Dedication
For all superheroes and superhero lovers, especially the Fantastic Four, who kept me company on Saturday mornings when I was a child, my college boyfriend, Todd, who introduced me to the X-Men, my Marvel-ous husband, Ben, who loves to brainstorm super powers with me, my genius editor, Mary, who knows her heroes and her humans…and for Batman and Wolverine, who inspire me in all their incarnations.
Chapter One
Cal’s Dungeon, Niagara Falls, New York
Cal raised his arm and brought it down sharply, flicking his wrist at the end of the strike. The copper whip lashed her back and she moaned. He glanced at the heart monitor and frowned. Next to it, the EEG displayed sharp peaks and deep valleys.
He had worked her hard tonight, and the impulse to take it further told him it was time to stop. Her back was a perfect grid. Electricity coursed along his skin, not abated in the least by the two hours he had spent with her. It was becoming a problem.
He walked across the room and opened a drawer, exchanging the thin copper whip for a leather one before he returned to her. Since he was still so juiced, he pulled on a pair of leather gloves before he stroked her back. She liked the leather, had never questioned why he usually kept his gloves on while they played. She had never tried to kiss him, never wanted to snuggle afterward. She had never chafed at the restriction of the blindfold. Really, she was perfect. It was a shame she had peaked so soon.
Her back spasmed under his caress and she moaned again. She had climaxed many times during their session, but since this was their last time together, he wanted to leave her with happy memories. He eased one glove from his hand. “Don’t move,” he whispered.
She wasn’t going anywhere, tied facedown, spread-eagle, on his table, but he thought she would enjoy the warning. He locked his energy in his core and reached between her legs, one eye on the monitors. His finger slid easily through her folds until he found his target. He allowed the faintest current to connect his fingertip to her clit.
“Oh my God, Sir! What is that?” Her voice was thick, almost drowsy.
Sooner or later, they always began to ask questions. Sooner or later, they always wore out. He didn’t answer her, just slowly increased the current. She’d climax long before her levels peaked again. In fact, he might be able to do this a few more times before she passed out from pleasure. She’d like that.
He stroked his gloved hand down her marked back. She screamed, a sound he loved, so he did it again. He kept one hand positioned between her thighs, the other moving over her back. He kept his eyes on the monitors.
Her body was rock-hard under his hand. He could feel the tension in her muscles, see the strain in her trapeziums, her buttocks and the well-defined cords of her hamstrings. Her cries were continuous, long, keening wails. It would be truly sadistic for him to stop now, and for a moment, he was tempted.
He felt a wide grin spread across his face. No, he wouldn’t stop.
He increased the current flowing through his fingertip by one tiny amp, keeping the rest of his energy contained. The human body simply couldn’t handle his kind of power. It could, however, afford a different kind of release.
She cried out when he pulled his hand away from her in order to roll a condom down the length of his cock. Aware of how much juice he had buzzing inside him, he was careful to adjust his leather pants so that her bare thighs would not touch his skin. He thrust his gloveless hand behind his back and stepped up to the table again. Tied as she was, he could fuck her without having to touch her with anything but his covered cock.
She climaxed, hard, when he entered her. He kept his strokes shallow, but he wasn’t gentle. Gentle was not why she was here. She rocked in time with his thrusts, not even screaming anymore. Her walls rippled around him and he could see her pussy and ass convulsing with near-constant orgasms. He kept the pace brutally fast, enjoying the connection between them, feeling it build, loving the electric response of her body to his.
As his orgasm approached, he glanced at the monitors—steady in safe zones. He double-checked her blindfold, used both hands to hold his leather pants between them and made sure he was grounded, with his steel-reinforced boots planted firmly on the concrete floor. His vision blurred, went blue at the edges. He smelled sparks in the air. Thunder rumbled in his ears. His thoughts turned to his favorite fantasy—bare skin, soft, silky, sweaty, impossibly bare skin—and he lost control.
Cal locked the door behind her with a desperate sense of relief. He’d thought she was never going to leave. Apparently, that one question had broken a dam inside her, and she had hit him with a torrent he couldn’t answer without sparking a dozen more questions he wouldn’t answer—especially when he had said they weren’t going to see each other again.
He went downstairs to clean up the dungeon and then headed for the garage. Their session had been nothing but a tease for him, and he needed to find another way to release energy. He was loathe to spend the rest of the night working, which is what he usually did when there was no other way to find relief. The idea of stockpiling fuel cells did not hold the same appeal as kinky sex. He’d rather put his energy into something more satisfying, but if he didn’t do something, he was going to start leaving a trail of blue fire behind him…or burn the house down while he was sleeping…or the neighborhood…or the city.
He opened the garage door as soon as his boots hit the concrete. His motorcycle was pointed out into the night, ready to go. He grabbed his helmet and jammed it over his head, then kicked the stand and climbed on. The key was already in the ignition, so when his hands and feet closed the circuit, the bike roared to life. His energy leveled out, and he sighed in relief. Maybe a good, long ride was all he needed.
