by Cynthia Eden
You are going to pay, asshole.
“I could have stayed in a hotel. Or even gone to my father’s place.” Gwen’s arms were wrapped around her stomach. “You didn’t have to bring me here.”
“Yes, I did.” Because he wanted her in his house. He wanted her close.
Gwen was wearing a pair of faded jeans that hugged her hips and ass beautifully. Her old college t-shirt was weathered and looked far too sexy on her. Her hair was loose, and it fell over her shoulders. He thought she’d never looked more beautiful.
Shit, pull it back, man!
The woman had been threatened, harassed, and the last thing she needed was his lust right then, too.
So pull the hell back. Give her the protection she needs.
He pointed to the hallway. “My room’s on the right. Go on in and get some sleep. I know you have to be dead on your feet.”
Gwen didn’t move. “Where will you sleep?”
His lips quirked. “The couch.”
“No, Chance, you—”
“Baby, I’ve slept on plenty worse.” Especially back in his soldier days. When he’d been a fresh recruit for Uncle Sam, he’d slept anywhere and everywhere, and often woken to the sound of gunfire. “Sleep in my bed, and I’ll bunk down out here. I swear, you won’t have a thing to worry about from me.”
She hesitated, but then gave a quick nod.
When Gwen started to pass him, Chance’s hand lifted and his fingers curled around her arm. “I’ll need your phone. If that creep calls back, I’ll handle him.” And he’d also get his buddy Dev to try and trace down those calls. He and Lex had plenty of military and security training. And Devlin Shade was their tech expert. Dev could hack his way into pretty much any piece of information.
She gave him the phone, but she didn’t move away. “I’ve been wondering…” Her head tilted to the side as she studied him. “How did you get to my place so fast?”
Ah, he’d figured that question would come up, sooner or later. He’d rather hoped for later. “This is the part where I get to confess that I hadn’t left.”
“You were…watching me?”
“I had a bad feeling.” True enough. “I just wanted to stay around a little bit, in case you needed me.”
Her lashes fell, covering her eyes. “You seem to make a habit of saving me.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt.”
She swallowed. “My father…hell, he’ll have a field day with this. He was convinced Ethan was after me. I have a restraining order on the guy and I haven’t seen Ethan in months, so I thought he had to be wrong. Or maybe I just wanted him to be wrong.” Her fingers brushed through her hair in a weary gesture. “Now my dad’s going to insist I get a body guard and—” Her fingers stilled. A faint smile curved her lips. “I guess I have you.”
Always. But he didn’t say the word.
“Can I hire you, Chance? Will you keep up that habit of saving me…just until we figure out what’s happening?” She shivered and said, “The man on the phone…he was talking about my panties. About them being sexy and he said he’d never let me go.” Her lashes lifted. He could easily read the emotion in her gaze. “I’m scared.”
And I want to destroy that bastard.
“Tell me your price.”
Her words were eerily like her father’s. Only…there was no price to pay. “Go to sleep,” Chance told her. “You don’t have to worry about anything tonight. I already told you, I’m not going to let you be hurt.”
She started to speak, but then seemed to change her mind. Gwen gave a little nod and headed for the bedroom. He watched her walk away, his knees locked so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to trail after her.
“If you need me…” His voice came out gravel rough. “Just call out.”
Her hand lifted and her fingers curled around the door frame. Gwen glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you my guardian angel?”
Hell, no. His thoughts were far too sinful, and he was more like the devil who couldn’t let her go. “Good night, Gwen.”
“Good night,” she whispered and then she disappeared into his bedroom.
***
He’d followed Gwen back to Chance’s place. The prick Chance Valentine lived in a far more isolated location in the city. An old warehouse that Chance had converted into a home.
He’d already scoped the place out before, so he knew security was everywhere at that place. Chance and his little gadgets. The guy must think he was so damn smart.
Not smart enough.
Because if I can’t get inside to dear Gwen, I’ll just make Gwen come to me.
Playtime was over. He’d warned Gwen. The real party was about to begin.
“And it’s going to be hot,” he whispered.
***
She’d never been in Chance’s home before. And everywhere she looked, Gwen saw Chance. His touch. His presence. She could practically feel him, all around her.
Almost as if he were in bed with her.
He wasn’t, of course. He was down the hallway. Playing protector because she’d totally freaked out back at her apartment. But when a stalker called and basically threatened you, wasn’t a little freak out normal? Gwen sure thought so.
And she also thought that sleep was about a million miles away.
She shoved off the covers. She was still wearing her jeans and her t-shirt. After that phone call, she’d been a little gun shy about just stripping off her clothes. Biting her lip, Gwen tip-toed toward the door. She’d been in the bedroom for over an hour, staring up at the ceiling, trying to decide why someone would want to make her life hell.
So surely Chance had fallen asleep in that time, right?
