Sunday's Safe Word Shelf: Without a Net by Lyn Gala

Summary:
Oliver Robertson has been assigned to go undercover in one of the shade clubs that litter the seedier parts of town. He has never engaged in the sort of edge play found in those places, preferring the BDSM in the more mainstream control clubs. However, to find the criminals behind a series of kidnappings, he must go in undercover as a shade sub. The mission becomes more complicated when his captain asks him to collect evidence against a lieutenant who might be a dirty cop.

The case quickly gets out of hand, and Ollie finds himself caught between wanting to do his job and not knowing who to trust. That confusion grows worse when a number of sexy and dominant men challenge his assumption that he prefers safe, contractually negotiated sex. It turns out he has more of a wild side than he expected, and given that he’s surrounded by dangerous men, and he can’t distinguish the good guys from the bad, that’s terrifying.

When Ollie gives his trust to Travis Goode, a dominant who appears to be a federal agent, he might be making the connection of a lifetime or dooming himself forever.

Ollie pulled into his parking space and cursed when he found Mrs. Dennison had commandeered his solar-charging outlet again. A long cord went from the solar shade above his space right up the wall and into her apartment.

Something inside him snapped. Ollie couldn’t take it anymore. The solar was free, but he’d asked her not to jack his power. It drained the reserves, and some days his car barely charged enough to get him to work and back. And today was cloudy, so he needed every ounce of energy he could get out of the station.

He parked and stormed over to the charging post. While ripping the plug out of the socket felt good, it wasn’t enough. He’d asked her a dozen times. He’d threatened to have the code people out for her illegal extension cord. He’d filed a complaint with the apartment house, and she still had her damn shit plugged into his charger.

Captain Greyson could ask Ollie to stick his neck out. Lieutenant Huda could walk all over him. But Ollie would be damned if Mrs. Dennison and her damn sunlamps would push him one more inch. Ollie marched over to the wall, grabbed the part of the extension cord that hung down from an upper window, and pulled. Mrs. Dennison was on the second floor, but he could hear something crash and then several more dull thuds and an ominous bang. Feeling very satisfied, Ollie went back to his car and plugged it in. A quick check of the levels told him that he was at 17 percent charge. Fuck. Well, he wasn’t going anywhere tonight. He’d be lucky to get enough charge to run the car through tomorrow comfortably.

A door slammed, and Ollie wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Dennison came around the corner looking ready to claw his eyes out. She raised herbs and shit for her magical charms and Wiccan jewelry, and that was fine with him, but not on his charging station.

“I’ll file a complaint! Do you have any idea how much damage you did? That is my workplace, and you damaged hundreds if not thousands of dollars in equipment. I’m going to get you fired.” She stopped several feet away from him. Even mad as a wet hen, she wasn’t about to get too close to him. First, attacking a police officer was stupid. Second, Ollie was built well, and she was about 110 pounds of nothing.

“I tripped and caught myself on the cord, which is why there are codes against having extension cords out windows. I’ve told you that before,” Ollie said. Right now he wanted a fight, and if she called the station, that would give him a great one. “And if you are running a business out of a residence, that is a whole new issue.” He took a step forward.

“Don’t you dare bully me,” she snarled at him. “I will have your job for this.”

“You go for it and try,” Ollie suggested. “And while you’re at it, you can keep your plugs out of my outlets.” Ollie walked away.

“It’s not like you pay for it, asshole.” She chased after him. Thank God he had the parking space nearest the building, so his front door was close. He was ready for a drink and a lot of loud music--something that might disturb her chi or whatever the hell she called it.

“Hey!” Darla Canterbury called out. “We’re all neighbors. Let’s be nice to each other.” She hurried over. Maybe she’d lived in some happy-happy place in her last apartment, but around here everyone pretty much ignored one another when they weren’t throwing around blame. Being nice was not high on the agenda.

“He destroyed my workstation!” Mrs. Dennison nearly shrieked. For a woman in her forties, she had a mean shriek. Usually that tone came out of teenagers at rock concerts.

Mrs. Canterbury smiled soothingly. “I’ll help you get it back in order. I was watching out the window, and he did trip. He looks like he’s had a hard day, so let’s cut him some slack, okay?”

Ollie was shocked. Then again, Mrs. Canterbury was married to a retired cop, so maybe he shouldn’t be surprised she stuck up for him.

Mrs. Dennison stopped at the low rail that marked the beginning of Ollie’s apartment line. Stepping over the threshold would make her a trespasser, and maybe she knew Ollie was angry enough to arrest her.

Mrs. Canterbury threw an arm around the woman’s shoulders. They were a study in contrasts. Mrs. Dennison was blonde with delicate features and a tiny frame. While Mrs. Canterbury was about the same age--midforties--she was tall and broad-shouldered with long black hair and a mix of ancestors that must have included some damn attractive Africans and Indians. “I bet you’re frustrated. I’ll help you clean up the mess. What do ya say?”

Ollie glanced up, and Mr. Canterbury stood leaning against the third-story railing. A handsome man a few years older than his wife, Mr. Canterbury looked like he was somewhere in his forties. Gray was showing at his temples, but he was one of those square-jawed masculine men who kept their striking looks well into old age. Ollie had no idea if the Canterburys had children, but if they did, those must be gorgeous kids. They were probably out breaking hearts in college.

