Savage af Ch. 01

We'd had two assignations and I'd made enough money that I was a month ahead of my plan. I'd passed my finals and would be graduating with honors.

Then it all went to hell.

Somehow Chance had found out. I don't know what he'd found out exactly, but he'd found the money I'd been saving. I'd stashed it in a shoebox thinking he'd never go into my shoes in a million years. He'd taken my money, more than $12k dollars. I was furious. I was also in tears. Fuck, I didn't think I could do this anymore.

I don't think he'd found out about the jobs but if I tried to work either now, he'd surely find out. He'd keep taking my money and I'd be screwed. I had no idea what to do.

I did know the source of my problems though. Chance might be a problem, but Jace, fuck him, that nerd was going to pay.

*****

(Jace) Ding, ding.

"FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

I looked up from my iPhone.

Kiera had walked into my tattoo parlor. Yes, I said my tattoo parlor. Being a genius was good money but I found that having an outlet for my creative side was as valuable. A little after I started on as a professor at the university, I opened a tattoo studio. I had two artists underneath me that came in at different times during the week. I only hired the best so my studio did pretty well. Not that I needed it too but still, it was satisfying in its own way.

My own tattoo work was extraordinary. I know this is not particularly modest but it was true nonetheless. Thursday night I wasn't usually open but my person had called in sick so I'd come by after teaching and had settled in. I was still wearing the black slacks, royal blue shirt, and a patterned blood red tie that I'd gone to school in.

Kiera stood in front of me fuming, I didn't say a word as she glared at me with her hands on her hips. She was beautiful wearing black leather thigh-high boots and a gray cashmere long-sleeve dress that came to mid-thigh. I tried not to stare at her but her black lipstick and fingernails gave her a slight dark look which made her even more irresistible to me.

"Can I help you?" I asked politely.

"Fuck you," she said. "I know it was you that talked to him."

I set my iPhone down, "Is that right?"

Clenching her fists, her face bright red, she leaned forward, "WHO THE FUCK ELSE WOULD HE GO TO? WHY THE FUCK DON'T YOU MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS? WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE TO GET INVOLVED IN MY LIFE?" she screamed.

"Relax Hot Topic, I don't know what you're talking about."

Ding, ding.

A person walked into my shop.

She turned, "GO THE FUCK AWAY!"

He looked at me.

I sighed, "We're going to be closed tonight, but if you come back tomorrow, I'll knock an hour of your tattoo time price."

As I talked, I stood and walked to the dark-haired guy that had walked in. I picked up a card and pulled a pen from the front counter. I quickly wrote 'comp 1 hour' on the back and initialed it. The guy nodded and turned to leave.

"Good luck," he whispered as he walked out.

I'm sure he thought we were having some kind of lover's quarrel but I didn't waste time explaining it. Hell, I didn't know what "it" was.

I locked the door behind him and turned off the open sign. I checked my iPhone, 6:15 pm. Sighing I turned to face Kiera and moved back into the studio.

"Ok, let's do this by the numbers. First, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. I haven't told Chance shit about you."

"DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME," she said moving toward me.

I raised an eyebrow, "I'm not lying, I have no idea what you're talking about."

She hauled off and slapped me, "YOU'RE A FUCKING LIAR."

I grabbed her hand when she tried to slap me again and pushed her away.

"He told me," she said. "He told me you're the one who told him I was leaving. WHY THE HELL DID YOU HAVE TO STICK YOUR NOSE IN MY BUSINESS?"

"Look, I'm telling you, I didn't tell him a damn thing."

"GOD, I HATE FUCKING LIARS," she screeched as she stepped forward and swung at me. She managed to tag me because I'd reflexively went to grab her hands and her punch caught me by surprise.

I brought a hand to my nose and came away with blood.

That does it!

I grabbed her. The look on my face must've shown her she crossed a line because I finally saw fear.

My shop uses top quality gear. I had big dentist style chairs that reclined, stretched out, and were all padded black leather and chrome. They were also heavy as hell, nearly 800 pounds each. They wouldn't move no matter how much a person shifted in them.

I pushed her back until she fell into the chair.

"Fucking asshole," she said as she struggled to get up.

