Sara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scripted_sra) wrote2013-03-30 03:15 am
scripted_sra) wrote2013-03-30 03:15 am
Person of Interest | Unambiguous | PG-13 | Finch/Reese
Title: Unambiguous
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Mention of abusive relationships.
Pairing: Finch/Reese
Summary: John and Harold are "undercover" at a dynamic club for a number. That's always fun.
Word Count: 2,715
Disclaimer: All copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. This work is not created for profit and constitutes fair use.
A/N: This is my own damn fault. I should have known better than to write in D/sverse; it always ends up eating my brain. Thanks for the beta, Kelly.
“If you would hold still, Mr. Reese,” Harold said, and then very unhelpfully ran his hands down his thighs, smoothing the denim. The jeans might as well have been painted on for how tightly they fit, which made his body’s reactions to the way Harold had been painstakingly dressing him more than obvious. “This club has very…exacting standards for how a sub must appear.”
“I know, Harold,” he said, voice huskier than even his usual low murmur.
Harold stood back and examined him, face just the tiniest bit flushed. John glanced down at himself as well, taking it in: tight, almost sheer black shirt, tighter jeans, boots, eyeliner, slightly different hairstyle; everything about it screamed sub, which was strange for him. The suit he usually wore was cut in such a neutral way, flattering but impressively ambiguous. Sure, the collar now made his gender apparent, but it usually took people a second to notice it, what with everything going on when he met them. He privately enjoyed watching that realization.
This outfit, on the other hand, was nothing but obvious, and while his current physical predicament made it somewhat uncomfortable, he was slightly surprised to find he didn’t really mind.
The way Harold was looking at him certainly didn’t hurt matters, of course.
“Well, Harold?” he asked, raising his hands outward and turning in a circle. “How do I look?” When he completed the rotation, he knelt in front of him, smirking at the ragged breath Harold took.
“You certainly look every bit the part,” Harold managed, his hand moving to John’s neck. He slipped two fingers under the collar, just touching, and this was definitely not helping his physical discomfort.
“Our latest number starts work in half an hour,” he said, forcing himself to focus on the reason for this costume theater in the first place. “We should go, before…”
“Before what, Mr. Reese?” Harold asked, a note of command in his voice, and he tugged on the collar.
John’s gaze dropped and he leaned into the touch, breath quickening. “Before I start begging you to get me out of these clothes, Harold.”
“That would defeat the purpose,” he agreed, somewhat raggedly, after a moment. “Although…perhaps we ought to revisit that idea later this evening.”
John somehow managed not to groan. Maybe the night would go quickly.
---
“There she is,” John murmured, indicating their number as they made their way to a table inside the bar-slash-club. It was fairly high-end—the cover charge, at one time, would have made him raise his eyebrows, though less so now that he knew Harold. The rest of the subs in the place were dressed much like himself, definitely on display.
Alana Parker was a server, a switch, new to town, and apparently in some kind of trouble.
“She doesn’t look particularly distressed,” Harold noted, and they sat.
John scanned the crowd. No one else seemed to be paying her any special attention, and she wasn’t going out of her way to avoid anyone. It was possible her predicament had nothing to do with her job, but being so new to the city, the few local acquaintances she did have were exclusively from here. It had seemed the most logical place for something to be wrong.
“Hi,” she said cheerily, approaching them. “I’m Alana; I’ll be your server this evening. Can I get you anything to drink?”
Interestingly, she made eye contact with both of them. Service personnel were generally encouraged to take their cues from the dom at the table, in his experience, and that went doubly so for a dynamic club like this one.
John didn’t particularly care what he drank, so he glanced at Harold, quirking his lips. Harold merely rolled his eyes and said, “Two glasses of your best red wine, please.”
She jotted that down, a curious look flitting across her face when she glanced between them. She covered it decently with a friendly smile. “Coming right up.”
“Thank you,” he said, and she nodded, looking even more curious now. She moved on to her next table, and he looked at Harold. “I think we confused her.”
