Page 39 of Drag You Down
“I haven’t done my inspection,” I say to Levi, and I step even closer, crowding him against the wall of unused mailboxes. “I need to make sure this building is safe for you.”
I can see the way Levi’s Adam’s apple bobs, and how his eyes widen. I lean in, bringing my lips a hair’s breadth away from his.
“What… What do you know about examining buildings?” he whispers. “Is this what you do when you aren’t k-killing people?”
“You think this is my job?” I ask, my lips curving into a smile. I want to ravage him right here, but I’m more than aware of how many people are currently in the building, potentially waiting to run down and discover us.
I back off, and my little lamb shows me such obvious disappointment that it hurts not to kiss it better.
“I think your landlord said to show me the maintenance areas,” I say. “Where’s that?”
“In the…” Levi swallows thickly. “In the basement.”
His hand is still clenched into a fist, and I take his hand into mine. Carefully, I unfurl his fingers, revealing the reason for the tension.
In his palm, imprinted into the skin now, is the crucifix necklace I’d sent him.
My heart does a strange thing, something I’ve never felt in all my life, pain and elation in one swirl of emotion that is impossible to detangle.
I take the necklace from his hand and gently fasten it around his neck. Levi doesn’t move at all. I brush my knuckles across his jaw.
“It looks as good on you as I imagined,” I say with an unfamiliar rawness to my voice. “You’re so perfect, Levi.”
“I’m not,” Levi says with surprising ferocity, shaking his head. “None are perfect. I am… I am a sinner.”
I have a hard time believing Levi knows anything of sin, no matter how often he repeats it. I’ve stared murderers and rapists in the eyes—before cutting those eyes out—and I know what the darkest heart of the world looks like.
It’s nothing like Levi.
“You aren’t a sinner,” I say more fiercely than I intended. “You’regood, Levi.”
Levi chokes out a laugh. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,” he says, quoting a familiar verse. “If I’m not a sinner, if I’mgood, then why—” He cuts himself off, giving another quick shake of his head. “Why are youhere, Gabriel?”
Hearing my name from his lips is like what I imagine his Heaven would feel like.
The only other word that could have such an effect on me would be for him to call meDaddy, to accept my comfort and my care as my boy.
“I’m here to save you,” I say, making Levi’s breath catch.
It’s the truth, if a simplified one.
I’d been watching the cameras I’d placed, sitting outside the building and hoping to catch a glimpse of Levi opening the present I’d left him. His sister picking up the gift instead was unexpected, and she’d shut the door, preventing me from seeing what happened inside.
I did see when Levi went to Zachariah’s apartment, though, and the burning jealousy I’d felt had me abandoning my parked car and pretending to be a building inspector.
I’m not going to let that con man lay another hand on Levi ever again. There will be no more whippings, no more punishment, no empty penance.
The only one who gets to touch Levi is me.
Levi licks his lips, then says, “If you don’t think I’m a sinner, what do you think I need to be saved from?”
I keep his gaze, taking in the gentle curve of his cheek and his adorable nose. There’s a small freckle on the side of his eye that he probably never even notices.
Levi turns red under my scrutiny, making me smile in turn.
“Why don’t you show me the basement,” I say, not answering his question. I raise my clipboard. “So I can do my inspection.” His lips part in what I know will be a protest, so I press a gentle finger against his lips. “Show me.”
He whimpers, a sound that goes straight to my cock, but he says quietly, “I need you to move out of the way.”