I'm not sure what overcame me, I really can't justify what happened next. All I know was I was pissed. I straddled her body and pinned her down.

For a second, she looked at me in confusion. She didn't understand what I was doing until I pulled off my tie and grabbed her hands. It took me a couple of seconds to wrap it around her wrists and finally comprehension dawned on her. By then it was too late. I cinched the tie into a knot and brought her arms over her head. She squirmed against me but I had leverage and weight on her. I brought her hands behind the headrest and tied them extra tight but was still careful the silk didn't cut into her skin. When she'd been tied for me at the cat house it'd been with cotton rope, silk was much stronger, she wasn't going anywhere.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

She was still struggling but our bodies were pressed together and it was having a crazy effect on me. I didn't answer her. Instead I walked over to a small closet where I kept a few spare shirts and ties. I grabbed some of the ties and walked back to her.

"Hey asshole, fucking untie me you fucking loser," she said as she thrashed.

I looked her in the eyes and saw her anger, steeling myself I straddled her legs pinning them beneath me. Then I grabbed the hem of her dress and hiked it up her thighs revealing pink satin bikini panties with black trim.

Her face went into shock and she tried to buck me, I used her body movement to help me pull her dress up to her neck and over her head.

Surprise, she wasn't wearing a bra. Second surprise, her nipples were rock hard. I was sure it was the cool air versus the situation but it was still sexy to see.

I pushed her dress to past her elbows and wrapped another tie around her arms to secure the dress and her.

"I'm going to fucking kill you asshole. When I get free..."

I cut her words off by yanking her panties down to her ankles. She gasped in surprise as they slid past her boots.

At that point she let out a string of Spanish curse words that I'm sure if I'd understood them would have been impressive. Hell, it was impressive even not knowing most of them.

"You're done talking," I said as I wadded her panties into a ball and pushed them into her mouth. I used another tie to keep the gag in place as she glared at me and made muffled noises that I'm positive I didn't want to hear.

Her nose was flaring and if looks could kill I'd have been dead where I stood. She was stunned by the turn of events and didn't struggle as I spread her legs and tied her ankles to either side of the chair.

After I finished, I stepped back to look at her.

Despite the hate in her eyes she looked gorgeous. The chair was partially reclined, stretching her body to fell length showing all her sexy curves. Her glossy black hair flowed in ringlets around her face and her chest heaved from anger and the exertion spent fighting me. She shook her head trying to move the gag. Then her eyes tracked her hands locked together above her head and her legs spread displaying the small trimmed patch of black curls between her legs. For some reason the boots highlighted her nudity, made it seem more elegant. Or it could just be I had a thing for thigh-high boots, take your pick.

"Let's get a couple things straight," I said pulling a small stool forward to sit in front of her. Her eyes tracked me with hate but she'd quit struggling.

"First, as I said before, I haven't told Chance a damn thing. I really don't have any idea what you're talking about."

She gave a grunt and rolled her eyes.

"Something to say?"

She narrowed her eyes and stared at me. She nodded her head and I reached forward to pull the gag out.

After I pulled her panties out of her mouth, she swallowed a few times and said softly, "Fuck you. He already told me it was you."

"Told you what?" I asked.

Her jaw clenched and I could practically feel he anger rolling off her like heat from an oven.

"He found my money! I was leaving him and he found my money. He told me you told him," she said, her nostrils flared. "WHY COULDN'T YOU MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE?"

I was getting tired of her yelling so I shoved the gag back into her mouth making her let out a muffled yell.

"Chance came to me the other day, he was worried you were leaving him. He also thought you might be having an affair or something. The only thing I told him was that if you were leaving him, you'd be hiding money or something."

She made a muffled noise and tilted her head. I pulled the gag out again.

"God you're fucking stupid. Thanks, thanks asshole for clueing him in. He went looking for a stash and found one. Why the fuck couldn't you mind your own business?"

Once again, I put her panties back in her mouth.

"Don't blame me for your problems," I hissed. "I didn't have a damn thing to do with your marriage issues. If I was really involved, I'd have let him know how you got the money."

Fear crossed her eyes, she didn't know what I knew. She was here because she thought I'd talked to Chance.

"This position seems familiar? Huh? It should, I paid to have you like this back to back days last week."