“She’s young,” he said. “And for a conventional relationship, we are exceedingly unconventional, Mr. Reese.”
“There is that,” he agreed, amused, and then caught sight of Alana again out of the corner of his eye. She was still smiling, seemingly friendly, but her body language was much stiffer. The table she was serving held a dom and two subs, both dressed even more provocatively than he was, and it seemed like the dom was also trying to flirt with Alana.
“How charming,” said Harold in his driest tone, voicing the thought for him.
“Do you think she knows him, or is it just general distaste?”
“Either way, we ought to keep an eye on him.” Harold stood. “I’ll clone his phone on the way to the restroom.”
John nodded and Harold left the table, walking more slowly as he passed by the other dom. Alana disappeared through the doors behind the bar, and he took the opportunity to survey the room again. Everyone seemed involved in themselves to the point of exclusion; no one stuck out as out-of-place or seemed suspicious.
“Did someone actually leave you here all alone?” asked a voice, off to his left, and John glanced over. It was the dom from earlier. “I noticed you looking around, had to come say something. You can come join us if you’re feeling neglected.” He gestured toward his table.
“I’m fine,” John said mildly, unable to help his amusement. His cluelessness combined with his staggering overconfidence was almost impressive.
“Yeah, you are,” he said, giving him a onceover that was anything but subtle. “I’m Rick.”
“Rick, seriously? He’s with someone.” Alana had returned, two glasses of wine on her tray.
“Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“Pardon me,” Harold said, with impeccable timing—as usual. John had to hide his grin. “Can I help you?”
“Whoa,” said Rick, looking Harold up and down. “Who let you in here? This isn’t a gay club, dude.”
Harold gave him his best you are unimpressive and unworthy of my time expression. It had to be one of his favorite things about Harold, this sort of effortless presence he carried without fanfare but could brandish lethally when necessary. “I am aware of that, thank you.” The words were perfectly neutral, but the tone would have stopped even the most dominant of doms at ten paces. He slid into the booth next to John, a hand resting at the back of his neck, and John didn’t even have to exaggerate how readily he relaxed into it.
“Here are your drinks,” Alana said, smiling, while Rick looked dumbstruck. She looked at Rick, rolling her eyes. “Maybe you should get back to your own table? Since you’re so worried about subs being left alone.”
Rick shook his head, took one last glance at them, and then retreated. Alana smiled again. “Sorry about that,” she said.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” John said pleasantly, and she nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?”
“We’re fine for now,” Harold said.
She left them, and John couldn’t help but smirk at Harold. He hadn’t moved his hand from the back of his neck, and at said smirk, his grip tightened. “Jealous, Harold?”
“I had prepared myself for the fact that you would be hit on,” he said. “Apparently not thoroughly enough.”
John smirked, taking a sip of his wine. “I didn’t say I mind.” Before Harold could respond to that, he continued. “I think she knows him as more than just a customer,” he told him. “When she intervened, she called him by name.”
“His last name is Quentin,” Harold said. At his look, he elaborated, dryly, “Not a particularly discreet man, Mr. Quentin. He had his credit card in plain sight on his table.”
John snorted. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“There’s only so much I can do with nothing but a smartphone to work with, but I’m running a search.”
John took out his own phone and discreetly snapped a picture of Rick Quentin. He added the name, said, “Sending his picture to Carter,” and hit send.
The lights dimmed, and Harold glanced at his phone. “Nine o’clock,” he said. “The first show.”
It turned out to be a male dom with two subs, one male, one female. Both were barely dressed, unsurprisingly, and the dom was the expected kind—tall, built, in perfect shape, wore his dominance on his sleeve. In other words, completely uninteresting.
John scanned the crowd again, most of whom were watching the show with rapt attention. He spotted Alana near the bar, a deep frown on her face, and then watched her disappear into the back. “I think the show upset her,” he said, standing. “I’m going to see if I can find out anything.”
“Be careful, Mr. Reese.”