She opened the door and crept down the hallway. Her bare toes curled against the wooden floor. He’d turned off all the lights so she kept her hand against the wall as she walked. Gwen didn’t hear him so she figured that had to mean Chance was sleeping—
“Where are you going?”
Or not.
She jumped, then automatically put her hand over her heart, as if that movement could somehow calm its frantic beat. “Jeez, Chance, were you trying to scare me to death?”
He turned on the lamp near the sofa. She noticed that he was sitting up and staring straight at her. He’d taken off his shirt and her gaze couldn’t help but dip down and take in all of those wonderful muscles. It was almost a crime for a man to look that good.
“Gwen…”
She snapped her gaze back up to his face. “I couldn’t get to sleep, so I was just going to grab something to drink. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“You didn’t wake me.”
Gwen took a few quick steps toward him.
“I was wide awake,” he continued. “Sitting in here and thinking about how close you were to me.”
She stopped taking those steps.
“I was trying to play the gentleman and leave you alone, but then you opened the door and you came to me.”
She thought about retreating.
“Do you have any idea…” Chance asked her, voice roughening. “How much I want you?”
In that moment, she wished for the darkness. She wanted him to turn off the light because it would be so much easier to bare her soul in the darkness. But the light was on and maybe it was time to stop being afraid. “I offered myself to you before.” Because she’d wanted him for so long. “You told me you weren’t interested.”
His hand clenched around the arm of the couch. “The hell I did. I told you I worked for your father and that I was supposed to keep my hands off you.”
“Because you were worried that you’d get fired if you were caught screwing the boss’s daughter.”
Chance rose, standing to his full, impressive height. As he walked toward her, his body blocked the light from that lamp. He was a tall shadow, coming right at her. “I knew I’d be the one screwed,” Chance said, voice deepening even more, “if I had you. Because once wouldn’t be enough for me. If I had you, I w
ouldn’t ever be able to let you go.”
Gwen shook her head. She’d misheard. It was late. She was awake, but tired and—
“You weren’t ready for what I’d need from you. You still aren’t.”
Now she bristled. “What about what I need?”
He stopped in front of her. “What do you need?”
Oh, hell. “Back then, I needed you. You were the man I wanted, the man I—” Gwen stopped herself, just in time. Stopped herself before she made a seriously damning confession about how he was the man she’d loved.
But Chance pushed, asking, “The man you…what?”
Careful now, Gwen said, “You were the man I wanted in my bed. You rejected me. You sent me away—”
“I didn’t exactly know you’d go jumping into Ethan’s bed!”
He’d gone too far. Heat stung her cheeks, then ice seemed to coat her skin. Gwen turned on her heel and started marching for the door. Not the bedroom, but his front door because she wanted to get the hell away from him.
“I’m sorry.” Chance wrapped his arms around her and pulled Gwen back up against him. “Shit, baby, I’m sorry. I can be a total asshole.”
“Total,” she agreed.
“You don’t know what it did to me. To find out you were with him…to go into that bedroom and see—”
Her eyes squeezed shut. “I slept with him months after your big rejection. Months. And here’s a big newsflash for you. He wasn’t the first man I ever slept with, and he won’t be the last, either.”
She could feel him stiffen behind her.
“We aren’t together, Chance. So what I do and who I do it with…that’s none of your business.”
“You think I don’t know that?” His breath blew over her ear and a shiver skated down Gwen’s body. “But the problem is…I feel too much when you’re close. I get so fucking jealous of any man near you. And I’m tired of playing by the rules. Tired of keeping my hands off…”
His hands weren’t off, though. They were on her, and they seemed to burn right through her clothes.
“When I want to touch you more than I want anything else.”
Then he… he kissed her neck. She hadn’t realized just how sensitive that spot was, not until that moment. But when she felt the press of his lips against her nape, her knees did a little jiggle. Her nipples tightened. And her sex ached.
I’ve wanted him for so long.
Adrenaline poured through her blood. And maybe it was that adrenaline rush that was making her reckless, but Gwen found herself turning in his arms. She stared up at his face. The face that had haunted her nights.
He wanted her.
She’d longed for him.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m an asshole. I just…I want you so much. And the thought of you with another drives me insane.”
She didn’t want to imagine him with another woman, so Gwen could understand that part. For too long, she’d only imagined Chance…with me.
And in that moment, he was with her. They were alone. The air thick with tension. Need.
So…why not take what they both needed? Why not give in, just once?
“Kiss me.” The words whispered from her.
And he did. His mouth took hers. Seduced hers. She’d already known that Chance could kiss, but this time, things were different. She could taste the desire in his kiss. His tongue stroked into her mouth. Tempted. Took. She rose onto her toes and kissed him back just as desperately. Seduction gave way to growing passion. To a need that they’d both denied for far too long.
He backed her up and her shoulders hit the wood of the door. Gwen didn’t care. Her nails were digging into his shoulders and she was fighting to get closer to him.
Because just like…that…the desire she felt for him wasn’t controlled any longer. There was no control. There was only passion.
