by Chloe Cox
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
“Goddamn,” 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 C
hance 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.
chapter 5
After the debacle with Chance, Lena had only gotten as far as the great room in the Volare compound before she realized that she didn’t actually have anywhere to run to, given the risk of running into a fedora-wearing weirdo at her own house, which was why she was so lucky to have run into Adra again.
Adra had taken one look at Lena’s face and hugged her. It was a shocking gesture of basic humanity, the kind of thing Lena had long since stopped expecting from players in the industry. But Adra turned out to be the exception—she’d gone out on her own as an agent, gotten involved with Volare on a trip to New York, and was just as amazing as Lena had always suspected she would be.
Of course she knew about the photos. And, since she was a member of Volare, she knew all about dominants, submissives, and Chance, too. And she’d insisted that Lena come crash at her apartment in West Hollywood for the night while she figured herself out.
It turned out to be exactly what Lena needed to get her head screwed on right.
“I need to talk to Chance,” Lena had said quietly. Her immediate reaction had been too emotional, and it had been because of all the baggage she had as a result of what Richie had done. But that wasn’t Chance’s fault. And she was determined to move forward, and not let Richie and those pictures control her life.
Adra sipped her wine and smiled. “That might help.”
“I have no idea what to say. I don’t even…”
“You’ll figure it out. Sleep on it. And just as, like, an aside? Volare is an excellent place to learn about dominance and submission while keeping your privacy.”
Somehow Adra felt like an old friend. Lena had actually managed to crack a smile. “Now you tell me.”
Adra smiled right back. “So that’s settled. You’re coming to the preview with me.”
Which was how Lena spent a mostly sleepless night on Adra’s couch, tossing and turning and trying to figure out what she was going to say to Chance. Or, rather, what she even thought about…whatever it was that had happened.
What it was she that actually wanted, besides Chance’s body.
Oh, man. Chance’s body. Her thoughts kept returning to what it had felt like to have that powerful man between her legs, to have his hands on her breasts, his lips on her neck…
The way he’d look at her when she called him “sir.” She’d figured it out later; that was a hint, just a hint, of what he’d be like as a Dom.
Just the memory of that made her wet. Of how he’d lifted her up and then pinned her down…
She felt like a teenager. No, she’d never been like this, even as a teenager. This was something else entirely. It was like he’d seeped into her skin, his scent lingering on her, driving her desire deeper and deeper inside of her. She’d never needed someone like this bef
ore—not physically.
So it was by the time Thea had come by to drop off some clothes and check on her, generally, Lena thought she might be ready to talk to him.
Might.
But nothing, nothing prepared her for Volare.
Lena didn’t recognize the gardens at all. Adra led her from the garage to the path she’d seen just the previous day, and when she opened the door to the covered walkway, Lena’s jaw just dropped.
She’d seen pictures of the Japanese festival of lights, but never…
They had woven tiny lights throughout the honeysuckle and bougainvillea, hung lantern from all the trees, set candles afloat in the water. She was reminded of nothing so much as a museum exhibit she’d been to once in New York about the deep sea, and the bioluminescent creatures that lived there.
It was like being on the bottom of a brilliant ocean.
“Come on,” Adra beckoned. “He’ll be inside.”
For the first time in a long time, Lena was nervous. Legitimately, nauseatingly nervous. Like the kind of stage fright she used to get back in high school. She was painfully conscious of the overtly sexual nature of the place, and what her appearance would imply about those photos. That she’d been ok with him taking pictures? That she’d leaked them herself?
On the other hand, she was tired of being a coward.
Adra gave her an encouraging smile. “Chin up, Maddox. You’re gonna be fine. Volare people are different, I promise.”
“Let’s go,” Lena said.
Lena didn’t think her jaw could drop any more than it had outside. She was totally wrong.
The great room that had been such a mess of chaos the day before was now a glittering mass of just…everyone. So many people! So little clothing! And that sculpted light thing that she’d thought was a chandelier was definitely suspended high in the air above the crowd, but there were also people in it.
People who were enjoying themselves.
“Is that a sex swing?”
Adra looked up and laughed. “Uh, no, not technically. It’s more of like a carriage? But they do seem to be…into it.”
