Taken by Chance (10 page)

He’d removed his
hand. Lena didn’t move.

“Lena,” he said,
not bothering to hide his amusement, “Do you want to get up?”

“…No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

He put his hand on
her back and stroked her. He could see her begin to relax.

“Confused?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

She truly did want
to please.

“Tell me what
you’re feeling, sweetheart. That’s a rule, too.”

“It was…a rush.
But now…I don’t…” She turned her head to look at him, her eyes heavy,
her
lips swollen. God. So it wasn’t shame, then. “I don’t
have words for it yet.”

Chance stroked
her, feeling the heat underneath his palm grow. He swept his hand down her
back, over the perfect curve and between her legs. He palmed her and asked, “Do
you want this?”

Her breathing was
ragged and she looked up at him, almost begging.

Almost.

“Yes,” she said.

“And this?” he
said, pushing his middle finger deep inside her. She gasped—bent over
like this, she was wide open.

“Yes,” she
whimpered. “Chance, please.”

“Please what?” he
said, his tone hard.

Lena swallowed.

“Please fuck me.”

chapter
9

Chance’s dick was
throbbing, but he had total self-control in this kind of situation. He wouldn’t
do anything to endanger a sub
who
maybe didn’t know
her own limits, especially not this one. He needed to be sure. Nothing about
this situation conformed to the usual training dynamic. But he was the only one
she felt she could trust. He felt like he had to reinvent the wheel.

“You have to find
the words, Lena,” he said.

“You want me to
beg?”

“Convince me you
know what you’re asking for, and why.”

Goddamn, this
would be easier on him if he hadn’t looked.
Dark red, swollen,
wet.

“Shit!” she said.
He laughed. Good to know they were both frustrated. “I’ve always fantasized about
this, but this was…I don’t know. It was like breaking through something, going
higher,” she said. “Better than high. I need it. I need to know.”

“You hoped I’d
spank you when you acted out.”

“Yes!”

“Then it’s not a
punishment. I could leave you like this. Engorged, aching. Leave you like this
with no relief.”

“Oh, please,
Chance,” she said.

“Convince me!” he
barked.

She was silent a
moment. Perhaps really giving it some thought. Her thighs were quivering and he
stroked her there, calming her while she did her best. He could see she was
trying. He would support her.

“I’m sorry,” she
said finally. “You said it could be manipulative. I was…that was manipulative.
Disrespectful. A terrible thing to do.”

She turned her
head, looked over her shoulder at him.

“I really am
sorry,” she said, and the look of sadness on her face tugged at him. “I should
have just asked you, I just didn’t…I guess it’s not easy for me to do that yet.
I won’t do this again, I promise.”

Chance brushed her
cheek with the back of his hand. He felt immense pride in her. Hell, he’d been
proud of her just for having the guts to come ask him to train her, but somehow
it hadn’t clicked until now what an essentially brave person she was. She had
the courage that was a prerequisite of integrity—you needed courage to
look at your own actions and be honest with yourself about them. Not one in ten
people had it.

“Apology accepted.
Next time, you really will be punished. This time, I want to reinforce how
important it is to be honest and aware. You get that?”

He walked around
behind her and cranked the stirrups a bit wider.

“Oh my God,” she
breathed. “Yes.”

She actually
lifted her ass toward him. He smiled, and shook his head at the sight in front
of him. Perfect. He wanted to reward her for her honesty, for the effort that
went into it, for making progress.

But first…

“
Now
I want you to beg,” he said.

He saw her head
drop down in anguish, and her body strained for him. He gripped her hips to let
her know where he was, and pushed the head of his painfully swollen cock just
inside her.

“Oh God,” she
said. “Chance,
please
.”

“Not good enough.”

Thank God she
couldn’t see his face. Every primitive urge in his male body was telling him to
plunge into the unbelievably ready female in front of him. He had perfect
control of himself when it came to women, but damn, his face would be intense
right about now. He could feel a vein in his forehead throbbing.

“Chance, please
fuck me.
Please.
I need you—”

He surged forward
and buried himself to the base in Lena. He felt the wet warmth of her wash over
him, and felt her muscles contract around him immediately, and everything was
right
.

“Oh
God
,” she cried, and she angled up to
him, moving back and forth on her knees while he held her hips and pounded into
her. She was so hot, so wet, so soft—and already so close to coming.

Something about
taking a woman from behind always brought out the wildman in him, and he leaned
forward to grab the back of her neck, driving his cock into her with enough
force to make her cry out with each thrust.

“Oh God,” she
screamed. “Fuck,
yes
…”

And that was the
last word he heard. She screamed as she came around him hard, so hard he yelled
into her back, held her down, and thrust until the tension rushed to his
center, squeezing his balls like a vise, and exploded out in dizzying currents
of pleasure.

