Table Of ContentChance in Hell
Chances Are #5
Having retrieved his runaway boyfriend, Chance returns to Atlanta determined that love shall
triumph over all. Instead, Rory's metamorphosis from willing sub to demanding boyfriend is
complete. Although Rory says yes to coming home, he's saying no to everything else.
Chance decides to wait out the no-sex rule, certain that he can show Rory the truth behind the
words "I love you" if he can just get some time to spend with the guy of his dreams.
Of course, it would be a lot easier to do that if he didn't feel morally obligated to help out his ex
with a little problem that ended with him sleeping in the guest room and put Chance on the
sofa.
Chances Are #5
Pulp Friction Presents
Chance in Hell
By
Lee Brazil
Copyright September 2013 © Lee Brazil
Dedication
Dedicated to Will Parkinson for his staunch and unequivocal support of Rory Gaines and his
relationship with Chance.
Even I could see after book one that it was meant to be.
Copyright 2013 © Lee Brazil
Editing by Jae Ashley
Cover Art by Laura Harner
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. As such, any resemblance to any persons, living or
deceased, businesses, events, or locales is coincidental.
Trademark Acknowledgements:
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the
following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
APD: The Atlanta Police Foundation
Ford Interceptor: Ford Motor Company
Lexus: Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha Corporation
Mercedes: Daimler AG Corporation
Shelby Cobra (1962): Carroll Hall Shelby Trust
Spock: Paramount Pictures Corporation
Chance in Hell
Part One
The flamboyantly sexy Sin mixed drinks with smiles and laughter and his usual
flirtatious banter behind the bar. Gerry cast him a dark glance every now and then, but
seemed too busy with the harried waiters, managing the kitchen, and rubbing up
against Darrin to actually approach the bartender.
It was Friday night and the crowd of boys in blue and the quiet gentlemen of the
neighborhood had been replaced by a bevy of gay men who ranged from suave to
eager, all drawn by the lure of our sexy new bartender, all spending big and most
having to be sent home at the end of each night in cabs. Tomorrow was weekend
brunch, and tonight's crowd would seem even more incongruous when compared to
the tourists and families who came for the brunch buffet.
Chances Are was changing, and I wasn't sure I liked it. Gerry couldn't be blamed
for all of it either. It began with me hiring Blake, who should have been working in a
grand establishment, to cook. A trained chef who'd once prepared food for the elite of
New York society, he was out of place in my bar. He'd amped up the food, which had
seemed safe enough. Then Gerry hired Sin, who despite his vibrant attitude behind the
bar, I had yet to see actually follow through on the promise in his name, and crowds
came, drawn by his personality. The bar was no longer a refuge, and I really needed one
right now.
Why the hell doesn't anything ever stay the same?
My gaze traveled down the men lined up at the bar, over the tight butts in
clinging pants and denim, to where my usual seat sat empty, waiting for me. The stool
next to it was empty too, but I'd come to expect that. If I'd thought bringing Rory home
would make everything fall neatly into place, I was mistaken.
I never expected it to be easy. At least, I don't think I did. But Rory was making it
even harder than I ever anticipated when I picked him up at his cousin's ex-boyfriend's
place—a little peach orchard out near Zebulon that had belonged to the family for
generations. Though he claimed the man was just a friend, I couldn't help but read
more into the choice of hideouts.
When I arrived, Rory had been packed and waiting, but scowling. The "friend"
had turned out to be a wiry little man bedecked with paint and looking bemused. He'd
made a minor protest about Rory not having to go, but Rory had gifted him with a
brilliant smile that made my heart trip and my gut clench with jealousy. While Rory
explained that he had to get back to Atlanta and pay off his fines and pick up his
therapy and find a new career, I was left wondering what the fuck had been going on
between the two of them, because the cousin's ex-boyfriend was no more straight than
Wick was, and had a great deal more gentle softness that left even me with a
momentary urge to take care of him.
Just what had been going on here? Rory refused to say, insisting that what he did
when we were apart was none of my business. He didn't appreciate my rejoinder that
he'd care if I'd slept with Cannon.
And he was making me pay for it with his absence.
I wasted a few minutes fondly recalling the times when he'd waited upstairs in
my apartment. The image of Rory's toned tan body kneeling naked on my bed didn't
help the level of frustration I was experiencing, especially since even if he showed up
tonight, I wouldn't be enacting that fantasy.
For one thing, the apartment had housed in quick succession a new waiter,
who'd gone missing then turned up dead, Gerry, who'd been asked to move out of his
brother's house in order to make room for his brother's new girlfriend before Darrin
screwed himself to the sticking point and invited him to move in with him, and its
current occupant, Sin, who'd also been unceremoniously evicted from his previous
apartment.
