His Canvas Read online

  Suncoast Society

  His Canvas

  Mallory has a crazy, overbearing uncle, college, a job, and the best friend any woman could ask for. She enjoys her time at the BDSM club, but she’s no skinny rope bunny. She certainly isn’t looking for love when handsome rigger and photographer Kel volunteers to play with her.

  Had Kel known the beautiful, curvaceous woman wanted to be suspended, he would’ve volunteered a long time ago. She’s a gorgeous, full-figured woman he’d love to put his hands—and marks—all over. Still, her personal situation makes him reluctant to get involved. Not to mention he worries his darker side and love of edge play will scare her away.

  When push comes to shove and another rigger moves in, Kel stakes out his territory, pleasantly surprised to discover Mallory wants to become his canvas—and nurture her own darker desires. The problem is, can they overcome the legal nightmare her uncle tosses at her, or will it tear them apart?

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary

  Length: 56,690 words

  HIS CANVAS

  Suncoast Society

  Tymber Dalton

  SIREN SENSATIONS

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Siren Sensations

  HIS CANVAS

  Copyright © 2014 by Tymber Dalton

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-669-8

  First E-book Publication: November 2014

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  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

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of His Canvas by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Tymber Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  For Sir, because He loves the darkness in the shadows and patiently showed me the beauty there, allowing me to appreciate and grow to love it, too.

  And because He’s taught me that it’s okay to want to spend time there.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  While the books in the Suncoast Society series are standalone works which may be read independently of each other, the recommended reading order to avoid spoilers is as follows:

  1. Safe Harbor

  2. Cardinal’s Rule

  3. Domme by Default

  4. The Reluctant Dom

  5. The Denim Dom

  6. Pinch Me

  7. Broken Toy

  8. A Clean Sweep

  9. A Roll of the Dice

  10. His Canvas

  Some of the minor characters who appear in this book also appear in or are featured in other books in the Suncoast Society series. All titles are available from Siren-BookStrand.

  This fictional novel depicts scenes of bondage suspension, as well as edge play, utilizing techniques such as cutting and piercings. No play of that type should ever be engaged in by someone without receiving the proper training first and having safety precautions in place. Play safely, peeps. The experts make it look easy only because they’ve had lots of practice and training.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Author's Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About the Author

  HIS CANVAS

  Suncoast Society

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter One

  I love my job.

  Askel Hansen peered through the viewfinder at his latest model. She had gorgeous curves in all the right places, distinct lines, beautiful perfection. She wasn’t exactly his thing, but as a photographer, he could appreciate her appeal to others.

  This shoot was for a regular paying client. They relied almost exclusively on him for their catalog images, meaning a day shooting on location in a gorgeous—if not sweltering—setting south of Crystal River, Florida.

  It also meant excellent pay. When he finally returned to Sarasota later that evening, he knew he’d have a sizable check in his pocket without a hint of griping about his rates in the process. Not that he wished all his paying jobs were like this, because that would eventually get boring.

  But he definitely didn’t mind doing these several times a year.

  He straightened and tweaked the position of one of the light bouncers before he took his next round of shots. He’d been at it for a couple of hours already.

  Mike Foster, head of the company he was shooting for today, walked down and stood on the dock, off to the side. “How’s it going, Kel?” he called out.

  “She’s a beaut. I think you have a winner with this one.”

  “Damn sure hope so. Put enough mo
ney into R&D on her.”

  Kel walked over and made a slight adjustment to one of the ropes, which had shifted slightly with her movement, before taking another burst of pictures.

  He’d already finished the close-ups, taking care of those inside before they’d moved her out to the docks for the full-on shots. It was fun exploring her many recesses, her tight, enclosed places.

  It was a damn gorgeous boat. No doubt about it.

  When Kel finally finished the photo shoot, Mike joined him on the dock where his company’s latest model sat slowly bobbing on the incoming tide. “Hey, I’m taking the wife and kids out on it in a little while. Going to run out the channel to the head marker and back, then go for dinner later. Want to join us?”

  Mike’s two kids were adorable. Not that Kel had any desire for any of his own in the near future, but he’d also been photographing Mike’s kids in the ten years he’d been doing shoots for Mike’s company, Aqua-Knotics Industries. They had a small R&D facility just south of Crystal River, with their main production facility over on the east coast, near Ft. Lauderdale.

  He’d originally met Mike and Julie Foster socially several years earlier. Kel had even been the one to jokingly suggest the name of Mike’s company when the boat designer quit his job with another manufacturer and went off on his own.

  Hell, they both loved shibari. Mike couldn’t resist the chance to sneakily hide a clue about his kinky side out in the wide open, in both the company’s name and logo. When they had first met at Venture, a private BDSM club in Sarasota, Kel had been honing his rigging skills and his artistic photography techniques. Mike and Julie had lived in Sarasota before striking out with their new boat-building venture.

  Mike strongly believed in the old chestnut of rising tides lifting all boats. Literally. He’d hired Kel as their photographer from the start based on their friendship.

  Kel surely wasn’t complaining.

  “I’d love to,” he told Mike. “Let me get my stuff packed.”

  “Awesome. The kids’ll be happy to hear that. So will Julie.” He glanced around to make sure no one was close enough to hear. “So, how are things going with you? I heard from Mac and Sully it was a little rough there for a while.”

  “I’m okay. But the next time you hear of me getting involved with someone who doesn’t have their shit together, please remind me that it’s not my circus and not my monkeys. Deal?”

  Mike grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Deal.” His smile faded. “Sort of hoped she’d be the one for you.”

  “Well, I did there, too, for a while. Until her crazy started showing.”

  “Yeah, that’s never a good thing.”

