Taken by Chance (5 page)

They were so close
now. There was
a sheen
of sweat on his collarbone, a
little bit of delicious scruff on his jaw. From the corner of her eye she could
see him flexing those large hands, open, closed, open,
closed
.

He feels it.

“I want to do
something crazy,” she said.

And she stood up
on her toes and kissed him.

His lips were
soft, and the scruff on his jaw felt wonderful. But he didn’t move. There was a
moment when she didn’t think he would kiss her back at all, when she thought
she’d been entirely wrong, and she started to pull away, humiliated, when he
broke like a tide.

His
hand on her wrist, like iron, twisting it behind her back, pulling her just out
of reach.

“That
was…impertinent,” he rasped.

Suddenly his mouth
took hers, and his hands were on her hips, her ass, lifting her high and
wrapping her around him. He crushed her to him so every inch of her could feel
his hardness, his heat. She moaned against his lips and ground her hips and in
a minute they were on the ground, Chance on top of her, overwhelming her,
crushing her. She felt his hard on, even through his jeans, pressing into her.
Lena had never felt so close to coming so quickly. He took her hands and pinned
them high above her head, holding her helpless and at his mercy, bit her bottom
lip, and let his other hand roam hungrily over her body, mauling her breasts,
ripping at her jeans…

“Please,” she
heard herself beg.
Beg
. “Please,
Chance, I can’t take it any longer,” she said.

His hand gripped
her hip and she hated her clothing, hated his clothing,
hated
anything between them. Her body rose up to him wherever his mouth was, all on
its own, blessedly free from thinking about anything other than what he was going
to feel like inside of her. She heard that gravel voice growl, felt the raw
power of the man as he lifted her legs…

And then he put
his forehead to hers, raked his hands down her body, and stood up.

chapter
4

“God
damn
,” Chance said as he backed away
from Lena’s prone body.

She blinked.
Confused. He was pacing in front of her, shaking his arms out like he’d been in
a fight. There wasn’t enough blood in her brain to figure out what had just
happened, and her body still throbbed, needing a release.

“What—”

“Fuck!” He ran his
hand over his head, still pacing, working something off.

She wasn’t scared.
Maybe she should be scared of whatever was happening to him, but she wasn’t.
None of it was directed at her. All of it seemed directed at the air, the sky,
the universe, himself. His face was flushed, his eyes even bluer than before,
his muscles flexing with so much raw strength…

“Chance,” she
said.

He kept pacing.

“Chance!” she
yelled at him.

“What
?!
”

“What the
fuck
just happened??”

Lena stood up, not
wanting to stay down and be even more humiliated, and when he turned to face
her she couldn’t help but see his erection.
Through the
jeans.
Even bigger than she’d thought. She lost focus for a second—because
holy hell, what was she supposed to do
?—
and it
wasn’t lost on her that he obviously wanted her, just as badly as she wanted
him.

So what was the
problem?

“Chance?” she said
again.

He was breathing
hard, and he started pacing again, like he didn’t trust himself if he stopped
for just a moment.
Like a feral beast.
She wanted
that, exactly that—she wanted Chance in an animal way, and he was farther
away now than ever.

“Lena, you don’t
know me. I don’t have relationships. I don’t stay with women for very long. I
am a sexual dominant, no exceptions. And I would never forgive myself if I…”

“What are you
talking about?”

He didn’t answer
her. Just stopped.

“You said my smile
was the best part of your day,” she said. “Trust me, I’m only going to smile a
lot
more if we—”

Those startling
blue eyes opened and speared her.

“You’d do a hell
of a lot more than smile,” he said.

Oh God.
And a dominant…

“Then what is the
problem?”

“I wasn’t kidding
when I said I’m not a nice guy,” he said. He rubbed one hand over his skull
again, and then looked right at her, and she could see he’d made up his mind.

And it pissed her
off.

“Who said I wanted
nice?” she said. “Who are you to tell me what I need?”

“You’d be
surprised.”