Mrs. Canterbury urged Mrs. Dennison up the stairs, and Travis Canterbury came down. Ollie considered heading into his apartment, but that seemed rude when Mr. Canterbury had made such deliberate eye contact. The man’s wife had lied for Ollie; the least he could do was have a friendly conversation.

Mr. Canterbury stopped on the last step and leaned against the rail. “Hard day?”

“To say the least,” Ollie admitted.

Mr. Canterbury offered his hand. “Travis.”

“Ollie. Oliver Robertson. We met when you were moving in.”

“We introduced ourselves, anyway,” Travis said. “No offense, but you look like you caught a hard case.”

Ollie rubbed his face. “Yeah, it happens. You know the job. Anyway, thank your wife for intercepting the shrew. When she tells people she’s a witch, she should tell them she means that in more than one way.” It was horribly un-PC, but in Mrs. Dennison’s case, it was also true.

Travis chuckled. “She’s sometimes hard to take. Between the sage and the marijuana she burns, my house smells like a smoke shop. She’s not good at respecting other people’s boundaries, but I think that has less to do with her religion than the fact she’s a bitch.” Travis stopped and gave Ollie a curious look, and that was when Ollie realized he’d been staring at a married man.

Fuck.

Okay, that was a new level of awkward. Ollie turned to study his front door instead of Travis’s broad shoulders. Travis chuckled again.

“True. She’d be a bitch even if she were Buddhist.” Ollie headed toward his apartment and stopped at the sight of an advertisement hanging from his doorknob. The Bridle Club. Artistically arranged leather implements made it pretty clear what they were promoting. Ollie froze. Either everything in his life had just taken on a sexual overtone, or he was really having trouble getting his head screwed on straight.

“Some of the families are angry about those. They say it’s a shade club and don’t want that garbage hanging from their doors,” Travis commented.

Ollie held the paper, and a tremor went through his body. It was like some sort of omen, only Ollie didn’t believe in omens. He believed in facts.

Travis didn’t seem to notice anything, because he kept right on talking. “I don’t have a problem with the control clubs. My wife and I enjoy playing, and a club is a good way to work out frustration, especially if you have a committed partner and you’re spicing things up with a new setting. But when I was on the job, I hated the shade clubs. Let some nineteen-year-old wander into the wrong one, and he or she would get so turned around that reality wasn’t reality anymore, ya know?”

Ollie nodded. He did know. For a time Ollie stared at the ad, and the weight of the paper seemed to hold him in place.

“I had a case once--a twenty-two-year-old right out of university,” Travis said softly. Something in his tone broke the spell the paper had over Ollie, and he looked up at his neighbor. “Some asshole had violated her redlines so many times that she didn’t know where they were anymore, and he’d convinced her that she wanted more. She’d signed a twenty-four-seven contract as a pet, never allowed to stand up. When we raided his place for drugs, we scooped her up, and it took the psychologists a good two weeks to get her to admit she hadn’t wanted any of it. She was so ashamed of what he’d made her do that she would have rather clung to him than face the real situation. I almost wrung that guy’s neck.” Travis grimaced, and the hatred practically radiated off him.

“Was she okay in the end?” Ollie asked. For some reason, he needed to know the girl had gotten her head back on straight. Dominating was a dangerous business, and in control clubs where sex was all negotiated, that danger was attractive--it was a spice that made sex more exciting. But the shade clubs were different.

“Sorta,” Travis said. “She filed charges against him, but I’m pretty sure she planned to avoid sex for the next sixty years. She was one of those cases that hit me.”

Ollie nodded. He didn’t have anything to add to this conversation. For a time they stood in silence, and then Travis cleared his throat.

“If you ever want to talk about whatever’s eating you, you know where my apartment door is. This job is hard. Don’t make it harder by trying to carry the load all yourself.” Travis silently studied Ollie for a good minute before he turned and headed back up the steps.

When he was halfway to the second floor, Ollie called his name. Travis turned.

“How high up were you before you retired?” Ollie blurted the question out, almost before he realized he was going to ask it.

Travis gave him an odd look. “Plenty high. I could have been captain, but I refused to leave the field. My place was out there investigating leads with my team, not stuck watching through some damn vid feed.” He came down several steps. “But there’s nothing you could say that would shock me. If you want, you could come upstairs and have a couple of drinks, and we can talk about your hard day.”

Ollie wanted to do that, but he wanted it too much. Lusting after a married man was not Ollie’s normal MO, and he was afraid the shit at work had left him too off balance. He wanted someone on his side. Travis gave off a supportive vibe, and Ollie wished he worked for the department because Ollie would trust Travis at his back. He wasn’t sure he could trust the captain who was using him or the lieutenant who was out to get him or even his fellow officers who wanted to stay out of the line of fire.

But no matter how much he wanted some strong shoulder to lean on, he had to handle this on his own. He could not violate operational security on two active cases--the investigation into the kidnappings and the internal review of Lieutenant Huda’s actions.

