“You’re not scared of me,” I said, but a small part of me hoped he was. Fear kept people predictable. Fear made them easier to manage. Levi didn’t react with fear—he responded with fire, and I never had a good plan for people like that.
“I’m pissed about what you do to people,” he shot back.
That hit deeper than anything else could have. For a heartbeat, I felt something buckle inside me—an uncomfortable awareness I wasn’t just complicating my life; I was handing someone the leverage to hurt me. And the strangest thing was that some buried part of me didn’t care.
“I save lives, and people pay me,” I summarized. “How the fuck does that piss you off?”
“Did money make you watch that man kill Rufus?”
“Respect made me watch,” I snapped. His body pressed against mine, pushing me back to the wall. In the darkness,every point of contact was heightened—the warmth of his breath, the tension in his shoulders, the way his thighs brushed mine.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” he whispered.
There it was. His crack. His truth.
“You’re shaking,” I murmured.
“Don’t.” His voice fractured. “We shouldn’t…”
“That isn’t no.”
His breath stilled, then released in a quiet, broken exhale. I saw the moment he lost control—the subtle drop of his shoulders, the way his hand shifted from gripping my shirt to holding me.
In the next heartbeat, he dragged my mouth to his.
It wasn’t a kiss so much as a collision—our teeth knocking, heat spilling between us, the sheer force of him swallowing my breath. I pushed him back into the wall beside the door, and he gasped, not from pain but from the shock of wanting more.
“You’re tracking me,” he said again, his lips brushing mine, his breath shaking.
“And you’re tracking me.”
“What do you want?”
“This,” I said, and kissed him again.
I tore at him, desperation fueling my every movement, then I got his jeans open and wrapped my hand around him—hot, hard, ready.
He reached for his ear, took out a small coms receiver, and pushed it into his pocket. Then he groaned, head tipping back against the wall.
“Fuck—Doc?—”
“Alejandro,” I whispered.
The second it left my mouth, something punched through my chest hard enough to steal my breath. Why the hell had I given him my name? At least I hadn’t given him my real name, but inthat moment—his hand on me, his breath against my cheek—my new name clawed its way free.
Why was that so fucking important? Why did I need him to know part ofmewhen no one else, other than Marisol and the twins, did?
His hand found me, sliding under my waistband with a roughness that made my breath falter. He stroked me again, more confident now, his breath landing warm on my cheek.
“I need something that isn’t guilt,” he whispered, his forehead pressing to mine.
“I need something that isn’t your fear,” I answered before I could stop myself.
He made a low sound, relief breaking open inside pain, and kissed me hard enough to bruise.
We moved together, fast and messy, our hands working each other in frantic rhythm. Heat built quickly, the dark turning every sound into something intimate and dangerous—the hitch of his breath, the scrape of fabric, the soft, involuntary noises he couldn’t swallow.
“Levi,” I managed, my voice rough. “Look at me.”
