Lev (Shot Callers 1)

“The club was busy. I took my eyes off you a while then noticed I hadn’t seen you for a long time. I went to the bar, where Nas told me you’d been drinking and were sleeping it off.” The hand at my neck grasped me lightly, as if he was worried about my reaction, worried about me fleeing. “That was when I also realized I hadn’t seen Jeremiah for a long while.”

I blinked.

Jeremiah? What did this have to do with him?

He turned his face and his lips went to my temple. “He drugged you, Mina.” He added, “I’m sorry. I should’ve been watching you.”

I pulled back to look up at him and whispered, “What did he do?”

Lev searched my face. “Nothing, I think. Nas noticed the hickey on your neck right away, but I’m sure we interrupted before he could do any real damage. Now that you’re awake, maybe you can tell me if you’re sore.”

“I’m sore everywhere. My body aches.”

He shook his head. “No, Mina. Can you tell me if you’re sore anywhere you shouldn’t be?” He gave me a pointed look. “Intimate areas.”

I was too shocked to blush. I was still stuck on Jeremiah’s attempt to use me as a real life sex doll.

Focusing on the area he’d mentioned, I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.” Then I got angry. “Where is the asshole? Where is Jeremiah?”

He lifted his hand and brushed back the hair that had fallen over my forehead. “He’s not going to hurt anyone anymore. Trust me.”

I did trust him. I trusted him with every piece of my broken soul.

If there were anyone looking out for me, I’d want it to be Lev. I trusted him to protect me and keep me safe, and to be honest with me.

Then I looked down between us, and my brows rose. “Who undressed me?”

No hesitation. “I did.”

“I see,” I murmured, and quickly realized that perhaps I’d been hanging out with Lev too long when I gave answers like that. My eyes passed over his tented boxers and my brow rose higher. “Want to explain that?”

He frowned and squirmed. “I thought it was self-explanatory.” Then I did flush. “You were pressed up against me all night. I was told to check on you every hour and I did. I only did what the doctor ordered.”

My ego shrank ten whole sizes. “So you were only doing your duty.”

His brow furrowed, and he sent me a curt nod. And the remainder of my ego popped like a balloon and went whizzing through the air before it flew out the window.

Then he sighed as if he needed to get something off his chest. “It’s difficult to hold a beautiful woman all night and not be affected. I’m sorry if that offends you, but I don’t always have control of my body and its reactions.”

My ego flew backwards through the window and whizzed around the air before it came back to me, inflating six more sizes.

It was time to say something, preferably something clever. “I need to pee.”

Lev seemed frustrated. “Mina, I just told you that you were assaulted by a man who probably would’ve raped you, and you have yet to react.”

I looked Lev in the eye and told him honestly, “It wouldn’t be the first time.” I didn’t wait for his reaction. I slipped out of bed, held my pounding head, and shuffled to the bathroom, closing the door behind me, making an effort to lock it as loudly as possible.

The tears got to me in the shower. It seemed like an appropriate place to let them fall.

Sure, I acted like it didn’t bother me, but when I undressed and saw the hickeys covering my breasts, my pride fell fast and it hit me how serious the situation could have been.

I lifted my hands to run them over the deep red marks and hissed as my fingers brushed my tender nipples. His mouth had been there, and it had been harsh. I didn’t like that. And what was worse was that I couldn’t remember any of it.

It wasn’t a blur. It wasn’t a fuzzy memory. It just wasn’t there. And that didn’t feel good. It was confusing, and appalling, and it made me feel dirty, regardless of whether or not I was a willing participant.

I showered in silence and reasoned with myself. No one would see the other hickeys. I would enlist Nas to help me cover the one on my neck as best as we could. It would all be forgotten soon enough, an incident I would push aside and soldier on past. Just as I did with the other bad things in my life.

When I was done, I dressed in my yellow pajamas, as I intended on going back to bed, and walked back out into the bedroom. The curtains had been drawn open, sending sunlight flooding in. My eyes burned, but I was too busy focusing on the furious man, pacing by the bed.