Masters at Arms

First in the Rescue Me Series

by

Kallypso Masters

Copyright 2011, Kallypso Masters

Smashwords Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Edited by Jeri Smith,
www.booksmithediting.com

Cover art by Linda Lynn

This book contains content that is not
suitable for readers 17 and under.

Thank you for downloading this e-book. This
e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be
reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing
without written permission from the author, Kallypso Masters, at
[email protected].

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or
distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal
copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary
gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years
in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (See
http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/ for more information about intellectual
property rights.)

This book is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to persons—living or dead—or places, events, or locales
is purely accidental. The characters are reproductions of the
author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

To discover more about the books in this
series and others by Kallypso Masters, follow her “
Ahh,
Kallypso…the stories you tell”
blog at
http://kallypsomasters.blogspot.com. Or send a friend request to
Kallypso Masters on Facebook. You can also follow her on Twitter as
@kallypsomasters.

This book is dedicated to my pre-publication
fans who fell in love with the Masters at Arms—Adam, Marc, and
Damián—and followed along on my journey since May 2011. Your
encouragement and excitement kept me working to make sure this
novel lived up to your expectations. (Of course, the masters used
the flogger and single-tailed whip on occasion, as needed, for
motivation, too.)

Now I turn the Master at Arms over to your
good care. (But, trust me, if you’re bad, they can be even more
fun. Of course, you’ll have to wait to see how their romances turn
out in Nobody’s Angel, Nobody’s Hero, and Nobody’s Perfect—where
their sexy Dom modes will come to the fore.)

I also dedicate this book to the men and
women in uniform. God bless and thank you for your service.

There are so many people to thank, and I’m
sure I’ll forget some. First, I’d like to thank my editor, Jeri
Smith, of Booksmith Editing. Your keen eye and excellent
suggestions have made this book into what it is today, and have led
me to improve on how the story of how these three men formed such a
strong band-of-brothers bond. Thanks also for your encouragement. I
look forward to working with you on the other books in this
series.

To my beta readers and critiquers Fiona
Campbell, Kristin Harris, Kelly Hensley, Carol Ann MacKay, Kathy
McKenzie, Kelly Mueller, Lani Rhea, Kelly Timm, and Kathy Treadway.
Your insightful suggestions helped save me embarrassment and to
make this book and its characters so much stronger.

To Laura Harner, Carol Ann MacKay, and S.A.
Moore, thanks for your help in getting my military facts straight.
All remaining errors are mine, of course. (Readers: Please keep in
mind that the military protocols and equipment described in this
book are from 2002-2005 and may not be the same as those followed
currently.)

Thanks to my many Facebook friends for
encouragement and support. Thanks to Elizabeth Leighton, who came
up with the title of this book; to Lizzie Walker, who discovered
Master Adam’s craving for peanut butter; and to Anita Hayes who
just knew Master Adam would listen to Aerosmith.

To my wonderful MPs, thank you for lifting me
up, making me laugh, giving me delightful inspiration into the
lifestyle, and providing me multiple social-networking fixes every
day! You’re the best! Thanks to Katona Barnes and Lisa Kait,
especially for completing the Mistresses Admin 3. We’re
invincible!

Last, but not in no way least, to Cherise
Sinclair, who wrote
Club Shadowlands
, the first erotic
romance I ever read. Your Doms and subbies are to die for and I
hope mine are one-tenth as memorable. Thanks also for your Facebook
friendship, mentoring me on various aspects of the lifestyle, and
for your ongoing support and encouragement. Now, please get back to
work and finish Master Raoul’s story, my dear Alpha Sub. I can’t
wait for my next visit to Club Shadowlands.

Night before Thanksgiving 2002, Chicago,
Illinois

Joni, you were my anchor. I’m lost without
you.

Adam Montague slumped into the seat at the
terminal, hoping to catch a couple hours of sleep before his bus
left. He looked around Chicago’s busy terminal and saw the autumn
decorations scattered every five yards or so. Apparently, going for
the homey Thanksgiving look.
Not even close.
Just another
crap-hole bus station, no different from the ones he’d seen a lot
of during his early years in the Marines.

Twenty-two years. He’d survived the First
Gulf War in 1991 and a deployment to Kosovo in ’99. Just when he
and Joni started planning for his retirement, some damned assholes
attacked the United States, the country he’d sworn to protect and
defend. So, he’d put off turning in his retirement papers until he
could see how Operation Enduring Freedom went. He’d serve as long
as he was useful and needed.

Adam had been deployed to Kandahar twice
since 2001. His first tour ended with a medical leave earlier this
year after a clusterfuck of bad intelligence led one of his recon
units into an ambush with disastrous results. He’d gone in after
them and gotten only a few of them out unscathed, but he’d lost two
good men and managed to get himself injured in the bargain.