“When am I not?” he asked, and smirked at Harold’s look. He left the table and headed for the bar, casually slipping behind it and through the door. It was easy with everyone’s attention on the show.
He found himself in a hallway. A doorway on his left led to a small kitchen, which he passed. The first door on his right led to a locker room, and it had a doorway leading off it, to another hallway, with a row of doors—dressing rooms, given the signs pinned up. One of the doors was ajar, and he heard movement inside—suspicious movement, the kind that indicated someone was sneaking around. He retrieved his gun—ankle holster, the only place his outfit offered any give—and moved closer, pushing the door further open.
He was surprised to see Alana pouring something powdery into a bottle of mineral water. Her head jerked up, and she gave him the most classical version of the deer-caught-in-headlights look that he’d ever seen. Her eyes widening the second she noticed his gun, she blurted, “It’s not what it looks like!”
“It looks like you’re spiking that bottle of water with…” he trailed off, noticing the bottle on the table. He picked it up, and continued, “...Xanax.”
“You don’t seem like a cop,” she said, frowning.
“Good thing I’m not,” he said. “Whose water is that, Alana, and why are you poisoning them?”
“Who are you?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She met his eyes defiantly for a long moment. “It’s that bastard’s on stage, okay?” she said finally, blowing out a breath. “Jeff—well, he’s going by James now, but I knew him as Jeff. God, I hate this place.”
“So why work here?”
“Because I need money?” she said, giving him a duh look. “I moved to New York to get away from all memory of him, and it turns out that he works here too! Every fucking day I come in I have to see him, but I told myself I could do it, I could last long enough to get some savings and get another job. That’s when I realized—he’s doing the same thing to her.”
“You were his sub,” John said, and she nodded.
“It was fine at first. I mean, he brought me to stupid places like this one, dressed up to be on display, because that’s what subs are for,” she said, disgust coloring her tone. “But that was fine, we even had fun, but then he started changing. Ignoring my discomfort, ignoring my soft limits, and finally ignoring my safe word.”
Calm, ice cold rage ran through him, and he said, “You left him.”
“I did. He threatened me, I threatened to press charges, he left Atlanta shortly after. Everywhere I went still reminded me of him, though, so I moved here. He’s with that female sub now, the one he’s with on stage, and from what I’ve seen, he’s doing the same thing to her,” she said. “Except I don’t think she knows how to get away.”
“So you decided to poison him?”
“I tried talking to management; they didn’t want to hear it. I tried talking to Rina—that’s her name—but she’s too scared. I tried telling him to back off, and he just mocked me, told me no one would believe me, that I’d be seen as desperate.” She sighed. “I had to do something. He pissed me off so much. He hurt me, and now he’s hurting her, and he’s going to keep hurting her and he might kill her, but even if he doesn’t, he’s going to dump her once she’s broken and move onto someone else, and he’s never going to stop.”
“Oh, he’s going to stop,” John said, smiling grimly.
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’m going to have a long talk with him.”
“And who the fuck do you think you are?” demanded a voice from behind him.
John turned, and there stood Jeff. He gave him a very unfriendly smile. “Someone you’d probably rather not know.” He glanced past Jeff’s shoulder and noticed the sub who was presumably Rina frozen in the doorway.
He actually leered, looking him over. “I wouldn’t be so hasty.”
“Sorry, taken,” he said mildly. “We’re going to have a talk about the way you treat your subs.”
“Of course you believe her bullshit. You’re all so fucking gullible.” He moved, deliberately crowding John’s space, and ordered, “How about you get on your knees and make it up to me?”
John smiled, moving with lightning-quick efficiency. He jabbed, blocked a terrible punch, twisted him around, sent him down with a strike to the kidney, and grabbed a few ties off the table. All in all, he had him subdued in less than a minute. “I told you I was taken,” he said. “Now. Rina, is it?” he added, looking over toward the door. She nodded mutely. “How has he been treating you?”
“You keep your mouth shut,” Jeff snapped.
