Taken by Chance by Chloe Cox Page B

she had to tell Chance all about it.
    She understood the
reasons for it, intellectually. But emotionally she was feeling like she’d gone
from being a couch potato to running a marathon.
    She was going to
be a bit sore.
    And that’s what
she tried to tell herself this was, as she stood in Chance’s oversized shower,
trying to wash away her worries. Just overtraining for someone with out-of-shape
emotional muscles. And for someone who’d had sex more times in the past twenty-four
hours than she’d thought possible. Something about their physical connection
made it seem…normal. Inevitable. Irresistible. And it wasn’t just the physical
connection, either—the fact that they got along so well, that seemed to
have similar sense of humor, that they just got each other, it was all having an effect on her judgment.
    And the result was
that somehow when he’d held her in his arms, stroking her back like she was a
frightened stray—which, ok, actually really did help—the suggestion
to stay at Volare until this whole thing blew over had made sense. It had even
started to seem fun. Desirable. Relaxing.
    Now? She was
stressing out like nobody’s business. Chance had left her in his suite while he
went and got some of her stuff from her apartment. She hadn’t wanted to face
the possibility of dealing with Paul Cigna or any of his stalkerazzi buddies, so Chance had offered.
    And she’d agreed . Sure, man-I-just-started-sleeping-with
in a bizarre arrangement, go to my apartment and get my things.
    So why was she
flipping out about staying at Volare now?
    It felt
so…intimate. But really, it was just a room. Maybe it was because it was Chance
who felt so close to her, already, and she had good reasons to be worried about
that. She knew the guy wasn’t available for a real relationship. That was part
of what had made this arrangement seem like such a good idea in the first
place. She didn’t have to worry about getting involved only to find out that he
was secretly a terrible person, or using her for something, or any of the other
ways she’d had relationships end. But that was before they’d had sex. That was
before she’d felt…
    Whatever this was. That connection, maybe. A physical connection like
nothing else she’d ever experienced.
    Which, when she
put it like that, seemed like a good thing for what she wanted out of this:
someone she could trust who could help her learn about her kinks. But it
carried with it the risk of falling for the man. And not only would that obviously not work for Chance, but it wasn’t like Lena had the best track record in that department, either.
    The idea of being
vulnerable to him—to anyone—in that way had sent her right into a
panic attack. Hence the cold water.
    Was she supposed
to be honest with him about this, too? That just was not going to happen. Some
boundaries needed to be kept, for both their sakes. She wasn’t going to mess
this opportunity up because she asked too much of him.
    Like going to get
her stuff by himself ?
    Damn .
    She hadn’t even
called Thea to warn her that he was coming!
    “Oh, what is wrong
with you,” she muttered to herself while she hastily toweled off. She managed
to find her phone in only a few minutes, which, considering the previous
night’s activities, was something of a miracle.
    “C’mon, Thea,” she
said. It had rung altogether too many times.
    “I was wondering
when you were going to call me,” Thea’s voice squawked from the speaker. No
greeting for her. Right to the point, as always. Lena
smiled.
    “Sorry,” she said.
“I was a little distracted.”
    “Yeah, I would be,
too, in your shoes. Speaking of which, you know that man is actually packing up
your shoes as we speak?”
    He was packing her
shoes? Shoe s , plural?
    “Yeah, I’m sorry.
I should have called you to tell you he was coming, I just…I’ve had a lot on my
mind.”
    “Your mind ? Then you don’t know what to do
with that boy. Besides, he called me first.