Dungeon Research [The Dom's Dungeon 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  The Dom’s Dungeon 4

  Dungeon Research

  The moment Taj Barlow, construction worker, and Gavan Byford, werewolf shape-shifter and Dom, see the mystery woman at The Dom’s Dungeon, they’re determined to make her theirs. All they need to do is find out who she is.

  Nerida Veldman doesn’t plan on making getting to know her easy. Her job as a researcher means she needs to keep a really low profile, and her sister has been wrongly accused of theft and is in hiding from a threatening attorney. Her life is way too complicated right now to pay attention to two men. Besides, two men? Two? Why would two men be interested in such an ordinary person as herself? Although the idea of spending time in a dungeon with a Dom is rather enticing. In fact, both Gavan, with his beard, and Taj, with his callused work-hardened hands, are more than enticing. But dare she risk opening her life up to them?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 35,967 words

  DUNGEON RESEARCH

  The Dom's Dungeon 4

  Cara Adams

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  DUNGEON RESEARCH

  Copyright © 2014 by Cara Adams

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-609-4

  First E-book Publication: November 2014

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  Dear Readers,

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  DUNGEON RESEARCH

  The Dom's Dungeon 4

  CARA ADAMS

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  Taj Barlow, aged twenty-five, was one of the younger members of the crew at Nelson’s Building and Home Maintenance. Until Raff had joined the team, even though Taj had his trade certificate, as the baby of the crew, it’d been his job to bag the trash, sweep the floors, and go fetch the coffees. Taj didn’t mind. Since he was the youngest of four brothers that had pretty much summed up his entire life until he’d grown big enough to answer back, punch hard, and run fast. Usually in that order.

  Right now he was sitting on a bar stool at The Dom’s Dungeon, nibbling on a plate of nachos, sipping dark beer, and looking around the crowd. As he’d grown older, along with developing a useful right hook in a fight, he’d also acquired a taste for BDSM, and The Dom’s Dungeon was the best BDSM club in town.

  He watched idly as Adelaide, one of the receptionists at the dungeon, hurried across the Stage Lounge, followed by an attractive woman casually dressed in jeans and a sweater. This late in the evening a lot of the women here were wearing nice frocks and high heels. Earlier in the day plenty of people wore jeans. But right now, it made her look different from most of the crowd.

  Adelaide led the woman across to a table where Cam and Hammer, two of the men he worked with, were sitting with Allegra. Allegra was an attorney who occasionally worked for the company and who Cam and Hammer were dating. He’d glanced over at their table a few times in the past half hour, and his own opinion was that the group had moved well past dating and into the hot stuff.

  Allegra was an attractive woman, and he was happy for them. But the chick in jeans with Adelaide was more his style. A casual easy-going person. Well, he thought she might be. Not that he’d ever met her or even knew who she was, but he sure as hell wouldn’t mind talking to her. Maybe after she’d spoken to Allegra about whatever it was. It was clear her attention was focused on Allegra, although the men were there as well.

  He was watching the fascinating woman so intently he didn’t realize that Gavan, the barman, was speaking to him.

  “Huh? Sorry? What?”

  “The woman you’re staring at. The one at Hammer’s table. I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better, too.”

  Taj whipped his head around to look at Gavan. Gavan was not just the head barman here at The Dom’s Dungeon. He was also a werewolf shape-shifter, and a Dom. There were quite a few shape-shifters here as well as Doms. Well, hell, it was a dungeon. Of course there were going to be Doms. But apparently wolves liked BDSM a lot, so they hung out here as well.

  There was no one at their end of the bar, so Taj asked quietly, “You want another ménage?” Once before they’d shared a woman. She was a sub who’d specifically asked to experience two men. Gavan had enlisted Taj’s help, and it’d been a mind-blowing experience. Already his dick was stirring at the memories of that night.

  Gavan stroked his beard and then nodded slowly.

  “I’m in. But what makes you think this chick would be interested? Do you know her?”

  Perhaps she was a sub who came here regularly. Taj had assumed because Adelaide
was with her that she didn’t know the dungeon, but maybe he’d gotten the wrong idea.

