Updates once per week. UNEDITED DRAFT. Content notes apply only to this part.
I catch myself on the smooth marble floor, my knee smarting from the kick.
That was a very practiced move. Whoever Havoc really is, he’s had training. I get up again and rush at Havoc—now well free of the stall—and drive my fist into his stomach.
He groans, but he moves with the blow too, mitigating some of the force. He doesn’t waste any time driving his elbow into my arm, forcing me to back off.
“There’s only one way this is going to end,” I tell him, getting into a defensive stance. “Well, two. You’re banned either way. But you don’t need to leave in an ambulance.”
Havoc grins at me. “But you do.”
He rushes forward again, but I don’t give him an opening. I dodge and grab his shoulder, then slam him into the sink counter.
There’s a loud crack, and when Havoc gets up again, his nose is bleeding.
It doesn’t stop him, though. He kicks my shin, and as I hiss through the pain he grabs me and throws me, hard, into the mirrored wall.
I catch myself, but before I can steady myself he’s on me, punching again. I dodge one blow, which ends up shattering the mirror around us.
Havoc’s hand is bleeding when he punches me again.
I weather one blow, but I catch the next and fling him into the sink counter once more.
The problem is that we’re almost evenly matched, for all that he has a slight edge on me. I don’t like it. I’m used to being bigger, intimidating others before they even try to throw a punch at me, but this asshole doesn’t seem to get the hint.
Maybe I shouldn’t have grabbed Seven like I had, but the anger had just been so intense that I hadn’t been able to help myself. He’s an ungrateful little shit, and I hope Caleb makes him pay for offering his ass up to someone else like a fucking whore.
In the space between one blow and the next, I hear the door swing open — but I don’t fucking care. I’m focused on Havoc, on beating the shit out of him for having the audacity to hit me.
“What the fuck,” Caleb’s familiar voice says, surprisingly calm despite the situation.
I glance at him, but that’s a mistake, because Havoc uses the opportunity to get another punch in.
Fuck, that hurts. I turn my attention to Havoc again, readying another blow—
Two of the security guys rush forward to grab me. Another two get Havoc, pulling him away and slapping cuffs on his wrists.
Havoc fights and curses them out.
“You good, Vortex?” one of the guys holding me asks.
I’m breathing hard, and blood is flowing from more than just my nose, but I jerk my head in a nod. “Yeah. Careful. He’s a slippery motherfucker.” I look around, seeing Seven at Caleb’s side, and I realize he could’ve been severely hurt during my fight with Havoc. He must’ve gone off to get help, but I never even heard him leave.
“Let go of me, you motherfuckers,” Havoc snarls.
Caleb steps forward and looks me over. “He got you good.”
I glower at him. “Yeah, I sort of noticed that,” I snark before remembering that I’m talking to my fucking boss. “Sorry, boss. But he was fucking Seven right here in your casino. After you told him not to.”
“Again, he said not the employees,” Seven says, stressing the words.
“It’s his own fucking business who he fucks,” Havoc interrupts. “If you’ve got a problem with him fucking around, just dump him.”
Caleb rubs the bridge of his nose. “You certainly enjoy making trouble, Seven. It’s only been a few days. Most people wait at least a month before testing boundaries.”
“What can I say? I’m an overachiever,” Seven retorts. “Look, I followed your rules. I didn’t try to leave, and I didn’t seduce anyone who works here. It’s not my fault you weren’t clearer.”
Anger threatens to seize me again. I have no right to be this angry, especially when Seven doesn’t even belong to me. But Caleb had made it clear that Seven was under his protection from someone a lot worse than anyone here, and if Seven is just letting anyone have him… How the hell am I supposed to keep him safe when I don’t even know who I’m protecting him from?
Caleb looks at Havoc again, and Havoc snarls at him with his bloodied lips. “Was his cock worth it, at least?”
“Depends on how much trouble I’m about to get into,” Seven says. He casts a glance around the bathroom and winces. “Which… is probably a lot.”
“He didn’t do anything,” Havoc interjects immediately. “You want to take it out on someone, take it out on me.”
“Don’t be a martyr,” Seven tells him. “I can take it like a big boy.”
The bruises from the other night have probably faded, but the idea of seeing Caleb take this out of his ass makes me forget about the pain in favor of my cock’s abrupt interest.
“But yeah,” Seven continues. “It was worth it.”
Caleb sighs loudly. “All right. Gentlemen, please escort Havoc to the security area. I’ll talk to him in private, and we can see how much he owes for the destruction of property.”
Havoc’s eyes widen, but he quickly goes back to sneering. “Sure. Why not.”
“In the meantime… Vortex, you can escort Seven upstairs while I think about what I want to do with him.” Caleb reaches out to ruffle Seven’s hair. “You really enjoy pushing my buttons, kitten.”
“I wasn’t trying to this time,” Seven says, his gaze on Havoc. “Be nice to him. He thought he was protecting me.”
The two men holding Havoc start to haul him toward the door, and Caleb follows.
I shake my head as I watch them go, then turn my head to look at Seven. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“That I wanted a big cock up my ass,” Seven retorts.
Hank and Joey, the other two security guards, take the opportunity to excuse themselves. The door swings closed behind them, leaving me and Seven alone.
I’m still bleeding, but I don’t particularly care. “You could’ve found Caleb.”
Or me, I want to say, but I’m still feeling awkward about this whole situation. I don’t know what’s allowed, exactly. I don’t want to assume that just because Caleb let me have Seven once, he’ll let me have him again.