“No, thanks. Besides, I don’t think your wife wants to hear some old war stories from a couple of cops.”

“Don’t kid yourself. Darla’s got more stories than both of us put together.”

“She was a cop?” Ollie asked. She seemed too caring to be a cop.

“She was a dispatcher,” Travis said. “She heard crap that would make my toes curl, and she was helpless to stop any of it as long as she was on the other end of a vid or a phone. Sometimes when the bad guys were high enough or stupid enough, they even committed crimes in front of the camera, and she got to see it. She may be soft and tender on the outside, but inside that woman has a core of steel. You can trust her to handle whatever you’ve got to say and keep it confidential.”

“That’s a kind offer...” Ollie let his voice trail off. Something here wasn’t right. Yeah, cops stuck together, but this was a little over the top. Ollie’s feelings were too unpredictable for him to spend too much time with a very attractive male. In Ollie’s experience, anxiety and stress never led to good choices. The very fact that he found Travis attractive was the best reason to run like hell. He put on an apologetic expression. “It was a hard day.”

Travis leaned against the rail. “Look, Darla’s always telling me I come on too strong, more like one of those shade Doms than an in-control and sane sort. So feel free to tell me to fuck off if you want, but you’re putting out some sub vibes, and it bothers me to see someone spinning out of control.”

Sub vibes. Fuck. Yeah, that was exactly what Huda had said when he insisted Ollie had to be the one to go under. Apparently he reeked of submission. The worst part was that Travis was the sort Ollie would want under better circumstances.

“I can take care of myself, thanks.” Ollie put a whole lot of unhappy in his voice.

Travis raised his hands in surrender. “No problem. You can take care of yourself, and I don’t doubt that, but if you need some relief, Darla switches, and she always loves to have playtime as the Domme. No sex, of course. I mean, that’s my wife--but we do have some fun toys.” Travis offered him a kind smile, a sort of come-hither expression that made Ollie yearn for some connection.

Ollie’s face got hot as his imagination turned to what it would be like to feel Travis’s hands holding him down. Great. One neighbor hated him, and the other thought he needed babying. Ollie’s life couldn’t get any better. “Fuck off,” he said before he headed into his apartment. He didn’t need to play, especially not with this new job coming at him like a freight train. What he needed were a few beers, some loud music, and a night of killing electronic zombies. That would make him feel better. Without another word to Travis, Ollie went into his apartment and slammed the door.

Author Bio:
Lynsey "Lyn" Gala started writing in the back of her science notebook in third grade and hasn’t stopped since. Westerns starring men with shady pasts gave way to science fiction with questionable protagonists which eventually gave in to any story with a morally ambiguous character. Even the purest heroes have pain and loss and darkness in their hearts, and that’s where she likes to find her stories. Her characters seek to better themselves and find the happy ending (or happier anyway), but it’s writing the struggle that inspires her muse. When she isn’t writing, Lyn Gala teaches in New Mexico.

She first cut her teeth on fanfic: gen, slash, het, and femslash. She prefers to focus on plot: mysteries and monsters and disasters, oh my, but sex can and does happen. Some of her stories focus on power exchange, bondage or bdsm. In her worlds, tops and bottoms are all mature, consenting adults. In fact, stories where they aren't squick her badly, so don't expect to find abuse stories in her journal.

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  BLOG

WEBSITE  /  GOOGLE PLAY  /  LOOSE ID

ARe /  KOBO  /  B&N  /  DREAMSPINNER

AMAZON  /  iTUNES  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: litgal1@gmail.com

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK  /  B&N

KOBO  /  iTUNES  /  GOOGLE PLAY

ARe  /  LOOSE ID  /  GOODREADS TBR

Sunday's Safe Word Shelf: Gathering Storm by Lyn Gala

Summary:
Vinnie Bernardi wants to leave his past as a repressed rich boy behind and find himself as a proud, gay submissive. Unfortunately, there's only one man who has ever successfully dominated him, and that man is unattainable. But Vinnie is slowly falling apart and needs a top to help him hold it together, so he decides to go ahead and make his move on Charleston, the military academy instructor at the center of his very favorite fantasies.

Instead of finding his dream come true, Vinnie discovers the reality of Charleston's world is darker, more brutal, and more dangerous than he ever suspected. When Vinnie bumbles his way into Charleston's attentions, he stirs up ghosts from the other man’s mysterious past—phantoms deadly enough that Vinnie begins to fear he might not survive long enough to get what he truly needs: love and a firm hand to shelter it.

The afternoon sun stabbed across the sky, and Vinnie narrowed his eyes against the glare. The wide lawns had been mowed today, and the smell of cut grass made his nose itch, but he couldn’t scratch it. He needed both hands to scramble high enough into the oak tree to hide in the dense leaves.

The school’s bells chimed at two p.m. exactly, the same as every day. Even though the sound drifted out through state-of-the-art speakers, the sound was actually a recording of old fashioned church bells. Vinnie wondered if the headmaster thought it would give the military school more dignity.

