Deep (25 page)

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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fuck 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 fuck 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.”

The layers of him, hard and impenetrable—they hadn’t been built up overnight. They’d been built up through eons, through his father’s abuse and his brother and sister being threatened, his baby dying. But inside, underneath it all, was pure longing. Like mine.

It was why he dragged me from the dorm at gunpoint.

Why he held me down and filled me with his come.

“Family,” he said, with a cold laugh. “Yes, family. Don’t know what I’ll do to you? How I’ll hurt you and fuck you and
break you?
When I look at you, that’s all I can see, how much I’ll destroy everything that you are.”

His fingers worked quickly at my jeans. Then he shoved them down with my panties until they pooled around my thighs. The hard length of his cock was heavy on the top curve of my ass, resting there, threatening.

He bent close to my head. “But then you know that,” he murmured. “You saw that firsthand. When I let you stay in my house, when I locked you in my fucking bedroom. I don’t want anyone to touch you. Don’t want anyone to even see you.”

The blunt head of his cock nudged my sex. He thrust deep in a single push, and I cried out, impaled, split open. My whole body was shoved forward, and my forehead fell to my arms, resting there—the only soft thing I could feel. His cock inside me was steel, his fingers on my hips like a vice.

“Except for me,” he said hollowly, almost haunted. “And I’ll ruin you all by myself.”

I wanted to tell him
no, no, you didn’t, you won’t, I’m fine,
but he thrust back inside me, stealing my breath. I cried out, because it did hurt, it hurt so much I couldn’t breathe—like the panic but different, again. He was doing this to me, turning me inside out, and I couldn’t respond, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but take it.

“That’s what you said, didn’t you?” He thrust deep, punctuating the question with a groan of pleasure. “I’m just like those fuckers in the penthouse. I want to fuck you, to own you, isn’t that right? Just like them.”

I was sobbing now, head in my arms, being impaled from behind. “No, no,” I said, even though I did—God help me, I did think that. I wanted him to fuck me, to fill me. I wanted him to claim me in the most primal way a man can claim a woman.

“I do,” he whispered, harsh and cruel against my neck. “Say it.”

“No,” I whimpered, weaker now.

“If you don’t say it, I won’t come inside you.”

I was trembling, on the verge of coming, shaking with the need to hide the truth, to expose it. “Please.
Please
, take me. Use me. Take me.” Tears tightened my throat, making my voice thick, my words somehow more raw. “Like them.”

He surged back inside me with a grunt of triumph, his hands harder than before, almost bruising me to the bone, and I reveled in the violence, the need of it. As if for one moment he might actually follow through. He might actually keep me.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m just like them. No fucking good. Hurting you, using you—and you like it, don’t you? Making you mine so you’ll never be able to leave. You fucking love it.”

I whimpered, unable to deny the truth of it. I loved what he did to me, how he broke me and put me back together. I loved the way I felt when he touched me, as if he were the soil wrapped around my roots, holding me so tight I could never get free.

He pounded into me, furious, turning my body soft and liquid—that was the only way to be in the face of such force, with the cuts on my hands and knees, spilling over. “You’re so good, kitten. So fucking good.”

His body stiffened around me, pushing some of his fury into me, his strength, something to carry with me even when the inevitable happened.…

And then he pulled out.

His cock pulsed against the flesh of my ass and his come—hot and liquid lava, that had only ever been inside me, deep in my body—spilled over my back. In a matter of milliseconds it was cooling, hardening, turning from something hot and intimate into something cold.
No.

My chest constricted with grief. I didn’t want to come anymore.

Except he reached around my body to play with my clit. It only took two circles of callused finger pads, and then I was coming too, squeezing around nothing, dampened only by own arousal instead of his come.

I was crying by the end, soft tears that felt like goodbye. A wordless denial.

He pulled away and straightened our clothes. A handkerchief cleaned my back, taking away what he usually forced inside me. I didn’t want to think about what it meant. He had always forced me to him, even when he thought it wasn’t the best thing for me. He had always come inside me, even when I hadn’t consented to it.

So what did it mean that he pulled out?

He laid me down on something soft and bunched up under my head—his suit jacket? Something else draped over me, a thin and wide blanket. I fingered the fine material and felt a collar, buttons—his shirt.

But he would be cold. He would be—

“Shhhh,” he said, stroking my hair. “Rest now. You’ll be out of here soon.”