John picked up another tie. “Either you shut up,” he said slowly, “or I shove this down your throat. Your choice.”
Jeff shut up.
“Rina?”
She hesitated, then blurted out in a rush, “He knows I don’t like pain, but…” She swallowed, lifting her skirt just enough to show the brand marks on her thighs.
Alana kicked his legs. “You asshole!” John let her kick him again before making any effort to stop her.
“I know someone you should talk to,” he said to Rina. “Alana here can go with you. Her name is Joss Carter. She’s a detective, and she doesn’t like it when doms mistreat their subs. She’ll help you.”
His phone started ringing, and he turned on the Bluetooth. “Harold. Can you call Carter?”
“Already done, Mr. Reese. She’s on her way,” Harold said. “You know I’m always listening.”
John smiled. He gave Rina a gentle look. “Do you think you can talk to her?”
“You’ll go with me?” she asked Alana.
Alana nodded fiercely. “Absolutely.”
“Okay,” Rina said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good,” John said, picking up the bottled water and the Xanax. “I’ll just take this, I think.”
Alana gave him a grateful look. “Thank you…I don’t even know your name.”
“John,” he said.
“Thank you, John,” she repeated. “I knew you were different,” she added after a moment. “You and your dom. You seemed so…at ease with each other.”
“Hear that, Harold?” he asked, amused. “We’re different.”
“I don’t think that was the salient point, Mr. Reese,” he said dryly.
---
Watching Carter lead Jeff out of the club, handcuffed, was satisfying in a way he couldn’t quite describe. Alana and Rina followed after her, and John couldn’t help but notice how effortlessly Alana was keeping Rina calm. It almost made him smile.
“Let’s go home, Harold,” he said. “I think I’ve had enough of this place.” He glanced down at himself. “And these clothes.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Harold said. “As for those clothes, I believe I recall you mentioning something about them earlier. Something about begging?”
“Yes,” John said slowly, smirking, as Harold’s gaze smoldered. “And getting me out of them.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged, John,” Harold replied, tone mild but effective, if the way John found himself moving closer was any indication. “This way.”
John followed.
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Mention of abusive relationships.
Pairing: Finch/Reese
Summary: John and Harold are "undercover" at a dynamic club for a number. That's always fun.
Word Count: 2,715
Disclaimer: All copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. This work is not created for profit and constitutes fair use.
A/N: This is my own damn fault. I should have known better than to write in D/sverse; it always ends up eating my brain. Thanks for the beta, Kelly.
“If you would hold still, Mr. Reese,” Harold said, and then very unhelpfully ran his hands down his thighs, smoothing the denim. The jeans might as well have been painted on for how tightly they fit, which made his body’s reactions to the way Harold had been painstakingly dressing him more than obvious. “This club has very…exacting standards for how a sub must appear.”
“I know, Harold,” he said, voice huskier than even his usual low murmur.
Harold stood back and examined him, face just the tiniest bit flushed. John glanced down at himself as well, taking it in: tight, almost sheer black shirt, tighter jeans, boots, eyeliner, slightly different hairstyle; everything about it screamed sub, which was strange for him. The suit he usually wore was cut in such a neutral way, flattering but impressively ambiguous. Sure, the collar now made his gender apparent, but it usually took people a second to notice it, what with everything going on when he met them. He privately enjoyed watching that realization.
This outfit, on the other hand, was nothing but obvious, and while his current physical predicament made it somewhat uncomfortable, he was slightly surprised to find he didn’t really mind.
The way Harold was looking at him certainly didn’t hurt matters, of course.
“Well, Harold?” he asked, raising his hands outward and turning in a circle. “How do I look?” When he completed the rotation, he knelt in front of him, smirking at the ragged breath Harold took.
“You certainly look every bit the part,” Harold managed, his hand moving to John’s neck. He slipped two fingers under the collar, just touching, and this was definitely not helping his physical discomfort.