Her hips arched against him. The long, hard length of his cock pressed against her. She wanted him in her. Wanted them both to be racing toward the edge of oblivion as the pleasure took over.
He grabbed the hem of her shirt. Pushed it up. Threw it someplace. Then his fingers were sliding under the edge of her bra. She needed that bra gone so that she could feel him and—
The bra was gone. He bent his head and his mouth closed over her breast. Her eyes squeezed closed and a moan tore from her when he started to suck her nipple. She was pretty sure that her panties were getting drenched.
And they’d just gotten started.
But she’d always known it would be this way. The intensity, the attraction, had been there from the very beginning. Sometimes, she’d just looked at Chance and wanted.
His tongue stroked her. He scored her with his teeth. Her hips jerked frantically against him because she needed to be closer to him.
He kissed his way to her other breast. “You taste delicious.”
He was driving her wild! Gwen’s eyes flew open.
But even as he kissed her nipple, his fingers had slid down to the snap of her jeans. He yanked open that snap. Slid down her zipper, and then his hand pushed into the opening there. Down, down his fingers went and so did her jeans. They fell to the floor, and, frantic, she kicked them away. Then she widened her stance because she wanted him to—
He stroked her through her panties.
He had to tell that she was wet for him. She was so eager and her breath just panted out. His index finger traced over the red silk between her legs. That teasing touch wasn’t close to enough. She needed more. She needed deeper. “Chance!”
His head lifted. He stared down at her, and the dark lust on his face should have given her pause. He was staring down at her as if he could eat her alive.
Was she staring at him the same way?
Still gazing at her, his fingers slid under the edge of her panties. Those long, strong fingers—slightly callused, a little rough—pushed between her folds. His index finger slid into her and she started to close her eyes again—
“Keep looking at me.”
She bit her lip because she was about to go crazy, but she managed to keep looking into his eyes. That finger of his slid deeper and his thumb stroked her clit, right there, the button of her desire.
“I want to watch you come. I want to see your eyes go wild for me. I want to see the pleasure.”
A second finger pushed into her. She was standing on her tip-toes now. Her nails were digging deeply into his arms as she held on tight.
“And that will just be the start,” Chance promised her. “Because before I’m done…”
She couldn’t be this close to an orgasm. Not with just a few strokes of his hand.
But, oh, that hand of his sure knew just how to touch her.
A moan built in her throat. The muscles in her legs were trembling. He had her pinned against the wall. She only wore her panties and he’d shoved those to the side so he could play with her and stroke her all he wanted.
In and out, those long, strong fingers of his slid. And his thumb…it pushed harder against her clit. Hard and rough.
Just the way she liked things.
“Open your mouth for me…”
Helpless, she did. He kissed her. Thrust his tongue into her mouth even as his fingers drove deep into her once more.
She kissed him frantically, kissed him—
He pulled back.
Her eyes were on him.
His fingers slid out, then pushed into her.
She came, gasping hard with the pleasure and still gazing into his eyes as the wave of release washed over her. Her sex clenched around him, her body shuddered and he smiled.
“So fucking beautiful…”
He made her feel that way.
Even as the climax still shuddered through her, Chance was lifting her higher. Pushing her firmly back against the door and jerking at the opening of his jeans. Yes, yes! He was going to take her right there. She wanted him, all of him and—
A loud, shrieking alarm pierced her haze of passion and pleasure.
He whirled away and she scrambled to right her clothes. Her body was still on its after-orgasm high, but an adrenaline rush was bursting through her once again.
Chance had run toward his computer and he was pounding on the keys.
She yanked up her jeans. Twisted and managed to get in her bra and shirt. She’d left her shoes in his bedroom so she made a fast and frantic run in there to grab them, just in case that alarm meant they were going to need a quick exit. When she came huffing back into the room—
“It’s on fire.”
Gwen froze and looked at Chance.
“The lower floor is on fire. We have to get out of here, now!” He ran toward her and grabbed Gwen’s arm.
“I-I don’t smell smoke…”
“You wouldn’t, not up here, not the way the place is reinforced, but, shit, it’s blazing. The alarms should have gone off sooner.”
He grabbed a gun from the line of drawers near his door.
“Chance?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences. Someone set that fire…and we have to be ready.” His fingers locked with hers. “Stay with me.”
He wasn’t even wearing a shirt. “Chance!”
But he yanked open the door and pulled her outside. That was when the smoke hit her. They were on the second floor and below them, well, Chance just used that area as a garage to tinker with his cars. She knew the guy loved his classic rides. But when she looked over the edge of the stairs, she didn’t see his tools. She just saw the flames. Rising and twisting. They were shooting fast across the floor below them.
His hold tightened on her. “We’re going for the exit on the right. We’ll get down these stairs, we’ll stay low, and we’ll get out safely.”
But there was so much fire.
“Trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She did trust him. So Gwen nodded. And they ran down the stairs and straight into the fire.