  “I don’t know her, but the look on your face is exactly what I feel like when I look at her.”

  Taj nodded. “I hope the fuck she’s not married or something. When they stop talking so intently, I’ll go over and bring her back here so we can both meet her, okay?”

  Gavan nodded and moved down the bar to serve other customers. Taj left his food and beverage on the bar top and watched Cam and Hammer’s table. He supposed it was rude to stare, but it wasn’t as though he could hear what they were discussing or anything. They were thirty feet away from him, and the dance music had started up so he’d have been lucky to overhear someone speaking thirty inches away.

  His woman stood up. Taj reached for his wallet to drop some money on the bar counter, and in the second he looked down at his pants, she vanished. He stared all around, stepped away from the bar, and saw a faint flash of blue over by the exit, but that was all. Shoving his wallet back into his pocket, he took off across the dance floor, diving between people there and taking as straight and fast a line to the exit as he could. She wasn’t in the hallway, so he ran to the foyer and out the front of the building, but she wasn’t there either.

  He’d gone straight past the elevators, so if she’d been waiting for one, he’d have seen her for sure. Taj ran across the parking lot to the exit, but no car was coming up the ramp. She’d completely disappeared into thin air. How the fuck did she do that?

  * * * *

  Gavan Byford was watching the Stage Lounge in the mirrored back of the bar as he was filling a drinks order. He saw the woman in jeans step onto the dance floor and disappear into the crowd. By the time Taj followed her, Gavan knew it’d be too late. She didn’t appear to be running, but she apparently had the knack of blending in. And that was even though she wasn’t wearing a slinky dress with spaghetti straps and her breasts half exposed like plenty of the women here.

  He’d have liked to see her skin. He wondered if it was creamy pale or tan. Her hair was light brown, so it could be either. He put the drinks on a tray and handed the tray to the server, and then he turned to fill up a jug with ice and prepare the next beverage order. The place was getting busy again. Likely he wouldn’t have been able to talk to her until the show started anyway. Most people ordered their drinks and food before the show, as the servers didn’t like to move around when the stage was in use. It distracted viewers from watching the act, which wasn’t good.

  Gavan didn’t notice Taj return but likely he just stayed out of the way until the lights dimmed. Gavan nodded at him and then stepped out from behind the bar, leaving the other barman to deal with any orders. He led Taj into the staff hallway, which was at the rear of the bar and the stage. At this time of the evening, it was quiet here. Gavan took Taj into the men’s changing room. Technically Taj wasn’t staff and shouldn’t be in there, but Gavan didn’t want to go too far from the bar. He was on duty right now, and the stage show would only last fifteen minutes or so, and then there’d be another rush of customers wanting beverages before everyone decided to go home.

  Taj dropped down onto one of the benches that lined the walls and looked around. “This place reminds me of high school, only without the stink of sweaty boys.”

  Gavan wasn’t going to waste time in idle conversation. “You lost her.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s like she had Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak or something. One minute she was there, and the next, poof, she’d gone.”

  “It’s lucky that you work with Cam and Hammer. You can find out all about her from them, and then we’ll get together and plan how to meet her.”

  Taj just stared at him. “How am I supposed to do that? I don’t even know her name.”

  “You don’t need to know her name to talk to Cam and Hammer. They’ll know who you mean, and they’ll know her name as well. All we want is a date with her. After we’ve all been out together, we’ll know if we want more than that.” Although Gavan was certain he would want a whole lot more. Nothing less than her naked body under his was going to ease the ache that had formed in his balls the moment he’d seen her across the room. He’d never felt like this about any woman before. Okay, sure, he was no virgin. Hell, he was a red-blooded werewolf male and thirty years old as well. But the pull of attraction to her was so strong it was as if someone had tied a wire onto his cock and attached it to her.

  “So what kind of date? I get her name and number from Cam or Hammer and then what?”

  “Shit, Taj. Use your brains. We invite her here, of course, for an evening when I’m not on duty.”

  “And I’ll know when you’re not on duty because?”

  Hmm. Good point. He and Taj weren’t such good friends that Taj would have memorized Gavan’s shift schedule. “Is there any night this week you aren’t able to come here?”

