Page 9 of Whips and Chains (Saint View Murder Squad #2)

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“ S o does anyone want to take bets on how Fang is going to kill Levi?” X flopped down onto Violet’s couch like he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’m thinking poison dart, administered via a blowgun disguised as a vape.”

Levi side-eyed him from where he paced beside the sliding glass doors that led onto the balcony. “He’s not going to kill me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Were we not looking at the same guy? Huge, blond motherfucker who was pretty pissed off you were touching his little sister?” I fought to keep the amusement off my face and leaned my elbows back against the kitchen countertop.

“And he doesn’t even know you had her naked and riding your cock just a few hours earlier.

How do you think he’s going to react when he finds out about that? ”

Levi groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Shit. This is fucked.”

I glanced at X. “I’m putting a hundred on an old-fashioned classic. Sharpened toothbrush shiv, straight to the kidney.”

X nodded. “Very prison chic. I like it.”

Levi glared at both of us.

But all his annoyance did was light up the green in his eyes that was already impossible to miss, even from across the room.

I couldn’t get the image of Violet riding his cock out of my head, which was exactly why I had been so quick to bring it up.

Her thick thighs snug around his waist. His abs flexing every time he pressed his hips upward to pump into her.

His expression when he’d come, buried deep inside her.

I’d been so hard watching them. It had taken all my willpower to keep my ass on the chair in her room and my hands to myself.

Not that I was about to tell him that. One foursome did not make us friends.

A sharp knock at the door interrupted the conversation.

X glanced over at it. “Did she come back?”

I pushed off the stool and moved toward the door. “Yeah, she came back and now she’s knocking on the door to her apartment, ready to ask for another round of kinky three-man sex.”

X’s expression turned hopeful. “You think?”

“No, X. I don’t think. And clearly, neither do you.”

I peered through the peephole, any humor I might have been feeling disintegrating at the sight of the men on the other side of the door. “Cops,” I muttered to the other two before I pulled it open.

One of the uniformed officers on the other side of the door flashed his badge at me. “Morning, sir. Is this the home of…” He stared down at his notepad. “Violet Garrisen?”

I nodded, mentally assessing how much of a threat the two of them could be and how quickly the three of us on this side of the doorway could handle them if the need arose.

But my assessment came back as low risk.

These looked like beat cops, most likely sent here to inform her of Toby’s death. “Yes. This is her place.”

“Can I speak to her, please?”

“She’s not here right now.” I wasn’t going to give them any more information than they directly asked for.

Anyone who lived in this area knew better than to tell them more than you absolutely had to.

The cops were well known to twist your words to suit their narrative, so the less you told them, the better.

“Do you know where she is?”

“At her brother’s place.”

The cop nodded, jotting something down on his pad of paper. “We’ll need his details, if you have them.”

“We don’t.” I wasn’t lying. I had no idea where Fang lived, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have said anything. They could do the math themselves. It would buy us some time to let Violet know they were coming, and that she should be ready with an alibi and cover story. One that matched ours.

The cop eyed me, clearly getting irritated with my lack of cooperation. “And who are you exactly?”

“A friend.”

He glanced past me to the other guys standing behind me. “And you two are friends as well, I assume?”

I didn’t like his tone.

X narrowed his eyes at him. “Are you insinuating Violet can’t have more than one friend?”

The cop crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not insinuating anything. But I do need to know who was in this apartment last night.”

“We were,” Levi answered. “Violet too.”

“But not her roommate?”

Levi played it cool. “Toby? No, he was here earlier in the night but he went out somewhere. Hasn’t come home as far as I know.”

“As far as you know? It’s a small apartment, I think you’d know if he had returned, don’t you?”

Levi shrugged. “We were busy.”

“Doing what?”

X answered before Levi or I could. “Having sex.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. He was so painfully, brutally honest at times. It kinda made me want to choke him.

Both police officers’ eyes had widened.

“You were…having sex.” He squinted. “All three of you.”

“Yep!” X said proudly. “All three of us.”

The cops’ gazes bounced around us.

There was a hint of laughter on the older cop’s rounded face. “Together?”

Levi stiffened, his voice harsh when he spoke, clearly no love lost between him and law enforcement.

“Do you really need the blow-by-blow playbook? You want to know who touched who? Who sucked and licked and fucked the others? You want to write that down in your notebook so you can share it with your pervy friends back at the station?”

“Levi,” I said quietly, a warning in my tone. He was getting carried away, and the last thing I had patience for this morning was him getting arrested and us having to work out how the hell to get him out, along with everything else.

The cop stared at him. “No, but the woman will need an alibi, so if she was involved in all the sex, then we’ll need to know.”

My irritation with the two officers bubbled up. “That’s none of your—”

X cut me off, not picking up on my or Levi’s vibe at all, as usual. “Oh yeah, she was definitely involved. She was kind of the star of the show, if you know what I mean. And it really was a show. Whip over there was a total perv, just sitting in the armchair watching her bounce on Levi—”

“X!” I snapped.

“What?”

I gave him a look, but he clearly didn’t get the meaning of it because he turned back to the officers.

“Have you spoken to the neighbors yet? Did they report screaming? Because if they did, don’t worry. I think that was just me. Sometimes I scream when I come.”

