by Chloe Cox
He lifted her bottom off the desk and angled into her as deep as she would let him go and watched her cry out, her breasts bouncing with every thrust, her ass quivering in his hands. Her legs kicked out, finding no purchase or leverage, reminding her how helpless she was in his hands, and he swore he could see that take her to the next level. It spurred him on to fuck her mercilessly, reveling in the fact that she could always take it as hard as he could give it, and when her orgasm started to take her, kicking and writhing and running from and to the sensation at the same time; it was so strong that he felt like he was being sucked inside her whole. She shuddered as she contracted around his dick, and the look on her face sent him into orbit, emptying all of himself into her in one last, powerful thrust.
He leaned on her in the aftermath, his own knees going weak for a second there. When he finally had the strength to push off and clean them up as best he could, he just stared at her for a second, lying there in the late afternoon sun, still a little sweaty, her hair mussed around her face. His shining girl.
“You ok?” he asked, running his hands down her body, wanting her to know he was still close.
“Mmmm.”
He smiled. Damn, she looked good like that. Deliciously ravished.
“What do you say?” he asked.
She opened her eyes and sighed contentedly. “Thank you, sir.”
Chance was finding it hard to look away, but he knew if he kept looking at her like she was, knowing he’d done that, knowing he could do it again, well…he would. If Lena wanted to, she could make him hard until it hurt and he begged for her to stop.
“C’mere,” he said, pulling her up off of the desk so he could hold her. She complained briefly, but then relaxed into his arms.
“You feel good,” she said.
He smoothed her hair down and kissed the top of her head. “You wouldn’t believe how you feel,” he said. “You are so damn beautiful, it hurts, I swear.”
She put her arms around him and squeezed. “Keep talking.”
“I see you’re not so focused on that open door anymore, are you?” he laughed.
She didn’t say anything, only nuzzled his chest.
Chance always took good care of his subs afterward, like any decent Dom would, but with Lena it was just as good, in its way, as sex. He’d come to look forward to it.
“Hey, weren’t you supposed to be somewhere?” she asked.
He had told her he’d be gone for part of the afternoon—he was still training Michael, though he wasn’t sure Billy knew about Volare, and he’d planned to talk to the man about it. But his time with Lena had gone on a little longer than he’d expected. He’d be later than usual for Mike, but it wasn’t like the kid was going anywhere. He’d just do his summer school homework until Chance got there.
“Yeah, I’ll go when we’re done,” he said.
“Don’t do that,” she said, pushing off of his chest. It took her a moment to find all of her clothes, but she dressed quickly. “You had plans.”
He frowned. This was setting off his Dom sense.
“Taking care of you afterwards is more important,” he said, pulling her to face him. “You’re important. And using the imperative with me is not so wise, sweetheart.”
She gave him an uneven smile, not that bright, blinding thing he always looked for, and put a delicate hand on his chest.
“I’m fine,” she said. “You should do the things you want to do. Where are you going?”
Chance put a hand on her cheek and saw that something about the idea of him changing his plans to suit her really bothered her. Which meant he’d have to revisit it later and find out why. But not now, when her defenses were up—again.
“I’m going to the gym,” he said, and slapped her hip. “Be ready for me when I come back.”
The look she gave him as he left was priceless.
~ * ~ * ~
Lena couldn’t believe Chance was going to go work out. The man was some sort of genetic freak with endurance like that.
Not that she minded.
She did get a little nervous when he seemed intent on staying, but it passed. It was the same panic she’d felt in the shower when she’d agreed to stay at Volare, the same thing she always felt whenever she started to worry that maybe they were getting too close, or, worse, that she was starting to depend on him for more than a BDSM education. Or that she was hoping blur those boundaries that had been so clear in the beginning—that would be both stupid and disastrous for her.
She hadn’t expected an arrangement involving the exploration of sexual identity to be simple, exactly, but she was going to have to start being more careful. It was just too easy to feel comfortable around him, and to forget because of it.
She had all these thoughts on her mind, and then when she walked into his suite to use the shower—he’d seen how much she loved that giant shower, and he’d insisted she use it whenever she wanted; she wasn’t too proud to turn that down—she’d seen the black bag. It was his gym bag.
In fact, she checked: yup, the gym bag.
Which, now that she thought about it, looked an awful lot like the bag he kept various BDSM toys in. In fact, it was the same stupid brand and model of black gym bag. Chance was the kind of guy who found one thing that worked for him, and then ordered as many of whatever it was as he needed. That man was lucky he was so good looking, because he didn’t care about style at all.
But that still left the problem of the wrong bag.
Which was how, after worrying about getting entirely too involved with and attached to Chance Dalton, Lena ended up pulling on some jeans, got some quick info from Adra, and jogged down Abbot Kinney with the man’s sweaty gym bag slung over her shoulder.
Lena was lucky; the gym was nearby. Billy’s Boxing Gym. It looked like one of the only places on this stretch of the boulevard that hadn’t been revamped by eager developers, just the original worn face, a hangdog sign, no lights outside. It looked like the place reeked permanently of male sweat. Like Chance’s kind of place.
