Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(23)

“And Philip?”

“Would be classified as an innovator,” I admitted. “He accepts the cultural goals of society—wealth, power. Independence. But he disregards the rules.”

Adrian studied me, looking fascinated. “And you admire that, don’t you?”

A sound at the door had us both jerking, startled—hot chocolate sloshing in the mug.

Philip strode into the room. He took me in with an enigmatic glance. “Why are your cheeks red?”

Oh God. “Are they?”

I pressed my hands to my cheeks, and sure enough they were hot. Him mentioning them only made them burn hotter.

Philip’s eyes flared. He stalked closer.

Adrian mumbled something about the wine cellar and left the kitchen. For a split second I wondered if he was leaving to give his boss privacy or if it hurt him to see the man he loved lust after someone else. Because there could be no mistaking the heat in Philip’s eyes as he took me in, head to toe.

There could be no mistaking the heat in my body either, as I watched Philip. He had an aristocratic nose and piercing eyes, dark hair and sensual lips. It was impossible to ignore the size of him. My body reacted subconsciously, shrinking as if to make room for something bigger, making myself small in front of a threat.

“What were you talking about?” the threat asked softly.

“You.”

His lips quirked. “And what’s the verdict?”

Guilty of a lot of things, probably. Justified in some of them, at least according to the unwritten rules of the criminal underworld if not our legal system. I doubted a charge would ever stick, despite that cop at the dorm and his warrant.

“Why?” I asked softly. “Commit any crimes lately?”

“Only ten since breakfast.” There he went—innovating again. What I didn’t mention to Adrian was that the strain theory suggested that social structures actually pressured some people to commit crimes. And it rejected the idea that deviation was necessarily a bad thing.

I took a sip of hot chocolate, feeling warmth slide down my center. Somehow even the act of drinking became sensual when Philip was in the room—and when he studied my mouth, heat banked in his eyes.

Fighting to distract myself from the ache between my legs, I asked, “What was the first crime you committed?”

One eyebrow rose. “Trying to use your psychology shit on me?”

“Sociology shit,” I corrected.

“What’s the difference?”

“Psychology is the study of an individual person.” And while context certainly came into play, it wasn’t enough for me. A person didn’t exist in a vacuum. A man in a suit wasn’t only a businessman or the leader of a crime organization. A girl in a tight dress wasn’t only a call girl or a victim. “Sociology is about how people interact with each other.”

“I see.”

He didn’t. “It’s about digging into a person. Archeology on the personal level.”

He looked amused. “And that’s what you’d do to me? Dig?”

I flushed with heat, without quite knowing why. It wasn’t dirty, what he’d say. It just felt that way when he stood two feet from me, close enough that I could smell his aftershave.

“Maybe,” I managed, my voice rough.

“What makes you think there’s anything underneath?”

Oh, there was plenty beneath his hard, sculpted surface—layers of rock formations, granite and marble, maybe molten lava in the middle. He would take a lifetime to explore. My pulse raced.

“Your first time?” I asked again.

He studied me with calculating eyes, taking my measure. It was almost as if he saw me as a threat, only I knew that couldn’t be true. A girl like me could never threaten a man like him.

“Murder,” he said softly.

I didn’t flinch. I had seen enough in those dark weeks that he couldn’t shock me. “Who was it?”

He shook his head on a rough laugh, darkly rueful. “Why? So you can justify it? So I give you all my excuses? Should I tell you about the way my daddy beat me?”

I did flinch then. He mocked me, but he exposed himself too. There was truth in that statement. He had been hurt, abused—a rock turned to diamond. Did that excuse that first crime? Did it excuse all the crimes that had come after? I doubted it would, but an explanation wasn’t an excuse.

Gravity didn’t excuse or apologize for what it did, didn’t make excuses for rocks falling down a mountain, trampling whatever was in their path. It simply existed, following the equations it always had.

A force of nature. That was Philip.

“Do you think you were justified?” I asked instead of answering.

“No,” he said flatly. “It wasn’t my father that I killed. It was a fifteen-year-old kid. He wanted my turf. So I defended it with the only weapon I had at the time. A steel pipe.”

Gruesome images flashed through my mind. Death by steel pipe wouldn’t have been pretty. Death was never pretty. A fifteen-year-old boy, crushed in long, painful minutes.

“How old were you at the time?”

“Twelve.”

God. Fifteen had been young. Twelve was a baby. I managed not to show my shock, my sympathy. He wouldn’t want either of them.

Twelve years old and he’d already been working on the streets, fighting to defend himself, to survive. He didn’t want me to justify what he’d done, but the situation unfolded in front of me—as gritty and dark and terrifying now as it had been then.