He pressed a button on the remote to close the garage door behind him and took off down his long driveway, giving it a little more juice than necessary because it felt so damn good. When he reached the bottom, he paused. His neighbor’s house sat right on the road and Karen was standing in her driveway, swearing at her truck. The hood was up and the trunk was open.
He lifted his visor. “Need some help, neighbor?”
“Battery’s dead and Kyle has the goddamn cables. I really wanted some chicken wings too. Now I’ll have to wait until he gets home.”
He grinned at her very pregnant belly. “Chicken wings, huh? Not ice cream?”
“Ice cream after the wings. Now I’ll have to go back in the house and eat two thousand completely unsatisfying calories of something else.” She looked like she was going to cry—or kill something. “Unless you have cables?”
He had better than cables. “Let me take a look at your battery. Maybe I can clean the connections or something.” He got off the bike and removed his helmet to peer under the hood, hoping she would step back.
She turned toward the house. “I’m just going to get my cell phone so I can send Kyle a hateful text, okay?”
“You do that.” He hid his grin under the hood, waiting until she entered the house to begin recharging the battery. It only took a second. He grabbed a rag from the trunk and cleaned the connections for good measure. When she came back outside, he was wiping his hands. “Give it a shot.”
He boosted her up into the seat. When she twisted the key, the engine turned over immediately. “I think it was just a crusty connection. Plenty of juice in there. Enjoy your wings, and take it easy on Kyle, okay?”
“Thanks, Cal. You just saved his life.”
He laughed and swung up onto his bike again, giving her a friendly salute with his helmet. He checked his cell phone before he pulled out onto the road and noticed a text message from his friend, Truman. At the Lair. You coming tonight, lol?
Why not? F
inding a new sub had been in the back of his mind when he left the house, and it was still early. On my way, he texted back and headed for the highway.
Chapter Two
Audrey Fallon stepped into the darkness of her brother’s club and paused, taking in the outlandish scene. At nine o’clock, the Lair was already half-full of men and women dressed mostly in black leather. Flashes of metal caught her eye. And skin. Lots of bare skin. It was a completely different scene than her lab, where everything was white and buttoned-up. She was out of her element here, no doubt about it. Nothing less than desperation would have gotten her past the door. She really hated it when Jake made her hunt him down like this.
It really is a lair. The walls were carefully sculpted to look like stone, and every few feet shackles were bolted into the wall. Some of them held naked men and women in various poses of ecstasy and humiliation. Were they performers or patrons? She didn’t want to know.
Across the room, the bar flashed with soft red, green and yellow gels, like a traffic signal gone rogue. She knew enough of BDSM to wonder if that was an inside joke. Knowing Jake, probably.
She began to weave her way across the crowded room, intending to ask a bartender where to find Jake. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the seating arrangements, although a few large booths created focal points in the large space. She steeled herself to look into each one as she passed. She knew the dictionary definitions for what was going on around her: voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, masochism, bondage. Her eyes paused on two people sitting on a black leather couch. She didn’t know what that was called. Purple light arced from a wand. The woman moaned.
Audrey’s body began to tingle. In sympathy? She looked away from the light, searching the corners, gazing into the shadows.
No Jake.
He had to be around here somewhere. It was Saturday night, after all. Ironic that they both spent their weekend at work. Him at the Lair, her at the lab. That was where the familial similarities ended, though. Jake had definitely inherited all the deviance in the family. She thought of his gifts, and her lack, and pressed her lips together. She was so disappointingly normal. If she didn’t know for a fact they were brother and sister, she would doubt they were even related. They were nothing alike, as he was so fond of reminding her. She was the innocent one, the goody-two-shoes with the college education and the medical degree. He was the high school drop-out with no ambition other than to run a kink club and get laid as often as superhumanly possible.
Their differences were physical too. Jake was dark, with swarthy skin and a stocky build. She knew most people considered him ugly since he was short and his smooth, bald skull flowed into his shoulders with no neck to speak of. He had a barrel chest, thighs as thick as his squat body and densely muscled calves. His shoulders were rounded, powerful, his lips fleshy, and his ears were small and curved. His eyes were his one truly beautiful feature, but he kept them covered by wraparound shades, even inside the club. Jake wasn’t a beauty, no doubt about it, but he was her brother and she thought he was perfect, even though she was going to tear him a new one when she finally found him.
She drifted through the central aisle, throwing spare glances left and right. She tried not to look shocked, or worse, like a pervert as she looked for her brother in the booths. Presumably, most of these folks liked to be watched. She couldn’t think of any other reason a woman would allow someone to clamp her nipples in public. Likewise, she guessed that the man crouched at his date’s feet didn’t want to sit in the open space across from her at the table.
She glanced up and squeaked when she saw someone gazing down at her from a cage. She picked up her pace. Jake wasn’t going to be suspended in a cage. His muscle mass would bring it crashing to the floor and kill someone. Plus, he couldn’t manage the bar from up there.
She peered into the last booth. A man with electric-blue eyes stared back at her. She nearly stumbled. Holy shit, he was hot. Absolutely arresting. Dark hair fell just below his chin in an unruly wave that emphasized the bold line of his jaw. His mouth was well-shaped and just beginning to curve in a smile as she dragged her eyes away from the table. There had been another man in the booth. What had he looked like? She couldn’t remember.
