Page 18 of Wild (Chicago Underground 4)
“Don’t press your luck, Shelly. One of these days, it’s going to run out.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the room before I’d managed a weak protest. Well, it could have gone worse. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and turned to Ella. She slept with her head leaning against the wing of the chair, her lips parted. A blanket lay over her, tucked under her chin, that hadn’t been there before.
I woke her with a gentle shake to her shoulder, dislodging the blanket and revealing the low-slung neckline of her cheap dress.
“Where are we?” she asked, blinking sleepily.
How quickly she recognized me, despite forgetting where we were. How completely she trusted. My eyes pricked, and I hid my face as I pulled her up. “Somewhere safe. Come on, let’s put you to bed.”
She was pliant, more like a seven-year-old than a seventeen-year-old. I towed her upstairs to one of the guest rooms with a light on and tucked her in between the satin sheets.
&n
bsp; Adrian waited for me outside, like a stubby guard dog. “Your room’s next door.”
“I’m going to talk to him.” I studied his stony expression, then said, “I’m not going to hurt him.”
“You weren’t supposed to hurt him last time.”
“I’m sorry about that. I want to make it up to him. Please?”
He wavered. “No.”
“Keeping me away won’t make him gay,” I said softly.
His laugh was a caustic sound, grating the air.
“Go, then. Who am I to stop you?”
He stepped back with his hand outstretched in a parody of the obedient servant. I had no doubt he would monitor me through the hallways, but some rooms would be blind.
Philip was in his bedroom, a place I knew well. I knocked and entered but hovered just inside the door.
He tugged at his tie. “Go away.”
“Okay,” I said but remained there.
He kicked off his shoes, threw his jacket on the bed. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it the morning.”
“All right,” I said, padding across the room and curling into the chair beside the bed. So many nights we had sat like this, exhausted from parading around some god-awful black-tie event. It was all so familiar my throat hurt.
Once, I had been his live-in prostitute, his mistress, his well-compensated girlfriend—whatever he wanted me to be. Just a job, and a high-paying one. At least that was what the contract stipulated. Until he’d begun to develop feelings for me, unwanted, unprecedented, and I’d started to care for him too, as a friend anyway. But the wheel was already in motion. As an informant, I had been feeding Luke information about Philip’s criminal activities. The truth has a way of coming out and biting you in the ass—or shooting me in the shoulder, in my case.
When he was bared down to his formfitting boxers, I went to him. He was trim, as always. I caressed his sleek muscles, but though I could admire his form, I didn’t feel the same visceral pull from it that I did for Luke’s. Philip was a starry night, beautiful and mysterious. Luke was like the sun, so bright he blinded me, but I couldn’t stop looking up.
“You seem tired,” Philip said.
My hands paused in their exploration just a beat before continuing. The light skim of my fingertips alternated with a firm touch, perfectly measured to arouse. It worked, always.
“Is this payment?” he asked. “A businessman would insist on knowing the terms of the deal.”
Funny, I didn’t realize I had any leverage with which to barter. “You can always refuse.”
“Can I? I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
He pulled me to the bed, turned me over, and ran his hands along me, checking that I was all there, his breath scalding on my neck.
“Why did you come here, Shelly? Do you want to get fucked? All hot and bothered, but he won’t hold you down and give it to you like I will?”
His body was flush against mine, weighing me down, all hardness and heat. Anger and pain.
