Taken by Chance (18 page)

“Mine,” he
growled.

Lena’s body was
jerking in slight, small random contractions, like parts of her were all ready
to come right away, and all she could think of was how long it would be until
he was inside her.
Until he
took
all of those things.

She felt his lips
at her ear, his warm breath on her neck.

“And I want what
is mine,” he said.

chapter
20

Chance led her
through his bedroom and on to his private playroom, his hand grasped around her
wrists, not wanting to let go of her at all. Lena was soaring. She couldn’t
think of anything better, of anything that could possibly have made her feel
better than she did right now. Moments ago she’d thought Chance
was
gone, and she was freaking out about new pictures.

Now she had
Chance. Or Chance had her.

He wants what’s his
.

Those words…

She wanted to be
taken.
More than anything.
And when she saw what was
set up in this room, she sank into the slight fear and let it strengthen her
arousal. Subspace was so freeing.
So close.

There was a
wedge-shaped mat in the center of the room with a raised pillow on the high
end, like one of those cylindrical pillows she remembered from yoga classes.
There were little ledges on the sides, she guessed for her knees, and rings
bolted in everywhere for…

Restraints.

She took a few
deep breaths and knew she was wet.

Chance walked over
to the high end of the wedge and looked at her. “Come here,” he commanded.

She did. She saw
she was trembling as she did so, her mind feeling scattered, jumpy, not the
empty calm she was so used to. Chance put a hand to her
face,
felt her neck, her chest, stroked her back.

“Lena, I’m
checking in,” he said.

“Green,” she said
without hesitation. She would get there. She needed to.

He stared at her
for a moment longer, his eyes narrowing. Finally, he said, “Put your knees here
and bend over the pillow.”

Even as eager as
she was, there was something frightening about climbing up on a piece of
equipment like this. It was like training hard to take a lone skydive in a
remote place—when the moment came, the door open and the abyss below,
even the most excited thrill junky would feel that fear. Lena was still eager
to take the plunge. She saw immediately, as she positioned herself, that her
legs were spread wide and bent as far as they would go, her heels jutting into
her thighs, up near the level her chest would be at when she leaned over, her
butt high in the air—leaving her more spread, more open, more vulnerable
than she’d ever been before. He cuffed her ankles, and she knew she wasn’t
moving.

She could barely
contain herself.

She leaned into
it, spreading her arms out in front of her, pressing her chest into the padded
wedge and pushing her butt up in the air as high as it would go.

God she wanted
him.

Smack
.

He’d spanked her
once—just once. She started.

“Don’t take
liberties,” he said, caressing her ass. “This is mine.”

Lena gasped,
smiling, turning her face to the side and resting it on the padded surface.

“Put your hands
behind your back,” he said.

Lena did so,
slowly. She wasn’t hesitant, but she wasn’t prepared for how much it would
shake her balance—with her hands behind her back, she was completely,
completely
powerless. She had zero
leverage. She couldn’t move, couldn’t struggle, couldn’t adjust,
couldn’t
do anything at all unless he did it to her.

When she felt the
soft leather cuffs go around her wrists, she could have sworn it was like he’d
touched her clit. She moaned softly, silently begging him to touch her, and it
got even worse when she heard him chuckle. She was so swollen that she hurt.
Her pulse throbbed around her clit and she wasn’t allowed to move.

Torture.

“I can see that
you like this, huh?” he said. “That’s good, because so do I. We’ll spend lots
of time like this.”

“Please,” she
gasped. “Chance, I feel like I’m going to burst.”

“Soon,” he said,
and she felt the first drops of lube fall on her tight, exposed ass.

She held her
breath until she felt it. First his finger, insistent and firm
, stretching
her.
Then the plastic, only
bigger this time.
Much bigger.

Oh God.

“Breathe out,
bear
down,” he ordered.

Lena closed her
eyes, exhaled, and pushed. It stretched against her until she thought it was
too much, until it hurt and she was certain he’d made a mistake, there was just
no way at all, it was impossible…

“Oh!” she cried as
he pushed it past the tight ring of muscle, filling her more than she thought
she could stand. It wasn’t immediately comfortable, but she could feel herself
starting to relax around it, to mold herself to this thing he’d put inside her.

It was
overwhelming.

“You’re almost
there,” he said, from behind her. “Soon, and I’ll have this, too. But for now…”

Oh God, what was
he going to do? Her nipples ached, her pussy ached, her body felt full and yet
empty at the same time, and all she wanted was
him
.
She knew that as soon as he entered her she’d hit that space, she’d hit that
calm, and she’d be…

She’d be all
right.

She didn’t expect
the blindfold. It wasn’t such a big thing, not in the scheme of things, not
considering how she was bound and spread and already at his mercy. But when
Chance blindfolded her there was a sudden stab, a pang of panic, intruding on
her, on their scene, taking her right out of it. Intruding on this thing she
wanted so badly, this thing she needed—thoughts of the new photos.

She’d been
blindfolded and bound with Richie, too, and now all she could think about was
what pictures he’d taken then. What else hadn’t she known about? Was she about
to find out?

And she couldn’t
stop it. She couldn’t stop her mind from going to this hated place, she
couldn’t stop it from taking this scene away from her, and she wanted Chance
so badly
…

“Lena.” Chance’s
voice was the only thing to break through. She reached for it desperately.

