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? Finding 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.