusted length of grass with her magic