Page 19 of Wild (Chicago Underground 4)
“Or did you want me to hurt you? Am I your punishment?”
“No.” I shouldn’t encourage this—it wasn’t true—but I had to know. “For what?”
“For not being good enough for him.”
He paused, crowding closer, the ridge of his cock pressed against the cleft of my ass.
“You know that, don’t you?”
A sharp pain stunned me as his hand met the flat of my ass, and I released the shock in a gasp.
“You think I mind that you’re all wet for that cop? This is just business, you and I. I’ll help you, and you’ll help me right back. I don’t care if you want it.” He pushed against me, the length of his cock against the flesh of my ass, and grunted.
“Does he know to touch you like this?”
His fingers found my sex, playing me with the strokes he knew so well, and all I could see beneath my closed eyes was Luke touching me—knowing me this well.
“Does he hurt you like this?” With his other hand, Philip grasped my hair and pulled. “Does he?”
“No, no.” Luke didn’t touch me, wouldn’t hurt me. Even if we were together, he would never know my dark side. But I would hide it; for him I could. “He doesn’t want me.”
Philip froze, the bar of his cock still hot against my skin, the ragged heat of his breath against my shoulder. The murmur of my name sounded like good-bye. He lifted off me, and air cooled my flushed skin. I remained bent over, but he pulled me upright. He hadn’t fucked me. He wasn’t going to. His hands tightened on my arms when he saw my face.
“Damn,” he said. “Damn. I didn’t mean for it to be like that.”
“I want it to be real between us.”
I swiped at my cheeks. “It’s okay.”
Philip sat down heavily in the armchair and let his head fall back. “Tell me, then. What was so horrible that it sent you running to the likes of me at three in the morning?”
I slanted him a look as I fiddled with the jagged hem of my dress, the cheap fabric torn somewhere during our fight or flight. For maybe the first time in so many years, I mumbled at the floor. “It’s possible I’m the lead suspect in a multiple homicide.”
He stared at me for a moment and then burst into a laugh. “Bet your cop shit a brick.”
Sure, right before he promised to turn me in. “Do you have to find this amusing?”
“Tell me you did it, that you murdered some bastard.” He was grinning. “Fuck, you didn’t. Oh, that would have made my night.”
“You really are perverted.”
“I know.” He sobered. “They would have deserved it, if you’d done it. But okay, to business. Who knows you’re here—anyone?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think we were followed. If we were, there would have been cops knocking on the door by now.”
“Sweetheart, cops know better than to knock on my door.”
A smile tugged at my lips. Was that what I sounded like? “You’re an ass.”
“Go.”
He pulled me to standing and pushed me gently toward the door.
“Get some sleep. We’ll figure it out in the morning. And if we don’t, you can just live here forever.”
There was a note in his voice that said he wouldn’t mind that outcome too much; I shivered. As I shut the door, he was still chuckling to himself. “My little murderer,” I heard him say.
I slipped through the hallways, the shadows both foreign and familiar, but I turned away from the cold guest room I’d been assigned. Metal stairs shook under my weight as I climbed up to the observatory. Philip’s mansion was like a life-size dollhouse, made for play, not living. But there were a few perks, and the stargazing nook at the top of the tower ranked high among them.