Still, she wasn’t going to let him open his bag in front of his buddies and find a spreader bar if she could help it. She’d just feel bad if she did nothing just because she was having one of her freak-outs about boundaries or whatever. That was her issue, not his.
So she pushed open the old style shop door and stepped inside.
Whoa. Not air-conditioned. A gym. In L.A.. At the beginning of summer. Were these people all masochists?
Hard to tell. She could barely see in the dim light after the bright sunshine of the boulevard, but she heard the weird rhythm of many men pounding different bags, all at different times. There was some guy on the other side of the open space barking orders—in a ring?
She heard Chance’s voice and turned—he was there, over in the corner, closer to the light, wearing these ridiculous mitts on his hands while a skinny little kid punched at him.
He was training a kid. She felt a smile start to spread across her face and tried to quash it.
“Hey, Chance,” she said from a few feet away. He looked at her just as a bell went off and everyone stopped what they were doing. The sudden change was unnerving and made Lena feel like she was now an unwelcome center of attention, but she raised the bag off her shoulder so Chance could see it. “You forgot something.”
The bell must have signaled a break. The kid who’d been punching at Chance turned around and looked at her.
And it was a terrible, terrible look.
A look of recognition.
Somehow the past two weeks of living in a Volare fantasy land where no one cared that half the country had seen photos of her naked and tied up, where no one mentioned the fact that Richie had since given a freaking interview about it, as though he hadn’t had anything to do with it and was just a helpless victim, had allowed her to forget. She’d forgotten so much that she didn’t think, for one second, that if she went into a boxing gym full of guys, some of them might recognize her.
And
that one of the guys who recognized her might be a skinny teenager with freckles.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
Chance didn’t hesitate. “Mike, this is my friend Lena. Introduce yourself.”
Chance nudged the kid, and Lena didn’t miss the powerful glare he gave the boy. And she didn’t miss the change in body language coming from Chance, either—shoulders hulking, brow heavy, like he had been when he’d come between her and Paul Cigna. He had moved next to her already, his sweat overpowering the stench of the gym, his scent somehow providing some sense of comfort.
It was sweet to see him being protective of her and paternal towards the kid at the same time. It gave her a brief feeling of optimism, a silver lining in this awful, awful situation.
“Mike,” Chance said again.
Mike blinked, looked at Chance, and then tore at the Velcro on his glove with his teeth, slipped the glove off, and offered her his hand.
“Hi, Lena. I’m Michael,” he said, and looked back at Chance. Chance tilted his head, like, go on. Michael gave her a shy smile and said, “I’ve heard you’re a really good writer.”
So this was surreal.
Lena was shaking a very sweaty, surprisingly small hand that belonged to a teenage boy whose voice hadn’t even changed yet, and who, despite Chance’s obvious efforts to manage the whole horrible situation, had obviously seen her naked. And tied up.
There were no rules of etiquette for a situation like this.
Lena just wanted to get the hell out of there. She had no idea how to deal with any of this; she somehow felt like she was doing something wrong just by existing in front of a child, and all of it was reminding her of how Richie had screwed up her life.
Finally she remembered her manners. “I don’t know about really good, but thank you, Michael.”
“No, really, Chance said you’re one of the best he’s ever read,” he said, transparently eager to please.
Chance had said…wait, what?
Lena turned her head slowly to look at Chance. Another mindfuck. He’d read her work? When?
“Really,” she said.
“Yeah, like, really good. Who’d you say she was like? Someone famous, right?” the boy asked, looking back up at Chance innocently.
Chance looked speechless for the first time in her memory. He blinked, then shook it off. “Someone famous and dead, actually. Stop making her uncomfortable, Mikey.”
“Ok, well, I just came by to bring your bag,” she said, feeling the eyes of the entire gym on her. When was that bell going to ring again? “If you want I can take the other one back,” she suggested.
“I don’t have the other one,” Chance said. “I’m just training Mike today, so I didn’t need anything. And I’ll walk back with you,” he added, telling Mike, “Eight more rounds on the heavy bag, light conditioning today, and stop dropping that frigging shoulder. You’re telegraphing every straight right. You got that?”
“Sure,” Mike said. He waved at Lena, then struggled to get his glove back on while eying a giant digital clock attached to the bell. Apparently break was almost over.
Lena just wanted to disappear.
“Chance, you really don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. Don’t argue. And give me that bag.”
chapter 14
Chance decided to let Lena sort herself out after the incident at the gym. She had retreated, whether she knew it or not, into the guarded shell she’d only recently started to come out of. She was still holding things from him, but that was to be expected for someone with her issues. Chance wasn’t too worried—she’d be ready eventually. Finding out that thirteen-year-old boys recognized you from BDSM photos that had been leaked online would be an unsettling experience for anyone, and he thought she’d actually handled that pretty well.
But the news that he’d read her work seemed to shake her up just as much. That, Chance decided, was weird. And his gut was still telling him that once she’d started to relax again, it was time to tackle that one.
