by Chloe Cox
Lena felt a little silly for her nervousness. This clearly wasn’t a judgmental place.
“Is it always like this?”
“Oh, God, no. This is kind of a special night. Normally there will be, like, theme nights, classes, private rooms—once it gets started, anyway.”
Lena had about a million questions about how Volare worked, about what kind of community was involved, about privacy, about all of it, and she would have grilled Adra right there, except that she had her eye out.
And she saw Chance.
She’d heard of the whole room stopping thing before, but she’d never quite believed that it was an actual thing. For her, when she saw him standing in the middle of a group of people that were hanging on his every word, wearing just a jacket with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of jeans, exposing a broad, muscled chest and that delicious eight pack, his abs flexing with every word that passed over those luscious lips…
It was more like everything else got very quiet and very dull. Lena was aware of it all, but nothing was quite as bright as Chance Dalton holding court.
He hadn’t seen her yet, and Lena was glad of the opportunity to observe him like this. She liked watching him with other people. As an actress, she’d considered it part of her craft to learn body language, to be able to read expressions, to get really good at all the nonverbal forms of communication. And what she could see in Chance, she now realized, was so terrifically rare: he gave people his whole attention. He wasn’t just waiting for his turn to speak, or showing off. Every time he talked to someone, he actually listened, and he blew them away. He was always the lead. He was always, always in control.
No wonder they all wanted a piece of him. He was surrounded by women all trying to catch his eye, which Lena could understand, but it wasn’t just the women. Even the men seemed to want his attention, or approval, or…something. She even recognized a few them. One of them, Roddy Nichols, was a producer who’d told her nobody wanted to read a script written by a “dumb piece of ass” like her.
Well, fair enough. Roddy was an ass himself, but he wasn’t wrong about the business.
She couldn’t be angry at Roddy, or even irritated at the memory of that humiliating putdown, though. She was drunk on watching Chance.
And then he saw her.
Now everything stopped. Even Chance. His blue eyes locked on her and held her in place, and Lena would have sworn that she couldn’t breathe until someone blocked her view.
Someone she knew.
Richie.
“Holy shit, Lena, how’d you swing an invite? Roddy got me in, but you’ve been hanging so low, I didn’t think you’d, uh, have the stones to come to something like this, or I woulda asked. If you’ll pardon the expression.”
He was grinning at her. Like he thought he was charming. Like he thought anything about what he’d just said was ok.
She felt sick.
“Hey, listen, Lena, about those photos…” And now Richie leaned in, his expression sympathetic and concerned, like she didn’t know him well enough to know how good of a liar he was. Like she would ever believe anything he said ever again. Like he hadn’t noticed her horrified expression, and like he would have cared if he had.
“Lena, seriously, I am so sorry. I honestly don’t even know how it happened, but I figured, you know, what’s done is done, right? I might as well take advantage of it, right? Strike while the iron is hot—”
“You fucking asshole!” she hissed. When was this guy going to stop messing with her life? When was she ever going to be rid of him? “I’m not stupid. I know you leaked those photos. I never even gave you permission to take them, you sick, twisted—”
“Hey, Lena, come on,” Richie said, taking a step back, holding his hands up defensively. Like she was the bad guy. “I’m just trying to make the best of it. That’s how I got the part in Roddy’s new project. It’s a drug addict trying to get his kids back! You think I ever would have gotten that if everyone still thought of me as Richie Kerns, child star? Come on.”
“Are you seriously justifying this to me?”
“Whatever. I’m saying you should take a page from my playbook. Seize the day and all that. Go out and get some auditions or something,” Richie said with a sneer.
How? How had she dated this morally bankrupt pretty boy for a year? The very worst part about realizing that Richie wasn’t a good guy with some problems, but was instead a bad guy with some charm, was that it made her think about how lonely she must have been to fall for his act. He had always been using her, and she’d bought it because she wanted to. Now that he was done, Richie wasn’t even looking at her. Lena didn’t think he could see her, could see the damage he had done to her, if he tried.
This was the guy who had ruined her career. She wouldn’t let him ruin her life.
“Lena, are you all right?”
Warm gravel. There wasn’t a better sound in the universe. She turned, even though she knew what she would see. Chance was standing by her side, his blue eyes softened for her, his hand on her arm. Without making a big deal of it he pivoted to put himself between her and Richie.
“Is everything ok?” he asked her again.
Lena was momentarily…not herself. Richie had knocked her off balance, and she wasn’t prepared for Chance, or Chance’s body. She was thrown by his scent, his closeness, the mile of exposed chest in front of her. Thrown enough that she had only a moment to dread what happened next.
“Hey, you’re Chance Dalton, right?” Richie said. “I’m Richie Kerns. This is a great—”
Lena saw the anger flash on Chance’s face as he turned, followed by the spark of recognition as he looked at Richie. People usually did that. No one could ever figure out where they’d seen him before; it used to drive Richie crazy, being a “former child star.”