Whatever the reason, the sound of a dozen old brass bells chiming slightly out of time with each other had grown to be Vinnie’s favorite aphrodisiac. Who would have thought that simple bells could be so kinky, and yet they were. Sometimes Vinnie felt like one of Pavlov’s dogs, only instead of drooling, he got hard every time those slow, solemn bells rang.

He shifted on his branch and pushed on a higher limb to get a few more leaves out of his way. They would be coming soon: the runners.

Two years ago, Vinnie had been one of those runners. He’d listen to those bells and dread the coming order to fall out into companies. That had been before Joshua Sawyer Charleston had come. Rumor had it that wasn’t his name, although Vinnie couldn’t imagine why someone would choose a name like that, so it was probably his.

Considering the amount of time he and his classmates had spent discussing Commander Charleston and his mysterious identity, Vinnie found it more than a little ironic that now he really was living under an assumed name. No one at this school had ever known him as Vinnie, and the desperate little boy he’d been all the way up though his junior year had vanished along with his long-forgotten name. Of course, if Charleston really did have some reason for changing his name, he’d have a better reason than Vinnie. His story would involve gangsters and witness protection or foreign wars and enemy spies. Charleston was the sort of man who walked around with this air of leading-man confidence that made him seem larger than life.

Sometimes Vinnie had fantasies about finding Charleston’s secret identity. Hell, most of his fantasies included Charleston in one form or another. But some of his favorites focused on finding some hidden clue to Charleston’s mysterious past. Back when Charleston had just been one more instructor ordering him to do pushups, the fantasy had included blackmailing him. Oddly, even in Vinnie’s fantasies, Charleston had kicked his ass rather than pay. However, by midterms Vinnie had pretty much fallen for the guy, and he’d grab his cock late at night and imagine some gangsters showing up on school grounds.

If Vinnie’s real name showed up in this neck of the woods, it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. Oh, his father was sure to come looking. Lawyers and psychologists would descend on him along with threats about being cut out of the will, but Vinnie tried not to worry about that. He preferred to stick his head in the sand and hope that his past would just give up and move on. He was proud of his new name, though; he chose a name to show off his pride in his Italian heritage. Vinnie. It was a solid name with a long history of tough guys, and it gave him more confidence when he stepped out into the night or when he trespassed on school property to climb up a tree and watch a company running past.

Settling himself down in the crook of the branch, Vinnie slipped a hand inside his pants and watched as the company crested the hill. The upperclassmen were in front, their packs sticking up like hunchbacks. The front one was the captain, a pimply-faced boy with strong legs that Vinnie vaguely remembered from his own inglorious days in the academy.

Behind that group, came the middle-classmen who were allowed to run without packs. These were the ninth and tenth graders, and a few female faces appeared in this group. Vinnie always had good eyesight, and even from this distance, he could see the horror on one girl’s face. Her hair had come loose and was winding around her body in long blonde waves that were definitely going to earn her demerits for being out of uniform. However, she kept running. And the reason for her unwillingness to break formation crested the hill.

Commander Joshua Sawyer Charleston. He was wearing shorts today, the summer heat beating down so that his shirt was already showing the first signs of sweat stains, and Vinnie groaned. Oh god. This was so worth risking getting arrested. Charleston ran at a steady pace beside the pack of students, his long legs hitting stride while younger ones scrambled to keep up.

Vinnie couldn’t decide why he was so obsessed with the man, but the very sight of his gray hair and his strong body made Vinnie start to harden. The others whispered that he’d been a war hero—some sort of special forces or sniper, and Vinnie could believe that rumor. Charleston moved with power, without doubt, without fear. When the headmaster had walked in, and every other academy instructor had gone stiff with either respectful fear or fearful respect, Charleston had simply looked over with a lazy gaze before going right back to counting off the pushups he’d ordered Vinnie to do.

Fuck. Charleston did love giving orders. He had certainly loved giving Vinnie orders, and Vinnie had been shocked to find that he actually reveled in getting ordered around. For seventeen years, his father had tried ordering Vinnie to stop fucking up, ordering him to stop torturing nannies or soon-to-be stepmothers or soon-to-be ex-stepmothers. It turned out that Vinnie wasn’t particularly good at orders until it was Charleston with his ice-cold gaze ordering him to hit the ground and keep doing pushups until he was permitted to stop or until his arms fell out of their sockets.

Vinnie stroked his thumb along his cock and groaned. Charleston was staring straight ahead, his gray hair streaked with the last remains of black that refused to fade away. That was the perfect metaphor for Charleston. He was just too stubborn to yield, even to time. His body certainly hadn’t yielded. It was hard, curving muscle, and as the company jogged closer, Vinnie could see the way Charleston’s body shone with sweat. He imagined his hand sliding over the smooth flesh and Charleston smiling at him with that odd, crooked smile that always looked just a little sarcastic. Charleston would reach out and grab the invading hand. Maybe he would pin Vinnie against some wall with his body, or maybe he would twist Vinnie’s arm around and slip his other arm around Vinnie’s neck, trapping him.

Vinnie’s cock was hard now, hard and hot and ready to come, but Vinnie denied it. Permission denied, he told himself with a low chuckle. Instead, he slowed his strokes, torturing himself as the group jogged closer. The path was a good fifty yards from Vinnie’s tree; he’d chosen it for its safe distance as much as for the view, but every time Charleston brought his company to that bend in the path closest to the tree, fear added its own spice to his lust.

