Taken by Chance (3 page)

Every defense Lena
had acquired in the past ten years in L.A. went on high alert. That, and she
was trapped up here because of the wounds inflicted by the last man she’d
trusted—a guy who turned out to be using her for something, like the rest
of them.

“Why would you
want to help me?” she snapped.

There was a pause,
one of those silences that seemed to hold more weight than others.

“Watch your tone,”
he said, his voice rumbling just like that engine outside. It penetrated
something deep inside her and flipped some kind of switch. She felt…different. Good.
She didn’t know what was happening. “And to answer your question, Lola would
kill me if I didn’t.”

Why did she get
the feeling that was the truth—but not all of it? More troubling was the
fact that she just
wanted
to believe
him. She knew Volare had a reputation for ruthlessly protecting the privacy of
its members, and she knew Chance had dodged every opportunity for
self-promotion since he’d arrived. None of that should matter. She didn’t
know
him. And she’d just learned that,
even with a guy you thought you knew, you could never be sure.

But something
about that voice…

“Damn it,” she
said.

“I’m taking that
as a yes,” he laughed.

“Listen, Mr.
Dalton—”

“Chance.”

“Chance, it’s a
nice thought, but these guys will be gone as soon as something else interesting
happens. They’ll forget all about me. Really.”

“Maybe,” he said.
“But don’t you want to give them a giant middle finger first?”

Lena was struck
momentarily speechless. She’d had no idea how much she wanted exactly that. Had
no idea how much she wanted to break free of this whole bullshit situation, how
much staying inside, trapped, broken by what Richie had done, had made her feel
so much worse, like a powerless victim. Like she had no control over her own
life or what happened to her. She hadn’t once articulated to herself that what
she really wanted to do was give them all a giant middle
finger—metaphorically—until Chance Dalton showed up.

“Yes,” she said.
“Actually, yes.
Hell
yes.”

“That’s what I
like to hear,” he laughed. It was an amazing sound.

“What are you
going to do?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, it’s
probably legal,” he said. The sound of the engine gunning came through loud and
clear over the phone. “Look out your window, then come downstairs.”

chapter
2

“
Probably
legal?”

But Lena was
holding a dead phone. He’d already hung up, and she could hear the dull roar of
the massive engine approaching in the distance.

“Anything I should
worry about?” Thea asked. She looked entirely too pleased with herself.

“No idea,” Lena
said. She peeked out the window again with no clue what to expect. Surely the
guy wasn’t a maniac or anything? No. No, that was just her battle-hardened
distrust of people trying to convince her to never talk to another man ever
again.

Right?

The way he’d told
her to watch her tone, like if he’d been here, he would have actually done
something about it… The thought sent warmth flooding through her.

The photographers
were gathered outside the gate again, so that if she wanted to leave, she’d
have to run their gauntlet. Just Lena’s luck to be a tabloid fixation during the
one week
of summer when nothing else was happening,
and these guys had nothing better to do. All of them looked bored and annoyed,
except for that skinny one.
That one…that one gave her the
creeps.

The sound of the
car was getting closer.

A few things
clicked for Lena in the remaining seconds. One, if this was a
jailbreak,
it implied that she would be…breaking.
With Chance.
Leaving with him. Getting into his car. The
thought set off a scattered storm of conflicting emotions and thoughts. There,
in her gut, was…excitement? And now her mind was freaking out about how stupid
and insane that was, even given the laundry list of rationalizations she had at
her disposal. He was well known. He’d given Thea his number.

 
And he’d made her laugh. This guy who
she’d never met, really, going out of his way to make her laugh about a
situation that just a few minutes ago had made her cry.

He made her feel
like she was capable of
doing
something.

His voice had held
the promise of something darker, something sterner. Something sexual.

Holy crap, he was
driving into the group of reporters.

“Thea!”

Lena yanked back
the curtain so her friend could get a good look. Immediately Thea started
laughing. Chance’s car, only partially visible over the top of the wall in
front of the house, was slowly but inexorable pushing the reporters away from
the gate. It was almost gentle, which seemed to infuriate the photographers
more than anything. They were
embarrassed
by how impotent they were against gentle nudges from a car, bumping against it
and squawking in fury.