But the worst part, in that split second, was figuring out that Chance knew about her and Richie. Which means he must have known about those photos. About what she was doing in the photos. About what Richie was doing to her.
Lena thought she had become thoroughly, exhaustingly acquainted with anger and shame in the past few days. But nope. This topped it. Thinking about Chance seeing her like that, knowing that she had been used?
So much worse.
“Mr. Kerns,” Chance said, once more making sure he placed himself between her and Richie. His voice was still gravel, but it was anything but warm. “You are about to be escorted off the premises. If I ever see you here again, I won’t tell security. I’ll deal with it myself. And I swear to God, if you say one more word, I’ll take your goddamn head off right now.”
Lena almost wished she could see Richie’s face through the enormous wall of Chance that was blocking her view. Almost.
Instead she looked around and saw that, despite Chance’s best efforts, they were making a bit of a scene. Two giant security guys walked a petulant Richie out of the room, and she wished, desperately, that there wasn’t a hush. That everyone would just start talking again, and she could go back to pretending that everyone didn’t know about her and Richie and what had just happened.
Instead Chance turned around and did his best to guard her with his huge body. It was, without words, one of the sweetest things anyone had done for her in recent memory. The only thing sweeter had been when he’d rescued her in his car.
“Lena,” he said.
“Chance, I am so, so embarrassed, I can’t—”
“No,” he said, and put one finger on her lips. Startled, she looked up and saw that same fierceness in his eyes. “That will never, ever happen again. This place will be safe for you, even if I have to vet the list myself from now on.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she whispered. “It’s your club, I’m just—”
“I’m glad you came,” he said.
Lena’s mouth went dry. He had his arms almost wrapped around her, his hands right at her waist, drawing her abs up tight with just the sensation of his touch, and his head was bowed toward hers
with those eyes…
They were the dominant eyes.
A shiver went through her.
“Chance, I came here because there’s something I need to ask you,” she choked out. When had talking become so difficult?
He didn’t answer at first. He was looking intently at her face, her neck, her breasts. She saw his already impressive chest expand with a deep breath and his jaw harden.
“Good. There’s something I wanted to say to you, too. How about a do-over on the roof deck?”
Without thinking, Lena bit her lip.
A do-over? Of which part?
chapter 6
For the second time in two days, Chance led the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen up to his favorite place. Only this time, he was going to make damn sure she felt better for it.
Richie fucking Kerns, in his club. That she had to see him here, of all places. He’d been right on the edge of losing it and Lena had brought him back. Again. Without even knowing it.
Just by touching him. By being nearby. By looking at him and seeing right through him, and calling out what was best in him: his dominance.
He thought he might have figured out how that worked. She drew him like a magnet, just focused his attention, everything he had. There wasn’t anything left for idiots like Richie Kerns, and instead he was filled with…
Whatever this was.
Holy fuck he wanted her. He could smell her. It was driving him insane.
But first he had to explain why he’d turned her away. He had to do what he could to take that hurt away, because he was damned if he was going to make things worse for her.
He’d figure it out.
He just had to remember to think with the right head.
And that got a whole lot harder when Lena walked out onto the roof garden in that tight, white dress with her honey skin, surrounded by thousands of golden lights, all of them showing him exactly how beautiful she was.
“Oh my God,” she said, spinning around. “This is incredible.”
“Yup,” he said. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Fuck the roof garden.
“Are you sure this is private?” she asked.
Chance felt his cock jump awake at that. He forced himself to look away, and it almost hurt. “Yeah, this is actually mine. Entrance to my suite is on the other end, around the corner. This,” he said, pointing back the way they’d come, “is a common entrance I had put in for convenience. No one will come up here without my permission, but I can lock it if you want.”
“No, that’s ok.”
“C’mere,” he said, and led her over to a grassy area with some plush couches. He thought she might want to sit down after walking around in those heels, but instead she laughed, kicked them off, and headed right for the grass.
“Oh, this is amazing,” she said, walking all over the grass in her bare feet. “I can’t remember the last time I got to do this.”
“You can come up here anytime you want.”
She stopped squishing her toes in the fresh grass and looked at him. There. Right there. That just finished him. How did she do that? Look at him like she knew what he was really thinking? Like she knew what her body was asking for?
“You’re sure you’re not really a nice guy?”
“I thought you didn’t want nice.”
“I don’t.”
He was losing his focus already, just losing himself in that face. Her skin almost seemed to glow, and her eyes were soft and pure sex. Her dress, God, her dress should be illegal. Pure white, white enough to make him think he could see more, and hugging every one of those amazing curves.
If he didn’t do it now, he wasn’t going to last much longer.
“Lena, about yesterday—”
“No, shut up,” she said very quickly, walking up to where he stood. Chance was so startled by being told to shut up that he actually did it for a second.
If she wasn’t careful, she was going to earn a spanking anyway.
“What did I tell you about your tone?” he said.
She stifled a smile. “I’m sorry, honestly. Please, please let me go first,” she said. “Otherwise I’ll never be able to do it. There’s something…oh man, this is harder than I thought. This is gonna be messy.”