What if Charleston caught him? Would the man remember him as the punk recruit he had taken in hand his first year here? Had Vinnie become one more faceless student who had taken a little more discipline than the others to bring into line?

That was a fear Vinnie always pushed to the side as fast as he could. He didn’t want to be invisible, not to Charleston. He’d rather have the man hate him than forget him. He wanted to believe that Charleston had truly seen him every time the man had ordered him to do pushups in the center square or do pull-ups until his shoulders screamed with pain or ordered him to run the obstacle course in the pouring rain. He’d endured all that just to get one look of respect from those storm-gray eyes Charleston had. Some days he’d even earned it.

By the time Charleston was done running Vinnie ragged, Vinnie had been too tired to raid the girls’ dorm or the kitchens. He hadn’t even considered stealing the gardener’s car and taking it for a quick ride that was sure to piss his father off. He hadn’t even bothered cheating on his Latin exam by scaling the side of the main building and going in a half-open window the way he had his junior year. Of course, it helped that Charleston would quiz him on everything from Latin verb conjugations to the military history of Blackfoot Indians while making him do pushups, something about a good soldier being able to think and work at once.

Honestly, Vinnie hadn’t given a shit about being a good soldier, but he had found himself considerably invested in pleasing Charleston. The man was sexy. And unlike most people, he didn’t fall for Vinnie’s charm or take an almost instant dislike to him.

Vinnie found most people had a pretty visceral reaction to him the moment they met him, and that reaction rarely had much to do with anything he’d done. It had to do with his green eyes and his dark hair, his broad shoulders and tanned skin and sultry good looks. People wanted him or they envied him, and Vinnie had learned to manipulate both of those responses. However, Charleston had been something new—something unexpected. He had charmed Vinnie instead. Vinnie had worked so hard, that every night he’d just fallen asleep until morning came, and Charleston roused them from bed with quiet threats of extra miles for anyone too lazy to get himself moving.

By the end of the year, Vinnie had been toned and hard—in more ways than one. He’d won three medals in the interscholastic athletic competitions his senior year, and even his father had been forced to express something that came close to pride at Vinnie’s accomplishments. Of course, that had made it even more delicious when Vinnie refused to go to college. The old man’s spluttering and Charleston’s single raised eyebrow were forever linked in Vinnie’s memory.

The group was approaching the bend now, and Vinnie held his breath, his hand wrapped tightly around his hard erection. The lack of oxygen played games with Vinnie’s balance until the whole earth seemed to buck and heave under him. With his free hand, he hugged the tree limb while taking soft, panting breaths.

“Company halt!” The voice was so loud that it made Vinnie jump in his hiding place. Shit, shit, shit. What if Charleston caught him? Oddly, Vinnie’s cock only grew harder as the danger increased. “Kestler, get that hair secured. Adams, either fix that shoe or head back to the barracks, and you and I can do our own run after chow.”

Vinnie rested his forehead against the rough bark and groaned. He remembered Charleston’s private runs. Run double-time some, get ordered to the ground for a dozen pushups, run double-time more, get ordered to do two dozen sit-ups with Charleston holding your legs. Equal parts heaven and torture.

Someone must have said something, because Charleston’s commanding voice answered, “I don’t care how you do it, but secure that hair or head back to barracks and report after chow for a private run with Cadet Adams.”

Vinnie slowly allowed his hand to run up and down his hard cock. The end had wept enough precum that his shorts clung to his skin, and the pain of his delayed orgasm turned into a living creature that wrapped around him, squeezing until coming was all Vinnie cared about.

“Robinson, set pace. Quail, pick it up or you’ll be third on tonight’s run.” Charleston’s voice demanded obedience—unquestioning, immediate obedience, and Vinnie ached to be one of those cadets under Charleston’s command again. Leaning to the right, Vinnie watched while Charleston paced the group, his sharp gaze watching as the company formed straight lines. Robinson called out for the group to start, and the students fell into a slow jog and started down the wide path. Charleston stood and watched them, critical, evaluating. God help anyone who fell short of his demanding standards.

Vinnie couldn’t control his breathing anymore. He gasped for air, gulping it hungrily as his lust rose up around him, uncontrollable and uncontrolled. Oh God, he wanted to come. Fuck. If he could only come. However, Vinnie had never been a quiet fuck. He cried out, shouted, flailed and fucking sang soprano if his partner was good enough. Right now, his body was tingling and his cock aching so bad that he felt on a knife-edge, ready to come with a fucking scream, and if he did that, Charleston would see him… would know. But he had to come. Vinnie clung to the last of his control, his arms shaking. The last cadet jogged out of sight, and Vinnie devoured his last look at Charleston.

Then, without warning, Charleston turned and storm-gray eyes found Vinnie, pinned him to the tree as neatly as a butterfly pinned to a collector’s page. Vinnie cried out, coming all over his hand and his shorts in a burst of need so strong that it wiped away all common sense and fear. One eyebrow twitched up, and that half-sarcastic, twisted grin graced Charleston’s face for just one second, and then, it was like nothing had happened. Charleston turned and headed down the path, running double-time to catch up with the others, and Vinnie was left, panting and clinging to the tree-limb and still lost in that gray storm.

