Lana by R.K. Lilley

psycho ex out the door.  

    Akira came back inside less than five minutes later, looking positively volatile.   His eyes were still wild as he approached me.  
      I was sitting in my same chair by the bar, Mari and Tutu hovering over me, carefully rolling up the sleeve of my scratched-up arm to see how bad it was.   Other than a missing hunk of hair, it was the only part of my body she had managed to reach.   I was kind of proud of the fact.   So were Mari and Tutu, going by their excited chatter.  
      “Milena’s been in lots of fights, but I’d say you won, pretty girl,” Mari was saying, more concerned with establishing my victory than with the actual fight. I couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm.
      Tutu nodded sagely.   “I always knew it,” she said, as though she had predicted the whole thing and knew exactly how it would turn out.   It was typical Tutu.  
      Mari and I shared an amused look.  
      Akira’s first good look at the deep gouges in my arm had him turning away.   He strode to the nearest wall, pulled back his arm, and punched a hole in it.   It was a very impressive display of both his rage and his strength.   I wanted to tease him about it, but knew that it was too soon to try joking with him like that.  
      His eyes were less wild but just as agonized when he approached me again.   “I’m so sorry, baby.”   He squeezed in to embrace me, completely ignoring his mother and sister, who were both cursing him for taking their spots.  
      He kissed the top of my head.   “Come on, Lana.   You need to have those cleaned up at the hospital.”  
      I let him pull me gently to my feet by my good hand.   Mari and Tutu shouted advice at him as he pulled me to the door.  
      “Get back to work,” he shouted back, ushering me outside.  
      He was very quiet in the car, using one hand to drive, the other one warmly gripping my knee.   The touch was meant to be comforting, but it was still an instant turn-on for me.   I used the hand of my uninjured arm to inch the loose skirt of my sundress up my legs, parting them as I did so.   Akira shot me a stern look, but didn’t fight me when I slid his hand higher, onto my inner thigh.   I worked the material of my dress high, until I was exposed enough to shove his hand just where I wanted it.  
      He stroked me with a soft touch, though his eyes were still hard as he gave me a censorious look.   “You are incorrigible,” he told me, plunging a thick finger inside of me.   He stopped the divine motion almost immediately, since we were already pulling into the hospital parking lot.  
      “I won the fight,” I told him proudly as he pulled me out of the car by my good hand.   I wanted him to know that, in case he hadn’t noticed when he was breaking it up.
      He glared at me.   “You shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place,” he told me with his best lecturing tone.  
      I glared back.   “You think I started that?   I was just defending myself.   Your ex is a psycho, but I still won.”
      His face tightened harshly enough that I felt it pull at the strings on my heart.   I could see, just from his face, that he was blaming himself for the whole sordid fiasco.   “It’s my fault.   I shouldn’t have left your side.   I was so sure she wouldn’t show.   I warned her that if she came to the bar while you were in town, or laid so much as a finger on you, that she’d lose her job.   I thought surely that would be enough to keep her from trying to harm you, but she either didn’t believe me, or just didn’t care.”
      I was shocked.   “So you fired her?”
      He nodded, his face hard.   “And you need to press charges.   She needs to know that she can’t touch you.”  
      I mulled it over.   Our fight had been unwelcome, and my arm hurt like hell, but Milena losing her job over it seemed like enough of a punishment, to me.   “I’m not going to.   If you fired