Levi dropped his head back on his shoulders, tilting his face to the ceiling. “Someone kill me now.”

I shared the sentiment.

The cops stared at X for a long moment, clearly never having experienced anyone with quite as much verbal diarrhea that it was taking their brains a moment to catch up. So long, in fact, X leaned in and pointed at the notepad.

“Did you want to write that down? Screams when he comes…”

At this point, I realized X was messing with them just for his own amusement, and I moved to his side so I could dig my elbow sharply into his ribs. “If there’s nothing else you need right now, Officers, we have things to do.”

“Like more sex,” X stage-whispered to them. “He can’t get enough. I think it’s the age gap thing that’s got him so horny, you know? All the Viagra—”

I shoved X out the door so sharply he stumbled, and the cops had to catch him. I slammed the door behind him and leaned my back against it.

Levi battled to keep the laughter off his face. “Should I get a chair to shove beneath the door handle so he can’t get back in? You know the lock is broken.”

“Please!”

But I needn’t have bothered. X’s voice trailed back as he and the officers descended the stairs. “Do either of you like ice cream? My van is right out front. I can make you anything you want. Banana split? Milkshake?”

I shook my head at Levi, their voices drifting away. “I’m going to kill him.”

Levi leaned back on the glass balcony doors. “Could you maybe give it a minute? We’ve got enough murders to deal with right now.”

I strode across the room and slumped down onto the well-worn couch. “We need to talk to Violet.”

He sat next to me, the cushions dipping beneath his weight. “Don’t see that happening anytime soon. I just texted her to let her know the cops had been here and got this back in return from an unknown number.”

He held his phone up to show me the GIF of someone smashing a set of dusters into a banana. The soft fruit had no chance against the brass knuckles. I squinted at it as it played over, and then up at Levi.

“Rebel,” both of us said in unison.

I nudged his phone back toward him. “She’s like a tiny mean chihuahua, that one.”

Levi shoved me with his foot. “Don’t speak bad of chihuahuas. I used to have one. They’re great dogs.”

I glanced over at him. “Did you carry it in your purse too?”

He made a face at me. “Hilarious. My point was, they aren’t all mean. And I don’t even blame Rebel for being pissed at us. She’s just protecting Violet, and I can respect that.”

I nodded, leaning back on the soft cushions of the couch, trying not to notice Levi was still shirtless and his arm and shoulders were just inches away from touching mine. His warmth radiated through the tiny gap between us, enticing me to inch closer, though I refused to give in to the desire.

So the guy was hot. Who fucking cared? I’d seen a ton of hot guys naked. I worked with couples just as much as I worked with women, it didn’t matter to me if I was sucking and licking a pussy or a cock. I was just there to do a job.

But I was never attracted to them the way I was with Levi.

It was fucking annoying, noticing every little thing about him, especially when he was so clearly straight.

He’d gotten all stiff and weird when X had let those cops think the three of us had been having sex together.

It didn’t matter that none of us had touched each other and the entire night had been all about Violet.

Levi was as straight as a rod, and I had zero interest in trying to change his mind. I was too old for that shit.

But then he shifted on the couch that was really too small to accommodate two big men, and his warm skin brushed mine.

He didn’t glance my way, just stared at the TV that neither of us had turned on, his arm still pressed to mine.

Suddenly, all I could think about was dragging him back into that bedroom, just the two of us, and seeing what happened.

My arm burned where it touched his, electricity sizzling between us so hot I was sure it had to be leaving a mark, but Levi didn’t seem bothered at all. He just sighed and drummed his fingers on his thigh.

“We fucked up so bad. Everything she said, she was right. We shouldn’t have kept any of it from her. We could have gotten her killed last night.” He swore under his breath. “Dickson’s and Toby’s deaths are on us, aren’t they?”

I was so lost in the attraction it took me a second to register what he was talking about. I could have used one of Rebel’s knuckle-dusters to the junk just to get my head screwed on right. “I don’t know about Dickson, but Toby’s death is a hundred percent on us.”

Levi dropped forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “She’s never going to forgive us. And I don’t even blame her.”

I sighed heavily, that guilt rushing back in thick and fast. “All we can do is try to make it up to her.” I swallowed thickly, the words on my tongue turning sour. “Or respect that she doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

Levi glanced over at me sharply. “I can’t do that. I can’t just walk away. That’s not an option.” There was something hot in his eyes that told me he meant every word. “I’m fucking in love with her.”

I let out a long breath. Of course he was.

But Levi’s gaze didn’t let up. It burned through me. “Can you? Can you just walk away from her like that and pretend none of this…last night…can you pretend all of that didn’t happen?”

I felt my shields going up. The ones I kept tall around my heart to protect what was left of it.

I’d let them drop when I’d met Violet. And that had left room for my attraction to Levi.

Both of which were dangerous.

He was in love with her. And there was zero doubt in my mind she was in love with him too. I’d seen it time and time again in the way she looked at him. She might have been mad at him, but there was a connection there I couldn’t compete with, nor did I want to try.

She deserved a man who would love her as wholeheartedly as Levi did.

I couldn’t give her that. My heart was too fucking broken to give her anything more than sex.

And it always would be.