Page 39 of Wild (Chicago Underground 4)
“With my head on a platter? Nice play.”
“I’ve done everything to keep you safe. I can’t help you if you don’t trust me. Goddamn it, Shelly, you walked into the middle of a fucking snake nest. Sometimes I think you want to get yourself shot, for someone to do what you can’t do yourself.”
Shock numbed me, but slowly feeling crept back in. Of course, he wasn’t just a pretty face. Allie knew me better than anyone, but even she wouldn’t have called that one. This was a new side of him, more aggressive. I wasn’t sure I liked it. “What’s gotten into you? If I’m so annoying, you should hope I’m caught.”
A pause. “I didn’t mean to say that. I’ve taken a lot of shit around here since you came to my place.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Yes, you damn well should have. Should have come to me, should have trusted me. Do you really think I care what those fuckhead bureaucrats think? I went insane thinking you were caught, hurt, dead. Thinking the next Jane Doe in the morgue was going to be you. Checking in case it was. You want to know what’s gotten into me? You, goddamn it, you. Too goddamned selfish to let me know you’re okay, so fucking cavalier, walking right into headquarters. Jesus.”
Pride was a funny thing for a prostitute. We really shouldn’t have had any left, and yet haughtiness was practically the hallmark of a sex worker. The last time I was with Henri, he made me do every degrading thing in his repertoire, waiting for me to balk. It would have been his crowning moment. I’d come to him for help, and if I said no to anything, even once, the deal would have been off. Victorious, I’d made it through, physically broken, mentally numb, and when I held the money in my hand, this was how I’d felt. The same way I felt now, standing in front of Luke in the dark, his words like lashes tracing over the silvery scars on my back. He cared about me; he hated me, the most devastating part.
“Fuck.” His word rang out in the darkness, with apology, with frustration, and not a drop of hope.
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said.
“No, you’ve been very careful to ensure that.”
“So why’d you turn the light off?”
“You know why. For the same reason you came here.”
Arrogant man, but he wasn’t wrong. Hi
s air touched me first, the rush of movement against my body, his breath a caress on my lips. Then warmth to soothe me, his lips soft, body hard. His kiss tender, cock rigid against my belly. I allowed him inside, just barely, a taste of submission. I softened my hips, offered a gentle roll upward, a hint of arousal. For good measure, I slipped my hand behind his neck, stroking him, well practiced.
“Stop,” he muttered against my lips.
I pulled back. Every man was different, a unique sum of a thousand different variables, and my body nothing more than a machine designed to solve them.
When in doubt, return to what worked. I opened my mouth another degree, and he took full advantage, sweeping his tongue against mine. His hand touched the back of my neck in a mirror image of my gesture, except instead of a caress, he tilted my head back, deepened the kiss. He put me at a disadvantage. Yes, I want that too.
His other hand fumbled briefly at my jeans before slipping them down to my thighs. I felt helpless, blinded by the dark, pinned to the wall by his body and my clothing. Even my hearing was altered, flooded by my harsh breaths and his. Any number of men had held full control over my body before now, but this was Luke, and how quickly he had done it, how easily he had rendered me willing and my consent irrelevant. I moaned my approval.
“You’re doing it again,” he muttered.
“Doing what?”
“What you think I want.”
“How do you know it’s not what I want too?”
He paused. “Is it?”
I didn’t know. A soft, almost inaudible sob escaped. How sad was that? Sex was my profession, but I didn’t understand my own desires.
“Shit,” he said.
He pulled away, and I was sure it was over. Just like in his apartment, he didn’t want me anymore. But in seconds he returned, fierce, pulling at my clothes, tugging them down and away.
“Tell me to stop.” Harsh. Guttural.
“No, no.” Against the wall, I spread my arms like some sort of sacrifice, letting his hands and his curses crash over me. “Don’t stop.”
His hands parted my thighs. “You’re going to come for me, unless you stop me.”
I’ll make him want me. Both of us so determined. He would fuck me, and I would come, and then where would we be? Right here. No future, just sex. Broad fingers opened me for his tongue, pumped inside. I pushed back, halfway there.