Which was just as well. He had the public opening of Volare L.A. to plan for in the meantime. He and Roman had come up with the idea in the wake of the shitshow that was the publicity surrounding Roman and Lola’s wedding; Chance figured if the public was going to be into it, why not give them somewhere to go? The Venice Beach location was perfect for that—Chance had just dedicated one building in the compound as the public club and had kept the rest separate. All the permits and such were in place, according to Ford, and all they had left to handle was the actual opening.
Chance took a hard line on the door policy. No idiots. Richie Kerns, for example, was already blacklisted.
That said, there were still all kinds of things to sort out, exactly the kinds of things that didn’t interest him: guest list, promotional strategy, whatever. Good thing he had his ad hoc executive committee to deal with it. Adra had taken to it like a fish to water, and she didn’t seem to mind working with Ford at all.
Chance knew he shouldn’t complain. Many of the details of running the club didn’t appeal to him, but it was a good job. His stake in Volare had made him financially independent, but hell, he needed something to occupy his time. And running Volare was way better than providing security for a company in some godforsaken warzone, given the kinds of trouble he’d gotten into in such places.
Or given the kind of trouble he’d gotten other people into in such godforsaken places.
Chance paused, his hand on the sliding glass door that led to the sun-drenched patio by the pool. Lena was out there. That was where he was going. Which meant he damn well needed to make sure he wasn’t thinking about what had happened in Nigeria, or what had happened, years before that, to Jennie.
He’d been thinking about his past mistakes too often lately. Maybe because he couldn’t help but wonder if he was making mistakes with Lena, too. The thought scared him.
But a man didn’t run from stuff that scared him. He never had, never would. And neither did Lena, come to think of it. It was one of the things he admired in her.
He’d given her space. She’d settled down.
Now she was ready for what came next.
The glass door opened silently, a convenience that allowed him to sneak up on people intent on sunning themselves. Sometimes he couldn’t resist.
Especially when it was Lena.
Holy… Just look at her. Lena. In a sky blue bikini, laying her beautiful body out, like the sun itself worshipped her. Wouldn’t surprise him, come to think of it.
He walked over, took another good, long look at her just because, and sat down in the deck chair next to her. She had some sun tan lotion on the ground—coconut. That was what smelled so good. He took the bottle in one hand, and with the other reached across and unsnapped her top.
“That better be you,” she said, eyes opening.
He grinned. “You know I can’t resist ‘em,” he said. “Lie back.”
He drizzled some lotion on her chest and indulged himself with rubbing it into her breasts, watching the soft flesh yield as her breathing changed and her nipples tightened into pert little buds.
“You’re done avoiding me,” he said.
He saw her smile playfully, eyes closed now against the sun. “Maybe.”
“No, I’m telling you, you’re done,” he laughed, and tweaked a nipple.
She jerked upwards, her toned tummy flexing in the glare of the sun, and bit her lip to keep from smiling even more.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“That’s better. Lay back.”
She did, and now he just amused himself, fondling her breasts. He knew it would drive her crazy and it had been just too long. At least thirty-six hours, possibly forty-eight. Which, as far as he was concerned, was an eternity.
“I wasn’t really avoiding you,” she said finally. “I mean, I was, but not on purpose. Not specifically. I was just avoiding…everything.”
“I know,” he said. “Did you figure out what you needed to figure o
ut?”
She opened her eyes again, squinting at him, maybe trying to see what he knew. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
“You’ll tell me when you do.”
She laughed. “You probably won’t give me a choice.”
“Smart girl.”
She stuck her tongue out. They settled back into an easy rhythm, Chance playing with her breasts, straying down her stomach, her hips, her thighs, and Lena trying to hide her increasing arousal. Let her try.
Finally she asked him, as he knew she would:
“When did you read my stuff?”
“When I packed it up. I didn’t set out to, I was just trying to figure out what to bring. But I read the first page, and…” He shrugged. “I got hooked. I wouldn’t have if I’d known you were so private about it, and haven’t since. You’ll let me know when you want me to. Unless, of course, I decide I need to for your training. Then you don’t get a choice.”
He detected a slight smile. She asked, “Which one?”
“It was untitled. Looked like you weren’t done.”
“Aw, crap. That’s the one that needed so much work.”
“Bull. It was amazing. I didn’t finish, but I probably would have if you hadn’t pulled that stunt with Paul Cigna.”
At mention of the paparazzo’s name he saw her flinch, almost imperceptibly, then try to cover it up. She was probably an excellent actress, with that degree of facial control, and with her expressiveness. That expressiveness had just told him Paul Cigna was very much still a real issue to her. She wasn’t ready to tell him about that, either, possibly because she wasn’t ready to be honest with herself about it—but she would be. And he was on it.
But right now, she deserved a little pampering. Especially considering what he had in store for her.
“Lift up,” he said, patting her legs. He helped her lift them, then settled himself in between, resting her legs over his while he straddled the deck chair to face her. He had excellent access to everything this way.
He started on her thighs. He liked to see her muscles jump when he touched her, like his hands were electrified. This woman…