He suppressed a frustrated groan when Barton stopped several feet away. This was one of the worst angles for a gun threat, because there was no good, reliable defense at this distance. Barton was too far for Levi to close the distance and disarm him before he could get a shot off, and too close for him to try to disengage altogether. Levi’s best chance lay in talking him down.
“Have you ever actually fired a gun before?” Levi asked. “Do you have any idea how loud they are? If you shoot me, this room will be swarmed within minutes. You’ll never get away.”
“I’m willing to take that chance, if I have to. But for now, I want you to sit in that chair.” Barton indicated the chair in question with a jerk of his chin, never taking his eyes off Levi—or giving him an opening.
Levi stayed where he was. “Why?”
“I did my research. You’re one of the lead detectives on the Seven of Spades case. It makes sense that he would want to kill you, and if you die the same way Patty did, they’ll think he killed her too.”
Levi might have laughed at the idea that Barton could successfully stab him to death, except that wanting Levi to sit in a chair first probably meant that Barton meant to bind him to the chair before wielding the knife. No way could Levi let that happen. If he resisted enough, Barton might come closer in an attempt to physically force him into the chair.
“That’s not going to work,” he said. “I already told you, Patty’s death didn’t look anything like how the Seven of Spades kills, and neither will mine. They’ll know it was you.”
“Maybe so. But it’ll at least introduce reasonable doubt.” Barton’s hands spasmed around his gun, and his words dripped with hatred. “Either way, you’ll still be dead. That might be good enough for me. Now get in the chair.”
“I’ll take my chances with the gun,” Levi said.
All the lights went out.
Without a second’s hesitation, he dove to the floor, launching himself at a diagonal and landing in a soft break-fall. A shot rang out, deafening in the small space, as Barton fired wildly into the darkness.
Levi flipped onto his back and recoiled his right leg, then lashed out in the direction he remembered Barton standing. His foot connected solidly with Barton’s knee. A scream of pain was followed by a heavy thud—hopefully, Barton dropping to the ground, though the total lack of ambient light meant Levi couldn’t be sure.
There was a sudden, thunderous pounding on the door, accompanied by urgent shouting from the hallway. Levi couldn’t let that distract him. He swung himself onto his knees and leapt forward, spending a few confused moments tussling with Barton in the dark before he managed to get on top of Barton’s back.
Barton was holding the gun in only his right hand now; Levi grabbed his wrist and slammed it against the ground several times, until he shrieked and let go. Levi reached for the gun himself, but Barton’s flailing hand shoved it forward and beyond the range of his grasp.
He heard the metallic thunk of a deadbolt being disengaged, and the door to the room opened, only to come up short against the security chain. Levi’s attention was just diverted for a moment, but it gave Barton an opportunity to drive an elbow back into his ribs.
Grunting, Levi rolled away and sprang to his feet. He’d never been a strong ground fighter—all of his training told him to never stay on the ground if there was any possible way for him to get up. The problem was that both Barton and the gun were still out there, and the room was entirely dark. All sources of electricity in the room and the hallway beyond were dead, and the heavy curtains over the balcony door prevented even the bright lights of Las Vegas revelry from entering.
A heavy weight smashed into the door, the impact shockingly loud. Then it happened again. And again.
Between the noise and the utter darkness, Levi couldn’t pinpoint Barton’s location. He shrank back against the wall and used it to guide himself as he slid along to the nightstand, where he picked up the remote control he’d left there last night.
A moment of intense concentration, and he heard a frantic shuffling underneath the rattling and shuddering of the door. He whipped the remote as hard as he could and was met with a startled yelp.
Levi tensed, preparing to attack. Then two things happened simultaneously: the lights came back on, and the door exploded open as the security chain snapped under the relentless assault.
He watched in stunned disbelief as Dominic barreled into the room like an eighteen-wheeler. Dominic threw himself at Barton, who had just managed to recover the gun; it went flying as he took Barton to the ground.
