Reviewed by Elizabetta
TITLE: Two Steps Back
AUTHOR: Lyn Gala
PUBLISHER: Loose Id
LENGTH: 224 pages
BLURB:
The poor economy has forced Dallin to return to prostitution to avoid homelessness, but when his old pimp hooks him up with a wealthy Dom, Dallin figures it’s too good to be true. William is older, wealthy, experienced, and a complete dominant. He’s the sort of man who can go to a club and pick up a dozen subs, and yet he wants to hire Dallin.
William knows how to succeed in finance and the bedroom, but trying to keep a relationship going is a far more difficult proposition. Instead of dealing with the messy reality of the club scene or dating, he decides to hire a sub. While William would like to have a long-term relationship develop, he’s not expecting anything. However the longer he plays with Dallin, the more he realizes that he wants more.
Dallin is willing to give his body to William—he enjoys the bondage, the games and ropes and toys. He’s more wary about trusting William with his heart. William is a master of domination, but for Dallin he wants to learn to love.
REVIEW:
The set up for Two Steps Back is familiar, a kind of Cinderfella meets Pretty Woman thing. Down on his last dollar, twenty-three year old Dallin is desperate.
He’s reduced to living in his office, trying to keep his advertising/design business going, but it’s the economy, stupid. Times are hard all around and the clients are not banging down his door or paying his invoices.
What’s a fellow to do?
Well, there’s always the old rentboy, prostitute job to fall back on. The one he hoped never to go back to. And nice Mormon boys should just not walk Satan’s path.
Never say never.
Dallin goes crawling back to his old pimp, Ben, begging for work. But this time Dallin wants a particular, ready-made client, someone for the longterm who won’t be too much of a freak.
Interesting, since it seems the easy-going Dallin can take some pretty heavy-duty kink:
bondage
edge-play
sensory deprivation
spanky orgasm denial
drop-to-your-knees and suck you dry
subby feed me/I’ll suck your fingers, too…
… that kinda sex play.
But nothing too, too over the top.
Ben has just the guy for him…
older
wealthy
experienced
looking for a long-term, almost live-in, submissive who gets his kinks…
Okay… OCD, stubborn, controlling, and set in his ways… William is not the easiest client.
But, the kinks match up; it just might be a business deal made in heaven. Until Dallin starts growing a pair and wants to keep the D/s play in the bedroom only. William needs to learn to curb his dominant, take-charge ways, and his penchant for trying to solve all of Dallin’s life problems.
There is a lot of page time to setting up the BDSM contract– all the ins and outs, do’s and don’ts, limits, and penalties. It’s all definitely SSC (safe/sane/consensual). So this is great for the reader who is newer to this scene. It’s BDSM 101. While I found it a little tedious, it fit with these characters. Dallin is so young and needing protection, while William has his definite limit issues.
I didn’t really feel that special electric connection between these two. And I didn’t need Dallin to tell me, many times, that he found something ‘hot’. I can read that for myself. I also think all the negotiating, while necessary, diminished the flash. It seemed to take forever to get to the sex… And, I don’t know… William just felt kind of disconnected to me, throughout. He knows what he wants sexually, and he’s a great Dom to Dallin, but he’s kind of colorless, otherwise. Maybe because we really don’t see him interact with any of the other characters in the story? We’re mostly told about his interactions with them.
What I did like was that while they grow and learn to work with each other, Dallin and William don’t lose the essence of their characters. Dallin is still trying to find himself and William is still OCD and interfering.
I am a fan of this author’s work. Whether it’s sci-fi drama (Turbulence), alien tail love (Claimings, Tails, and Other Alien Artifacts), or quirky mountain men (Mountain Prey), it’s been an auto-buy. Two Steps Back doesn’t have the same quirky, fizzy appeal of Gala’s other work, it doesn’t quite jell. While I didn’t really get lost in Dallin and William’s story, while it was generally on the light side, it does have some moments of sexual heat. And this may be enough to give it a try.
RATING: 
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