  “No, I’m good. I gather I give you the number and you’ll organize it then. Getting all Dom again, are we?”

  Gavan laughed. “Maybe a little. But hell. I want that woman.”

  “Me, too.” That was the amazing thing about him and Gavan. They’d met here at the bar when Gavan was working and the Stage Lounge wasn’t busy. Whenever they talked to each other they enjoyed the conversation and it had turned to friendship. Such good friendship that Taj had shared a few dungeon scenes with Gavan and a sub who wanted two men.

  Now it looked as though they might be about to share a woman of their own.

  * * * *

  Whenever Nerida Veldman’s older sister, Lacey, was annoyed with her, she told Nerida she was stupid and stubborn. Nerida preferred to call herself persistent and thorough. Both were excellent traits in a research assistant. For the past few weeks though, she was beginning to think stupid was a more appropriate term.

  The average research assistant didn’t earn big money. Mostly they worked for a company, sat in a tiny cubicle, and dug through mountains of moldy old books and files extracting the information needed to compile a paper or report for that company. Some of them, slightly better paid, worked for politicians or government agencies doing much the same thing.

  Nerida had worked for a multinational petroleum company for three years until they’d asked her to demonstrate that the dire effects of oil spills were vastly overrated and a little oil here and there in the ocean was no big deal. By the time she’d watched hours of video clips of birds that could no longer fly because of the oil on their wings, and dying fish, whales, dolphins, seals, and other marine creatures, she’d told her manager in graphic detail what she’d seen.

  He’d told her to compile a positive report anyway, and Nerida had told him to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.

  That was when she’d discovered that the job market for someone with a degree in English wasn’t all that great and waiting tables was in her immediate future. Nerida took a different tack, advertising herself online and offering her research skills at an hourly rate, which wasn’t particularly high but would at least give her enough to live on.

  More than half the jobs she was offered involved spying on a potentially deceiving partner, but Nerida kept replying she did online research only. However, it was amazing how much she could learn by friending someone on Facebook. Not that Nerida Veldman ever friended anyone. But Kandy Kane, a backlit silhouette in an ultra-short skirt, mile-high shoes, and holding a flogger, did. She also had a one hundred percent acceptance rate of her friend requests by males. And that was usually enough for Nerida to answer a lot of questions.

  The other precaution she’d taken was hiding her ISP address, which had turned out to be almost as easy as setting up Kandy Kane’s profile and then opening a business Paypal account.

  Nerida was getting enough work to pay her portion of the bills for her shared apartment when her sister had arrived on her doorstep sobbing, needing a hug, and an airplane fare out of town. It had taken several hours, a box of Kleenex tissues, and a quart of Berrycherry Chocolate Chip ice crea
m to get the story out of Lacey.

  “I’m—I mean I was—just the admin assistant, Nerry. I didn’t have access to any of the bank accounts. I don’t know any of the passwords or anything like that. My boss had to have known how that money went missing. I’m not saying he definitely took it, but he must know which people could operate the accounts. And none of them were me.” Lacey grabbed another handful of tissues and blew her nose before digging her spoon back into the container of ice cream.

  Nerida pulled her laptop closer to her body and typed a few more notes into a Word document as silently as she could. Now that Lacey was talking, Nerida didn’t want her to stop. “Who did know the passwords? Your boss and the CFO. Anyone else?”

  Lacey sucked the spoon thoughtfully. “Maybe the CEO. He’s a bit anal, and something of a micromanager, but I don’t know about him. I think it’s my boss. JJ’s the one who’s hired this horrible attorney who keeps telling me I’m going to jail for theft. He frightens me, Nerry. I have to get out of town.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Hide from him if you like, but running away just makes you look guilty. Close down all your social media accounts, change your address to a post office box, and keep your cell phone switched off.”

  “I guess you’re right. I think I’ll get my hair cut and change the color as well. Can I stay here with you? Is there a spare room or a futon I could sleep on?”

  Nerida smiled. “Adelaide’s moved out, so her room is empty. It’s really small, though, and you’ll have to help with expenses.”