Darting forward, Levi snatched the gun up himself. In three seconds flat, Dominic had maneuvered both himself and Barton onto their knees, holding Barton in a vicious choke hold that Levi winced just looking at. His right elbow was pressed up underneath Barton’s jaw, his beefy bicep and forearm squeezing the carotid arteries on either side of Barton’s throat. The worst part, though, was that his left arm was flat behind Barton’s head, his hand clutching his own bicep so his other forearm bore down on the nape of Barton’s neck.
Even Levi would have had little hope of escaping a choke like that. Of course, he would never have let the choke progress so far in the first place.
Barton thrashed around in a frenzy, clawing at Dominic’s forearm, his face turning red and then purple. Out in the hallway, a hysterical hotel employee was on the phone with the police.
“You should relax,” Dominic said mildly. “I don’t want to hurt you, but accidental deaths from choke holds like this aren’t uncommon. And I’m only exerting about three-quarters force.”
Barton slumped in Dominic’s grip, his body going limp save for his balled fists. He glowered up at Levi with the same incandescent rage that had led him to stab his wife to death.
Still reeling with shock, Levi could only manage one word. “How?”
“You’ve got a real weird guardian angel,” Dominic said.
To Levi’s great displeasure, Jonah Gibbs was the first responding officer, even though his usual beat was nowhere near the hotel. Never one for social graces, he made constant wisecracks as he took Barton into custody and established the perimeter of the crime scene. At one point, he waggled his eyebrows at Levi and Dominic and said, “Too bad this ruined your night, huh, guys?”
Levi crossed his arms and glared, but what could he say? It’s not what it looks like? Nobody had ever believed that line in the history of the English language.
It took about an hour for the detective in charge to release Levi and Dominic, allowing Levi to take a few essential items with him and promising the rest of his belongings would be sent along once the scene had been fully processed. On his way out, Levi paused to look at the security chain, dangling in two pieces from the door and the jamb. The metal links had broken clean in half.
He shivered.
A hotel employee showed Levi to a new room on a much higher floor. Dominic accompanied them without comment. Levi badly needed to speak with him in private, away from curious ears, and it seemed he understood that without being told.
When Dominic had given his statement to the detective, he said that he’d been directed to the hotel by someone claiming to be the Seven of Spades. The detective had asked why he’d been so quick to believe the warnings, and he’d shrugged and said, “I’d rather have come and found out it was a trap than stayed away and found out it was true.”
Once they were alone in Levi’s new room with the door locked and chained behind them, Levi dropped his bag on the bed. “I need a drink.”
Dominic remained silent, but his expression made his reservations clear.
“I’m not planning to get drunk again, for God’s sake.” Levi opened the minibar. “You want something?”
“Vodka?”
Levi tossed him a tiny bottle of Stoli, then grabbed the Jack Daniels for himself. He drank the entire thing in one shot, grimaced, and dropped the empty bottle into the trash.
While Dominic settled into one of the room’s overst
uffed armchairs, Levi got in touch with Martine to assure her that he was fine. It turned out that she’d been calling him earlier to warn him that Barton had slipped away from the cop keeping an eye on him; in the aftermath of the attack, he’d found several increasingly frantic voicemails on his phone.
He accepted a scolding, promised multiple times that he’d never ignore a call from her again, and hung up a few minutes later. With that taken care of, he turned to Dominic. “I need you to tell me exactly what the Seven of Spades said to you.”
“I can do better than tell you.” Dominic handed over his cell phone. “I can show you.”
Levi reviewed the odd text exchange, shaking his head as he read. “I don’t get it,” he said, returning the phone to Dominic. “I mean, it makes sense that they’d be following Barton. They told me themselves they would kill him if we couldn’t arrest him first. The five-day grace period will technically expire tonight at midnight, and they’d want to make sure he didn’t get away.” He dropped into the chair opposite Dominic’s. “Why risk so much to help me, though? Contacting you directly, calling 911—that was dangerous for them.”
“That’s not all,” said Dominic. “I’m pretty sure the Seven of Spades killed the hotel’s electricity.”
Levi agreed, but he wanted to hear Dominic’s reasoning. “What makes you say that?”