Something in his
tone had changed and he was looking at her differently now. Studying her.
Thinking.

But Lena was
humiliated, and righteous anger came to her almost as balm. It felt so much
better to be pissed off at him than it did to be the woman he rejected. She
just had to keep from crying.

“What the fuck ever.
I’m not going to beg, and I don’t need this,” she said, straightening her tank
top. What she did need was to get the hell out of there before Chance Dalton
looked right through her again and saw that she was full of shit.

“Thanks for the
assist with those photographers, Chance,” she said. “Nice knowing you.”

And Lena jogged
down the stairs before he could see her cry.

~ * ~ * ~

Chance slammed his
fists into the heavy bag one after the other, tearing into it relentlessly for
the final thirty seconds of the round. The bell sounded and the sounds of men
at work faded as they all took their minute rest.
Except
Chance.
He dropped on his wrapped knuckles and pounded out chest-to-deck
push-ups, each one burning a little deeper, nothing burning deep enough.

He couldn’t get
her out of his mind.

He couldn’t burn
it off no matter what he did.

That calm he felt
when he’d been with her, that lifting of a burden he didn’t even think about
carrying anymore—Christ, that had felt good. He would have given anything
to make her feel the way she’d made him feel with just a smile, and to know it
wouldn’t end with her crying over him, the way it always did. Instead he’d
fucked it up.

And Lena was
different. Special. He knew it already.

He was sure she
was a sub. Which wouldn’t necessarily change things—he was fine with subs
who had some idea what they were doing, but a total newbie? Subs famously got
attached to their trainers. That was the exact situation he was trying to
avoid.

He’d been trying
to do
right
. Chance had learned that
lesson the hard way. Now he would do anything to help a woman in trouble, and
still they ended up hurt. He knew he’d never make up for what happened to
Jennie, and he knew he didn’t deserve to, either. But damn, he thought he could
do something. He
wanted
to do
something, for Lena.

He couldn’t forget
the way Lena felt, either. The way she’d smelled. The feel of her skin while
she writhed under his hand, her body tuned to his like nothing else he’d ever
experienced. Chance could feel in his bones that she’d melt under him, that
she’d yield, beautifully submissive, like a work of art.

Damn.

The bell rang out:
another round. Chance shoved up from the ground, ready to go another three
minutes without letting his heart rate drop, ready to pound the bag until his
knuckles bled, if that’s what it took to work this off. If being with her
calmed him, the absence of her did the exact opposite, and he was more on edge
than ever.

“Chance?”

Shit
. Normally he
liked training the kid, but today was not a day to be a freaking role model.

“What’s up,
Michael?” he said, wiping the sweat from his face with the back of his wrapped
hand.

The kid was
grinning from ear to ear, which was infectious no matter how hard Chance’s
lungs were working and no matter how much he had on his mind. He danced on his
toes to keep his legs warm and ruffled the kid’s hair.

“Come on, man,”
Michael whined, trying to smooth his hair back down.

“You
shoulda
ducked like I taught you. You training without me?”

“Yeah, if you talk
to Billy for me,” he said.

“Call him ‘Uncle.’”

“Whatever. He’s
not
gonna
remember.”

Chance frowned.
Billy was punchy as all hell after fifteen years as a professional boxer, but
he still had enough brains not to want his nephew to go the same way. He’d
asked Chance to train the kid just to keep him out of trouble, but was
adamantly, defiantly against any family of his getting in the ring for real,
and it was Billy’s gym. Only now, Michael had visions of the Golden Gloves,
just like his uncle had when he was a kid.

“Don’t be an
asshole,” Chance said, and went back to jabbing at the bag. “You know he’s
right.”

“Whatever,” Mike
said again, rolling his eyes. “You have a visitor.”

Chance couldn’t
help it. He thought of Lena. It was dumb. There was no way she’d know where to
find him, but she’d been on his mind constantly, and when he turned around…

The
skinny pap.
Wearing the same
dumbass blue fedora as the day before.

“You gotta be
kidding me,” Chance said.