Not your type, Doc. You like ’em geeky and what was that word Jake always used? Vanilla. Completely vanilla. That hot guy in black leather wouldn’t give her a second glance anyway, even if he had been giving her a first one.
She hated feeling vulnerable and this environment put her decidedly on edge. Usually she avoided anything and everything that made her feel ignorant and awkward. She much preferred her research lab, where if she didn’t know the answer she could find it by focusing on one thing at a time. This scene had way too many variables for her.
She caught sight of Jake near the back of the bar and relief washed over her, calming her racing pulse. She walked toward him, undeterred by the fact that he was surrounded by mostly-naked women. He hated it when she intruded on his private space, and he was not going to be happy to see her, especially when she told him why she was here. She couldn’t care less. She’d given him ample opportunity to meet her on her turf. He should have answered his damn cell phone.
She squared her shoulders, gearing up to scatter his harem, but her effort was wasted. Jake saw her coming and waved his hand. She stopped in front of him, amused by the petulant looks on the girls’ faces. One of them shot her a venomous glare as she left. Audrey arched an eyebrow in response and wondered if her brother would make the girl pay for that later. Probably. She didn’t understand the satisfaction Jake garnered from this scene—well, other than that, obviously. She understood sexual satisfaction. It was all of the paraphernalia she didn’t get, but whatever.
“Jake.”
“Aud.” She couldn’t see his eyes behind his shades, but the curve of his mouth held laughter. “Dressing down for us, I see.”
“I don’t want to give your friends any ideas.”
“Good thinking. I won’t have to hurt them for touching you.”
She rolled her eyes. “No chance of that.”
He leaned up to kiss her on the cheek. “Can I make you a drink?” he asked, drawing her down the bar to a quieter spot.
She made herself comfortable on a bar stool and waited until he sat beside her. “I’m not here to drink, Jake. Did you read it?”
As she had expected, he shook his head. “Can’t find it.”
“I brought you another copy.” She pulled the letter out of her purse.
He bared his teeth. “It’s not a good idea, Audrey. Can’t you just let it go?”
“I want to meet him, Jake. He wants to meet us. I’m going to go with or without you, but I’d rather have you there.” Playing on his protectiveness all but guaranteed he would give her what she wanted, but it also drove a wedge between them—it was leverage she hadn’t wanted to use. She reached out to tug his shades down so she could see his eyes. “You must want to know.”
He looked at her with irritation. His gaze sharpened, intensified.
She stuck her tongue out at him and jammed the glasses back up on his nose. His mental whammy never worked on her and he knew it. “Don’t you want to know if he can do it too?”
He tucked the paper into his pocket. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That’s fast.”
“No, it’s not. You’ve been ignoring my calls and texts. I can’t believe you forced me to come down to your den of iniquity just to talk to you.” She stood up. “I’m meeting him at one for lunch.”
“Where?”
“Bonfire.” She gave him the warehouse district address.
“I’ll be there.”
Gratitude surged through her. She knew next to nothing about the father who had left when they were children, but history was important. Sometimes she wondered if her interest in genetics had sprung from the fact that she had so little information about her own DNA. Since their mother had been institutionalized shortly after
their father disappeared, she had grown up in a vacuum, jealous of friends who could say, “I look just like my grandma,” or “I went into medicine because my father’s a doctor.”
Their foster parents had been wonderful, but she was curious about what characteristics she might share with blood relatives. Hair color? Eye color? An explanation for Jake’s talent? She was trying not to get her hopes up, but it was impossible not to wonder if there might be something special about her, too, something that might manifest later. After all, she had the same chromosomal anomaly Jake carried, just no corresponding talent. Would their father know anything about that?
She looked at her watch. Maybe she would stop by the lab on the way home and see if there were any baby mice yet. She glanced at the door.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Jake said.
“No need for that. No one in this neighborhood gives me a second glance when I’m dressed like this. I fit right in. And if they do…” She shrugged. “I’ll make them sorry.”
“A black belt is no substitute for the ability to—”
She interrupted him. “And you never let me forget it. Seriously, Jake, I got in here just fine. I’ll get back to my car okay too. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She threw her arms around her brother’s massive shoulders and gave him a grateful squeeze. “Thanks, Jake. I owe you.”
Cal watched the woman with the white-blond ponytail hug the owner of the Lair. He’d felt a pleasant jolt when she caught his eye on the way in. Velvet. Her eyes reminded him of black velvet. What’s an all-American girl like that doing in a place like this?
“Any possibilities?” Truman asked, drawing his attention away from the blonde.
Cal sighed. “I don’t have the energy for a new sub tonight.”
“And that’s saying a lot, considering.”
Cal shot him a glare, which only made Tru grin.
“As a public service, I’ll help you sort through the horde.” Truman looked around the crowded room. “Otherwise some lucky lady will miss out on your Super Dom action, and I can’t let that happen. It would be criminal.”
Power Trip: Double Helix, Book 1 Page 1
