Bound by Leather by Mychael Black & Shayne Carmichael

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a very short story but with a nice setting and a little surprise for me; it's part of the HeatSheet by Phaze, usually a series of short stories with a common theme, and this one was the shapeshifter nature of one or both the main characters, and for this particular story, there was a warning for the readers on the Bondage and D/s content. So I was really expecting one of that usual story on pleasure / pain play, and even the submissive nature of the shapeshifter was not an original thing, since who read paranormal romances is quite common with the role of the omega males in the pack.

But the surprise is that the BDSM elements of the story are almost non-existent, true, the story is set in a BDSM in live club, where scenes and public display of dominance are common things, but our naive little puppy wolf finds an unexpected haven inside it. The first night he is welcomed by Raphael, the owner of the club, and so he is free from the usual charade of finding a suitable Master for his submissive nature. And when Raphael realizes that Nathaniel is not only a virgin to the BDSM world, but to any sexual experience, he decides also to exempt him from all the usual "testing" steps of a new relationship between Master and pet. It's not said that they will not take place in the future, but in this short story we are exempted with Nathaniel as well: the story turns on moving from BDSM to sweet romance, the only sex scene is almost "vanilla".

Another thing that remain in the frame without taking center stage is the shifter nature of Nathaniel. Actually, if not for a very short moment, we have no proof that Nathaniel is a shifter, and he never once shifts. The shifter nature serves to the authors only to give a boundaries more for Nathaniel to overcome, since it's not in a shifter male to be submissive. Knowing that I'm not very fond of BDSM stories, I'm not at all disappointed that this story turned to be more sweet than anything else, and instead, I wouldn't mind to see more developed the shifter nature of Nathaniel.

Anyway, for a short story, it is very well developed, more centered on the characters than the setting (and so it's maybe explained why the BDSM content remained in the shadow).

http://www.king-cart.com/Phaze/product=Bound+by+Leather/exact_match=exact

Amazon Kindle: Bound By Leather

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Comments

[mychael-black2.livejournal.com]

Thanks, hun. :) We really wanted to focus more on the characters, so I'm happy we seemed to do it. :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, it seems so. And I prefer in this way. Elisa