Author Bio:
Lynsey "Lyn" Gala started writing in the back of her science notebook in third grade and hasn’t stopped since. Westerns starring men with shady pasts gave way to science fiction with questionable protagonists which eventually gave in to any story with a morally ambiguous character. Even the purest heroes have pain and loss and darkness in their hearts, and that’s where she likes to find her stories. Her characters seek to better themselves and find the happy ending (or happier anyway), but it’s writing the struggle that inspires her muse. When she isn’t writing, Lyn Gala teaches in New Mexico.

She first cut her teeth on fanfic: gen, slash, het, and femslash. She prefers to focus on plot: mysteries and monsters and disasters, oh my, but sex can and does happen. Some of her stories focus on power exchange, bondage or bdsm. In her worlds, tops and bottoms are all mature, consenting adults. In fact, stories where they aren't squick her badly, so don't expect to find abuse stories in her journal.

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  BLOG

WEBSITE  /  GOOGLE PLAY  /  LOOSE ID

ARe /  KOBO  /  B&N  /  DREAMSPINNER

AMAZON  /  iTUNES  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: litgal1@gmail.com

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK

B&N  /  KOBO  /  DREAMSPINNER

ARe  /  iTUNES  /  GOODREADS TBR

Clockwork Pirate by Lyn Gala

Summary:
Alex hid his unnatural attraction to men for many years. That changes when the pirate Beche takes Alex after capturing his ship. At first Alex believes his fate is death and the only question a matter of how he might die. However, the longer he is on the ship, the more he realizes that Beche hates the world because it is unfair in ways Alex never understood. As Alex begins to respect this strong, independent man, Alex’s dormant desires begin to reassert themselves.

Beche hates the titled classes and their government enforcers. They might have outlawed slavery on paper, but they never came to the islands to free him or his family. Since his skin is black, society has little respect for him. Beche expects no more of this latest captive, but soon Beche begins to realize that Alex is a naïve and beautiful man who values family and struggles with his own place in society. That poses an even larger problem because Beche does not want to send Alex back to a world that will mistreat him, but he has no place for a lord on a ship full of pirates.

Pirates AND steampunk? What's not to love?  I can honestly say that there is not a single moment of Clockwork Pirate that I disliked.  I especially enjoyed the evolution of Alex, from a naive nobleman to a man who took on a whole fort to rescue that which he loved and Beche, a pirate(perhaps not ruthless but a pirate nonetheless) who gave up everything for those he loved.  Don't even get me started on how much I loved Alex's sisters, their bravery and intelligence something that is often lacking in the age of pirates.  Lyn Gala is a new author for me, which can often be scary for some but for me it's adrenaline pumping and this was no different, can't wait to read more.

Reviewer Note: I have to say that I don't really get the whole terminology of steampunk.  I know what it means and I know it is a sub-genre of science fiction but to me science fiction is science fiction, nothing more, nothing less.  As a reader, I will be putting this and others labeled steampunk on my science fiction library shelf but as a book blogger I will defer to the whole steampunk terminology labeling.  Just wanted to put that out there.

RATING:

Alex stumbled into the captain’s quarters, shocked at the rich carvings and heavy desk. He didn’t know what he expected--or rather he did, and he’d expected piles of stolen goods and a skull or two as this monster showed off his kills. Instead, this was a place where Alex’s father might have worked. The hatches were open, allowing in a breeze that did little to cool the hot air. Doors led to a balcony across the back of the stern of the ship. So he was to be the entertainment for one man instead of the entire crew.

Alex could handle that.

He could.

He could also fly during full moons. Panic was starting to crawl up his throat again, but Beche shoved him forward. He ended up stomach down over a well-made table, and anger derailed Alex’s movement toward becoming completely unnerved.

“You are more trouble than you’re worth.”

“Then put me over the side,” Alex said. He’d never anticipated he would reach a point where he would welcome death, but he did...as long as he didn’t have to face a death like Pieter’s.

“I’m starting to think you have a death wish.”

“No. I have an aversion to pain.”

“Then you might want to avoid attacking me.” Beche yanked at Alex’s hands, and it took a second to realize he was being untied. The only thing worse than being tied up by a pirate was being untied because he didn’t pose any threat. The bindings came away, and Alex went to stand, but the pirate put his hand on Alex’s back and shoved him back down to the table.

“I should have known you were an urning.” Alex spit out the last word with as much venom as he could manage.

“Is an urning someone who is upset with someone else’s poor behavior?”

“An urning is a man who chooses to take his pleasure with another man.”

Surprisingly, the pirate laughed. That was not a word that caused most men amusement, but this Beche was not like most men. “There are no women on this ship. Men can take pleasure in each other, or they can go without pleasure. There’s no other option, not unless you want to get creative with fish. I knew a galley cook once that did that, but I think he had drunk enough to damage his brain.”

Alex shivered in horror. “A fish?”