“While you were with Detective O’Brien, I talked to a couple of guys from the hotel. Nobody can figure out why the electricity went out at all, and what’s more, their emergency generator should have kicked on right away. Instead, there was a three-minute delay they can’t explain.”
“That makes this even crazier,” Levi said. “That would mean the Seven of Spades was here in the hotel, risking discovery just to protect me. Why?”
Dominic spread his hands. “Isn’t it obvious? They know you.”
“What?”
“I think you know the person behind the Seven of Spades. Maybe they’re a friend, maybe they’re just someone you work with, but there’s some connection beyond the case. When you were threatened, they felt responsible and took it very personally. I can’t imagine them reacting that way for a stranger.”
It wasn’t the first time Levi had considered this possibility, but hearing someone else say it aloud made it less abstract—and more sickening. “You think that while I’ve been investigating this case over the past week, I’ve come face-to-face with the Seven of Spades, spoken to them, and never known who they really were?”
“Yeah. I do.”
Levi groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck. This is insane.”
Dominic shifted in his chair, and for the first time, Levi noticed that he was favoring his right shoulder—holding it in a stiff, unnatural way.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
With a lopsided smile, Dominic said, “Shoulder’s a little sore. Forcing a door open by throwing yourself at it repeatedly is neither as easy or painless as it looks in the movies.”
Guilt swamped Levi. God, he should have realized—he should have anticipated that Dominic would be in pain after that. “I’ll get you some ice,” he said, rising from his chair. “Take off your jacket.”
He filled the ice bucket down the hall and returned to the room to find Dominic had folded his jacket on the table and piled his shoulder holster on top. Fetching a washcloth from the bathroom, Levi wrapped up some of the ice and approached, watching Dominic roll his injured shoulder experimentally beneath his long-sleeved shirt.
“Um . . . this will probably work better if you take the shirt off, too.”
Dominic met his eyes. For a moment, Levi was sure he would object, or just laugh it off—but then he started unbuttoning his shirt, not saying a word, looking up at Levi the whole time.
Levi felt oddly short of breath.
Grimacing slightly, Dominic peeled off his shirt and set it aside. He wore a sleeveless white undershirt beneath that clung to his muscles in a way that made Levi’s mouth go dry. Though Levi had seen him completely bare-chested three days earlier, this somehow felt more intimate, even dangerous.
Levi stepped closer and examined Dominic’s right shoulder. Visible bruising hadn’t set in yet, but it was badly swollen.
“Looks like you’ll have a nasty bruise tomorrow.” He gently pressed the makeshift ice pack to Dominic’s shoulder. “Are you sure it’s not dislocated?”
“I can say from experience that it’s definitely not,” said Dominic. “It’s not too bad, really.”
There was no reason for Levi to continue keeping the ice in place; Dominic could have easily held it with his left hand. Yet Dominic made no move to take over, and Levi didn’t ask him to.
“Thank you for coming,” Levi said, when the silence had dragged on too long.
“Of course.”
“No.” Levi’s throat was sore, his chest tight. “Not ‘of course.’ Do you know how few people would have done what you did? If you hadn’t come, or if you’d hesitated even for a couple of minutes, I could be dead right now.”
Dominic grinned. “Nah, I think you would’ve been fine. You’re a total badass.”
Levi rolled his eyes, a blush rising on his cheeks that he could do nothing to stop. “Is your shoulder feeling any better?”
“A little.” Dominic put his left hand on top of Levi’s, pressing the ice more firmly against the bruise. His shaky inhalation wasn’t a sound of pain.
The air was heavy and hard to breathe. Levi’s eyes roamed over Dominic’s body, taking him in. Usually, he was attracted to men with lean frames, not unlike his own. He’d never been with a man built like Dominic—massive shoulders, brawny biceps, a chest thick with well-defined musculature.
He’d never questioned those preferences before, either, but standing next to Dominic now, he knew it was because he felt uncomfortable around men who were physically stronger than him. Dominic didn’t make him uncomfortable, though. He could be trusted. Levi would never have to find out if he could defend himself against Dominic, because Dominic would never hurt him.
