“Go, then. Who am I to stop you?”
He stepped back with his hand outstretched in a parody of the obedient servant. I had no doubt he would monitor me through the hallways, but some rooms would be blind.
Philip was in his bedroom, a place I knew well. I knocked and entered but hovered just inside the door.
He tugged at his tie. “Go away.”
“Okay,” I said but remained there.
He kicked off his shoes, threw his jacket on the bed. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it the morning.”
“All right,” I said, padding across the room and curling into the chair beside the bed. So many nights we had sat like this, exhausted from parading around some god-awful black-tie event. It was all so familiar my throat hurt.
Once, I had been his live-in prostitute, his mistress, his well-compensated girlfriend—whatever he wanted me to be. Just a job, and a high-paying one. At least that was what the contract stipulated. Until he’d begun to develop feelings for me, unwanted, unprecedented, and I’d started to care for him too, as a friend anyway. But the wheel was already in motion. As an informant, I had been feeding Luke information about Philip’s criminal activities. The truth has a way of coming out and biting you in the ass—or shooting me in the shoulder, in my case.
When he was bared down to his formfitting boxers, I went to him. He was trim, as always. I caressed his sleek muscles, but though I could admire his form, I didn’t feel the same visceral pull from it that I did for Luke’s. Philip was a starry night, beautiful and mysterious. Luke was like the sun, so bright he blinded me, but I couldn’t stop looking up.
“You seem tired,” Philip said.
My hands paused in their exploration just a beat before continuing. The light skim of my fingertips alternated with a firm touch, perfectly measured to arouse. It worked, always.
“Is this payment?” he asked. “A businessman would insist on knowing the terms of the deal.”
Funny, I didn’t realize I had any leverage with which to barter. “You can always refuse.”
“Can I? I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
He pulled me to the bed, turned me over, and ran his hands along me, checking that I was all there, his breath scalding on my neck.
“Why did you come here, Shelly? Do you want to get fucked? All hot and bothered, but he won’t hold you down and give it to you like I will?”
His body was flush against mine, weighing me down, all hardness and heat. Anger and pain.
“Or did you want me to hurt you? Am I your punishment?”
“No.” I shouldn’t encourage this—it wasn’t true—but I had to know. “For what?”
“For not being good enough for him.”
He paused, crowding closer, the ridge of his cock pressed against the cleft of my ass.
“You know that, don’t you?”
A sharp pain stunned me as his hand met the flat of my ass, and I released the shock in a gasp.
“You think I mind that you’re all wet for that cop? This is just business, you and I. I’ll help you, and you’ll help me right back. I don’t care if you want it.” He pushed against me, the length of his cock against the flesh of my ass, and grunted.
“Does he know to touch you like this?”
His fingers found my sex, playing me with the strokes he knew so well, and all I could see beneath my closed eyes was Luke touching me—knowing me this well.
“Does he hurt you like this?” With his other hand, Philip grasped my hair and pulled. “Does he?”
“No, no.” Luke didn’t touch me, wouldn’t hurt me. Even if we were together, he would never know my dark side. But I would hide it; for him I could. “He doesn’t want me.”
Philip froze, the bar of his cock still hot against my skin, the ragged heat of his breath against my shoulder. The murmur of my name sounded like good-bye. He lifted off me, and air cooled my flushed skin. I remained bent over, but he pulled me upright. He hadn’t fucked me. He wasn’t going to. His hands tightened on my arms when he saw my face.
“Damn,” he said. “Damn. I didn’t mean for it to be like that.”
“I want it to be real between us.”
I swiped at my cheeks. “It’s okay.”
Philip sat down heavily in the armchair and let his head fall back. “Tell me, then. What was so horrible that it sent you running to the likes of me at three in the morning?”
I slanted him a look as I fiddled with the jagged hem of my dress, the cheap fabric torn somewhere during our fight or flight. For maybe the first time in so many years, I mumbled at the floor. “It’s possible I’m the lead suspect in a multiple homicide.”