Double Take Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Double Take

  ISBN 9781419914454

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Double Take Copyright © 2008 Tawny Taylor

  Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication March 2008

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/)

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Double Take

  Tawny Taylor

  Chapter One

  “It’s a silver…plastic…shirt?” A confused, slightly embarrassed Fallon Dwyer held the skimpy garment up to her chest.

  What had her life come to? Her best friend was buying her clothing that a whore wouldn’t be caught dead in.

  “It’s latex. And it’s a dress.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She positioned the garment against her body. “Did you buy the wrong size maybe? This looks like it would fit a five-year-old.” She didn’t want to think too hard about the fact that a garment company had determined it would be profitable to manufacture slutty plastic dresses for kindergartners.

  “Nope.” Brinley, teetering on her five-inch acrylic platforms, snatched the dress from Fallon’s hands and smoothed it against her torso. “It’ll fit just fine. God, you’re going to look so hot. And I have the perfect shoes. They’re black with thick ankle straps and the cutest little padlocks.”

  “Padlocks? On the shoes?”

  “Yeah. They’re uber-hot and will make your legs look amazing. Oh, and I had one more present for you.” She clacked back around the coffee table, bending over to expose half her rear end as her skirt crept up in the back. Fallon decided the view outside the window was very nice. Yes, quite lovely, indeed. “Dammit. I thought I had it in here. Must’ve left it in the car.” She straightened up, her midnight-black, flat-ironed hair falling back into place. Her red lips pursed, Brin shooed her toward the bedroom. “We’re running out of time. Go get dressed, and I’ll go get it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  If she was lucky, maybe Brin left the “surprise” at home. Fallon had had enough Brin surprises for one day.

  Putting up a silent prayer, Fallon headed into the bathroom. She did one last hair and makeup check. Not bad at all. She had to admit, she was liking the new platinum highlights Brin had painted into the lower layers of her long blunt-cut mahogany hair. Ironed straight, like Brin’s, the razored layers were funky and fun. Sexy. Flirty. And the makeup—false eyelashes, thick, black eyeliner and purply-pink lips—didn’t look so much streetwalker as goth princess.

  She had to admit, she felt sexy. Naughty. And almost ready for tonight’s big adventure.

  The so-called dress, however… She eyed the skimpy garment warily. The entire thing was maybe twelve-inches long. Okay, that was an exaggeration but not a huge one. High collar. A half circle cutout in the center of the chest. And short cap sleeves.

  It might be cute on.

  Or it might look like hell.

  Something metallic and this tight usually only looked good on girls with zero body fat. She most definitely didn’t fall into that category.

  But what else could she wear? Hmmm… She gave it another look. It was kind of cool. In a bondage-babe kind of way. She supposed the least she could do was try it on.

  She stepped, wiggled and tugged her way into the latex mini-dress then barefooted it into the bedroom to take a look in the full-length mirror. Outside the fact that the skirt hugged her fanny and legs so tightly she had to take tiny steps, it looked a whole lot better than she thought.

  God, was that her?

  A few months ago she never would have guessed she’d be donning bondage gear and heading to her first date with a Dom. Let alone two Doms.

  “You ready?” Brin shouted through the door. “We need to get going, girlfriend, or we’ll be late.”

  Fallon rubbed her hands over her bare arms, swallowed the huge lump of whatever had collected in her throat and opened the door. Her friend’s eyes widened, her gaze slid down her form then back up again. “Oh. My. God. You are going to have the time of your life tonight. Nervous?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here.” She thrust a small box into Fallon’s hands. “I got you another present. I’m so excited for you!” She clapped her hands together as Fallon pried the top off the box.

  “A blindfold?”

  “You’ll love it.” Her friend grabbed her hand, pulling her down the hallway toward the living room. For a girl teetering on shoes that could qualify as a lethal weapon, Brin moved mighty quickly. “I brought the shoes in too. They’re next to the door. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  Hands trembling a little more than she had expected, Fallon stepped into the shoes and wrapped the two-inch-thick straps around her ankles.

  Brin made a circle with her thumb and middle finger, kissing them with an enthusiastic, “Mwah. You look fabu.”

  “Thanks.”

  Out the door they went and down her front walk to her friend’s car, parked behind hers. Fallon tried to disguise her jittery nerves by singing to the Eighties tunes playing on the satellite radio. About forty minutes later they pulled up to an enormous house in a quiet, affluent neighborhood.

  Brin parked the car and turned to her. “Okay, sweetie, this is it. Still nervous?”

  Understatement of the year! “Yeah.”

  “I was pretty scared the first time too. But don’t worry. I’ll be right outside, waiting. I promise I won’t leave. And you don’t need to worry about being safe. These guys are terrific. I’ve known them for years. You’ve already interviewed them. They know your limits. Nothing bad’s going to happen. I promise.”

  “Yeah. But they’re still strangers. They wore masks during the consultation. I thought you said they weren’t doing anything illegal.”

