Chapter Thirty-Five
A FAINT RUMBLE was the only warning we had. The rocks came down on our heads in a flurry of dust. The ground tilted sideways, and I was falling. A sharp pain in my shoulder told me I’d been hit by a large rock, and I gasped.
Then a warm body covered me, strong hands grasping my arms.
The world shifted as I was pulled to the side. I landed with an oomph on hard stone floor. A heavy weight shielded me. Rocks fell on the floor around me, but the body above mine caught the blows.
Silence rang in my ears, and I heard a low animal sound.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, already knowing who was with me.
My skin always felt electric when he was near me—and when he was touching me? God, I burned.
He pushed to the side, rolling off me. “Fine,” he said roughly. “And you?”
“In one piece. Are we alone?” I stood up and felt along the wall—cool to the touch. It was too dark to see. All I could make out was dust falling in front of my eyes, more of a feeling than sight. I couldn’t hear anything but the tumble of small rocks. They had separated us from Tyler and from his Marco’s body.
Philip’s voice was a low vibration in the dust-filled air. “I pushed us deeper into the tunnel to avoid the rocks. Everyone else went the other way.”
“Tunnel?”
“It was a part of the underground railroad a long time ago. Now it’s just a fucking hole in the ground.”
“Oh.” I squinted my eyes against the dust, struggling to see down the tunnel—away from the pile of rocks blocking our path to the church. “Can we just…follow this? It must lead somewhere.”
“No. It’s not structurally sound, and more importantly, the ground is uneven. We don’t have a light. Our best bet is to wait here until they clear the rubble.”
I was afraid of that. “Rose and Drew probably went for help. They’re the ones who brought me here.”
“I know,” he said curtly.
I pressed my lips together, feeling the clench of panic again, the way I had locked in his bedroom. My chest got tight—filled with dust instead of air. I clasped my hands as if that could keep me calm. I couldn’t curl up on the ground again. Couldn’t fall apart again. Not in front of him.
“Philip,” I whispered. “I’m sorry about your brother.”
Silence. “He wasn’t right in the head. I saw that from the first time I met him. I tried to get him help but…”
My heart clenched at the thought of a younger Philip, hustling to make his way in a harsh city, trying to win custody of his sister but still worried about a brother he’d just met. “You did all you could.”
“You have no idea what I can do,” he said sharply.
That was probably true. I hadn’t thought he would lock me in his bedroom, alone with no one to watch over me. I hadn’t thought I would feel like I was suffocating on his floor while he was miles away. I hadn’t thought he was a monster, even though he told me he was again and again.
“I know you saved my brother,” I said softly.
A longer silence this time, one that seemed to grow tighter and harder as the seconds ticked by. He shifted slightly, his body moving against rock, a whisper of strength against strength.
“I did save your brother,” he finally said, and there was a disturbing lightness to his voice that hadn’t been there before, as if his pain had evaporated, leaving only sharp and shiny crystals. “And I think I’d like to collect now.”
“Collect,” I echoed, a hollow pit in my stomach—as dark and cold as this caved-in tunnel.
“On the debt. Your debt.”
A shiver ran through me. “Now?”
“Of course,” he said. “Did you think I wouldn’t require payment on delivery? Those have always been my terms, from the time I sold pot on the street corner and solved problems in back alleys.”
Sex. He wanted sex. “We’re in a tunnel that almost came down. We almost died.”
“It’ll hold up a little longer,” he said, unconcerned. “The shooting is over.”
This was insane. And terrifying. “Philip, for God’s sake. We’re in a church. There’s a dead body on the other side of that rubble.”
“Which one of those things bothers you more?” he asked, sounding amused.
Deep inside I began to shake, trembling as hard as the rocks that had fallen around us. “Look. We don’t have to do this now. We don’t have to do this here. You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m simply trying to collect.” His voice got dangerously soft. “Unless you’re trying to get out of paying.”
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s not that. It’s just … Why does it have to be here? They’re going to come for us.”
“Not for an hour. I’ll be finished with you before then.”
The words hit me like a slap to the face. The past few days he had taken me for hours, moving my body into every sexual position I knew about and many that I hadn’t. Even though I should have known better, I believed that he would keep me. I’d wanted to believe he would let me in, emotionally.
Except no, he wouldn’t. He wanted a quickie in a cold dark cave, and then he would be done with me. He wanted his debt paid on delivery.
“You’re crazy,” I said, my voice shaky.
“Am I?” he said in a mocking tone.
“Because I left the house. That’s why you’re doing this. You’re punishing me.”
A rush of air and then he was on me, pushing me up against the wall. His hands were around my wrists, pinning my arms to the cold wall. His breath was against my temple, harsh and heavy. “Punishing you,” he repeated slowly. “Is that what it feels like when I touch you?”
“No, I—” God, I hadn’t meant it like that, but it was. It was how I felt—punished and cherished all at once. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’ve taken it easy on you,” he murmured.
That was easy? I imagined him moving me, invading me, surrounding me. It had been overwhelming, so much more than I had ever thought sex could be. Not simply a kiss. Not merely intercourse. He had become my breath in those hours. He had owned me.
His zipper echoed loudly in the dark cavern. Then his hand fisted in my hair. He cocked my head to the side, and I waited, staring into the darkness, panting in fear and illicit arousal. We were under a church!
He patted my cheek, and I flinched—it wasn’t a slap, not really, but it was harder than a caress. Something in between, somehow both tender and harsh. That was Philip, a contradiction.
Then the hand in my hair tugged me down, and I sank to my knees. They landed on rough pebbles, and I cried out softly. He didn’t let up, instead guiding my mouth to his cock.
It came to me in a burst of salt flavor, in the velvet silk of his skin.
I couldn’t see. I could only taste and smell and feel, the sensations so much stronger because of it.
I sucked him as if I could apologize—for saying that being with him was a punishment, for breaking free of his bonds to come here, for pulling away and for wanting him all at once, using every ounce of skill I didn’t have. He tasted of salt and of the earthy dust swirling around us. He tasted of man and danger, and I pulsed with a primal desire to please.
“Take me,” he murmured. “Oh fuck, take me deep, kitten. I need to feel your throat.”
And then I didn’t have a choice. He pushed deeper, until the head of his cock pressed against the soft flesh at the back of my mouth. I gagged once, and he pulled back—only to push forward again. I sucked in a breath, and then he was there again, pressing into my throat. It was all I could do to breathe and swallow, the muscles of my throat clenching around him until he groaned.
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 fucking 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 fuck me; that was the punishment. Not making me suck his cock, not forcing it deep. Refusing to fuck 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 fuck 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 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.