Taken by Chance (6 page)

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 before—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.”

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.