Victor: Her Ruthless Owner: The VICTOR Trilogy Book 2 [50 Loving States, Rhode Island] (Ruthless Triad)

by Theodora Taylor

  I planned to walk over to Harry's Bar and Burger to pick up a couple of their famous sliders. Maybe eat all my WTF feelings with a side order of sweet potato fries and wash down all my WTH-am-I-going-to-do-now confusion with a root beer.

  But here was Elizabeth Ann Margaret, blocking the aisle and not wanting me to be great.

  "Hey, Dawn," she said, cocking her head to the side like she was the super princess in her frankly not very experimental thesis animation, and I was the pitiful grub she felt sorry for.

  "I just wanted to say how sorry I am about what happened a few weeks ago," she started to say, her voice dripping in dramatic regret. "You didn't come to Asher's house party on Saturday. I hope that didn't have anything to do with Asher or me."

  She glanced over my shoulder, and I knew she was probably looking at Asher, who sat two rows up from me and could probably hear every word she was saying. I'd forgotten all about the house party he and his roommates threw on Saturday, even though Asher had invited me face-to-face.

  "It's fine. I was just busy on Saturday," I answered quickly. "I was hoping to grab some lunch before the second part of class if you don't mind getting out of the way."

  Elizabeth Ann Margaret stayed right where she was and continued blocking the aisle as if I'd said nothing, "I guess I got carried away because I've known you for ages now. But it doesn't feel like I know you at all. You know?"

  "Maybe there's nothing to know," I answered. At the same time, I reminded myself that rich girls like Elizabeth Ann Margaret always sued when you punched them in the mouth.

  "So, does that mean you're not really married?" Her remorse morphed into avid curiosity. "Come on, you can tell me."

  "Why?" I asked, just as loud as she was speaking. "So you can tell anybody who asks about me all my business?"

  Elizabeth Ann Margaret had the nerve to look hurt. "I'm not trying to gossip. I just don't think it's right pretending to be something you're not."

  "And what exactly do you think I'm pretending to be?" I asked. "Because the last time I checked, the only thing I've ever passed myself off as was hard-working."

  "Hey, girls. There's no need to fight," Asher said from two rows up. "We'll probably all feel better after we have some lunch."

  Elizabeth Ann Margaret glared at him. Then addressed the rest of the class. "So no one else thinks this situation is a little weird? I mean, she's this cool, untouchable, mysterious character. It's like she's trying to get us to ask all the questions about her. But then she acts all snitty when any of us want to know about the husband we've never seen. And the huge house she lives in all alone."

  "C'mon, stop, Elizabeth Ann Margaret," Asher said. "You're out of line. She's allowed to have secrets if she wants to. It's none of our business."

  "So you're just completely on her side?" Elizabeth Ann Margaret asked him. This time she honestly did look hurt. "Even though she's told us nothing real about herself and as long as I've known her?"

  I cast my eyes to the side, annoyed and empathetic at the same time. My life wasn't my own for most of my 20s, but I watched TV. Lots of it. Elizabeth Ann Margaret wasn't as talented as she wanted to be. And she was approaching an age where her biological time clock was telling her that if she couldn't have the career she wanted, she should at least try for a stable relationship.

  How often had I dreamt of having a real relationship instead of the steaming pile of psychological mess I'd endured for nearly ten years?

  So yeah, I got it. But at the same time, I had to tell her, "Look, Elizabeth Ann Margaret, Chase after Asher or don't chase after him. My situation has nothing to do with yours."

  "So you're saying you don't want him?" Elizabeth Ann Margaret shot back like we were in one of the reality shows I used to watch fanatically before I got serious about art.

  I shifted my eyes to the side. I hated lying, but not answering would only invite her to draw her own conclusion. And how was I supposed to explain that I'd be totally fine with Asher asking me out…after I was done serving my ten-year sentence?

  I tugged on my ring, trying to come up with the best answer.

  But then, suddenly, I didn't have to.

  "Who is that?" Elizabeth Ann Margaret froze, her eyes shifting up to the seminar classroom's doorway. Along with the gazes of every other woman in our class and quite a few of the guys—heterosexual, gay, and everything in between.

  I followed the direction of their stare, and my heart nearly gave out.

  Victor…

  Victor was coming down the stairs right toward us.

  And I could see why everyone was staring. For once, he wasn't wearing a suit. Instead, he rocked a short-sleeved Henley and a pair of jeans, even though it was still cold out. But no one but me seemed to be questioning his winter wardrobe choices. Maybe because the Henley clung to his muscular chest. It also showed off the bottom two-thirds of his sleeves while his open collar provided a tantalizing peek at his dragon tattoo. And the trendy gray jeans perfectly framed his muscular legs.

  "Wait, is that…is that your husband?" Elizabeth Ann Margaret whispered beside me.

  Victor reached us before I could come up with an answer.

  He couldn't speak, but he didn't have to. Elizabeth Ann Margaret stepped right out of his way, giving him access to stand in front of me without a word being said. I could feel Asher's eyes on us from the other row. His and everyone else's.

  "What… What are you doing here?" I asked.

