Page 3 of His Property

“Would you calm down?” Victor asks her, looking impossibly amused given the circumstances. “She’s being dramatic.”

The hunched over one sobs louder.

“Doms do not push past subs’ limits, you fucking disgrace! I’ve warned you about this once, and you swore to me it was a misunderstanding. I gave you another chance!”

“I suppose that was a mistake.” Victor laughs, and the woman’s eyes widen like she can’t believe it.

“You fucking psychopath.” She shakes her head slowly. “You’re a disgrace as aman, let alone a Dom.”

“Careful, Rory, you’re gonna hurt my feelings,” Victor retorts, the threat clear in his tone, although I can tell the amusement is still there. He looks like he wishes she’d push him.

My instincts were right. He’s dangerous.

Verydangerous.

I turn to leave, but someone bumps into me as a fight breaks out. I spin and watch as all five men attack Victor. The sobbing woman screams, and the tattooed one jumps back.

For a few moments, I’m scared for Victor, which is probably irrational. Whatever he did, he deserves this. Still, I watch in horror as all the men lash at him at once. All I can see is their bare backs.

I picture Victor on the ground, but I’m amazed when the two men blocking my view jump back and reveal Victor just as he lands an elbow to the nose of a dark-skinned man. Blood splatters Victor, but it isn’t his own, and I make out three of the five men on the floor. Two are unconscious.

The room quiets except for the woman’s sobbing. The two men left glance at each other, then slowly backpedal with their hands up. One bumps into me, then he looks over his shoulder and side steps away.

“Get out,” the tattooed woman says, almost in a whisper. She takes a deep breath and seethes. “Get the fuck out of my club!”

Victor swipes blood off his face and wipes it on his shirt. He’s the only man in the room who isn’t partially undressed.

Without another word, he starts toward the door. He throws the crying woman a glance and lifts his lips into the tiniest smirk.

I want to move so badly to get out of Victor’s way like the others do, but I’m frozen. He comes right up to me, the door at my back, and he touches my arm with his bloody hand. “Don’t bother, Mouse. The men here are a bunch of pussies.” He gives me a wink, then pushes me to the side and opens the door.

He disappears through it, and the place seems to rattle when the door slams shut.

No one says anything. They just look at each other, some amazed, most looking ashamed.

I turn and quickly open the door only enough to squeeze out of it.

My feet fly down the steps, and I hurry on the sidewalk in the direction of my car. I can feel the wet, sticky blood on my arm, and it’s a rush. I almost don’t want to clean it off with the wipes I keep in my car, but I will. It’d be creepy not to.

I should be scared fleeing the scene of that place. I should be looking out for Victor and hiding from any man in sight.

But instead, my core winds tightly enough that I think it’s a possibility I’ll come during this walk. My heart races with excitement, and my mind swirls with thoughts I shouldn’t have.

I am so fucked up.

* * *

The living roomlight is on when I get back to my cozy, one-bedroom house. It isn’t especially weird for that to be the case, even though I live alone. My mom is a bit of a free spirit, and even though she has a place of her own with her girlfriend, she crashes on my couch sometimes.

When I stop outside my front door, I pat my hair and straighten my blouse. I don’t know why I go through the effort to compose myself. My mom is the absolute worst at reading people, especially me, and it isn’t as if my appearance shows what went down tonight. The blood on my arm is long gone.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes for a moment, then open the door. My purse is snuggly wrapped around my shoulder, and I slowly take it off and set it on the entryway table. The TV blares a basketball game, and there’s no one in sight until TJ peeks his head over the couch.

“Hey, Teach,” he says casually, going back to laying down.

TJ is my mom’s girlfriend’s son, and he’s also one of my Senior English students. So him being at my house like this is, needless to say, inappropriate. I’ve told him this multiple times, but I don’t have the energy to fight it tonight, so I just sigh and walk to the kitchen without addressing him. I really shouldn’t have told him where I keep my spare key.

I pull a beer from the fridge then walk back to the living room and pat TJ’s leg so he’ll move to make room for me on the couch. He shifts, and I plop down. There’s a notebook flipped open on my coffee table with TJ’s sloppy handwriting scrolled across the page.

---