by Chloe Cox
He trailed off. There was no point in explaining any further; it was what it was.
“It’s something that I’m going to have to live with,” he said. “And sometimes it means nights like last night.”
He turned and sat on the wall, waiting for her response. Lena didn’t say anything for a moment, only moved closer and put one soft hand on his chest. The way he’d done for her before.
Then she tilted her head critically, and said, “What do you mean, you ‘got into it?’”
“What does that matter?”
“It matters. You said you lost your temper—what were they doing? Were they doing something horrible?”
Lena was doing it again. Looking at him like she could see through him. It was the weirdest thing he’d ever felt—to be known like that. By a sub.
“They were, weren’t they?” she said.
“Well, yeah, they weren’t nice guys, and I didn’t lose my temper over nothing.”
“Were they going after a woman?”
Now Chance was really flummoxed. He just looked at her, his mouth open slightly.
“Don’t look at me like I’m a wizard or something,” she said.
“Are you a wizard?” he laughed.
“I’m going to take that as a yes, they were doing something terrible to a woman,” she said, her fingers tightening over his shirt. “Look, Chance, you have every right to grieve, and I can’t even imagine how horrible that is. But don’t beat yourself up for trying to help people.”
~ * ~ * ~
Lena watched Chance’s face closely. He clearly hadn’t expected her to say all the things she’d said, but then, he didn’t know that she’d gotten an assist from Lola. She wasn’t sure what to expect in return. She had challenged his authority, in a way, but she was right. And he had to see it. In fact, she was sure he did see it, the look in his eyes—and then there was something else, something she couldn’t decipher.
Something sad.
“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?” she said.
Chance smiled at her, shaking his head a little. “Look at you,” he said. “Yeah. There’s something I’m not telling you.”
“How is that fair?” she asked, starting to get kind of angry at him for his stupid stubbornness, even though she knew it wasn’t her place—she had no claim on him. “You require honesty from me because otherwise what we’re doing is dangerous, but you get a pass? How does that work?”
“It doesn’t,” he said.
Lena’s heart fell to the floor. She shouldn’t have said that. That was, in fact, a terrible thing to say, considering she was still keeping Paul Cigna’s creepy texts from him. The last thing in the world she wanted was to hear that this arrangement, this thing that had given her new life, couldn’t work.
“Don’t say that,” she said.
Chance stood up from the wall, and carefully, so carefully, took her in his arms. Lena could tell he was trying to be gentle, which made her feel sick. She didn’t want him to have to be gentle about whatever he said next.
“But it’s true, sweetheart,” he said. “I told you, I don’t have this totally figured out yet. This conversation was…premature. But this? This thing I’m not telling you? This is why I don’t get involved, and I did get involved with you anyway because…oh shit, don’t cry.”
Lena was trying so, so hard not to, and she had no idea what was happening to her, just that this sounded like a breakup. It sounded like a breakup, and they weren’t even together, and she didn’t want the drama and the inevitable heartbreak that came with all that, either. She couldn’t handle it. This arrangement had been perfect.
So why the hell was she crying?
“Hey,” he said, brushing her tears away. “Don’t cry, ok? I’m not finished. Just listen, all right?”
He looked so stricken, those blue eyes cloudy for the first time she could remember, that she actually felt bad. The last thing she wanted to do was cause him any pain, and she’d remembered too late that when she hurt, it affected him, too, because he was her Dom.
Oh God, please let him still be my Dom.
“Ignore me,” she said, mimicking Lola’s voice. She did her best to smile through the last of her tears.
Chance grinned. “You hormonal, too?”
“No, but I’m going to use it as an excuse.”
His smile was like a light. “I won’t tell.”
But Lena found herself tugging at his shirt again, with the anxiety of not knowing rising within her. “Please, Chance, just…tell me what you need to say.”
“Lena, I want to say I agreed to this because I wanted to help you, and that is true. I did. And I do. But it’s more true to say… Jesus, Lena, I can’t take my hands off of you. In a way that’s new to me. I’m not like this with other subs. There is something that you do to me, beyond the sexual, beyond… But it doesn’t matter. It’s just not an ok way for this to happen.”
“Why not?”
Chance frowned. “Look, I would never get into a scene with anyone if I felt I was unable to do so safely and responsibly. I can’t tell you exactly how it works, but it puts me in a space…a different place. I’m in control there. I’m aware of my limitations as a man, and I don’t mess with them when other people are involved. But there are things about me that aren’t good. That are dangerous. And I don’t know how that will affect things with you, because you’re different. And there is nothing on this Earth that can make me put you at risk.”
It was like someone had zapped her right in the head. Lena fisted his shirt in her hand, as if she could change his mind or lead him around or anything, really, because she did not like what she was hearing.
“It can’t be anyone else but you,” she said hoarsely. “It has to be you. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t trust anyone else.”
Chance started to run his hands up and down her back again, in that soothing way that he had, and she shrugged it off.