  Victor held up a takeout bag from Harry's to answer my question, then pressed it into my hand.

  The day guard must have told him it was one of my favorite lunch spots.

  "Thank you?" A question lifted my voice. I was so baffled by his sudden appearance…and his lunch gift.

  He grinned down at me, and sadly, I was rocketed right back to high school. Once again struck shy and speechless because he’d aimed that blast of sunlight in my direction.

  Instead of signing, "You're welcome," like he did back in high school, though, he stepped forward and tipped my head up.

  What was he doing? Surely he wasn't going to…

  He couldn't possibly have heard Elizabeth Ann Margaret's question about who he was. But he answered it in the next moment.

  He kissed me. He kissed me for the first time in fifteen years. In front of the whole class.

  Then he withdrew, leaving me, Elizabeth Ann Margaret, and the rest of the class behind in total shock.

  25

  VICTOR

  Kissing her was a mistake.

  She hadn’t acknowledged him to anyone in her world, and he’d entered her classroom with a plan to force her to do so. It was another punishment, meant to rebalance their power dynamic and make up for any weakness he had shown in Texas.

  This particular chess move would serve to let the guy who had dared to hug her know that she was taken. He could either kill Asher Peretz or kiss Dawn. Jealousy had his mind so twisted. Those honestly seemed like his only two options.

  But he’d known it was a mistake from the moment their lips touched. He’d only meant it to be a peck—a move to announce his claim to Asher Peretz and the rest of her grad class.

  Yet, hunger had reared up like a starving tiger inside of him. Wanting more. Demanding more. Needing it with an angry ache.

  He’d eventually torn his lips away. But he’d stalked out of the classroom with the feeling that this was yet another battle he couldn’t quite say he’d won.

  And, half an hour later, his body continued to the thrum with the same out-of-control desire.

  He’d transformed himself over the decade into one of the most powerful dragons in the world. Yet Dawn still made him weak. Perhaps the only wise thing he’d done where she was concerned over the past decade was not allowing himself to kiss her.

  Time to disappear again. He made this decision upon walking into the Providence house he had no business staying on at.

  However, just as he was heading up the stairs to repack his bag, Dawn came crashing through
the front door.

  “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

  He turned on the stairs. “Why aren’t you in class?”

  “Because I asked the driver whose damn name I still don’t know to bring me home so that I could say ‘what the hell, man!’ to the asshole who crashed my class!” she answered, slamming the door shut behind her.

  She didn’t bother to take off her shoes, just came storming up the edge of the stairs to demand again, “What the hell was that?”

  As always, his heart leaped at the sight of her. She’d gone back to wearing braids this semester. And though she was wearing a neon purple puffy coat, not a tee and sports shorts, this style made him recall the college girl who’d sat across from him in a Bentley ten years ago, right after Phantom had snatched her from her dorm room.

  That, and the fury on her face.

  “I brought you lunch,” he answered, keeping his face a careful blank as he walked down the stairs to come to a stand in front of her. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  He designed his answer for maximum confusion and upset. And it worked.

  Her eyes blazed at his answer. “You haven’t kissed me in ten years of marriage. Why did you do that? Why did you show up out of the blue and kiss me? In front of my whole class?”

  He didn’t answer for a couple of reasons. The truth did not align with how he wanted her to perceive him. It wouldn’t do to let her know how jealous her hug with the Pittsburgh transfer student had made him. It would only cause him to lose face.

  Also, silence had always been his best weapon. The perfect weapon. Adversaries backed down from arguments when you were silent. They changed the subject. Often, they talked too much to fill in the words you did not speak.

  Victor knew the secrets of many of his friends and rivals alike simply because he never interrupted. It was the ultimate way to win arguments, he had found. How often had Phantom and Han let him have his way, simply because he refused to entertain their questions and counter suggestions?

  As he stood before her, not answering, he recalled their first anniversary, when Dawn filled up all his silence with mostly one-sided conversation. Soothing herself to the point that she let her guard down and walked unsuspecting into the trap he had set.

  But this time, she didn’t simply take his silence as she always had.

  She balled her fists at her sides. “Answer me, you asshole! If you won’t leave, then at least answer my fucking questions! Why are you still here? Why did you do all that stuff for my mom, then bring me back here to torture me?”

  Victor regarded her for a cold beat. Then he reminded her and himself, “I am your owner for four more months. I can do whatever I want. And I do not have to explain it to you.”

  Dawn stared back at him, her expression enraged.

  “All you do is mess with me!” she yelled, shoving him in the chest. Once, twice, three times. Not that it mattered. He didn’t move an inch. “You ruin everything, including my thesis presentation, which I can’t even attend because it’s on May 25th. So, of course, you’re not going to let me get my MFA. Because no matter how nice you were to my mother, you suck now, like, on a base level. I hate this! And I hate you!”

  Good. Her shove had barely registered. And it delighted him to see her so frustrated.

  She was so angry that she fisted her braids at each side of her head and walked away in the opposite direction. As if she might explode with anger if she continued to look at him.

  He wanted her to hate him. Wanted her to rail against the things he did to her, not appreciate them and even thank him as she had over the weekend. That was what this was all about, he reminded himself. Punishing her. Making her hurt. What happened in Texas changed nothing about his original mission.