But it was the look on her face—open and vulnerable—that convinced him to keep quiet.
Every male instinct was screaming at him that he had this beautiful woman in front of him that he wanted more than anything else he could name at this particular moment in time, and he had to fight it every second she was standing in front of him, being beautiful, and now she was telling him he had to wait a little longer before he could explain.
God. Damn.
For her, he could do it.
“I can do messy.”
She smiled. He felt good. It never got old.
“Ok,” she said, taking a deep breath. “This thing with Richie, the photos? It’s not just embarrassing. It’s not just… It’s taken so much from me, Chance. I mean, yeah, I feel pretty violated, and that has messed me up pretty good. But it’s ruined my career, too.”
“How?”
“Do you remember me from anything?”
She had a point. “No.”
“Yeah. All of my on-screen roles have been, like, Slutty Waitress, or Ditzy Cheerleader, or, well, you get the point. Except for a sitcom that got cancelled after one season. Right, well, shockingly, that’s not what I dreamed of doing. I love dramatic roles. I write. I think I might be pretty good, too. And I was just starting to break in as something other than slutty set dressing, just starting to get taken seriously as a writer.”
She was looking down at the ground now, digging her feet into the grass, her voice sad. He wished he could fix it for her.
“I was just starting to believe I could really do it, you know?” she said, looking up at him so he could see her eyes were wet. “And now I’m a fucking punch line.”
Chance was starting to put together what was happening, and knew he had only a few minutes to make a decision. If she really needed his help, he wouldn’t be able to turn her away.
“Look,” she went on, “I’m aware of how crazy this is. We just met yesterday, technically. And part of what’s messing me up is how I was so dumb to trust someone like Richie.”
Chance shrugged. “Be fair to yourself. We had a hell of a day yesterday.”
“You going to let me finish?” she said, throwing a clump of grass at him.
“Might as well.” He grinned back. “But I’m warning you, you keep talking to me like that, and you’re going to earn yourself a paddling.”
“A paddling?”
“Or similar.”
She looked at him, wide-eyed, like she couldn’t tell if he was serious. Let her figure out that he was. She must know he was a Dom—the only reason he hadn’t taken her over his knee already was that he wasn’t sure if she knew what it meant.
“I hate that you’ve seen the pictures,” she said suddenly. “That you’ve seen me like that. Because that’s not—”
“I haven’t,” Chance said, forcefully. “No. I told you I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.”
“Then how did you know?”
“Someone suggested to me what they contained, and who the man was. That’s all.”
An eyebrow went up. “Suggested what they contained?”
No way in hell he was telling her that a thirteen year old had found them on the internet. It’s not like she didn’t know that was happening, but she didn’t need it thrown in her face, either.
“Lena, I don’t care what’s in the photos. I care that they hurt you. You don’t have to tell me about them.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, standing up a little straighter. “He had me tied up in chains. He had a whip. Or a flogger? There are some photos where I’m flogging him. I didn’t really like that. There are…toys. And honestly, after that, I’m not really sure. I couldn’t go through all of them. I doubt I ever will.”
She was lo
oking him dead in the eye, like she needed to prove something. He had no idea what. She had to know that none of that shocked him. The only thing he cared about was that she’d been hurt—and that made him crazy.
“Lena, what are you getting at?”
“I’m telling you all of this because I don’t want you to think I’m stupid. I mean, I can understand, right? Like, how could I not be at least a little bit stupid if I was with Richie? If I let Richie do things like that to me. What I’m trying to say…”
She took one more deep breath, and what Chance would remember is that he could see her shoulders shaking. That she was really that nervous. Her little golden shoulders were shaking while she clasped her hands together, looked right at him, and told him what she needed.
“I was never hesitant about the kinky stuff. I was hesitant about Richie. Because I’ve always been into the kinky stuff. I’ve always…I’ve always been curious. And I’ve always wanted to learn, but there’s never been anyone to teach me. Richie’s bullshit has taken so much from me, Chance, it’s taken my career, it’s taken what little ability I still had to believe that most people aren’t complete assholes. I won’t let him take this from me, too. I need to keep this. I need to own it. And you’re the only man I trust, Chance, because you turned me away, even when you wanted me. Because you did what you thought was best for me. I don’t care what terrible thing you think you did in the past, or if you’ve broken other girls’ hearts. I’m not looking for your heart. Trust me, mine is messed up, too. I need you to help me own this, Chance. That’s why I came here tonight. I need you to help me become a submissive. Please…help me.”
chapter 7
Oh God, I can’t believe I said it.
Lena was suspended in this horrible moment in time, right after those words left her mouth, when she didn’t know what he would do or what he would say. She could understand why he rejected her before. She was a woman in a rough spot, he was a (mostly) good guy, and that’s kind of a weird don’t-go-there situation.
But now she’d just poured her heart out. She’d just said things she’d never even said to herself. And then she’d begged him.