  “They’re not breaking any laws.” Brin counted off on her fingers, “They’re not prostitutes. They don’t have sex for money. Sex is not forced on anyone. And finally, if sex is involved, it’s for mutual satisfaction only.”

  “Then why hide their identities?”

  Brin shrugged. “Because it’s sexy. I mean, don’t you think so? You don’t know who they are. That makes it exciting. Dangerous.”

  “I guess.” The blindfold in one hand, her black clutch purse in the other, Fallon finally forced herself from the car.

  “Trust me,” Brin said, circling the car’s front. “The next couple of hours are going to blow your mind.” She gave Fallon’s hand a quick squeeze as they carefully navigated the treacherous cobblestone walkway, the uneven stones adding another level of challenge to walking in five-inch heels. Brin reached the front door first. She rang the doorbell while Fallon stood beside her, her heart pounding against her breastbone.

  A gentleman dressed in a pair of black pants and white button-down shirt answered the door. He silently stepped to the side, an invitation to enter.

  God, she was nervous as hell. It had taken her months to admit to her friend that she was curious about bondage and submission. And then it had taken at least another
six months more before she’d let Brin set her up on her first date with a Dom.

  When she’d heard her first date would be with not one but two Doms, she’d had mixed feelings. A part of her wanted to back out. Another wanted to go for it.

  The interview with Masters Wrath and Fury had pretty much cinched it for her. She’d never seen more stunning examples of manliness than those two. During the half-hour conversation, she’d been about ready to combust, and they hadn’t even touched her.

  There was no backing out. She had to go through with it, had to see what this was, why she was so fascinated by the idea of submitting to two men she barely knew.

  Since her teenage years, she’d had secret daydreams about being bound, seduced, forced by a stranger.

  Yes, she’d read her mother’s romance novels at night—paperbacks boasting gorgeous men grappling with women dressed in long, flowing gowns. The stories had all been the same—innocent, inexperienced heroines were captured by powerful men, held captive and eventually seduced. Native Americans. Sheiks. English dukes. Sigh!

  Little had she known where that naïve musing would lead her someday.

  She’d never imagined there were other women who, like her, wanted to live out their dark fantasies.

  Thankful for her friend’s support, she sat beside Brin in the opulent living room. The furniture, rug, window dressings—everything in the room looked expensive. Tasteful. Elegant, although not in a don’t-touch-anything sort of way. She tugged at the hem of her skirt, crossed her legs and started counting the heavy thump-whumps of her heart. Exactly two hundred and sixty-eight heartbeats later, the guy in the black pants and white shirt came back.

  “Masters Fury and Wrath will see you now.”

  “Have fun,” her friend said, giving her thigh a tap.

  “Thanks.” Feeling shaky, both because she wasn’t used to five-inch heels, and because she was about to face a fantasy she’d always assumed she’d never talk about, let alone live, she followed the man down the hall, around a corner and into a dimly lit, fully furnished bondage dungeon.

  How many women had been in this room? In the sex swing over in the corner? Tied to the kneeler over there?

  The jittery nerves got a whole lot worse.

  Maybe it was a mistake to go this far, to actually consider going through with this. Hadn’t she read it was sometimes better leaving a fantasy to the imagination? That the reality was a disappointment?

  To have her most treasured sensual daydreams more or less destroyed might leave her feeling dissatisfied, confused. Would she lose the pleasure she found in sex altogether? Her fantasies played such a huge role in her arousal, even when she was having vanilla sex with an everyday kind of man. In reality, she might be lying in her own room, in her bed. But behind her closed eyelids, she was somewhere dark, dangerous, sexy and mysterious. With a man whose every cell oozed possessive, dominant sexuality.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so self-conscious. Sure, she’d had her share of one-night stands. She was no prude, and she wasn’t ashamed of her extremely high sexual appetite. She enjoyed sex. Sex for sex. She wasn’t one of those girls who thought sex outside marriage or a committed relationship was shameful or dirty or bad.

  As one who’d had sex both within a loving relationship and out, she could say it was different. But that wasn’t to say she preferred one over the other. Both left her feeling satisfied—tingly, giddy, relaxed.

  The door opened. Her two Masters stepped inside and closed the door. They stood side by side, arms at their sides, feet braced apart. Chins up. Chests out. Almost like soldiers.

  Like before, most of their faces were covered by leather masks. Foreheads, cheeks, noses. Only their mouths, chins and jaws and the backs of their heads were exposed. Both wore their hair super-short, like military buzz cuts. Their gorgeous bodies were unclothed from the waist up. On their lower bodies, they wore snug leather pants and black boots.

  Fury had a cleft in his chin. She’d always found cleft chins sexy. And Wrath had the most luscious mouth this side of heaven.

  To think those lips might be exploring some of her more intimate bits very soon. Her heart literally skipped a beat or two.