I let that sink in and her eyes bulged at the realization. Disbelief and fear were plain on her face. I didn't care, I was furious she was trying to dump all her problems on me.

"If you have problems with your marriage, maybe you shouldn't be fucking around."

Her eyes glazed with fury as she looked at me.

"Oh good, I like that. You hate me?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, I'll bet you do," I said.

"Maybe when you get free, you'll call the police or something. Of course, then I'll have to explain about what we did before, tell them that I paid to do this to you and then we'll have to get Jeanette involved. I don't imagine she'll be too happy to have her business exposed."

I could see it in her eyes, she knew she couldn't do anything to me. The hateful look doubled.

I glanced down at her body. Her nipples were still hard and her skin shone with a small sheen of sweat from the effort of struggling. The curls between her legs glistened.

Never taking my eyes from hers I took off my clothes. She watched me without moving.

I moved on top of her, sliding between her legs. On some level hate and arousal must cross because I pushed inside her easily. We moved against each other. Even though her hips thrust against me I could feel the anger, the pure fury behind her eyes. She was defeated, she knew she couldn't do anything about what I was doing. If she tried, she'd be ruined herself.

I felt her body tense, she came before me, her body quivered as she strained against the ties. I came right after, unleashing inside her, watching her eyes close and fingers grasp in time with my pulsing.

I stood and got cleaned up then untied her.

Neither of us said a word as we got dressed. She pulled the panties from her mouth and tossed them on my chair as she tugged her dress back into place. Once she smoothed it out, she turned and left without a word.

*****

The next week I stopped by Chance's for dinner but got there a little early. Nobody was around when I knocked on his door. I started to wait in my car but his complex had a small basketball court. I was dressed in sweats and a tanktop and I always kept a basketball in my car so I decided to shoot some hoops to pass the time.

It felt really weird when Chance invited me over. He said he wanted to talk to me, clear the air. I cheerfully agreed but then spent the next day wondering if there was some subtle game going on. Clear what air? Had Kiera mentioned our thing? What was happening? I couldn't think of a scenario that made any sense so I put it from my mind and figured I'd play it by ear. Worst case scenario, he knew what she'd done, what I'd done, and planned on confronting one or the both of us.

It's strange, once you accept something into your head a peace settles over you. I wasn't going to worry about what could occur. I'd deal with everything as it transpired.

I'd just taken a shot when suddenly Kiera pulled up. I hadn't seen her since our incident last week so I had no idea how this was going to play out.

When she parked her car and got out a thug looking Mexican stepped from the passenger side.

Great, so that was how she was going to play it. Maybe I'd made inner peace too soon.

I assumed she knew I was coming to dinner and she brought a friend to either harass me or cause trouble.

I kept shooting and as if on cue they walked over.

"What up ese?"

I looked over and nodded, "Nothing much."

I shot a quick glance at Kiera, she narrowed her eyes and a small smile crossed her face.

"I'm Julio, a friend of Kiera's."

"Nice to meet you Julio," I said. I wondered what she told him about me, the truth seemed unlikely so I wondered what she said to get him to agree to this confrontation.

"You don't shake hands when you meet someone?" he asked with an edge to his voice.

I inwardly rolled my eyes, he was going to use any excuse.

"I'm sorry," I said as I walked up and held out my hand. He took it and we did the whole squeezing the hand thing. I was not impressed but I didn't bother to try and squeeze back.

He was so busy squeezing I realized we'd be there forever if I didn't play along. I faked a grimace and he finally let my hand go.

I went back to shooting hoops as they watched me for a few minutes. They whispered back and forth for a moment.

"Want to play a game of twenty-one?" he suddenly called out.

I saw confusion cross Kiera's face for a split second. I can only assume he was winging it, she probably thought he would come and make threats all night. I don't think she realized how physical a game of basketball could be.

Still, I didn't see any way to avoid it. If I said no, he'd accuse me of being rude or something else. It was obvious he was here to start something. I might as well control it as much as possible. Besides, maybe I deserved it for what I did.

He stepped onto the court and as I took my shirt off, I studied him.

