Free The Master's Choice by Abby Gordon Page B

Finally, it stopped, only to be replaced by his cell phone ringing.
    “Goddammit!” he yelled, flinging the pillow across the room toward the dresser where his phone sat.
    The pillow barely made it to the end of the bed. It balanced on the railing before rolling out of sight. As it plopped on the floor, the ringing continued. Muttering every foul oath he’d learned since Basic Training twenty years earlier, JW jerked from the bed and stalked over to the offending device.
    “What the hell do you want?” he barked into the receiver.
    “Open your damned door or I’ll break it down and then break your fucking neck,” Liam O’Grady growled back at him.
    “What the fuck is your problem?” JW demanded.
    “Open the damned door.”
    The phone went silent but the pounding began again.
    Continuing his oaths of rage, JW marched out of the bedroom through the living area and unlocked his door. Liam was through and swinging before he’d taken two steps back. Only instincts honed through years of training and battle kept JW’s head out of the way so the fist glanced across his temple and not his nose.
    “What the fuck is your problem?” he yelled, quickly backing away from the enraged man.
    Kicking the door shut, Liam stalked after him.
    “You’re out,” he snarled. “Out of the Club and everything else I can manage.”
    “I’ll say it a third time since you didn’t seem to hear me. What the fuck is your problem?”
    Liam got close, right up in his face.
    “Ally. She barely had a clue what was going on in June. But this time…” As if realizing how close he was to swinging again, Liam turned away, running a hand through his red-brown hair. “I was out of the country or I would have been on your ass last week. What the hell got into you? She responds to nothing and no one!”
    “I spanked her and…I was careful with her,” JW defended himself. “And she enjoyed the fucking. Trust me.”
    “That’s what she said,” Liam confirmed with a sigh, looking out the front window. “And each fucking time, you left her alone,” Liam fumed, pacing back and forth. “You can’t fucking do that. It screws with a submissive’s mind like…”
    “I didn’t leave her.” JW stated, stepping forward, hands clenching into fists. “I went down to the pub to clear my mind so I could think and when I came back up, she was gone.”
    “Ah shit. Are you serious?” Now near the door, Liam turned.
    “Completely. Ask Tom, he was tending the bar.”
    Liam studied him a moment and JW felt distinctly uneasy. His friend had a way of coming out with some crazy shit about a person when he looked at them like that.
    “How much have you been drinking?”
    “What? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
    “I can smell it,” Liam replied, going through the cabin to the kitchen. He lifted the lid to the trash can and shook his head. “I’m seeing lots of bottles and nothing that looks like it contained food.” He looked over his shoulder at JW. “Well, that explains why you look like shit.”
    JW frowned and glanced down at himself. And realized he was naked. He could tell he’d lost weight as his ribs and hip bones protruded more than they had…eight days ago.
    “Yeah, um…”
    “Congratulations, JW. You broke her. You did in forty-eight hours what Kevin MacLauren couldn’t do in six months. She doesn’t care what happens to her. Nothing anyone says to her can change her mind.” Liam walked toward the door. “She wants me to put her on display for a contract. As a slave. She doesn’t care to whom, what their reputation is, or what they end up doing to her.”
    JW blinked. What the hell? His head spun and he grabbed at the back of the chair to stay balanced.
    “No.”
    “Aren’t you listening? You don’t have a say in any of this. As far as the Board is concerned, this whole situation is your fault.”
    “No!” JW launched himself at Liam and caught him as he reached for the doorknob. Turning the