“He hit him in the back of the head with a baseball bat,” Arlo said indignantly.
Dimitri placed his lips against his ear. “Easy. They’re just trying to get a rise out of us.”
Atticus stepped forward. “He hit you in the head? Are you okay?”
Dimitri scoffed at the man. “No, I’m not okay. I got hit in the head with a baseball bat. I have a wicked headache, and every five to ten minutes I feel like I’m on a tilt-a-whirl.”
The ginger-haired man frowned. “You need a CT scan. You could have a brain bleed.”
“I told you,” Arlo said, tone accusatory.
Dimitri rolled his eyes. “If I did, wouldn’t I be a vegetable by now?”
“Not exactly, no. You, at the very least, have a concussion.”
“It doesn’t matter. My mother says we’re on the clock. She told me to stash the corpse here and go be seen in public to establish an alibi. Instead, I’m here playing twenty questions with you people. We still have to go home and shower, find clothes. We’ve probably already fucked up wasting this much time.”
“You can shower here,” Noah said. “We have a shower in the back for just this reason. We have clothes, too. Arlo’s a little shorter than me, but he’d probably fit in Felix’s clothes?” Noah looked to Jericho for confirmation. The man nodded.
“Dimitri could probably wear something of Adam’s.”
“My clothes are couture and very expensive,” Adam said, glaring at his boyfriend.
“Shut up. The shower is in the corner. I’ll leave the clothes outside the door. There’s only one shower, so you might have to share. If you hand us your dirty clothes, we can get rid of them. It’s the least we can do.”
The mention of showering with Arlo had an immediate biological effect on Dimitri, one that pressed directly against Arlo’s lower back. Dimitri loosened his grip, but Arlo didn’t move away. He pressed closer. He knew just what he was doing to Dimitri, the little tease.
“Yeah, okay. We can do that,” Dimitri said before tacking on a begrudging, “Thanks.”
Arlo had thought of nothing more than getting naked with Dimitri for the better part of four years and had often fantasized about him when he was having to fake his way through sex. But he’d never imagined murder being the catalyst for their first sexual encounter, and he’d never prepared himself for the thought of Dimitri stripping him naked in a shoebox-size shower room in the back of a dingy warehouse.
But there they were, inches from each other, pressed together in a room that only allowed a foot or two of space between them to undress. The shower was even smaller than that.
It wasn’t a deterrent for Dimitri, it seemed. He reached around the plastic shower curtain and turned the water on, steam enveloping them almost immediately. If Arlo had thought it would offer some kind of shield to his naked body, he was very wrong. He could see Dimitri just fine, couldn’t tear his eyes away as he peeled his shirt over his head and let it drop to the floor.
Arlo swallowed hard, his pulse drumming in his throat. His gaze roamed, taking in Dimitri’s muscled chest and the ridged planes of his perfect belly. Arlo trapped his lower lip between his teeth before he said something stupid like, ‘marry me,’ but he was certain his face said it all.
Dimitri’s gaze locked on his with a slow smirk as he made a show of stripping the rest of the way down. Arlo’s mouth was a desert, his heart slamming against his ribcage as he took it all in. Holy fuck. Dimitri was very…proportional. His cock jutted up against his belly, hard and flushed, because of Arlo.
Arlo inhaled sharply as reality crashed in on him. In all the times he’d fantasized about the two of them together, he’d never imagined it would be after one of the most brutal beatings of his life. The split lip was nothing compared to what lay below the fabric—just another sign of how truly explosive Holden’s fury had been that night. He usually focused on just the parts nobody else saw, but that night, Arlo had dared to question if Holden would ever acknowledge out loud that he was gay. Holden had spent the night showing Arlo just how much he hated being questioned.
Humiliation washed over him. He wanted to be naked with Dimitri, wanted to feel his tongue, his fingers, his everything, really. But as soon as his clothes came off, Dimitri would see exactly how badly he’d allowed Holden to treat him.
Sweat beaded at his hairline, but he couldn’t bring himself to undress. He stood frozen. At least he wasn’t cold anymore. Arlo would hate to get away with murder only to die from hypothermia. He startled as Dimitri took a step closer, tugging Arlo’s already abused lip free of the prison of his teeth.
“They’re waiting for our clothes out there,” he reminded, reaching for the hem of Arlo’s shirt.
Arlo clenched Dimitri’s wrists, keeping him from completing the task. “Wait,” he begged breathlessly. Dimitri frowned but paused. “I just need you to know…it’s bad.”
“What’s bad?” Dimitri asked.
Arlo swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “The bruises. They’re bad, but they look worse than they are. Okay? They don’t hurt much or anything.”
Dimitri’s face was a thunderstorm as he gently pulled free of Arlo’s hands before tugging his shirt over his head and dropping it to the pile between them. Dimitri’s nostrils flared, his jaw tightening until the muscle ticked. Any erection Arlo had disappeared as Dimitri took in the array of bruises at various stages of healing.
Arlo closed his eyes. It was ugly. They were ugly. So fucking ugly.
“Jesus,” Dimitri whispered, gentle hands sweeping along his battered torso. “What did he do to you?”
Tears slipped down his cheeks. “I told you it was bad.”
Dimitri’s fingertips skimmed his waistband, teasing just beneath it as he reached for his button and zipper. When Arlo opened his eyes, Dimitri was on his knees before him. He picked up Arlo’s leg, removing one shoe, then the other, before once more reaching for the fastening of Arlo’s jeans.
Arlo didn’t stop him, just lifted his legs so Dimitri could free him of his clothes. He fought the urge to cover himself. There was really no time. Arlo’s mouth was slack as Dimitri’s thumbs swept along his hip bones before he leaned forward to kiss the spot just above his belly button.
Arlo’s cock twitched. Dimitri’s gaze met his, and the sight of him on his knees had all the blood rushing from his head to his dick fast enough to make him dizzy. Dimitri buried his face in the spot where his thigh met his hip, his breath rustling the curls there. Arlo couldn’t stop the whine that escaped.
Dimitri’s large hands ran from the backs of Arlo’s thighs to cup his ass. “I should have stepped in weeks ago,” he muttered, dropping kisses to the bruises on his ribs and belly. “I should have killed him,” he growled. “I should have told somebody.”
Arlo shook his head. “Please, I didn’t want anybody to know. It was too embarrassing.”
“You did nothing wrong,” Dimitri said vehemently.
“Would you have let somebody do this to you?” Arlo countered, tugging Dimitri’s head back.
Dimitri appeared to think about it. “Yeah. You. I’d let you hurt me if you wanted to. I’d let you do pretty much anything to me if I’m being honest.”