Nobody's Angel

Nobody’s Angel

Second in the Rescue Me Series

by

Kallypso Masters

Copyright 2011, Kallypso Masters

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.

Dedication

To my husband, who patiently and calmly puts up with my crazy writing obsession and loves me unconditionally regardless of the upheaval and chaos I create in his life.

And to three women—Jeri Smith, Fiona Campbell, and Kelly Mueller—who made all the difference in how Master Marc’s story turned out. I can’t say how each of them helped without giving away the story, but they know what they did.

Acknowledgements

As always, there are so many people to thank, and my apologies to any I leave out.

First, I’d like to thank my editor, Jeri Smith, of Booksmith Editing. Your feedback on the earlier version of
Nobody’s Angel
was extremely helpful to me in the arriving at the final version.

Linda Lynn, my cover artist, is phenomenal. All I do is provide her with the photos of the characters and away she goes. She also designed the cover for
Masters at Arms
.

Fiona Campbell, you’re like having a second editor. Your insights are spot on. Thanks for pegging the problems the “old” Marc had—and for always fighting for your Texan.

Carol Ann MacKay, your line edits at the eleventh hour saved this author much embarrassment and is greatly appreciated.

Thanks to my beta readers, Kelly Hensley and Kathy Treadway, who provided valuable feedback for the scenes (including telling me what wasn’t working).

Thanks to my fans and readers, affectionately known as the Masters Brats, for falling in love with Masters Adam, Marc, and Damián as I have, and for encouraging them (with your bratty behavior) to make regular visits on Facebook to keep you in line. Just one request: I’d love it if you would please stop asking them to get out their whips and floggers to keep me in my writing chair. Ouch!

Thanks to my many Facebook and Twitter friends. Your encouragement and support are great motivation. Thanks also for helping me solve major and minor plot and characterization issues. Specifically, thanks to Ashlee Davidson, Jillian Schuler-Hall, and Laura Harnier for helping with the Denver and Colorado questions. Irene Eneri and Joanne MacGregor for help with the Italian phrases. Patricia Wheeler and an anonymous Marine for help with Marine Corps questions. And everyone else who helped whenever I put out the call for help! (All errors are the author’s, of course.)

To my wonderful MPs, thank you for lifting me up, making me laugh, giving me delightful and informative inspiration into the BDSM lifestyle, and providing me with an awesome social-networking fix every day! You’re the best!

Author’s Note

If you haven’t read the introduction novel for this series yet—
Masters at Arms
, please do so before you read this one. It’s only 99 cents and will give you a much deeper understanding of the bond between Masters Adam, Marc, and Damián. You’ll also learn about key turning points in each of their lives leading up to their romances. And you’ll see how Master Adam & Karla and Master Damián & Savannah met, as well as some of Master Marc’s prior experiences with women.
Masters at Arms
is available where you purchased this book.

Now I turn
Nobody’s Angel
over to the good care of you, my reader. I hope you fall in love with Master Marc, Angelina, and Luke, and that you will enjoy your visits with Master Adam, Master Damián, Karla, and Cassie, as well! Next up will be Master Adam and Karla’s romance (at last!) in December with
Nobody’s Hero
.

Chapter One

Marc D’Alessio put on the eye mask to maintain some anonymity. What Italian men didn’t do for their mamas. No one he knew from his earlier life in Aspen had ever shown up at his club, but he’d promised Mama he wouldn’t be blatant about his alternate lifestyle. Shit, just having her find out about his interest in BDSM had been bad enough. If his little brother Sandro had just kept his mouth shut….

He wished he’d chosen a different mask, though. The damned wolf one just brought him attention from unattached subs and bottoms he really didn’t want these days.

Marc donned the black leather vest over his bare chest and ignored the familiar hitch in his breath caused when he overstretched the adhesions in his side. He checked to make sure the vest pockets included the safety and first-aid items he may need while on duty tonight. The yellow armband he placed over his right bicep identified him as the club’s dungeon monitor supervisor tonight.

Marc stepped out of the dressing area and walked down the short hallway to where the great room at the Masters at Arms fetish club opened before him. The scent of sweat and sex filled the air tonight. The club appeared to be at capacity, so he knew he’d have to stay alert. He also was about an hour late and needed to find co-owner Adam Montague to get the lowdown. He scanned the room looking for the retired Marine master sergeant.

Fellow Iraq War veteran Damián Orlando, the youngest of the club’s three owners, wore his trademark black-and-orange Harley leather vest and had a petite blonde chained to the center post where he delivered evenly placed lashes with his single-tailed whip. The center of the room had been roped off sufficiently to keep onlookers out of range, but many watched the demonstration with rapt attention.

Marc recognized the bottom as one of Damián’s regulars, the expression on her face one of pure ecstasy, despite the red welts he could see on her back, ass, and thighs. No blood. His friend sure was popular with the masochists; Marc didn’t get off on delivering that level of pain.