“No, don’t soothe me, just tell me you can still do this,” she said, fighting back the tears again. She was clawing at his chest now, desperate and mindless. “You’re the one I trust.”
“Lena, the problem is, I don’t know if you should trust me outside of a scene. I don’t know if I should trust me. That’s my fucking problem.”
chapter 19
Chance had hated to leave Lena up there on the roof, but he had to do it. He had to go sort some things out on his own, for her sake. And, truly, for his own sake, too. So he’d sent Lola up to take care of her and then he’d gone straight to the gym.
Ten rounds on the heavy bag and he was only just starting to make sense of the whole thing.
Five minutes after leaving her, he’d felt like a dick for letting her believe he was some kind of noble, suffering hero. That was bullshit. The obvious solution was to just tell her about Jennie, about what Sean did to her, and about what he’d seen in himself since then—but then she kept going on about how she could only submit to him. Chance had been a Dom for a long time, and never with any problems, never with any cause for concern with anyone. It was when he was at his best. But everything felt different with Lena, and he wasn’t sure how yet, wasn’t sure what it meant, or if it would change things. So she calmed him—what would happen if something happened to her? Would it do the opposite? And telling her—would that take that away from her? Just so he could get it off his chest?
He pounded the bag in a non-stop flurry of combinations, knowing he’d just rationalized some stupid shit. The problem was that his feelings for Lena didn’t stop when the scene did. And that was new to him, too.
By the time he’d worked himself into a full sweat he knew what he wanted to do. What his instincts were telling him to do.
They were telling him to tie Lena up and take his pleasure with her. That she was ready for it. That they needed to be closer, not further apart. He was always ok as a Dom. It would help him confirm what he thought—if he loved her.
Holy shit.
&
nbsp; Chance stopped moving, the heavy bag swaying in front of him like a metronome, timing out the seconds since the word had made itself heard in his head.
He rolled it around in his mind, trying to get the feel of it, the heft of it.
He loved Lena. And not just that. She made him…different. He knew that, fine. But he needed to know more.
And so did she. Maybe not the truth, just quite yet—he had to be perfectly sure before he started dropping bombs on her. She hadn’t even been ready to open up to him yet about the things that had scarred her, she was skittish as hell, in her own words—“irrevocably skittish,” she’d said—and he wouldn’t risk hurting her more by shooting his mouth off just because it felt good and potentially sabotaging all her progress as a result.
But she damn well needed to see that he would be there. That he was her Dom.
Fuck. Going to the gym to work this off? Letting her suffer like this? It was stupid. It was fucking selfish. It was not who he was—he was a fucking Dom. He might be a lot of other things, too, many of them not good, but this was one thing he knew.
And he knew what Lena needed, at her core.
“Hey, Chance?”
“What?” he growled. He was already tearing off his gloves, ready to run back to Volare and do what needed to be done.
Billy was only slightly taken aback. “You in a hurry?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. Yeah, well, I don’t think Mikey’s gonna train with you no more. It’s nothing personal, Chance, but the boy’s been asking so many questions. It’s not just the gloves this time, it’s all this…this sex stuff. I don’t know. I’m gonna send him to computer camp and just…”
Chance looked at the old man. He couldn’t blame him, even though Chance felt that he was wrong. Chance knew some people would always see him differently because of Volare, and some people would always see him differently because of his violent past.
“That’s fine,” Chance said.
“No hard feelings?”
“None.”
“Well, all right then. Chance?”
Chance turned, already seething, wanting to be on his way. “Yeah?”
“She seems like a lovely girl.”
“She is.”
Chance made it back to Volare in under a minute, jogging the last few yards, practically running into Lola on his way through.
“Hey!” she said, sidestepping in front of him, blocking his way. “I want to talk to you!”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. You’re being an idiot. Being a responsible Dom isn’t about not getting involved, it’s about being in control and aware of your involvement. And I know you’ve got special concern because of Jennie Sands, but honestly, Chance, you’re not like that. It doesn’t mean you can’t care about a sub, or fall in love, or whatever. Where would Roman and I be if we were that dumb? Or, you know, had stayed that dumb? Don’t run away—”
“Oh, Christ, Lola, I know. Now I love you, but get the hell out of my way,” Chance said. “You’re standing between me and my sub.”
~ * ~ * ~
There were a whole lot of things in the world that Lena did not understand. First, there was Chance. Apparently. She loved him as Dom. Loved how even when he was letting her get away with being a smartass, or letting her tease him, or whatever, there was always this rumbling undercurrent of…Dom. She teased him at his pleasure. Part of the fun was knowing that there would eventually be consequences.
And yet so much of what he did was for her. He owned her, and he…he cherished her.
He’d used the word. She just hadn’t made the connection.
And now he wasn’t? Anymore? For some reason she didn’t understand. And she’d had the gall to yell at him—to yell at him—for keeping something from her when she’d been keeping Paul Cigna’s harassment from him the whole time.