It was amazing.

The skinny one in
the fedora slammed on the hood of the black car, right in the middle of the
white racing stripe, and Chance actually stopped. There was a pause, and then
the photographers all seemed to start shouting at once, as though stopping the
car were an admission of weakness or defeat. Chance let them get all worked up,
then kicked the car into gear and nudged some more.

She could just
picture that mischievous smile.

Lena had tears of
laughter on her cheeks when she figured out what he was doing. He’d driven the
car up as close as possible to the wall around Thea’s house, where there would
be a sidewalk if the street was big enough for one, and he’d pulled up so that
the passenger’s side door lined up perfectly with the gate. That’s why he’d
asked about which the gate opened. All she had to do was go out, open the gate,
and get in the car. The photographers wouldn’t get close enough for a shot.

“That’s kind of
brilliant,” she whispered.

Chance honked the
horn. It was now or never.

“You going?” Thea
asked.

Right then, Lena
decided to stop thinking so much.

“Screw it,” Lena
said. She grabbed her phone, kissed Thea on the cheek, and ran down the stairs,
just in case all her reservations and fears tried to catch up with her.

Lena should have
known the guy in the fedora would have figured it out, too.

She ran down the
short path from the front door to the gate, elated now rather than scared, and
eternally grateful to Thea for putting in such a high wall around the property.
As soon as she opened the gate, Chance leaned across and opened the passenger’s
side door.

She was just
sliding in when the photographer with the fedora saw what was happening and
jumped on the hood of the car, his camera aimed directly at Lena’s stunned
face.

Chance was out of
the car almost too quickly for her to process the information. Lena saw a
strong, tattooed arm reach out and grab the photographer’s belt, and then the
photographer was flying backwards off the hood while his flash discharged
uselessly at the blue Los Angeles sky.

Lena blinked.
Chance had his back to her—a very broad back, his t-shirt clinging to
muscles she didn’t even know existed—one hand holding up the photographer
off the ground so his head didn’t crack on the asphalt like a melon, the other
seizing the camera.

“What the hell is
wrong with you?” Chance barked.

He dropped the
photographer, gave the others a fierce glare while they huddled across the
street, too late to get the shot, and got back in the car.

“Christ, what an
asshole,” Chance muttered. He removed the memory card from the camera, put it
in his pocket, and then tossed the camera to the pissed off photographer, now
hatless and lying on the ground.

“You ready?”
Chance said. It was the first time he’d looked directly at her, close enough to
touch her.

And
oh God, those eyes.

Those arms.

Those dimples.

Holy shit.

He grinned at her,
that devilish, beguiling, totally disarming grin, muscles roiling underneath
tats that looked almost alive while he flexed his fingers on the steering
wheel, and Lena felt her heart begin to thud. She had goosebumps. Her mouth was
dry.

And oh God, she
was wet.

He didn’t wait for
an answer, but peeled off down the street, eyes smoldering.

~ * ~ * ~

Chance wasn’t
prepared for what she would do to him up close.

God
damn
.

The woman was
smoking hot in just jeans and a white tank top, no makeup, tussled black hair
pulled back from her face without any regard to appearance. She’d looked at him
with those hazel eyes, laughing and grateful and looking like she had a secret,
all at the same time, and he’d gotten half-hard.

Which was going to
make it difficult to keep his hands to himself. He’d promised himself he
wouldn’t touch her. Wouldn’t take advantage of a woman in an obviously
distressed situation.

But Jesus, he
wasn’t a saint.

Far
from it.

And she’d
responded when he’d told her to watch how she talked to him. If she was a true
sub, he didn’t know if he could hold out.

“So where do you
want to go, jailbird?” he said.

When she didn’t
answer, he looked over at her and his heart dropped to see that the joy had
drained out of her face. She’d been happy, no doubt about it, and she’d
obviously found the whole thing funny, just like he did, like they were on the
same wavelength. And all that had an incredible affect on him: the need he’d
felt to beat the crap out of those photographers had faded, replaced by…her.
Just her presence.

But now she looked
worried. The Dom in him wouldn’t allow it.

“What’s wrong?” he
asked.