The tattoo on Damián’s flexing bicep showed the rippling tail of a dragon, the body hidden by his vest. But Marc knew it covered a good portion of his chest and back because he’d gone with him for some of the sessions at the tat parlor. With his shoulder-length hair pulled into a queue, and his goatee and moustache, Damián had the look of a real badass.

Marc couldn’t help but remember the shy kid he had been when they’d met at Camp Pendleton. Or that trip to the L.A. fetish club the week before they’d deployed to Fallujah. No, if he didn’t know it for a certainty, he’d never believe this was the same man. The kid sure had come home from Iraq messed up. Marc and Adam had almost lost him during his deepest depression. Apparently, with BDSM he’d found a way to regain some level of control over his life again, even if it did mean he’d chosen to delve deeply into the sensual-sadist range of the lifestyle’s spectrum.

Marc loved Damián like a brother, realizing he’d become closer to this kid from his Marine Corps training days than he was to his own brother. The two of them had gone through some serious shit together in Fallujah. Damián had come out the worse for it. Marc wished he’d been able to do more, but was thankful that, as his Navy corpsman, he’d been able to keep him alive. His buddy’s limp was hardly noticeable now and he seemed to be getting his life back on track.

Well, on track as well as any of the three co-owners had been able to since the war.

Continuing to look for Adam, Karla Paxton’s final preparations for tonight’s set caught his eye. She flinched each time Damián’s whip struck the woman’s bare and sweating skin. When Marc had first met Karla, he hadn’t expected her to last more than her first weekend’s performances. She sure as hell didn’t care much for the lifestyle, even the milder stuff.

But Karla sure did care for Adam—not that his former master sergeant noticed. Shit, the man whose instincts and wisdom had kept a lot of men and women alive on the battlefield was totally clueless when it came to Karla.

“You’re here.” Well, speak of the devil, he turned to find Adam approaching him. After all these years of retirement, his friend still kept his hair trimmed to near-Marine regs. Not a high and tight, but close enough. There was a heavy mix of gray among his friend’s dark brown hair now.

“Sorry. Got held up on…a mission.”

Adam’s intense stare bore through him saying he knew Marc wasn’t being honest, which niggled at his conscience. Adam had gone back for him on that rooftop in Fallujah. He’d visited Marc in the hospital until they could ship him out of Iraq, often spending his nights watching over Marc as he slept. Most importantly, he’d helped ease some of Marc’s guilt over the loss of his big brother, Gino, who had served under Adam in Afghanistan. He owed the man so much. Why was he trying to distance himself from him now?

Because you distance yourself from everyone
.

No, that’s just women. He did keep women at arm’s length emotionally, but knew Adam would take a bullet for him before he’d ever hurt him. So, why didn’t he let him in? Adam had been nudging him for months to tell him what was going on in Marc’s head after he’d quit scening, opting to volunteer as a DM or DMS most nights, well, when he showed up at the club. One thing was certain. Marc would continue as a co-owner of the club with these men; their band-of-brothers bond would never be broken.

Shit, he couldn’t explain what was going on himself, much less tell his friend. He was just…unsettled since he’d left Pamela last year. She had been the first woman he’d gotten close to since Melissa all those years ago.

He had let Adam believe Pamela had dumped him, but he was in no mood yet to talk about what really happened. Marc deflected the man’s unspoken questions. “So, what’s the situation?”

Adam narrowed his eyes, paused a moment, then stood down, rubbing the back of his neck. “Keep an eye on Room Eight. They’re new to the scene and I don’t get the feeling they know each other very well.”

The recent surge in erotic BDSM books had couples coming out of the woodwork to try out with their partners, some of them nearly strangers, what they had discovered in those romanticized stories. Too bad. Most of them should have stuck with the romantic version. They got off on the idea of BDSM, but not the actual experience. Besides, most of their “Doms” had no clue. Too many used this as consent to abuse rather than any type of consensual power exchange.

Until the last few months, Marc had held a series of weekend training sessions when he wasn’t on a mountain-rescue call and didn’t have any wilderness expeditions planned with his outfitter company. Those Doms who truly wanted to learn to please their partners in the BDSM lifestyle signed up, but they’d represented a small fraction of the couples he saw coming in to experiment on the equipment at the club. Of course, he hadn’t given a class for quite a while.

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” said Marc. Adam filled him in on how many dungeon monitors were on duty tonight and where each was stationed. “Anything else?”

“No, pretty routine.” They shared a grin. There was nothing routine about the Masters at Arms, now one of Denver’s hottest fetish clubs. They’d become so popular since hiring Karla to sing that they’d just started opening on Wednesdays, in addition to Fridays and Saturdays.

As Karla sang “
Song to the Siren
,” Marc’s and Adam’s gazes were drawn to the young woman commanding attention on the stage. Her wardrobe sure had improved since she’d first started; tonight, she wore a black satin and sequin number that concealed her shoulders, but left a large oval expanse of her chest open, showing off the swell of her breasts. Her arms were bare except for lacy black gloves covering her forearms and wrists. The hem of the dress was mid-thigh, showing off her sexy long legs encased in black mesh stockings. Definitely hot.