  “I hate you so much! Ugh! Hate, hate, hate you!” she screamed with her back to him.

  Then she surprised Victor by suddenly turning around and rushing toward him, her expression twisted with violent rage.

  He made no move to defend himself. Her angry shoves had felt like little more than pats against his chest earlier. And it amused him that she would even attempt to engage him in physical combat.

  So he let her come, allowed her to get in her pitiful hits.

  But she didn’t hit him. At least not on the chest.

  Her lips banged into his. And she attacked his closed mouth, licking and biting. Then she snaked a hand around his neck, her fingernails digging into the skin there like an animal who refused to let her prey get away.

  Kissing….

  She was kissing him.

  For Victor, it was the equivalent of her striking a match. And setting him ablaze.

  His cold resolve melted in mere seconds under that kiss. And soon, it wasn’t just her kissing him. He was kissing her back.

  He slammed her into the door she’d come through just minutes ago, shoving off her puffy coat and clawing at the clothes underneath. She wore a cutesy polka dot dress over a turtleneck, so a pair of tights and panties were the only things that stood between him and what he wanted. What he needed.

  Her tights tore away with just one yank of his hand. He took himself out of his jeans, pushed her panties aside, and then…

  Victor let out a loud groan against her mouth after burying himself inside of her. But he didn’t stop kissing her as he began pumping into her tight wet heat. Consuming her, punishing her.

  Or was it the other way around?

  His mind couldn’t focus on anything outside of being with her like this. Of kissing her as he fucked her against the door. Going in so deep, but still not deep enough.

  He felt crazy as he fucked her, like he’d come apart if he didn’t claim her and make her his. Her name lodged in his throat, aching to come out. It took everything inside of him not to lose himself like he had when they were teenagers.

  As furious as she had been with him, her responsiveness remained the same. She wrapped one leg around his waist, her body becoming more and more pliable as he pounded into her like an animal unleashed.

  Soon, an orgasm had her clawing at his shoulders as her cunt tightened around his dick. Drawing him in even deeper, even as she fell apart. Somewhere in the distance of his psyche, he felt the warning. The tingling that told him it was time to pull out.

  He began to, but then Dawn bit his lip, drawing blood, intoxicating him with her kiss. And just like that, all his control was gone. He came with a roar against her lips, emptying inside her like he hadn’t in fifteen years.

  The pleasure, the sensations. It was unbelievable. It crashed his mind, and an unknowable time went by before he was able to reboot. But eventually, he came back to his senses and realized what he had done.

  “What was that?” She didn’t drink anymore. Victor had made sure of that. But her words sounded slurred as if she were under the influence of something.

  Maybe the same something as him. His brain was mush, and his muscles felt like heavy jelly.

  He could barely put the bodily commands together to pull out of her and zip himself back into his pants.

  Silence was his tactic.

  His best weapon. Especially with her.

  But after stepping away from her, he answered truthfully, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know,” she repeated, her voice cracking.

  Then she slid down the door he had just fucked her against. And collapsed into tears.

  He had done it. He’d finally done it. He’d broken her and made her cry, right in front of him.

  Victor waited. He waited for the satisfaction he should be feeling now that he’d brought her so low.

  But it never came.

  And after a few moments, he walked away…and came back with a box of tissues from one of the side tables in the living room.

  He held them out to her. And she eyed the square box like he was offering her a bomb.

  Victor didn’t blame her.

  That dynamite that never went off in Texas…it still felt like it was burning some
where neither of them could see.

  So he waited patiently, and eventually, she took the box from him.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said with a self-deprecating tone as she dabbed at her eyes. “I’m just tired and kind of a mess after this weekend with my mom. All I need is some sleep. Then I’ll be ready to start fighting you like the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.”

  He had no idea who those two characters were. But her promise made him want to laugh.

  And take a seat on the floor beside her. So he did. Not holding her as she sniffled but sitting close to her until she calmed down.

  It didn’t take long.

  “So that was our hateyest hate-fuck yet. Was it good for you? Worth all the kissing and not spooging all over me when you came?”

  She was joking in her usual inappropriate and irreverent way. He was almost sure of it. Yet he found himself considering—really considering the question.

  Was that good for him? The answer was both yes and no. He’d liked kissing her. Liked coming inside of her. But the hating himself for doing it…that still didn’t feel great.

  If he was honest with himself, it hadn’t felt great for going on ten years. Fucking Dawn and hating himself afterward felt like banging his head against the wall. More painful for him than anybody else. Nora was upset about their upcoming nuptials, but for Victor, it might be the only way out of this obsessive cycle.

  Four more months…

  He only had four more months to endure this obsession. But he also only had four more months to indulge it

  A new and perhaps terrible idea occurred to Victor. “What if we…”

  He paused. His hand, trembling with the words.

  “What if we what?” she asked, her voice soft and curious. She shifted to face him from her seated position.

  He also shifted to face her more fully as he signed, “What if we pretended that we were the same people we were before.”

  “Before?” she repeated, her expression morphing from sad to confused.

  “Before in Japan,” he clarified.