  * * * *

  It was nearly ten that night by the time they finished dinner. Kel started his long trek home to Sarasota stuffed from an excellent seafood dinner and his voice slightly hoarse from hours of conversation, both having to shout to be heard while on the boat, and then lots of talking with his friends over their meal.

  It was more than enough social interaction to sate him for weeks. Or longer.

  It wasn’t that he was an introvert, or antisocial, or shy, or any of that. He just didn’t have any pressing need for company. He was fine living and—mostly—working alone. Other than his actual photo shoots, the bulk of his work was done at his apartment in the warehouse unit that backed up to Venture. Technically, he probably wasn’t supposed to be living there, but since he owned the warehouse complex, no one had complained about it.

  He also liked not having neighbors on most weeknights.

  Driving allowed him to let his mind wander. Ten years ago, he never would have imagined that thirty-two-year-old him would be a successful photographer and real estate investor.

  I hope Dad wouldn’t mind.

  His mother had never outright asked him exactly why his best friend, Derrick, leased warehouse space in the same building Kel occupied, despite the other man being an accountant.

  It would be difficult for Kel to explain to her that Venture was a private members-only BDSM club. Kind of a kinky community center.

  One he spent a lot of time at, both socially and for business purposes, having free run of the space during off hours for photo shoots.

  Yeah, Mom? I like to tie girls up and do other things to them. And I sometimes even make a little extra money photographing them that way. So does Derrick. So he opened a club because we were running out of party space.

  Uh-huh. Suuure. He could see that conversation going well.

  Not.

  He didn’t even mind being single. He’d taken a risk on a relationship that had, as Mike noted, ended in a spectacular blaze of twatwafflery. At least Derrick had banned the girl from the club. Because of her antics, and her batcrap crazy ways, she’d also gotten herself banned from clubs in Pinellas, and even in Orlando.

  That takes a special kind of nutjob, right there.

  No, he was done with relationships for a while. He wasn’t so desperate to get laid that he’d sleep with anyone willing to open her legs. His hand hadn’t failed him yet. And as far as play partners, he usually had a full dance card every weekend when he walked over to the club. He’d been single for over a year before taking a chance on the crazy ex, and he didn’t have a problem being single again for the foreseeable future.

  It was more than worth the peace and quiet in his life.

  * * * *

  When he returned home, he quickly unloaded everything from his truck into the large bay before wearily climbing the stairs up to the apartment that comprised the second floor of the warehouse space. A previous tenant had, legally and with proper permits, constructed an office up there, utilizing the lower level as their warehouse for their Internet business. It had taken very little for him to add showers to the upstairs bathrooms. He now had two bedrooms and a great room area that was open to the kitchen. He used the office on the lower floor for most of his work, and the large bay area for storage and shoots.

  Bonus, the whole thing was tax deductible. He just didn’t tell the county he lived there.

  The spare bedroom he kept for when models or riggers traveled from out of town and needed a place to crash after a day or night of shooting. He couldn’t make a living with fetish shoots, but they helped break up the monotony and he enjoyed them.

  After a shower, he made himself a mug of chamomile tea and settled in front of his living room TV with his personal laptop to check his e-mail. Without any shoots scheduled for tomorrow, he could stay up late and then get up whenever he wanted to do all the photo processing for today’s shoot.

  No, he wasn’t what he’d consider rich, even though his bills were all paid and he had some money in the bank. He’d taken part of the insurance settlement he and his mom had received from his father’s death at the hands of a drunk driver and wisely invested it with the advice of some of his friends. So far, the investments were slowly paying off. He was looking forward to having a comfortable future when he retired, not trying to get rich quick.

  But his vanilla jobs, like today, paid all the bills, with some leftover on the side.

  The kinky shoots were gravy he invested back into rigging gear and other supplies. In fact, he’d be doing a shoot this weekend at the club, a series of instructional rigging photos for a friend of his who was writing a book about shibari.

  Meanwhile, Kel was building his personal repertoire of skills. He’d been doing piercing and needle play for a while, but had recently started learning branding and cell popping techniques. Not even from a sadistic standpoint, because he really didn’t label himself a sadist. But from the artistic point of view, using a model’s flesh as a canvas on which to create his art.

  It was fun. And it had become a passion in a way he’d never dreamed when he’d first discovered there were people who enjoyed receiving the kinds of things he enjoyed doing to them. As an added bonus, he got to photograph his efforts, saving them, allowing him to savor them repeatedly simply by looking back over the pictures.

&
nbsp; Setting his own schedule while making a decent living doing things he enjoyed?

  He sipped his tea. I love my life.

  Chapter Two

  I hate my life.

  Mallory sat in her car and stared at her phone, at the text message from her uncle, Saul.

  Did you complete the application to the master’s program yet?

  His scathing, piercing tone seeped through the text on the iPhone’s screen. She swiped the message and deleted it.

  He’d likely be bitching at her about other things by the time she got home that night anyway, so what was one more bitchable offense like not responding to his text message?

  No, she hadn’t completed the application. She hadn’t even looked at the application. She didn’t want to apply, and was not going to apply, either. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she’d told him that over the past year, it was like he started hearing the Charlie Brown teacher’s wah-wah voice coming from her mouth when she answered him.

  No. I am. Not. Applying. To the. Fucking. Master’s. Program.

  Doucheball.

  Although she had not as of yet come up with the metaphorical chodes to call him that out loud and to his face. Or in text.

  Yet.

  Although she suspected that day would soon come if he didn’t get off her farking case about it.

  I wish he hadn’t divorced Aunt Susan.

  At least her aunt had been a little bit of a buffer between her and her bristly uncle. But for the past six years, Mallory had been stuck under the same roof as the man.