“Chance Dalton, we
meet again.” The little rat-faced bastard actually smiled at him and held out
his hand.

Chance stared at
it.

“Put that away.”

“Ok, no problem.
We weren’t properly introduced yesterday. My name is Paul Cigna.”

“I don’t give a
shit what your name is. I know what
you
are.”

Paul Cigna’s smile
fell so fast it was obvious it had been
fake
. What lay
behind it was cold and calculating.

“Ok, we can do it
like that. You wanna tell me how long you’ve been fucking Simone Maddox?”

Chance cursed and
took a step forward before he remembered Michael. The kid had just heard
everything.

Rein it in, Chance
.

“Michael, do me a
favor and go help your uncle in the office.”

But Michael’s
voice squeaked through, too excited to listen. “Are you really fucking Simone
Maddox? She’s that slut that was all up in those chains in
Sizzle
, right?”

“Hey!” Chance
barked at Michael. “You, over here, right now.”

Slut?

Chains?

Chance’s mind went
berserk. He felt the vein in his forehead start to throb and that familiar fire
kindled deep in his chest. He held himself down with iron control for the kid’s
sake, and instead of picking up Paul Cigna and throwing him out the front door,
he walked Michael a few steps away from the scum that had just invaded his gym.

Chance took a deep
breath.

“Mike, listen to
me, this is serious, ok? This guy is scum, and Simone Maddox…” Chance paused,
tried to find the words. How do you explain this to a thirteen year old? A
thirteen year old who’d seen the pictures Lena was so upset about?

Chance was furious
with the world.

“Simone Maddox is
not ‘some slut.’ You do
not
talk
about her that way. While we’re at it, don’t talk about women that way, period.
You sound like a fucking idiot. You understand?”

Mike opened his
mouth as if to argue, and Chance cut him off with a glare. Where the hell did
boys learn this stuff? He had been even worse when he was younger, and he wished
there’d been someone who could have shown him how wrong he was before he’d had
to find out on his own.

“
Don’t
argue with me. You talk about
women that
way,
you’re like that guy back there. That
guy is not worth the time of day. He’s a piece of shit. Decide right fucking
now if you want to be a piece of shit, too.”

“No, man,” Michael
said. His voice had gone back to sounding like a kid’s and not that of a teen
playing tough. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Honestly.”

Chance ruffled
Mike’s hair again, surprised at the relief he felt from this one small victory.
He couldn’t believe what had come out of the kid’s mouth. And now, at the back
of his mind, was a growing understanding of what it had really meant for Lena
to kiss him yesterday.

And what it had
meant when he’d turned her away.

“Go talk to your
uncle,” Chance said. “We train tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” Michael
said. The smile was back, and that was good to see, too.

 
Chance almost didn’t want to have to turn
back to deal with Paul Cigna. But the man was obviously here for a reason.

He wasn’t done
with Lena.

Chance rolled his
shoulders, tight from his rounds on the bag and itching for more, balled his
fists, and advanced on Paul.

“What the
fuck
do you want?” he snarled.

The rodent was
actually smiling. “You’re new in town, right? That’s ok, I understand. I’m
actually here doing you a favor, big guy, and you don’t even know it.”

“Get the hell out
of my gym.”

“Mr. Dalton,
Simone Maddox and Richie Kerns is a story, whether you like it or not. I’m just
looking for the most sympathetic angle, you get me?”

Chance had lost
patience. This guy was the reason Lena was so messed up. This guy was the
reason that thirteen-year-old kids called her a slut. He advanced on the little
maggot with every intention of picking him up and dropping him outside the door
when a flash exploded in his face.

Paul Cigna had
taken his picture.

Chance shut his
eyes and went rigid. He was afraid of what he might do if he allowed himself to
move.

“Don’t lose your
temper, Mr. Dalton.
Bad example for the kids.
I’ll
leave my card up front. You call me when you want to talk about Simone Maddox.”

By the time Chance
trusted himself to move, Paul Cigna was long gone.