Deep (Chicago Underground #8)(61)

He kept his cock in my mouth, my throat until I fought him—pressing his thighs with my hands, pushing him away, yanking my head back in a desperate panic. Only then did he let me go, and I sucked in air, my eyes watering. This was like the panic I felt sometimes, unable to breathe or think…but also completely different, because this didn’t come from inside me. It came from him. And this wasn’t a weakness, a helpless response to some ancient trigger. This was strength.

“That’s right,” he muttered. “You’re so good for me. You feel so f*cking good. Put your hands behind your back now. Hold your wrist for me.”

I did it, taking one wrist in my hand, feeling the cold wall against my back where I knelt on the floor. The muscles in my arms protested the position; my knees ached from the floor. My throat was already sore, and he’d only been there a few seconds each time. My whole body hurt, but the place it hurt the most was between my legs, covered by panties and jeans, protected by my closed thighs. It hurt there, deep inside me, an ache that wouldn’t be filled.

And he wouldn’t f*ck me; that was the punishment. Not making me suck his cock, not forcing it deep. Refusing to f*ck my sex, where I clenched around nothing—that was the pain.

I made a low sound, a moan, despairing, and his cock flexed in my mouth.

“Fuck yes,” he murmured. “You’re getting it now. All those times you let me f*ck you, let me come in your pretty little cunt without a condom. Because you thought you could change me. You thought you could fix me, didn’t you?”

I shook my head, mouth still full of his cock.

“Yes, you did,” he said, low and sure. “With your sociology bullshit, your textbooks, your studies. Like you can figure me out with a f*cking statistic, solve me like a puzzle. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, kitten?”

And it was the worst possible thing, what he was saying—this was the true punishment. Not his cock in my mouth or the ache between my thighs, it was those words raining down on my head, and I was unable to deny them.

Because he was right. I wanted to figure him out, not just the men in ill-fitting suits and shiny bald heads, grown-up frat boys. Why had they seemed so innocent out in society when they were really monsters?

Except that wasn’t the hard question to answer, not really. Because they were acting in their own selfish interests, contorting themselves so that people would trust them—and then taking advantage when they could. But Philip…

God, Philip.

He presented himself as a monster. He wanted people to be scared of him. Except when he’d had me in his study, my body bared to him, he hadn’t taken advantage. Because I was a broken little girl, he’d said—except why should he care? Shelly was beautiful, more beautiful and glamorous and knowledgeable than I would ever be. But I saw in Philip’s eyes that day a lust that went deeper than beauty and glamour, that longed to take me as I was.

Even the broken little girl had recognized it that day.

And then, without knowing it, I’d constructed my entire life to find my way back to him—never dating or getting close to a boy, never having sex or even a kiss. I was always prepared for this moment, to find him again, to be able to fix him, even knowing that was impossible. And the most shocking part of finding him outside my door that night had been his injury, weak and half-conscious condition.

The rest had been relief, because he’d come. He’d come back to me.

His large hands locked behind my head, and he flexed his hips forward and then back. I closed my eyes because I couldn’t see anything anyway. I could only feel him, wide and invading. Only taste the salt he left on my tongue every time he pulled away—more of it now. His thrusts grew faster. His words came out on harsh staccato breaths.

“You want a white-picket fence with a low-down thug. You want a garden in the middle of a f*cking war zone. Tell me, kitten. Tell me.”

I wasn’t even sure what he meant when he pulled me off his cock. I gasped with sudden emptiness, my mouth almost longing for him as much as my sex. “Want you,” I said, struggling to form the words. It felt like my mouth was only made to suck him, to hold him, a conduit for him to feel my throat.

“No,” he said fiercely.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks now, because he was only going to f*ck me and then leave, because this debt would be goodbye. “I don’t want to change you,” I said brokenly. “I did before. I thought—I thought…but not now. I understand now.”

He bent low, his face inches from mine. “What do you understand? Tell me what the f*ck you understand now.”

“That it would break you,” I whispered. “Because deep down…deep down you’re…”

He moved with terrifying care and slowness, twisting my body so that my palms landed hard on the stone floor. I cried out as my knees twisted on the stone carpet, skin breaking, blood spilling. Then he mounted me from behind—at least that was how it felt when he hitched my hips high so they would align with his cock, when he braced one foot beside me, the other knee on the outside of mine. “Deep down, I’m what?” he asked softly.

I shuddered, grasping handfuls of broken rocks in my hands, fisting my hands against the stone floor. Deep down he was both brave and scared, both sated and starving. “You want the same thing I do,” I whispered, and it was so crystal clear to me now. “A family.”