He said, “Red.”

What?

The blindfold came
off. The cuffs came off. Slowly, so slowly, the butt plug came out. She didn’t
move except to turn her head to look for Chance, only to find him by her side,
lifting her gingerly from the wedge. He picked her up the way he had so many
times before and carried her back towards his bedroom.

“Chance,” she
said, struggling to find her voice. “What’s happening?”

“I used a
safeword, sweetheart. I ended the scene, because you were not ok.”

He settled them
both in his favorite chair, holding her huddled against his chest, and it was
then that Lena realized her heart was racing. Her limbs were cold. She was
sweating a little.

He was right.

She was not ok.

~ * ~ * ~

Lena huddled
against his chest, confused and bewildered. She hadn’t started to show symptoms
of a panic attack until she’d been safe in his arms—something he had seen
before. Some people functioned extremely well when exposed to a stressor and
only felt the detrimental effects of that stress later, when they were safe.
She was one of them. He wondered bitterly where she’d had to develop that
particular skill.

He’d first sensed
that something was wrong when he’d brought her up to the wedge and looked in
her eyes. There wasn’t anything concrete, and it he wouldn’t have been able to
explain it if anyone asked, but he had known something wasn’t right. So he’d
chucked his original plans out the window and focused on her.

When he checked in
and she gave that eager but unfocused “green,” he realized he’d have to go
through the preparations for a scene, as gently as possible, until she herself
realized what was wrong. Or at least acknowledged that there was
something
was wrong—otherwise she
would have experienced his stopping the scene as just another rejection.

So he’d watched
her. And it was the blindfold that put her over the edge.

Chance tried to
focus on the positive—he knew this would be a moment for her, that
something was
rising
to the surface. She’d have
something to tell him, and that meant progress. Probably.

But he hated to
see her upset. Loathed it. He couldn’t rub her back or kiss her forehead or
hold her tight enough.

“You ok to talk?”
he asked her.

“I think so,” she
said, lifting her head off of her chest. “How did you know? I mean, I didn’t…I
wouldn’t have said it, but you were right.”

“You weren’t you.
Set my Dom sense off.”

She smiled. “Dom
sense?”

“With great power
comes great responsibility,” he said sagely. He loved how Lena could circle in
to something important, never forgetting her sense of humor. But now she was
going to have to deal with the hard stuff.

“What happened
when I put the blindfold on you?” he asked.

Chance expected to
see stress in her eyes. But not fear. Fear directed at him. Whatever it was,
she was afraid to tell him.

“I’m so sorry,”
she said.

“You have nothing
to apologize for.”

“Except that I
do,” she said. “I am a total fucking hypocrite. I yelled at you for keeping
things from me, and the whole time I was thinking, ‘You jerk, you’re keeping
things from him, too.’”

Big breath.

“I’ve been getting
these texts,” she said.

A million things
clicked into place at once. The way she would become stressed out of nowhere,
the continued response to Paul Cigna as opposed to Richie Kerns…

“Paul Cigna,”
Chance said. He was very, very careful to keep his voice calm.

“I assume. I don’t
know. Unknown number.”

Chance tilted up
her face toward his again, determined not to let her hide from him—and
she was hiding, like she couldn’t bear to see his reaction. Like she was afraid
he would be mad at her. Chance was angry—Jesus, was he angry—but
not at her.

“Lena, stop being
afraid,” he said, and let his thumb brush gently against her lower lip. “I’m
not angry with you. I’m not disappointed. I’m worried. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…”

He’d stumped her.
Those big hazel eyes were more open and raw than he’d ever seen them.

“I didn’t want it
to be real,” she said finally. “And I didn’t want to impose…”

“You can’t impose
on me, Lena,” he said. “No matter how hard you might try. I promise you that.”

Chance was more
distressed about that than he let on—his early attempts to be honest and
upfront about what he believed to be his obligation not to get emotionally
involved with Lena had contributed to this. He hadn’t known she had such issues
about trusting people to stick around when he’d said all that crap, otherwise
he would have framed it differently. As it was, though, it wasn’t like he could
turn back
time
. He’d have to work to convince her he
wasn’t going anywhere, but in the meantime, there was Paul Cigna to deal with.
One problem at a time.

“What did they
say?” he asked her. She seemed relieved to move on to practical stuff, wiping
at her eyes and getting some color back in her face.

“I don’t know,
like, taunting, I guess? Trying to get me to come out or comment on you. But
the last one I got this afternoon—”

While
he was at the gym.
Of fucking course.

“—
said
there were more pictures. And I just kept thinking
about what could be in them. If he took them when I was blindfolded.”

He felt her
stiffen first, as though just speaking the words aloud did, in fact, make it
more real. Chance forced himself to calm down, to keep his own body relaxed,
just because he didn’t want to add to her stress.

But holy shit, he
was pissed.

This was the first
time he’d felt that old urge to go destroy something evil while in the company
of Lena. The first time he’d gotten the itch, the burning along his limbs, the
tightness in his gut.

“Chance?” she
said, her voice tiny. “Please don’t—”

“I’m not going to
do anything stupid, Lena,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to allow
this to continue, either.”