She’d gotten another text. The timing, as always, was impeccable. It was like Cigna knew when she was already down and just couldn’t resist. But this one had been, by far, the worst: “Play it your way. But I have more pictures.”
More pictures.
Lena had already been going kind of nuts, freaking out about Chance, wanting him back under any circumstances and not willing to reflect too deeply on why, but now? Now she was freaking out about Chance and the idea that there were more pictures. She couldn’t get it out of her head.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what they contained. How much worse they might be.
If she knew Richie, he’d be savvy about the whole thing. He was shallow and selfish, not stupid. It made sense now—he’d release the first batch, then wait until coverage was ebbing, then release the really shocking ones, just to prolong his little media party, thinking maybe he could get a new career out of it. He already had a new career out of it—that part in Roddy Nichols’ new film.
If Lena hadn’t already been convinced that karma was a complete farce, she would be now. She had worked herself into a complete mess by the time Chance came through her door.
They stared at each other for a moment. No, she stared at him, hopeful. He studied her. That stare. That Dom stare, where his eyes seemed alive and predatory. Evaluating, learning, making decisions about what would happen to her.
“You’re upset,” he said.
The voice.
“Yes,” she said.
“Because of the things I said,” he said. “And didn’t say?”
“Because of a lot of things,” she said. The look on his face made her so, so hopeful. She couldn’t imagine anything better than having him back right now. She wanted it more than anything.
“I made a mistake,” he said, his eyes holding her locked in place. “With you. I don’t often do that. But I’m here to rectify that now.”
A shiver started in her sex and rippled through Lena’s entire body as he walked around her.
“Thank you,” she said.
She was so grateful just to see him. So grateful to notice the black bag he’d brought into her bedroom, the bag that carried so many of his tools, and to know what it meant.
A wave of anxiety returned. She had to double check.
“Chance, does this mean you’re back? That we’re still…”
Lena faltered on the words. She wasn’t used to that. She could always find the words to articulate what she felt, to describe a scene, to get her point across. Maybe it wasn’t finding the words that was the problem—maybe it was the words themselves. She wasn’t supposed to be attached, she wasn’t supposed to make this into more than it was, she wasn’t supposed to depend on him for more than this one thing.
“Lena,” he said, walking toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. “I am your Dom. You are my sub. And I am not going anywhere.”
His voice was like iron. Something solid, something real that she could hold on to, and her sense of relief was…oh God, she was going to cry. She willed herself calm. She wanted him, right now, more than anything. She wanted him to show her that he was her Dom. She wanted to feel that combination of pleasure and pain, of helplessness and safety, of knowing she was under his complete control—that at least in this one area, she was safe, because she was his.
She couldn’t do anything about those new pictures; she couldn’t do anything about what would happen. But she could submit to Chance.
He stepped closer to her, and she saw he was covered in sweat, gleaming. It made her think of sex. It made her think of that first night, in the roof garden, the way he’d been just a hungry animal, the way he’d helped her to give in to what she wanted.
“I’ve been preparing you, Lena,” he said. “Helping you to feel comfortable. Helping you learn. But now I’m going to take you for me. Because I want you. Because you are mine. And because you need to know that.”
Mine.
That sent shockwaves right through her. She did need to know that. She needed to know he was still her Dom, that this—this thing that felt like the only thing she had left—that this wasn’t being taken
from her, too. Relief. So much relief. Enough relief to cover the twinge of anxiety that she felt when she thought about what any of that meant, really meant, for her. She just wanted the relief. She just wanted to forget about the mess her life had become.
She just wanted him.
“Why are you almost crying?” he asked.
“I’m relieved,” she said. “I’m so relieved. I can’t do this with anyone else. At least not yet.”
Why had she said that? She’d never even thought about—
Chance’s nostrils flared, his eyes flashed, and he stepped closer. Studying her again. Assessing.
“I’m sorry I gave you reason to question me, or to think I’d abandon you,” he finally said. “That was wrong. But you are my sub, no one else’s, and I’m going to show it to you.”
A current raced through her, an actual live current, and every single nerve in her body cried out for more. Yes. This. Him.
Now.
Chance held her by the back of the neck and claimed her mouth, his tongue roving, licking, probing—taking. Lena’s body drew to his all on its own, her lips tender and alive, her mouth dissolving into his. He pulled back, his large hand holding her in place, and gave her a ferocious look.
“Mine,” he said.
He freed her briefly to grab the bottom of her t-shirt; she didn’t need to be told to lift her arms. He stripped it off of her and tore off her bra, throwing them aside, and placed his hand back on her neck. He lifted one breast, taking the nipple in his mouth, sucking and biting just enough to make it sting, then did the same to the other. He left them tingling and aching, demanding to be touched, and looked her again in the eye.
“Mine,” he said.
He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her comfy old sweatpants, found her underwear there—frowned—and then stripped her of both. She stepped out of the pile of clothing without a word, and when he put his foot between hers, she spread her legs.
He thrust his hand between her legs, one finger dallying in her wetness, and then he gripped her there.