And I drifted like that, his hand on my head, his voice in my mind. I floated until the sound of scraping rock told me that someone was coming on the other side. I scrambled to stand up, watching as light broke through suddenly, men with picks and hard hats on the other side calling my name. A rescue.

Philip had gone, sometime after I had drifted to sleep but before they had come. He’d gone deeper into the tunnel and disappeared. He’d pulled out so that he wouldn’t come inside me, that last time. It had been a goodbye.

Don’t ever leave,
I’d begged him.

You’re so good, kitten. So fucking good.

But I wasn’t enough. I never had been. Not for family. And definitely not for Philip.

Chapter Thirty-Six

T
HE ROCKS FELL
away, revealing a piercing light. I took a step into the darkness to avoid rocks tumbling to the ground.

“Where is he?” a voice demanded. It took me a second to place it… Barnes. The detective who was determined to catch Philip. So determined that he had been willing to blackmail a judge.

I didn’t answer—couldn’t. My throat was filled from dust, coating the air I breathed after the rocks came down. I didn’t know where he was by now, but I hoped he was safe.

He stepped inside, a looming shadow. I could only see the tip of his short-cropped white hair. He grasped my arms and shook—not too roughly but enough to jolt me. “Where
is
he? Where did he go?”

It wasn’t hard to act disoriented since that was how I felt. “I don’t know.”

A harsh curse and then he was brushing past me—a thump and another swear word as he must have stumbled on the uneven ground and hit sharp rock. I put a hand over my mouth to hide a smile even though it was too dark to see.

Philip was always a step ahead.

My smile faded. He was always a step ahead of me too.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?” A medic appeared at the entrance and helped me through the break in the rocks, shielding me from pebbles still falling from overhead.

It was stable enough for now. I supposed I should have been embarrassed to be covered in dust, probably smelling of sex and earth—but I didn’t. This was me right now, as much a mess on the inside as out, as crushed as the tunnel itself, barely supported.

I limped down the aisle of the church with the help of the medic.

The sunlight was blinding when we reached the stone steps. This street had been empty when we got here. Now it was filled with cop cars and ambulances—even a big fire truck. I supposed a shoot-out and cave-in underneath a church was a big deal.

Sitting on the back of an ambulance was Tyler, a blanket around his shoulders. And hovering over him, looking worried, was Adrian. My heart seized to see two people I cared about—battered but safe.

Adrian looked up and saw me. His eyes lightened with relief, and he rushed over to embrace me. I lost any semblance of calm and threw my arms around him, crying.

“Oh, Ella,” was all he said, and in those words was a world of understanding.

We had both loved Philip. We had both lost him—never had a chance, we realized far too late.

“He’s okay,” I said, gasping. Because I knew Adrian would worry. “He’s okay.”

Adrian pulled back and cupped my face. “And you?”

“I’m…” Not okay. Almost shaking with grief over the loss of him. It wasn’t new, though. This was how it felt to be with Philip, always knowing he would leave eventually, living in the future pain. “I’m here,” I said at least. Because that was all I could offer, my presence, a small and strained smile. “I’m safe.”

All my life I had been searching for acceptance, destined to love people who would not love me back. Parents I had never known and parents who had adopted me. Philip. It wouldn’t break me. I had been through enough to know that now, but it was cold comfort.

“My brother?” I asked.

Adrian glanced back, a worried expression on his face. “No serious injuries. At least, no physical ones. He’s not talking much.”

I knew if anyone could give him the support and safety he would need, it would be Adrian. He had done that for me years ago in those weeks I’d lived in Philip’s home. And he was doing it for me now. “Do you think he was…”

The word refused to come out.
Raped.

A dark thundercloud crossed Adrian’s face, and I remembered that he had also slept with Marco—a one-night stand that had led to the betrayal. “He said no. They’ll examine him at the hospital to be sure.”

My stomach clenched as I realized what someone would find if they examined me: traced of Philip’s come on my back, bruises covering my body from his hard hands and the sharp rocks in the tunnel. No, I couldn’t bear for anyone to look at me now. “I want to go home. Adrian, I
need
to go home.”

His expression turned sympathetic. “You should get checked out, just to be sure you’re okay. It won’t get him in trouble, whatever happens.”

I wasn’t certain of that, considering how desperate Barnes was to put Philip behind bars. It wasn’t only worry for Philip though. It was worry for myself. I felt like I was fragile, made of thin glass in dark colors, like the stained-glass windows lining the church. If they touched me, I would break.

“Please,” I whispered. “Help me get out of here.”