by Avery Gale
Club Isola 3
Claiming Abby
Waking up in the trunk of a moving car isn’t how Abby Garret had planned to spend her evening. When she discovers the tracking devices she was wearing are missing, she fights off her panic and manages to escape. But Abby’s recent discoveries are set to turn the world’s energy industry on its ear, and it appears not everyone is interested in renewable energy as they claim.
After rescuing the woman they have been waiting years to claim, Doms Kalen Black and Logan Douglas find out that claiming and managing are not necessarily the same thing. Nothing with Abby is ever easy, and keeping her safe is no exception, and it is going to take everything Kalen and Logan have to keep Abby out of harm’s way and win her heart at the same time.
Abby’s habit of thinking out loud and her use of colorful expressions make her a fun heroine that Avery Gale readers are sure to enjoy.
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 65,030 words
CLAIMING ABBY
Club Isola 3
Avery Gale
MENAGE AMOUR
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.
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.
If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at
[email protected]
A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Amour
CLAIMING ABBY
Copyright © 2013 by Avery Gale
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-799-1
First E-book Publication: October 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of Claiming Abby by Avery Gale from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Avery Gale’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Gale’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For Lexi
Grow – Believe – Achieve
The world is yours to conquer.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
About the Author
CLAIMING ABBY
Club Isola 3
AVERY GALE
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Abby Garrett struggled to consciousness even though a very large part of her mind just wanted to float back into the dark empty escape of sleep. But there was something pulling her up through the sludge into awareness and beckoning her to think clearly. She knew her mind wasn’t working as it should, that she wasn’t really thinking clearly, but for some reason she knew she couldn’t afford the luxury of sliding back into blissful slumber either. Once she finally managed to open her eyes she was surrounded by the strangest darkness she’d ever experienced. There were just two small circles of red light glowing in front of her and when she started reaching around her, she quickly discovered she was in some kind of box. When she had been about eight years old, she had watched a movie about a young girl that had been buried alive by kidnappers. Ever since that night, she’d been absolutely terrified of the idea of being shut inside anything remotely enclosed and dark.
Trying desperately to tamp down her rising panic, Abby instinctively reached for the panic alarm on the bracelet her brother and his techno-brilliant billionaire boss had given her for security reasons. When she realized the bracelet was gone she felt herself sliding even deeper into fear. She forced herself to take several deep breaths and that brought her focus back enough that she realized she was in the trunk of a car. And what had been a fairly smooth ride had suddenly become much bumpier and that had to mean they were moving over fairly rough terrain. Abby reached for her earrings, knowing they held a secondary alarm system that she’d sworn to Jace was totally over the top and unnecessary. Her brother had been a Navy SEAL and to say that he and his teammates were a bit over-protective of her was an understatement of Biblical proportions. When she realized her earrings were missing as well Abby had to stifle her scream.
Abby immediately started working her fingers over the inside of the trunk’s top searching for the latch. She knew that most cars had an interior release and as long as she hadn’t been locked away by some low-rent ass-hats driving a beater, she had a good chance of being able to open the trunk from the inside. She had to fight her rising panic and the urge to try to remember exactly how she’d come to be in this mess. But
she knew her best chance of surviving was to focus her energy on getting safely out the trunk before the driver reached his or her destination. She’d have plenty of time later for a stroll down memory lane to figure out exactly how this had come to be…right now, getting the trunk lid open and then getting out without getting run over by another car or seen by her captors was going to require all of her focus.
Releasing the latch turned out to be fairly simple, but holding on to the trunk lid after she’d unlatched it had turned out to be a much larger problem. Abby was tiny by anyone’s standards, hell she was barely five feet tall and rarely weighed over ninety-five pounds. She had spent years taking self-defense classes, but it didn’t seem to matter how quick she was or how precisely she could place a well-timed kick to the groin. The simple fact was the lid was bouncing as the car made its way over the rocky and uneven terrain and each bounce was pulling her further in the air.
Abby quickly ran her free hand over her clothing and was relieved to find she was wearing warm-ups and a hoodie, and that she had on running shoes. When Abby felt the car begin to slow down and saw the turn signal begin to flash, she knew this was probably her best shot. Raising the lid just enough to slip out, she rolled out and hit the ground with a thud before sprinting into the dense trees lining the dirt road. It was dusk and the trees cast enough shadow that she hoped the driver wouldn’t immediately notice that his trunk lid was now bouncing freely in the air. But the rapidly encroaching darkness had its disadvantages as well. Within minutes she could barely see her hand in front of her face and since she didn’t have any idea where she was, she knew better than to just take off running. Hell who knows what kind of holes, ditches, or canyons might lie in these trees.
She had only recently gotten the all clear to start running again following the surgery she’d had almost a year earlier. When she’d been hurt skiing in Colorado, Jace and Ian had insisted she be flown to New York so a Club Isola member, who also happened to be one of the country’s best orthopedic surgeons, could perform the delicate piecing together of the jigsaw puzzle pieces of her broken leg and mangled knee. Their actions had seemed over the top, even for them, but when it came to Abby, her older brother had always been her knight in shining armor. Jace had saved her life when they’d both been much younger. She’d been inadvertently exposed to penicillin while helping her dads work calves one spring and she’d collapsed in the yard suffering from anaphylactic shock as she’d tried to return to the house. Had Jace not seen her fall, they’d have never gotten her to the hospital in time.
Abby had been enjoying her last afternoon of skiing in Aspen when she’d been bulldozed down the mountain by a beginning snowboarder that had fallen further up the mountain and rolled into her. The man had been twice Abby’s size, so when he’d become a human snowball tumbling down the slope, he’d managed to send his board careening into Abby’s left leg. She still had nightmares about the sound of her femur being shattered and the blinding pain of her knee disintegrating. Unfortunately a rapidly approaching storm had meant the only way off the mountain was in the back of a snow-cat. The ride was so rough that the pain had finally been so bad she’d simply passed out.