He collapsed onto
her back, both of them too spent to move, stuck together with sweat. Chance
could feel his pulse throughout his entire body, throbbing away like a dull
echo of that orgasm.

Jesus.

This woman…there
was nothing like this woman.

Chance forced
himself up even though he felt somewhat drained, which was also a novel
experience for him, at least on this scale. But he needed to take care of Lena,
so up he went.

She whined as he
carefully pulled out of her, giving him another reason to smile.

“Stay right where
you are, and I’ll be right back,” he said, placing a quick kiss on the back of
her neck. She murmured something, her body draped over the bench like she was
ready to take a quick nap. He wished he could let her do exactly that, but
there were some unresolved issues.
First and foremost, Paul
Cigna.

Chance already
knew what his call would be. That guy set off a number of alarm bells and he
was not going to stop. But Lena needed to come to that realization, too.

Still, it was a
lot to put on her on day one. Then again, nothing about this had been typical
so far. They just had to roll with it.

First he got
another warm cloth and cleaned the both of them up, taking great care with
Lena’s tender flesh.

“You sore?” he
asked her.

“
Dunno
.”

He grinned.
Still in outer space.

After he’d gently
rubbed some oil into her thighs and buttocks, he slipped one arm under her
torso and lifted her, slowly, from the bench, catching her as she rose up and
scooping her into his arms.

“I can walk,
Chance,” she said. “I was just being lazy.”

“Nope,” he said.
“I’m
gonna
hold on to you ‘til I’m sure you’re
recovered. And because after I fuck you, I like to hold you.”

She didn’t say
anything to that, but he felt her eyes on him. After a moment, she leaned her
head into his chest, and he felt her body relax into it.

“I’m ok with
that,” she said.

He carried her to
his favorite chair, a beat-up, giant green velvet-covered monstrosity that was
the most comfortable place in the world, and very carefully situated her on his
lap. She was a natural
snuggler
.

Chance slid his
hand to her chest to feel her heartbeat. It was slowing down, and her breathing
only jumped when he touched her. Good.

“Your brain
working properly yet, sweetheart?” he asked, enjoying the scent of her hair.

“I think so.”

“Good. There are a
few things we should talk about.”

She groaned, and
he couldn’t hide his laughter with her head right on his chest.

“Like, a…
talk,
talk?” she said. She tried to
sound casual, but she wasn’t. That, too, was interesting. She was able to
compartmentalize her ability to trust, and to become vulnerable: she was good
with him for BDSM activities, but not so good with the idea of emotional
commitments.

More than that,
though, she was just so damn sensitive. He could feel the anxiety start to
build within her just from not knowing what was coming. He hated to see that
happen under any circumstances.

“No,” he said,
“though freaking out about that means we’ll be coming back to it. We have to
talk about the Paul Cigna situation.”

“Who’s Paul
Cigna?”

“You remember the
jerkwad
in the blue fedora?”

She stiffened.
“How could I forget? What a dumb signature piece. It’s the only way I’ll ever
think of him.”

“He came by my gym
yesterday with some questions about you,” he said, keeping his voice calm and
casual. “About us, in fact.”

Lena pushed
herself off his chest and looked at him with some awful combination of fear and
anger and general freaked-
outedness
.

“Are you serious?”
she said.

“Whoa, Lena,” he
said, and pulled her back against him. “Yeah, I’m serious, but try not to get
too stressed. Do me a favor and trust me on this. Just let me do my
thing.”
 

She had become a
big ball of tension in just a few seconds. She’d have to constantly feel under
assault to have that kind of reaction. Chance was going to apply physical
comfort before he discussed the issue with her, but now he realized she
probably wouldn’t begin to unwind until she felt in control of the situation.
Or at least until it was under someone’s control.

“Ok, Lena,” he
said softly. He was stroking her arm and her back, slowly and rhythmically, the
kind of thing she couldn’t help but respond to. “We’ll deal with it. He didn’t
get anything, and he’s not going to. I won’t allow it. But while he’s still
looking, I’d like you to stay here.”

There was a
silence. Finally, she said, “With you?”

Chance frowned. He
heard that note of wariness in her voice, like maybe he was turning this into
something that didn’t feel quite as safe to her. Lena expected things to turn
on her at any given moment. She wasn’t kidding when she had said this whole
pictures thing had messed with her head, but he was starting to think it might
run a little deeper.

“You’d have your
own room, with a lock.
And with a writing desk.
You
can have your pick of any of the ones that are still free, just until you feel
like you can go back to your place without worrying about that idiot jumping
out of the bushes.”

Those assurances
seemed to work. He could feel the tension ebb out of her body, and she pulled
her head off his chest long enough to give him a naughty smile.

“But not
too
far from your bed, right?”

