Page 11 of Deep (Chicago Underground 8)
“I don’t understand what you could possibly give me.”
“What you’re taking from her.” That was as close as I could come to saying it. Sex.
He made a rough sound. “You don’t know a damn thing about what I get from her.”
I flinched. “Maybe not, but I can learn. And if anyone should be paying my way here, it should be me.”
He stood, and without thinking, I took a step back. I sucked in a lungful of air—which carried his scent, spicy and male, deep inside my body. It made me dizzy, but I forced myself to step forward, to offer myself.
He circled the desk, and I realized just how tall he was. I’d been on the armchair last night, and he had been sitting when I walked into the room. This was the first time we had stood near each other, and he was almost two feet taller than me. His shoulders were broad, making him tower above me. It was like a shadow had crossed over me, an eclipse.
A large hand came up—to touch me? To hit me? Both had happened so many times in the past week, and I flinched. He stopped an inch away from my mouth, his hand loosely held in a fist. His thumb brushed over my lips, the calluses there catching like sandpaper on silk.
“Such a brave girl,” he said softly.
I let out a shuddery breath. “So you’ll do it?”
He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Such a light touch, so much softer than the men in that hotel suite. But this one held me frozen when theirs just made me fight harder.
He leaned forward, his mouth inches from my ear. “Why would I fuck a little girl?”
A little girl. The words clashed with the groping hands and crude words I’d heard for the past week. With the hotel suite and the dirty bathroom pipes. “I’m not,” I said, my voice raw. “I’m not a kid.”
Two words, barely a breath across my temple. “Prove it.”
He stepped back, and I saw in his eyes that he didn’t believe I’d do it. He didn’t believe I’d undress. He didn’t believe I’d follow through with any of it.
And maybe he wasn’t wrong to doubt me.
The thought of baring my body to him was terrifying. Flat chest and slim hips. Nothing to offer a man, unless the men were drunk and popping pills. They’d been so worked up they would have fucked a blow-up doll. Philip was very sober—and absolutely focused on me.
I forced myself to grasp the hem of the T-shirt and pull it over my head.
It fell beside my feet.
I wasn’t wearing a bra. There hadn’t been one in the pile on the bed, and I didn’t need one anyway. He could see my breasts, how little there was.
My fingers were already working at the clasp on my jeans when he stopped me.
He touched my arm gently. “Ella, was it?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Only then did I look and see the bruises covering my skin. Dark and mottled. Ugly. A tear fell down my cheek.
“Not only little,” he said. “Broken too.”
I stumbled back as if he’d hit me. That was what it felt like—a wound deeper than those other men could have made. They could only touch my skin. He hurt me where I was already raw and bleeding, where I was all alone. My stomach turned over, and I was afraid I might throw up in his office.
Blindly I groped for my T-shirt. It landed in my hand, and I realized he had bent to pick it up.
Shoving it over my head, I ran out the door of his office. I would never step foot in there again. I would never speak to him again. I never wanted to see him again.
Chapter Six
THE MAN FROM last night was in the kitchen, this time wearing an apron, with some kind of classical opera thing playing from speakers I couldn’t see. The room was spacious and beautiful, the kind you would only find in magazines. The wood cabinets looked hand carved, with real knots in the wood and a few subtle designs at the corners. The appliances were all stainless steel and gleaming. It didn’t feel lived-in or used at all, but there was a pile of brownies on the counter that proved it was. Adrian was bustling around with ease.
He looked up, and I tensed, prepared for him to throw me out—or insult me like Philip had done. Instead his expression softened. “Come in, come in. You must be starving.”