They were driving
at a much more reasonable speed now, just cruising around Venice. He still
didn’t know Los Angeles too well, but he’d gotten the hang of Venice Beach and
Santa Monica. Either way, he was determined to take her anywhere she wanted to
go, and protect her for as long as she needed him to.

“Tell me,” he
ordered. “Jailbreaks don’t work too well if they scare you.”

She waited a
little too long before she spoke. He could practically hear the gears turning
in her head.

“I’m just still
trying to figure out why you’re helping me,” she finally said. “I mean, I can
think of a few possible reasons, but I don’t like any of them.”

He raised an
eyebrow. “Can’t a guy just be nice?”

“Not in my
experience,” she said. She was winding herself tighter by the second.

Somebody had
really done a number on her. It pissed him off.

He tossed her his
phone and turned the car around.

“Call Thea if you
want. Call anyone in there.”

“Where are we
going?” she said.

“Back to Volare.
We’ll go in the other side. I can drive right through the gate—no
one’ll
see you. You’re welcome there as long as you want,
and you can decide what you want to do,” he said, keeping his voice level. Last
thing he wanted to do was spook her even more.

She nodded. He
hated to see the light in her eyes go out. He caught himself thinking of ways
to bring it back and then shook his head, as if he could clear those thoughts
away.

But by the time he
pulled in through the remote controlled gate and into the covered garage, Lena
looked like she was about to cry.

Damn it.

“Ok, Lena? Listen.
Tell me what’s wrong. This whole thing is busted if it upsets you.”

She laughed, but
it was bitter. “What’s wrong is now I feel like an asshole,” she said, wiping a
tear away from her eye. “And scared. Both.”

Chance laughed,
too, as he walked around the car to open her door.

“Being an asshole
is underrated,” he said, offering her his hand. “I like to do it from time to
time myself.”

She smiled again,
lighting up the whole garage. Felt like the best thing he’d managed to do all
week.

“So this is just a
brief sojourn into heroism?” she asked.

The word “heroism”
hit him hard, just as she placed her warm, soft hand in his. Chance felt
knocked right on his heels, standing there open-mouthed, trying to think of
something true he could say that wouldn’t destroy that happiness in her eyes.

He forced himself
to smile. “I’m not a hero, Lena,” he said. “I’m not even a particularly good
guy.”

She didn’t look
away. More to the point, she looked deep into his eyes. Like she saw right
through him.

She was
mesmerizing.

Suddenly he was
fighting—hard—to keep his promise to himself and keep his hands off
of her.

“We’ll just have
to disagree about that for now,” she finally said.

She was too
freaking much. He said, “You are just hot and cold, huh?”

“It’s part of my
mystique,” she said, grinning. “Besides, I can always change my mind.”

“You feel safe
now?”

“Safer.”

“How do we get you
all the way to safe?”

Neither of them
had moved. He was still standing beside her door; she was still between him and
the car.
So close to him.
The image of her, naked on
the hood of his car, legs spread for him…

What a thing to be
thinking about when he wanted her to feel safe. Jesus.

“I don’t know,”
she said softly. She looked as conflicted as he was. “I’ve had a weird few
days.”

Chance wanted to
hunt down whoever had hurt her and take her in his arms, all at once, and
neither of those things would be good for either of them. Christ, he could
smell her. She smelled like coconut and sex and something else he couldn’t
identify, but wanted more of immediately.

He couldn’t have
this conversation like this. Being this close to her was distracting, and he
had to address what was bothering her first. He was beginning to think she
really was a natural sub—and that she needed a Dom to help her through
this moment.

“Ask me anything,”
he said, turning around. He was starting to feel jumpy, his muscles twitching
alive. He’d never wanted anyone this way but he was determined to do right by
her. He didn’t even turn to see her follow him, knowing he’d see those
unbelievable breasts bouncing in a flimsy tank top. Maybe he could get her a
sweatshirt or something.

“Ask you
anything?” she said, hurrying behind him.

“Yup, what I said.
Tit for tat.
I’ll answer anything you want,
then
I ask you. We get to know each other. You feel safe and
can relax. Ok?”

He needed to get
her somewhere neutral. Immediately. Somewhere where there’d be some kind of
obstacle between the two of them. Somewhere he could get the information he
needed to help her, quickly.