“The entire world
is my bed as far as you’re concerned, remember?”

She bit her lip,
color rushing into her cheeks. “I do.”

chapter
10

Lena let the
cold water
rush over her, hoping it might clear her mind.
She wasn’t having much luck with it so far.

It wasn’t even
afternoon yet, but she was feeling…she didn’t know the word for it. Not
exhausted—though, man, that would be an issue soon; was the man an
Olympic athlete
?—
but perhaps emotionally
strained. She had been in emotional lockdown mode since the pictures broke,
and, if she were being honest, since well before that. She’d picked a career
that was full of rejection, and her personal life hadn’t been much easier, even
as a kid. Learning how to ignore certain feelings had been a necessary survival
mechanism for her.

Now she had to not
only feel everything all the time, she had to be aware of them and of what they
meant. And she had to tell Chance all about it.

She understood the
reasons for it, intellectually. But emotionally she was feeling like she’d gone
from being a couch potato to running a marathon.

She was going to
be a bit sore.

And that’s what
she tried to tell herself this was, as she stood in Chance’s oversized shower,
trying to wash away her worries. Just overtraining for someone with out-of-shape
emotional muscles. And for someone who’d had sex more times in the past twenty-four
hours than she’d thought possible. Something about their physical connection
made it seem…normal. Inevitable. Irresistible. And it wasn’t just the physical
connection, either—the fact that they got along so well, that seemed to
have similar sense of humor, that they just
got
each other, it was all having an effect on her judgment.

And the result was
that somehow when he’d held her in his arms, stroking her back like she was a
frightened stray—which, ok, actually really did help—the suggestion
to stay at Volare until this whole thing blew over had made sense. It had even
started to seem fun. Desirable. Relaxing.

Now? She was
stressing out like nobody’s business. Chance had left her in his suite while he
went and got some of her stuff from her apartment. She hadn’t wanted to face
the possibility of dealing with Paul Cigna or any of his
stalkerazzi
buddies, so Chance had offered.

And she’d
agreed
. Sure, man-I-just-started-sleeping-with
in a bizarre arrangement, go to my apartment and get my things.

So why was she
flipping out about staying at Volare now?

It felt
so…intimate. But really, it was just a room. Maybe it was because it was Chance
who felt so close to her, already, and she had good reasons to be worried about
that. She knew the guy wasn’t available for a real relationship. That was part
of what had made this arrangement seem like such a good idea in the first
place. She didn’t have to worry about getting involved only to find out that he
was secretly a terrible person, or using her for something, or any of the other
ways she’d had relationships end. But that was before they’d had sex. That was
before she’d felt…

Whatever this was.
That connection, maybe.
A physical connection like
nothing else she’d ever experienced.

Which, when she
put it like that, seemed like a good thing for what she wanted out of this:
someone she could trust who could help her learn about her kinks. But it
carried with it the risk of falling for the man. And not only
would that obviously not work for Chance, but it wasn’t like
Lena had the best track record in that department, either.

The idea of being
vulnerable to him—to anyone—in that way had sent her right into a
panic attack.
Hence the cold water.

Was she supposed
to be honest with him about this, too? That just was not going to happen. Some
boundaries needed to be kept, for both their sakes. She wasn’t going to mess
this opportunity up because she asked too much of him.

Like going to get
her stuff by
himself
?

Damn
.

She hadn’t even
called Thea to warn her that he was coming!

“Oh, what is wrong
with you,” she muttered to herself while she hastily toweled off. She managed
to find her phone in only a few minutes, which, considering the previous
night’s activities, was something of a miracle.

“C’mon, Thea,” she
said. It had rung altogether too many times.

“I was wondering
when you were going to call me,” Thea’s voice squawked from the speaker. No
greeting for her.
Right to the point, as always.
Lena
smiled.

“Sorry,” she said.
“I was a little distracted.”

“Yeah, I would be,
too, in your shoes. Speaking of which, you know that man is actually packing up
your shoes as we speak?”

He was packing her
shoes? Shoe
s
, plural?

“Yeah, I’m sorry.
I should have called you to tell you he was coming, I just…I’ve had a lot on my
mind.”

“Your
mind
? Then you don’t know what to do
with that boy. Besides, he called me first. Good manners on that one.”

“Trust me, I don’t
need to hear any more about his wonderful qualities,” Lena said. She was still
in a towel, and realized she wouldn’t have any other clothes until Chance came
back. Still, she wanted to be useful. She could at least strip the bed.

“Lena, honey,
gossip and bragging aside, please do tell me something about what’s going on. I
worry in my dotage.”

What had she
ever
done without Thea?

“Um, so. God, I
don’t know why this is so awkward, but…he’s helping me with something.”

“Is he your
Master?”