So, he’d been home at Camp Pendleton with
Joni more than a month last winter as his body had healed. Now he
wondered if she’d known about her cancer back then and kept it from
him. Would it have made any difference if he’d known? He’d have
been sent back to war and she’d still have had to fight the disease
alone. She’d known the deal when she married him. While he was
active duty, she’d have to take a back seat to whatever crisis he’d
been sent to fight in the world.

His last tour had ended with his hardship
leave two months ago when Joni’s mother had finally told him Joni’s
cancer had come back with a vengeance. He hung his aching head and
held it in his hands hoping the heels of his hands would quell the
throbbing in his temples.

Memories of walking into that bedroom in
Minneapolis two months ago flashed through his mind. He squeezed
his eyes shut, trying to block it out, but knew the sight was
imprinted there forever. God, the disease had so ravaged her body
by the time he got home, he was afraid to touch her. Then her frail
hand had patted the queen-sized mattress and he’d crawled into bed
with her and held her in his arms while she sobbed.

Adam raised his head and wiped his hands down
his face. Numb. He still felt numb, whether from losing Joni or
from the two-week bender, he wasn’t sure. Probably a bit of
both.

He guessed his units were out of Kandahar by
now. Sounded like Iraq would be next on their dance card.

Bring it on. I got nothin’ left to lose.

Fuck! Stinkin’ thinkin’ like that would get
the men and women under him killed. He knew he wasn’t mentally
ready to go back, but his orders were to report Monday. He hoped
he’d find the fire in his gut he’d need by the time he reunited
with his units.

A cornucopia cutout hanging from a
fluorescent light fluttered when a blustery wind blew in from the
open doors. Joni had always taken so much pride in making their
home festive for the holidays. She especially loved Christmas, even
though it was just the two of them, well, when he wasn’t deployed.
She even kept her nativity set and some other favorite decorations
displayed all year long for whenever he did make it home. Not that
he paid much attention to that. He’d just been happy to see her,
hold her, love her, and make up for lost time.

So damned much lost time.

What the hell was he going to do with all
that stuff now? He’d call her mother and tell her to do whatever
she wanted with it. He had his memories and a few photos—and her
wedding ring. Shit, he hoped Joni had gotten rid of their
playthings before she’d moved in with her mom. Well, nothing he
could do about that now.

Camp Pendleton—or wherever he would be
sent—would be his home until he retired from the Corps. He hoped
that, by the time he got back in country, whichever war zone that
would be, he’d have shaken off this black mood that matched the
frigid black night outside.

In a way, he couldn’t wait to get back. War
and military life, he understood. What stumped him was cancer.
Fucking cancer. Nothing in his tactical or weaponry training
prepared him to help Joni fight against the insurgent that
destroyed her body.

Not that she’d even wanted him to help her
fight the disease. By the time she’d let her mom tell him about the
recurrence, she was given a month at best. She’d managed to hold
out for a couple weeks longer than that estimate.

God, his eyes burned. He rubbed them with a
thumb and forefinger, then lowered his hand and clenched his fist.
Damn it, he should have known sooner
.

Joni told him she saw no point in pulling him
away from a place where he could make a difference, just to sit by
her bed and watch her die. She’d figured he’d have gone stir crazy
with the helplessness of not being able to do anything to change
the unalterable outcome.

God, he’d kill for another bottle of scotch
right now. He looked at the wino passed out on the floor across the
room. Adam thought about offering the man a wad of money for
whatever he had left in the brown-paper wrapped bottle he clutched
to his chest with both arms, like a lover.

Adam had held Joni in his arms for the last
time, just like that, as she had slipped away from him forever.
Before she died, two days short of their twentieth wedding
anniversary, she’d assured him she wouldn’t have changed a thing in
their years together.

Hell, he’d sure have changed a few
things
.

Togetherness wasn’t the best word to describe
their marriage. She’d lived with him on base when he wasn’t
deployed, and they had eight years together after the end of the
Gulf War and before he’d been sent to Kosovo. Then came Operation
Enduring Freedom and he hadn’t been home much since.

They’d talked about the good times they’d had
in the ’80s and ’90s when he hadn’t been deployed to war zones.
Their Dom/sub power exchanges had been total then. But that had
been impossible to sustain while deployed.

Fire burned the backs of his eyes. Joni never
wanted him to take his focus off the military missions to deal with
her “little problems.” Like the time she’d totaled the car. She’d
had to take care of everything herself. He’d been deployed, of
course. As always, she’d handled everything perfectly. Except she
hadn’t told him. Said she was afraid he’d be upset about the car.
Hell, he didn’t give a shit about the fucking car. He’d just been
worried when he heard how close she’d come to being killed.

All of the times she’d needed him—from when
she’d held their stillborn son in her arms in 1991 to when she’d
fought her last rounds of chemo and radiation this past summer—he’d
been fighting battles elsewhere. Long deployments in too many hot
spots in the world had come before her more often than he’d wanted.
Hell, he’d barely made it home in time to watch her die.