“Our latest number starts work in half an hour,” he said, forcing himself to focus on the reason for this costume theater in the first place. “We should go, before…”
“Before what, Mr. Reese?” Harold asked, a note of command in his voice, and he tugged on the collar.
John’s gaze dropped and he leaned into the touch, breath quickening. “Before I start begging you to get me out of these clothes, Harold.”
“That would defeat the purpose,” he agreed, somewhat raggedly, after a moment. “Although…perhaps we ought to revisit that idea later this evening.”
John somehow managed not to groan. Maybe the night would go quickly.
“There she is,” John murmured, indicating their number as they made their way to a table inside the bar-slash-club. It was fairly high-end—the cover charge, at one time, would have made him raise his eyebrows, though less so now that he knew Harold. The rest of the subs in the place were dressed much like himself, definitely on display.
Alana Parker was a server, a switch, new to town, and apparently in some kind of trouble.
“She doesn’t look particularly distressed,” Harold noted, and they sat.
John scanned the crowd. No one else seemed to be paying her any special attention, and she wasn’t going out of her way to avoid anyone. It was possible her predicament had nothing to do with her job, but being so new to the city, the few local acquaintances she did have were exclusively from here. It had seemed the most logical place for something to be wrong.
“Hi,” she said cheerily, approaching them. “I’m Alana; I’ll be your server this evening. Can I get you anything to drink?”
Interestingly, she made eye contact with both of them. Service personnel were generally encouraged to take their cues from the dom at the table, in his experience, and that went doubly so for a dynamic club like this one.
John didn’t particularly care what he drank, so he glanced at Harold, quirking his lips. Harold merely rolled his eyes and said, “Two glasses of your best red wine, please.”
She jotted that down, a curious look flitting across her face when she glanced between them. She covered it decently with a friendly smile. “Coming right up.”
“Thank you,” he said, and she nodded, looking even more curious now. She moved on to her next table, and he looked at Harold. “I think we confused her.”
“She’s young,” he said. “And for a conventional relationship, we are exceedingly unconventional, Mr. Reese.”
“There is that,” he agreed, amused, and then caught sight of Alana again out of the corner of his eye. She was still smiling, seemingly friendly, but her body language was much stiffer. The table she was serving held a dom and two subs, both dressed even more provocatively than he was, and it seemed like the dom was also trying to flirt with Alana.
“How charming,” said Harold in his driest tone, voicing the thought for him.
“Do you think she knows him, or is it just general distaste?”
“Either way, we ought to keep an eye on him.” Harold stood. “I’ll clone his phone on the way to the restroom.”
John nodded and Harold left the table, walking more slowly as he passed by the other dom. Alana disappeared through the doors behind the bar, and he took the opportunity to survey the room again. Everyone seemed involved in themselves to the point of exclusion; no one stuck out as out-of-place or seemed suspicious.
“Did someone actually leave you here all alone?” asked a voice, off to his left, and John glanced over. It was the dom from earlier. “I noticed you looking around, had to come say something. You can come join us if you’re feeling neglected.” He gestured toward his table.
“I’m fine,” John said mildly, unable to help his amusement. His cluelessness combined with his staggering overconfidence was almost impressive.
“Yeah, you are,” he said, giving him a onceover that was anything but subtle. “I’m Rick.”
“Rick, seriously? He’s with someone.” Alana had returned, two glasses of wine on her tray.
“Doesn’t look like it to me.”
“Pardon me,” Harold said, with impeccable timing—as usual. John had to hide his grin. “Can I help you?”
“Whoa,” said Rick, looking Harold up and down. “Who let you in here? This isn’t a gay club, dude.”
Harold gave him his best you are unimpressive and unworthy of my time expression. It had to be one of his favorite things about Harold, this sort of effortless presence he carried without fanfare but could brandish lethally when necessary. “I am aware of that, thank you.” The words were perfectly neutral, but the tone would have stopped even the most dominant of doms at ten paces. He slid into the booth next to John, a hand resting at the back of his neck, and John didn’t even have to exaggerate how readily he relaxed into it.