Lena stood bolt
upright, letting her towel fall around her ankles, the sheets only half
stripped. “My
what
?” she said as she
struggled to recover any towel-based dignity she had left.

“Yeah, I’m not
dumb, honey, and I’ve been sexually adventurous for more years than you’ve been
alive. Plus, we have the
internet
now. Makes it very
easy to check up on people.”

“Jesus, Thea.”

“I’m not judging.
I don’t know if it would be my cup of tea, mind you, but you never know until
you try.”

“No, he’s not
my…master. Well, I don’t think so. But he is, um, teaching me, I guess. I just
didn’t want to let Richie take that from me, too, and Chance is…Chance has been
amazing.”

“I bet.” There was
a pause, very uncharacteristic of Thea. When she spoke again, her voice was
softer. “I’m proud of you, honey, for doing this despite that bastard Richie.
You get yours, you hear me? I want to see you happy.”

Lena felt tears
gather in her eyes. Why should she cry? It was a
good
thing to be loved by your family, even if you’d had to move
halfway across the country and get kicked out of your last apartment to find
them. Thea was the one person in her life who had never let her down. Sometimes
Lena didn’t quite believe she was real.

“Chance thinks I
should stay here for a little while, at least until that photographer bozo
gives up and leaves me alone,” Lena said. “But I won’t if you don’t want me to.
It’s not really a big deal.”

“Oh, he told me.
And don’t be silly. It’s only temporary, and I like living on my own.
I did it for years before I met you
,
remember
?
You’re the exception, my dear, and I will be glad to have you back, but in the
meantime I’m
gonna
cook naked as much as I want.”

“That doesn’t
sound remotely safe.”

“I like to live on
the edge.”

“See, this is why
I worry about you alone,” Lena laughed.

“Well, I won’t be
alone as long as this ‘photographer bozo’ is here to keep me company.”

A chill passed
through her, taking any levity out of the moment. She had thought about Paul
Cigna as an abstract threat, but the way Thea talked about him made him seem
very real.

“Thea,” she said
carefully, “do you mean that he’s there
now
?
The guy who was wearing that goofy hat? The skinny, rat-faced one?”

“Distinctive,
isn’t he? I’m afraid so. I’ve seen him every time I’ve been out. It’s just him,
though, none of those others have been back.”

Which was actually
much worse, in a way. It meant that Lena had been right in her initial
assessment—she just wasn’t that interesting to most tabloids. The kink,
Richie’s status as a former child star, and her looks had been the selling
points, but L.A. had no shortage of good-looking people doing stupid things on
camera, and most of them were actually famous. Photos of her would probably
only bring in decent cash in the day or two after the original photos leaked,
and that’s if they brought something
more
to the story—like the insinuation that she was dating Chance.

It meant that Paul
Cigna was out on his own without much hope of taking a lucrative photo. It
meant that Paul Cigna had reasons of his own for stalking her.

For
making her feel afraid.

What an asshole.

“Lena, honey? You
still there?” Thea sounded worried.

“Yes. I’m just
pissed off,” she said.

Which was so much
better than being anxious or afraid.

Hadn’t Chance
already taught her that? That the best way to stop feeling like a victim was to
fight back? She had knots in her stomach at the thought of Paul Cigna still
staking out her house. Forcing her into hiding. Bothering Thea, no matter how
much Thea pretended it didn’t matter. No matter what Chance did to help her
feel better, in the end, this tiny, terrible little man called Paul Cigna would
always be able to make her feel hunted and powerless, just by showing up.

If he wasn’t just
doing it for the money, he might be dangerous. But what if he was? What if there
was some angle she didn’t know about?

Couldn’t she just
end it now? And know, once and for all, what Cigna was really after. Just the
idea of
knowing
calmed her down. At
least then she could plan. It would simplify her life—and it might
simplify things with Chance. He wouldn’t feel obligated to do all this above
and beyond stuff for her sake, and she wouldn’t be afraid of becoming dependent
upon him. And Chance would definitely appreciate her wanting to take back
control of her life. Maybe learning how to submit and give up control in very
controlled situations was just the other side of this same coin.

Lena had seen how
pleased he’d been when she’d braved through difficult questions.
And something about pleasing him felt right—as right as
fighting back.

“Thea, can you see
the weasel out there?”

“Yup. He’s in his
car, an old, beat-up brown Volvo, just down the block. Watching.”

“Ok. I’m going to
deal with this right now.”

“Lena? What are
you doing?”

“Give me two
minutes.”

It took her at
least that long to find her clothes from the night before, clothes that had
apparently been favored with the same miracle that had blessed her phone:
barely wrinkled, no grass stains. She toweled off her hair, pulled on her tight
white dress, which, in full daylight was maybe a little hooker-y, and slipped
into her heels.

It felt like
battle armor.