“The captain tossed him off at the next port,” Beche said, “but the point is that you will not bring your moral judgments here. Having a lord lecture on right and wrong would annoy most of the men on this ship.”

Alex didn’t care whether he annoyed men who held him captive, but he was more than concerned about being on a ship of urnings. The doctor who had explained the term to Alex had said urnings had only partially developed as fetuses. While Alex might not believe in making a man a criminal for his feelings, he certainly didn’t trust someone who openly embraced the idea. “Let me up,” Alex said quietly.

“Not until we’ve reached an understanding,” Beche said firmly. “In case it has escaped your notice, you are not the most popular person with the crew.”

Alex didn’t answer. He would have to be addlebrained to miss the general hatred.

“Right now, the others are willing to leave you be, but if you offend them with your presence, I’m not sure what they’ll do. If you’re lucky, they’ll only toss you off the ship. Honestly, knowing the background of most of these men, I doubt they’d show as much mercy as that.”

“You’re suggesting I should stay here and allow you to unman me.” Alex could feel a rising storm of emotions that he couldn’t identify.

Beche pulled Alex upright and turned him. They were the same height, which surprised Alex because Beche felt larger than life. In reality, he was five feet and ten inches. “If you’re a man, nothing I do would unman you.”

“So I should accept you using me as a woman?” Alex lifted his chin and dared Beche to even suggest that.

Beche had the gall to look satisfied. He was entirely too easily amused. “You are not a woman, so if I use you, I will have to use you as a man. And as of right now, I don’t intend to use you at all. I am not the monster you seem to presuppose.”

“No doubt you entered piracy hoping to pursue it for altruistic purposes.”

“I am going to assume you’re being sarcastic and showing a poor attitude since I don’t know all those words,” Beche said, and for some reason Alex was surprised. Beche struck him as being frighteningly intelligent as well as entirely too strong. Alex felt bruised from top to bottom after their fight. “So let me explain your life, young lord. You will clean my rooms, mend my clothing, and some day you may move up in my trust enough to clean my weapons and care for my contraptions. You will do all this with a good spirit. You will show humility when crew are here until you earn their trust, and then I will be able to send you on chores.”

“You want me to be a cabin boy,” Alex said. He had never been so offended in his life. He was no twelve-year-old to tend some man and sleep on his floor.

“My last cabin boy has been recently promoted to work in the galley and run powder for the gunners, so yes, you are a cabin boy. Now do you still need to use the privy?”

Alex felt quite a bit of satisfaction as he announced, “I urinated on the wall of the closet.” His mother would collapse if she’d ever heard such language from him, but it felt amazingly good. The look of horror on Beche’s face was even better.

“That’s disgusting.”

“Next time I warn you that I need to use the head, perhaps you’ll listen.” Alex might not have the power here, but he could still make his displeasure known, even if he had to do it in ways that made him as uncivilized as the pirates who had taken him captive.

“Next time you’ll hold it, or I’ll find one or two ways to force you to,” Beche warned. Alex frowned, not even sure he understood that threat. “Now we have the issue of your attack upon me.”

“I am a prisoner. I am entitled to attempt to free myself.” Alex expected punishment, but that didn’t mean he had to accept it quietly.

Beche stepped back and crossed his arms, once more looking very amused. “And if you had fought your way out of that closet, where would you have gone?”

“I’m sure you have multiple launches,” Alex said. “And I am equally sure you stole them and stole this vessel, so I would not feel guilty about stealing them again.” A ship this size had to be one of the warships retired when the militaries started switching to airships. Either Beche was clever enough to steal a military ship from the military or whoever had been ordered to sink the ship after it was decommissioned had failed badly.

“You planned to set out in a launch with no navigational equipment, no maps, no provisions, no concept of our current location, and no idea the direction of the nearest land. That is a remarkably stupid plan, milord.”

“I would have died on my own terms.”

“I find it best to avoid death at all,” Beche offered, “so please refrain from any more suicide plans masquerading as escape attempts. Right now we need to discuss your punishment for that incident.”

Alex gritted his teeth and glared at the pirate.

“You have three choices. I can punish you like a man, which would mean a flogging while being tied to the mast. I can punish you like a cabin boy and put you over my lap for a spanking, or I can punish you like crew and put you on biscuit and water rations for five days. Your choice.”

It seemed obvious, but Beche held up his hand before Alex could say anything. “I believe you’re about to make an uninformed decision, so understand that the punishment is not the biscuits and water. The punishment is the absolute agony in your bowels when they try to move and they cannot. It sometimes requires the application of an oil enema to get things moving again.”

Alex stared at Beche in horror. Not only did polite people avoid discussion of bowels, but they would never use bodily function as punishment. Never. Alex had been captured by the worst sort of barbarian. Worse, he called that a crew punishment, which clearly implied he’d used it in the past. Alex felt a little ill at the thought.

“Your choice?” Beche asked.

Alex was being asked to choose between internal bowel pain, the agony of a flogging, or the humiliation of being treated as a child. There was no answer that would preserve any sort of dignity, so what was the point of asking him to choose? It was like asking him which leg he would like amputated. Barbaric. Alex was truly stuck on that word. He narrowed his eyes, and a new thought came to him. No matter what he chose, he would regret it, and if he had chosen the punishment, he would--no doubt--come to hate himself as well. Beche might be a barbarian, but he was a very clever one.