  The two men took one, two, three steps toward her, eyes narrowed slightly. Gazes scrutinizing in a way that left her both terribly uncomfortable and erotically aware. The blood pounding through her veins carried liquid heat to her face, chest, stomach.

  When would they say something to ease her discomfort? Two hours would be agony if this was the way things would be. One hundred twenty minutes. Ack. How would she survive it?

  I think I’ve made a mistake.

  Thanks to her shoes, her toes had lost circulation. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other while her Masters walked slow circles around her.

  Finally they stopped. Directly in front of her.

  “The dress is acceptable.” Wrath crowded her personal space. An enormous wall of powerful male. He stood so close she could smell the scent of soap on his skin, and yet he didn’t touch her. “What’s this?” He gently tugged the blindfold from her hands.

  “A blindfold. My friend bought it for me.”

  “Hmmm.”

  His proximity was enough to make her squirm, her skin tingle. The back of her neck, shoulders and arms puckered with goose bumps. Her nipples tightened to aching, pebbled peaks. Her gaze followed Wrath’s, which was hovering in the general vicinity of her chest. Yes, her nipples were most definitely hard. “You deserve a reward for bringing this today.”

  A reward? A pleasant sensation swept up her back. Maybe she hadn’t made a mistake after all.

  Fury left Wrath’s side to walk another half circle around her. He stopped somewhere behind her. Although she couldn’t see him, she felt him. Little tickly prickles skittered over the skin of her lower back and nape.

  “Which of us will give our sweet little girl her reward?” Fury asked in a husky voice that made her knees soft.

  Kade Sanders couldn’t believe this was happening. Fallon, the woman he’d fallen in love with, was here at last. In his dungeon. In his life.

  She didn’t know it yet but he had no intention of letting her get away from him again.

  It had taken a near-death experience to make him take this step. Life was too precious to be cautious. He had to live each day as if it were his last.

  She’d been too young when he first met her, a bright-eyed, innocent seventeen-year-old girl. Her older brother, his best friend at the time, had encouraged the friendship between them. And that’s all it had been for years—friendship. A lieutenant junior grade in the Navy, Kade spent four years in Germany and another four years in Greece.

  He’d kept in touch with both Fallon and her brother over the following eight years. In emails, he heard about Fallon’s high-school graduation, success in college, struggles to find a job and begin a career.

  It wasn’t until she started writing about the men that he realized how deep his feelings for her had grown.

  Those emails had been agonizing to read, but desperate to maintain what little contact he had with her, he’d forced himself to get through them. There’d been the boys in college, all punks. The asshole musician who’d treated her like shit. The dumb-ass who’d worked with her at the advertising agency. And of late, her boss at the small marketing company she’d recently left.

  None of them had deserved Fallon. They didn’t respect or cherish her like he did. Granted, until recently, he hadn’t been in a position to change anything. They’d more or less lived in different worlds, she in the world of jobs and dating and dancing in clubs, he in the world of life on an aircraft carrier.

  Now it was time. A medical discharge from the Navy due to a bout of cancer had forced him to make some changes. Now he was in remission, had a great job, a beautiful home, stability. And most important of all, her brother’s blessing.

  It had been no coincidence that her friend had arranged this first date. Brinley was F
allon’s brother’s secretary.

  Maybe it seemed strange, since he’d waited so long to have Fallon, for him to not only hide his identity from her but also share her with another man. But he had his reasons. When the time was right, he’d remove the mask and shed his Wrath persona. And he would tell her why Fury would be a part of their life, if she desired a life together.

  In the meantime, he was going to be her master. As her master, he’d concentrate on making her every fantasy come true.

  And on taking the first steps toward making her a permanent part of his life. His lover. His partner.

  And hopefully someday, if she agreed, his wife.

  Chapter Two

  God, her two Masters still hadn’t touched her, not even on the hand, and yet Fallon was practically melting.

  Standing stock still, arms at her sides, hands fisted, she was swamped in this bizarre mixture of discomfort and arousal—about sixty percent uneasiness and forty percent thrill. She had a feeling the two would be flip-flopped before long, especially after what Fury had just said about rewarding her.

  Thank you, Brin!

  Wrath had the most amazing body she’d ever seen. His chest was broad, smooth-skinned and thickly muscled. His shoulders boasted drool-worthy bulges, and his abdomen was the picture of six-pack perfection. His skin was the sexiest hue of golden brown, everywhere. A delicious line ran from his belly button to somewhere below. His pants hid the final destination.

  It appeared he was about to rectify that, however. She noticed his hands as he unsnapped his fly. His fingernails were neatly trimmed, clean. Whatever this man did for a living, he clearly did not work with his hands.

  After unsnapping and unzipping, he stopped. His pants gaped, revealing part of a wicked-sexy tribal tattoo on his lower abdomen. The rest lay hidden behind a black g-string. “As a reward, I will allow you to serve me.” He planted his hands on his hips.