His free hand rested on Dominic’s arm, though he couldn’t remember putting it there. Every point of contact between their bodies prickled with heat, and Dominic’s eyes were dark.
“Levi,” he said, “you just ended a serious relationship yesterday. This is not a good idea.”
“I know. But objectively speaking, it wasn’t a good idea for you to come here tonight on the word of a serial killer. It wasn’t a good idea for you to follow me into that vet’s office. You seem to have a pretty good track record of turning bad ideas around.” Levi hesitated, then said, “You don’t want me?”
Dominic let out a strangled, incredulous laugh. “Oh, I want you. But only if you want me. Not just stress relief, or—or a rebound fuck.”
“That’s not what you are to me.”
Levi threaded his hand through Dominic’s gorgeous wavy hair and leaned down slowly, giving Dominic plenty of time to pull back if he wanted. Instead, Dominic tilted his face up and met Levi halfway.
It was soft, exploratory, the butterfly-gentle kiss of two people unfamiliar with each other’s bodies. Knowing Dominic had reservations, Levi held back, not wanting to be the one to push things further. It was Dominic who swept his tongue across Levi’s lower lip and into his mouth, deepening the kiss.
He moved both hands to Levi’s hips, his thumbs rubbing the prominent jut of Levi’s hipbones through his sweatpants. Levi was insanely sensitive there, even with the barrier of clothing; his body shuddered and he moaned into Dominic’s mouth.
That kicked things into a higher gear. Dominic’s answering groan was deep and hoarse as he tugged at Levi urgently. Levi dropped the ice-filled washcloth, uncaring as it scattered half-melted ice cubes across the carpet, and let himself be pulled onto Dominic’s lap.
Straddling Dominic’s powerful thighs, he wrapped his arms around Dominic’s neck and dove into a kiss that had become aggressive and hungry. Dominic pushed his hands underneath Levi’s
T-shirt to rub up and down his back. Their bodies were pressed tightly together, not a centimeter of space between them. Levi ground his hardening cock against Dominic’s stomach and felt Dominic swelling beneath him.
He was growing dizzy from lack of oxygen, so he pulled his mouth away from Dominic’s and kissed his neck instead. As Dominic tilted his head to the side, sighing in pleasure, he grabbed Levi’s ass with both hands and squeezed.
Startled, Levi bit down harder than he’d intended. Dominic gasped.
“Sorry,” Levi said, lifting his head.
Dominic looked at him with glazed eyes. “No, it’s fine. Mark me up as much as you want.”
Levi lowered his head to suck a bruise into the hollow of Dominic’s throat. Dominic arched against him, strong hands kneading Levi’s ass and driving him crazy.
“Get this shirt off me,” said Levi. He was burning up, even the lightweight fabric of his T-shirt unbearably smothering.
Dominic stripped him out of it, then stared at the body he’d revealed. “God, look at you,” he said, his voice so rich with admiration that Levi’s eyelids fluttered. Dominic dragged a knuckle over the hard ridges of Levi’s abdominal muscles. “You’re built like a fucking panther.”
His eyes intent on Levi’s face, Dominic dipped his thumbs beneath the waistband of Levi’s sweatpants to caress his sensitive hipbones. Levi couldn’t control his reaction; he groaned and jerked, steadying himself on Dominic’s shoulders. He should have known Dominic was too perceptive to have missed his earlier response.
Not to be outdone, Levi retaliated by biting down on Dominic’s collarbone, licking and sucking at his skin. Dominic bore it stoically for a few seconds, his tightening grip on Levi’s hips the only sign of how much that affected him. Then he grunted and tugged Levi’s mouth back up to his own.
It had been three years since Levi had kissed anyone other than Stanton, and the adjustment was disorienting. Everything about Dominic was unfamiliar, from his size and shape to the playful, teasing way he kissed, which involved a lot of nipping and pulling back and provoking Levi into taking a more assertive role. Levi didn’t know Dominic’s body the way he knew Stanton’s, but that held its own excitement.
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