“Here are your drinks,” Alana said, smiling, while Rick looked dumbstruck. She looked at Rick, rolling her eyes. “Maybe you should get back to your own table? Since you’re so worried about subs being left alone.”
Rick shook his head, took one last glance at them, and then retreated. Alana smiled again. “Sorry about that,” she said.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” John said pleasantly, and she nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “Can I get you anything else?”
“We’re fine for now,” Harold said.
She left them, and John couldn’t help but smirk at Harold. He hadn’t moved his hand from the back of his neck, and at said smirk, his grip tightened. “Jealous, Harold?”
“I had prepared myself for the fact that you would be hit on,” he said. “Apparently not thoroughly enough.”
John smirked, taking a sip of his wine. “I didn’t say I mind.” Before Harold could respond to that, he continued. “I think she knows him as more than just a customer,” he told him. “When she intervened, she called him by name.”
“His last name is Quentin,” Harold said. At his look, he elaborated, dryly, “Not a particularly discreet man, Mr. Quentin. He had his credit card in plain sight on his table.”
John snorted. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“There’s only so much I can do with nothing but a smartphone to work with, but I’m running a search.”
John took out his own phone and discreetly snapped a picture of Rick Quentin. He added the name, said, “Sending his picture to Carter,” and hit send.
The lights dimmed, and Harold glanced at his phone. “Nine o’clock,” he said. “The first show.”
It turned out to be a male dom with two subs, one male, one female. Both were barely dressed, unsurprisingly, and the dom was the expected kind—tall, built, in perfect shape, wore his dominance on his sleeve. In other words, completely uninteresting.
John scanned the crowd again, most of whom were watching the show with rapt attention. He spotted Alana near the bar, a deep frown on her face, and then watched her disappear into the back. “I think the show upset her,” he said, standing. “I’m going to see if I can find out anything.”
“Be careful, Mr. Reese.”
“When am I not?” he asked, and smirked at Harold’s look. He left the table and headed for the bar, casually slipping behind it and through the door. It was easy with everyone’s attention on the show.
He found himself in a hallway. A doorway on his left led to a small kitchen, which he passed. The first door on his right led to a locker room, and it had a doorway leading off it, to another hallway, with a row of doors—dressing rooms, given the signs pinned up. One of the doors was ajar, and he heard movement inside—suspicious movement, the kind that indicated someone was sneaking around. He retrieved his gun—ankle holster, the only place his outfit offered any give—and moved closer, pushing the door further open.
He was surprised to see Alana pouring something powdery into a bottle of mineral water. Her head jerked up, and she gave him the most classical version of the deer-caught-in-headlights look that he’d ever seen. Her eyes widening the second she noticed his gun, she blurted, “It’s not what it looks like!”
“It looks like you’re spiking that bottle of water with…” he trailed off, noticing the bottle on the table. He picked it up, and continued, “...Xanax.”
“You don’t seem like a cop,” she said, frowning.
“Good thing I’m not,” he said. “Whose water is that, Alana, and why are you poisoning them?”
“Who are you?”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
She met his eyes defiantly for a long moment. “It’s that bastard’s on stage, okay?” she said finally, blowing out a breath. “Jeff—well, he’s going by James now, but I knew him as Jeff. God, I hate this place.”
“So why work here?”
“Because I need money?” she said, giving him a duh look. “I moved to New York to get away from all memory of him, and it turns out that he works here too! Every fucking day I come in I have to see him, but I told myself I could do it, I could last long enough to get some savings and get another job. That’s when I realized—he’s doing the same thing to her.”
“You were his sub,” John said, and she nodded.
“It was fine at first. I mean, he brought me to stupid places like this one, dressed up to be on display, because that’s what subs are for,” she said, disgust coloring her tone. “But that was fine, we even had fun, but then he started changing. Ignoring my discomfort, ignoring my soft limits, and finally ignoring my safe word.”
Calm, ice cold rage ran through him, and he said, “You left him.”