I hate to use the phrase typical thug Mexican but I swear he came straight out of a movie version. Somewhat short, with a shaved head and brown eyes, he stood about five inches less than my 6-foot height with dark brown skin covered in homemade tattoos. Despite our difference in height he much wider. Strangely he was wearing black shorts with a Kobe Bryant Lakers tank top. I doubt he expected to play basketball so I'm sure it was a coincidence. Despite his size I could tell he wasn't that muscular.

"Shoot for outs?" he asked.

I shrugged, "You're the guest, you can have first."

He nodded and checked me the ball. I threw it back as Kiera stepped to the side of the court. He dribbled a few times and charged the hoop with his shoulder leading, I could tell he was hoping to hit me center mass and knock me down. I angled my body and took the check while diverting most of his energy to the side. (Let's hear it for physics.) He kept dribbling and put up a shot as he got close to the rim.

Not to be critical, but he sucked as a basketball player. I played multiple times a week and while I wouldn't be on a college team, I was a respectable player for a city league. By this guy's standards, I was Michael Jordan. He missed and I jumped up and grabbed the rebound, as I landed, he slammed into my back and I hit the fence that surrounded the court.

That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the game. Skill wise he wasn't the worst I ever played. However, it was the hardest won victory on the court I ever had. He took every opportunity to foul me, hard! He checked, charged, used his hands, chest, elbows, and every other dirty trick he could think of to manhandle me.

I took it all in stride, if this was Kiera's type of petty revenge, the hell with it, let her have it. I definitely got the better end of the deal. As I sank the last shot, I gave her a wicked smile and a wink. She narrowed her eyes and scowled at me.

Julio stomped away. I'm not sure what he was mad about, he delivered some pretty good blows to me during the game. I can't believe he actually expected to win too. He stood next to Kiera fuming and when she tried to put a hand on his shoulder in consolation, he smacked it off and hit her in the lip.

That brought my head up.

"Get off me puta," he snapped.

As focused as he was on her he never saw me coming.

I didn't like her. I didn't like what had happened between her and Chance. I thought they were both assholes and deserved each other. I thought she was a manipulative bitch, but still, hell will freeze over before I let some asshole manhandle her in front of me. To be fair, I don't think he actually tried to hit her, it seemed more like when he smacked her hand, he accidentally got her face. And if he'd showed immediate remorse or sorrow, I would've shrugged it off.

He did not.

Some lessons must be taught the hard way.

My fist cracked into his jaw completely unannounced. He half spun and went to one knee dazed.

Pro tip: If you can walk away from a fight, do it. But if you fight, fight. Only an idiot hits somebody then waits to see what they'll do. If you hit a person you keep hitting that person until they're unconscious.

Unless you want to teach them a lesson, that is. I knew I could've knocked him out if I'd kept punching. But that was not my goal. I wanted him to know who was better.

I let him get his bearings and he stood up. Kiera's stood there in open mouthed surprise. I'm pretty sure she thought I was in for a massive beatdown. So sorry to disappoint.

Julio got up and spread his arms, he started talking.

"You want some of me? You want some of this? You don't know who you're messing with ese."

Pro tip: I love hood rats, gang bangers, whatever you want to call them. They love to start fights with their arms out to their sides. They think it looks impressive or something, I don't know. I play a lot of basketball and emotions can get hot, so I've actually been in a few fights here and there. They always spread their arms and do that, "You want a piece of me?" thing. I like to oblige them, it's best to do it while they're talking, it catches them off-guard.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes and snapped a couple of jabs into his chin before he finished his sentence.

That rocked him back.

"Mutherfucker..." he yelled and launched a haymaker.

I ducked, tagged him with an uppercut and two more jabs to knock him down again.

He spit blood and rushed to get up.

Again, I could have done more damage but I wanted to give him a chance to think about this whole exchange.

I'd been better off explaining physics to my pet pig.

I looked at Kiera to see her stunned face.

Julio stood up, yelled and rushed me. I stepped to the side and tagged him with a jab and a hook. I will admit to being mildly impressed, as he managed to stay on his feet and even threw a wild swing that managed to connect. I'd hiked my shoulder up so most of his force was blocked but he did hit me in the side of the ear, it stung a little.

I returned the favor by crashing a hard blow into his ribs then closed the distance and brought an elbow across his face, he went down again.