It wouldn't be the backdrop of any sexy interludes between Rory and me for a
while. Not just because it was occupied; I'm kinky enough to admit to an illicit thrill at
the idea of sneaking up there while Sin was at work and fucking Rory.
No. Rory himself was the major stumbling block in the satisfaction of my lust…
which seemed set permanently on simmer since he'd reentered my life.
Rory had come back home willingly enough, but with one major
stipulation…one stumbling block to bliss. He moved into my house, into my bedroom,
into my life. Then he took sex right off the table and told me he thought we should get
to know each other first.
I admit that I was afraid he'd turn right around and head back to that little peach
orchard and the artistic not-farmer who owned it, so I’d agreed. That was two months
ago.
Now I was spending Friday night in my accustomed spot at the bar, waiting for
Rory to show up after his therapy session. It seemed he was determined to keep me on
edge, sometimes he arrived at six thirty exactly, sometimes it was closer to seven, and
once, damn near midnight.
And I swallowed my protests and let him lead because I owed him the chance to
make a decision about whether he wanted to be with me forever, based on who I really
was, and who he was turning out to be.
The problem was, who he was turning out to be turned me on in all new ways.
Being with Rory in the past had been satisfying, and I'd certainly liked him, but then
who wouldn't like someone who let them have their way all the time?
Selfish of me, I know. But the new Rory, he made my heart ache with pride that I
was allowed to call him mine. He was strong, so much stronger than the laughing boy
who sucked me off in my back room, and stronger than the bratty twink who'd paid me
back for my promiscuous ways by running off to a club to get fucked.
Now I was paying in sleepless nights in the guest room, in unrelieved sweating
need, while the love of my life slept the sleep of the just, only occasionally disturbed by
nightmares, a remnant of his misadventures that he refused to allow me to share.
Being nostalgic for the days right after the attack when he'd allowed me to hold
him, to comfort him, probably made me a bit of an asshole. Rory was getting over the
brutal attack, and doing everything he could to get his life back. I shouldn't be missing
the way he needed me then.
But I was.
And since I loved him, I was willing to wait for him to show up so we could go
home and leave Gerry to his job and his careful count of Darrin's alcohol consumption,
and Blake to his moping, and Sin to his flirting.
I slid onto my stool and Sin appeared silently in front of me, face sober as he
plunked down a glass of deep amber liquid. I nodded shortly and sipped the fiery
whiskey, closing my eyes as it burned a path through the torrid emotional turmoil to
the tight knot in my belly and warmed it loose.
"Stood you up?" The deep tone was overtly sympathetic, but it rankled anyway.
"He'll be here," I growled, tensing up again.
"You know…if you get tired of waiting, my offer still stands."
I'd been rolling the glass in my palms, warming the liquid, but when I heard that
I nearly dropped it. I placed it carefully on the polished bar top and met Sin's bright
blue eyes. He smiled tentatively, revealing neat white teeth and the sight was
undoubtedly stunning, he was undeniably handsome, but he wasn't Rory for all that
they were both golden skinned and golden haired. "Do you enjoy working here?" I
asked softly, staring at the door to the kitchens where I could see Blake's bleak face,
watching Gerry and Darrin, white cheeked with pain. Never mix business and pleasure,
that was something I learned long ago, watching my brothers of the heart, Marcus and
Wick, stumble through a relationship that could have ruined a perfectly good
friendship, but didn't.
"Yeah, sure. It's a great place and the tips are outstanding."
"Then you'll only need the one warning. You can flirt with the customers, but the
staff, including the owner, are off limits."
His brows shot up over the broad forehead, and he chewed his lower lip for a
minute as though biting back some response he was dying to make. The capable hand
that wiped down the bar in front of me seemed to move without thought, an instinctive
action while he considered my words. "Okay. You're definitely off the market. Got it.
What about that tall, pale guy with the dark hair? He included in the ban?"
Cannon? I snorted and sipped my drink again. "I doubt you have what Cannon
is looking for, but go for it."
"I hardly think anyone needs your approval to flirt with me, Chance." The dry
comment announced Cannon's arrival and I turned to him with a welcoming smile. In
the last two months the vestiges of romance had faded into a friendship that felt right.
"You want me to hook you up? Sinclair Hastings, this is Dr. Cannon Malloy,
neurosurgeon and chief of surgery at the hospital. He's apparently in the market after
all."
Cannon slapped my thigh with stinging force and smiled apologetically at the
bartender who was backing away. "No, I'm sorry, I'm not."
Sin looked justifiably confused. "Not a doctor? Or not on the market?"
"Either."