She’d spent almost ten months dividing her time between her work for Garrett Oil and a rehabilitation unit for torture sessions with a sadist disguised as a physical therapist. And even though she’d never admit it, right now she was awfully grateful her therapist had been such a jerk. Because even though she was starting to feel a strange warming sensation in her leg, she was still running without much effort and certainly without the pain she would have felt had she not worked with Teryn the Torturer.
Returning her thoughts and focus to maneuvering over the rugged ground, Abby tried to stay as parallel with the roadway as possible. She might be a Mensa member, but she had to have one of the worst senses of directions of any human on the planet so following the road was the only way she knew she wasn’t just traveling in a circle. Her parents loved to tell the stories about the time she’d gotten lost in her own backyard after dark. And even though they’d teased her unmercifully about it, they’d installed a system of accent lighting that could be “adjusted” to the point she’d wondered if pilots ever mistook the paths in their yard for runway.
Cursing herself for the flash of fear that kept skimming just below the surface, Abby made a conscious effort to once again bring her thoughts back to the here and now. She’d spent many nights sitting around the fire pit in her parents’ backyard listening to Jace and his team members talk about their various missions. And the one thing she’d heard them say time and again when they’d been mourning the loss of a friend or teammate was that getting caught up in fear or letting themselves become distracted was usually what had made the difference between life and death.
Abby knew that concentrating on her escape was the best way for her to stay focused on the task at hand. And right now her escape depended on her ability to put as much distance as possible between her and whoever had been driving that car. Face it Abby, if their intentions had been honorable, they wouldn’t have locked you in the fucking trunk.
* * * *
Kalen Black had just started his shift working in the security control center on the small island that was owned by billionaire Ian McGregor. Kalen had joined the McGregor Holdings security team after retiring from the SEALs. He and his best friend Logan Douglas had both been recruited by their former team leader Jace Garrett. It hadn’t been a difficult decision for him, because he’d been both physically and emotionally drained after years of seeing only the worst of humanity. Kalen had spent years studying the writings of the religious leaders and mystics, and the longer he worked for Uncle Sam the more difficult it had become for him to see where the gun in his hand was any different from the one clasped just as tightly in his opponent’s grasp.
Kalen had just pressed the remote opening the door for his best friend and former teammate, Logan “Boomer” Douglas, when Jace’s younger sister Abby’s primary security system went off-line. Kalen and Logan had only recently made their interest in their friend’s younger sister known. They had fought the fact they’d been drawn to her for years because of her age. Each time they had visited the Garretts’ Texas ranch their desire to claim the little tigress had grown until there just hadn’t been any way to hide it any longer. Logan’s voice sounded from the chair next to him, “That’s Abby’s primary alarm, right? Anybody remind her about changing the batteries recently?”
“Yes and I don’t know. I’d intended to mention it to her when we saw her a couple of weeks ago, but after the clusterfuck with Holly, I didn’t get a chance to even say goodbye, let alone ask about batteries.” Both he and Logan had been disappointed they hadn’t gotten to spend a few extra days with Abby at the ranch, but Jace and Gage had needed their help protecting their new wife, so they’d flown back to New York the morning after their friends’ wedding and commitment ceremony. “I just got the go ahead from Jace via text message to activate her secondary locator.”
Typing the commands quickly into one of the computers in front of him, Kalen frowned at the screen when he got an error message similar to the one he’d gotten when Abby’s bracelet had stopped pinging on their screen. Every member of their security team, all of Ian’s personal administrative staff, and his new wife, Callie, had jewelry that continually broadcast their current location to the staff in the security control room. After Callie had been attacked, Ian had gone all out to design and manufacture devices that were easily mistaken for high-end pieces of jewelry and expensive watches rather than high tech audio and GPS transmission devices. Kalen figured the patents alone were probably making Ian and his co-creators several million dollars a year.
“Send another message to Jace. We’ve got a problem, I hacked Abby’s cell phone carrier and I can’t get a ping from her phone either. I want to activate the chip, but per protocol we need his or Ian’s go-ahead.” Kalen saw Logan’s fingers flying over the keyboard in a blur. Damn he can even t
ype faster than Grayson. Mitch Grayson was one of their counterparts at The ShadowDance Club in Colorado and was a computer geek of the first order. They’d all been in the Special Forces and had known each other for several years, so they enjoyed the fact that their paths crossed often since Ian McGregor and the owners of The ShadowDance Club, Alex and Zach Lamont, were long-time friends.
Kalen had already set everything up so that all he had to do was push a single key to activate the small chip Abby’s surgeon had slipped in among the myriad of hardware they’d put in her leg last year. Christ, just thinking about the injury she’d sustained made Kalen’s stomach flip over. He and Logan had been halfway around the world helping the ShadowDance team bring home a couple of kids who’d been kidnapped by their nanny and her money hungry boyfriend when Abby had been hurt. And by the time they’d actually gotten back on U.S. soil she’d already been moved to a rehabilitation center back in Texas.
Any thoughts of Abby being in danger sent cold chills racing up Kalen’s spine. She was without question the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. She’d inherited her mother’s Native American grace and beauty, but she’d gotten her brilliance and affinity for the energy industry from her fathers. It was a commonly known “secret” that Jace and Abby’s parents were involved in a polyamorous relationship. And now the seconds seemed to drag as they waited for the go-ahead from her older brother. Something deep in his gut was shouting at Kalen that Abby was in trouble and in another minute he was going to proceed without her brother’s word. Kalen’s fingers had already been moving to press the button when he heard Logan’s phone beep and his friend simply say, “Go.”