Or that Seven would want me to, which should be the bigger consideration here.
“Caleb was busy,” Seven says, shrugging. “And I wanted Havoc to fuck me.”
That same nasty stab of jealousy emerges, and I scowl at him. “You should have better taste.” Something occurs to me, and I look down at the floor. “Where’s the fucking condom? You shouldn’t leave that for the cleaning crew. Bad enough they have to deal with all this shit.”
Seven snorts. “What condom?”
What condom?
The jealousy gives way to rage, and I grab him by the shoulders, shaking him hard. “You didn’t use a fucking condom?” I ask. “Are you fucking serious, Seven? You don’t know what kind of diseases he had.”
Seven gives me a hard look. “Yeah? And you don’t know what kind of diseases I have either. At least Havoc didn’t judge me for that.”
I shake him again. “You need to fucking think before you act! You don’t know who Caleb Spade actually is, and if you think a spanking is the least of what he can do to you—”
“I know he’s not just some casino owner,” Seven snaps back at me, trying to squirm out of my grasp.
I don’t let him. I grab him by the back of his neck and force him over to the wall, pinning him against it. “So do you have a death wish? You didn’t seem to want him to put out the word that you’re in town, but you should be afraid of him, too.”
“Should I be afraid of you?” Seven asks directly, staring up at me.
I want to tell him I’m not the threat here, but I know he won’t believe me. I slide my hand up from the back of his neck to the back of his head, holding him in place as I kiss him.
He doesn’t seem surprised. His lips part to allow my tongue to plunge past them, and I kiss him hard and fast and deep right there against the wall like I’m not bleeding all over the place and he doesn’t have another man’s cum potentially dripping out of his ass.
That thought is enough to make me pull back, and I grab Seven again.
“Come on,” I say grimly. I grab his arm, and he stays alongside me as I march him toward the door. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” I need to clean up, too, but I’m more focused on Seven and making sure that he’s clean — inside and out.
I don’t often use my room at the Roi de Pique’s hotel, but I’m glad I have it now. I slide my hand down and twine Seven’s fingers in mine like we’re holding hands and he’s willingly following me to my room.
He’s not fighting me, at least, and I glance at his face to try to get a read on him.
I can’t.
I grunt, continuing to lead him toward the employee area of the casino. The guards there glance at Seven, then at me, but neither of them tries to stop me as we walk down the hallway until we reach the rooms set aside for security. I lead Seven to the one I always use when I need to stay a night, swiping my key card and nudging the door open with my shoulder.
“Go on,” I tell him.
He steps inside, glancing around us, but it’s only a standard hotel room like any other.
“Into the bathroom,” I prompt. “Get undressed and get into the shower.”
I don’t know who the fuck I think I am for just taking the boss’s pet and doing all of this to him, but I feel like a man possessed.
Seven is surprisingly quiet as he strips and gets into the bathtub, turning the water on before I can reach it. As he starts to clean himself off, I glance in the mirror, grimacing at what I see. I’m all bruised up, and there’s a cut on my face that’s still sluggishly oozing blood. It’s easy enough to take care of, though, and I use the first aid kit on hand to attach a little butterfly bandage to it.
When I’m done, I glance back to see Seven, who’s still scrubbing himself behind the white shower curtain.
“Hurry up,” I tell him, anxious and on edge and knowing I need to get him back upstairs so I can get back to my job — assuming I can even function.
The water cuts off, and Seven pulls the curtain aside. He wrings out his wet hair and stares at me, his eyes still dark and almost cold as they assess me.
“What?” I finally ask, shoving a towel at his chest.
“Is that what you think of me? That I’m just… filthy because I had unprotected sex? Like you’ve never done it before?” he asks me as he starts to towel himself off.
“No, I don’t think you’re dirty,” I say, gritting my teeth. “I just…”
“But you said it back there, that he was filthy. So doesn’t that make me filthy, too?” Seven sneers at me. “According to you, anyway.”
I don’t feel like anything I say is going to make this better, so I turn and grab him a fluffy white bathrobe. He takes it and wraps it around his body.
“I’ll get you more clothes,” I mumble.
Seven snorts. “Yeah. I thought you’d say something like that. Don’t bother. I’ve got clothes upstairs.”
I scratch at my chin. I need to shave, but that’s not something to worry about right now. “Seven, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“To be such a fucking tool?” he supplies, flashing me a hard smirk. “You don’t get to say who I fuck, Vortex. I’d probably fuck you, too, if you weren’t being a prick. But not if you act like this.”
Do I want to be able to fuck him?
Yeah, which isn’t a feeling I enjoy. I don’t like knowing I want something, someone, that belongs to someone else.
“All right,” I say. “Just… get your shoes on. Grab your clothes. I’ll take you back upstairs.”
I should’ve taken him there immediately, but I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of Havoc on him for a moment longer. Now, though… Caleb’s order rings in my ears.
“Whatever,” Seven huffs, but he obeys.
I take him through the staff exit, up to the back elevator, and while he gets curious looks, no one questions our appearance here. I get Seven to the top floor, telling him, “All right. Stay up here until Mr. Spade has the chance to talk to you.”
Seven rolls his eyes, flips me off, then disappears into Caleb’s penthouse suite.
I follow him inside, hoping to figure out how to apologize for the comments I’d made, but he disappears into one of the bedrooms and closes the door firmly behind him.
I shake my head and go to sit down on the couch, texting Caleb.
Here’s hoping the boss can figure something out to keep Seven under control.
Comments and questions welcome! We love to hear from you!