“I did. He threatened me, I threatened to press charges, he left Atlanta shortly after. Everywhere I went still reminded me of him, though, so I moved here. He’s with that female sub now, the one he’s with on stage, and from what I’ve seen, he’s doing the same thing to her,” she said. “Except I don’t think she knows how to get away.”
“So you decided to poison him?”
“I tried talking to management; they didn’t want to hear it. I tried talking to Rina—that’s her name—but she’s too scared. I tried telling him to back off, and he just mocked me, told me no one would believe me, that I’d be seen as desperate.” She sighed. “I had to do something. He pissed me off so much. He hurt me, and now he’s hurting her, and he’s going to keep hurting her and he might kill her, but even if he doesn’t, he’s going to dump her once she’s broken and move onto someone else, and he’s never going to stop.”
“Oh, he’s going to stop,” John said, smiling grimly.
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’m going to have a long talk with him.”
“And who the fuck do you think you are?” demanded a voice from behind him.
John turned, and there stood Jeff. He gave him a very unfriendly smile. “Someone you’d probably rather not know.” He glanced past Jeff’s shoulder and noticed the sub who was presumably Rina frozen in the doorway.
He actually leered, looking him over. “I wouldn’t be so hasty.”
“Sorry, taken,” he said mildly. “We’re going to have a talk about the way you treat your subs.”
“Of course you believe her bullshit. You’re all so fucking gullible.” He moved, deliberately crowding John’s space, and ordered, “How about you get on your knees and make it up to me?”
John smiled, moving with lightning-quick efficiency. He jabbed, blocked a terrible punch, twisted him around, sent him down with a strike to the kidney, and grabbed a few ties off the table. All in all, he had him subdued in less than a minute. “I told you I was taken,” he said. “Now. Rina, is it?” he added, looking over toward the door. She nodded mutely. “How has he been treating you?”
“You keep your mouth shut,” Jeff snapped.
John picked up another tie. “Either you shut up,” he said slowly, “or I shove this down your throat. Your choice.”
Jeff shut up.
“Rina?”
She hesitated, then blurted out in a rush, “He knows I don’t like pain, but…” She swallowed, lifting her skirt just enough to show the brand marks on her thighs.
Alana kicked his legs. “You asshole!” John let her kick him again before making any effort to stop her.
“I know someone you should talk to,” he said to Rina. “Alana here can go with you. Her name is Joss Carter. She’s a detective, and she doesn’t like it when doms mistreat their subs. She’ll help you.”
His phone started ringing, and he turned on the Bluetooth. “Harold. Can you call Carter?”
“Already done, Mr. Reese. She’s on her way,” Harold said. “You know I’m always listening.”
John smiled. He gave Rina a gentle look. “Do you think you can talk to her?”
“You’ll go with me?” she asked Alana.
Alana nodded fiercely. “Absolutely.”
“Okay,” Rina said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good,” John said, picking up the bottled water and the Xanax. “I’ll just take this, I think.”
Alana gave him a grateful look. “Thank you…I don’t even know your name.”
“John,” he said.
“Thank you, John,” she repeated. “I knew you were different,” she added after a moment. “You and your dom. You seemed so…at ease with each other.”
“Hear that, Harold?” he asked, amused. “We’re different.”
“I don’t think that was the salient point, Mr. Reese,” he said dryly.
Watching Carter lead Jeff out of the club, handcuffed, was satisfying in a way he couldn’t quite describe. Alana and Rina followed after her, and John couldn’t help but notice how effortlessly Alana was keeping Rina calm. It almost made him smile.
“Let’s go home, Harold,” he said. “I think I’ve had enough of this place.” He glanced down at himself. “And these clothes.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Harold said. “As for those clothes, I believe I recall you mentioning something about them earlier. Something about begging?”
“Yes,” John said slowly, smirking, as Harold’s gaze smoldered. “And getting me out of them.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged, John,” Harold replied, tone mild but effective, if the way John found himself moving closer was any indication. “This way.”
John followed.