Alex crossed his arms. “I have no intention of playing games with my dignity or your twisted wit. Whatever you will do, you will do. I will not participate other than to endure the punishment you dole out.” And if it was biscuits and water, Alex was determined to avoid eating for five days. He would never allow someone to perform a procedure on his bowels, no matter how stuck they might become. Alex had good cause to be protective of his anatomy.

“You do surprise me,” Beche said in an almost admiring tone that didn’t make much sense. “This is your last chance to either choose a punishment or remove one from consideration.”

Alex thought about taking the bread and water option off the table, but at the last moment he closed his mouth tightly. He would not be tempted to engage in this farce.

Beche’s smile only grew. “Well, don’t complain if you find you don’t like my choice,” he warned.

Alex raised his chin and braced himself for the worst. He could survive any of the punishments, and more than that, a punishment would not deter him from trying again.

“One day I’m going to correctly predict what you are likely to say, but that day is not today,” Beche admitted.

“Do not presume to know me.”

“Oh, I think I will know you very well before long, milord.”

“Margrave.”

“You’ll live longer if you claim no title,” Beche said. “And to that end, you will remove that clothing.”

“Excuse me?” Alex took a step back, but found his retreat blocked by the table.

“We’re close enough to the same size that you can wear some of my poorer clothes, but if you walk around here in a silk tie and vest, someone is going to take offense.”

“I don’t care. Besides, you said I was going to stay in here.”

“You are, but the crew does come in here, so off with that clothing.” Beche walked to the side of the room where a bed was tucked between carved pillars. Below were drawers, and he started searching for something.

Alex looked around wildly for some sort of weapon, but unless he was willing to attack a man armed with a sword and gun using a fountain pen or a letter opener, he had no options.

Beche turned around with a loose white longshirt and trousers in his hands. “You’ll change into these.”

“Not here,” Alex said desperately. He was not going to get naked in front of any man.

Beche tossed the clothing at Alex and crossed his arms. “You’ll change here. And I will watch every moment, so if you have more of your sister’s clever contrivances hidden about you, you will not be able to transfer them over.”

Alex’s hand went to his spider.

“Take your punishment well, and I’ll allow you to keep that toy,” Beche said.

Alex hated himself for having shown even that much weakness. “You’ve just made it clear I own nothing, so don’t pretend otherwise.” He took the pin that attached the spider to him by way of a chain and then carefully unhooked the tiny mechanical feet from his jacket before putting it down on the pirate’s desk. The loss of that little spider hurt more than the loss of his ship or his freedom, which made no sense, but then Alex suspected he was already suffering from some weakness of the mind. His father had always told him he was too feeble to take up manly duties, and perhaps this proved his father right.

With trembling hands, he stripped free of his coat and vest. He worked on the shirt. It was stained by sweat and smelled too strong for good company, but then Alex didn’t figure this was good company. When he had bared his chest, he grabbed the longshirt he’d been provided and pulled it over his head. It would give him some cover as he changed his pants.

He felt terribly vulnerable in his thin cotton drawers. He grabbed for the rough trousers Beche had provided.

“Stop,” Beche said as he moved forward. Alex was so shocked by this that he did as ordered. “Since you’re my cabin boy, let’s use a cabin-boy’s punishment. Bend over the desk, and we can get this spanking out of the way.”

“What?” Alex’s voice rose dangerously high.

“I know you’re not deaf, so I have no interest in repeating myself.” Beche lunged so fast Alex didn’t really notice before Beche grabbed his arm and shoved him against the wood. Either Beche had some magical powers or Alex was not tracking reality well. Maybe both.

Author Bio:
Lynsey "Lyn" Gala started writing in the back of her science notebook in third grade and hasn’t stopped since. Westerns starring men with shady pasts gave way to science fiction with questionable protagonists which eventually gave in to any story with a morally ambiguous character. Even the purest heroes have pain and loss and darkness in their hearts, and that’s where she likes to find her stories. Her characters seek to better themselves and find the happy ending (or happier anyway), but it’s writing the struggle that inspires her muse. When she isn’t writing, Lyn Gala teaches in New Mexico.

She first cut her teeth on fanfic: gen, slash, het, and femslash. She prefers to focus on plot: mysteries and monsters and disasters, oh my, but sex can and does happen. Some of her stories focus on power exchange, bondage or bdsm. In her worlds, tops and bottoms are all mature, consenting adults. In fact, stories where they aren't squick her badly, so don't expect to find abuse stories in her journal.

FACEBOOK  /  TWITTER  /  BLOG  /  WEBSITE

AMAZON  /  GOOGLE PLAY  /  LOOSE ID

KOBO  /  B&N  /  ARe /  iTUNES  /  GOODREADS

EMAIL: litgal1@gmail.com

AMAZON US  /  AMAZON UK  /  B&N

KOBO  /  iTUNES  /  GOOGLE PLAY

ARe  /  LOOSE ID  /  GOODREADS TBR