Wild

  Wild

  Skye Warren

  Thank you for reading the Chicago Underground series! You can join my Facebook group for fans to discuss the series here: Skye Warren’s Dark Room. And you can sign up for my newsletter to find out about new releases at skyewarren.com/newsletter.

  Enjoy the story…

  Wild

  Once upon a time I was the girl who had everything, the clothes, the car. The rich dad who spoiled me. But the truth was, the only thing I had was my body. I used it to buy my way out.

  I took a bite of the apple knowing full well what would happen.

  That’s how I became a call girl. That’s the story of how I ended up in hell.

  There’s only one man who makes me wish things had been different. One man who could never be with a girl like me. Luke is a cop. Untouchable. Unbreakable. And dangerous in his own way.

  When I end up on the run, he’s the only one I can turn to.

  And he just might be my downfall.

  Chapter One

  Some days are thick with anticipation, a portent that things will finally look up. Today was not one of those days. Instead I felt awkward, out of place among the ordinary. Unworthy.

  I smoothed the paper one last time, and the dampness of my palms smudged the ink. But even the ruin of my careful work didn’t distract me from the incriminating empty boxes where my work experience should go.

  In a city’s worth of Help Wanted, I might actually be qualified for this job. More importantly, the small indie bookstore wouldn’t have a corporate HR department to balk at the gaping hole in my professional history.

  They wouldn’t require a background check, uncovering my arrest for solicitation.

  I tugged at the sleeve of my shapeless suit, wavered on my half-inch heels. This was as close to normal as I could get. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I approached the counter.

  Without looking at me, the young woman with pink hair and pierced eyebrows automatically reached for the books I was purchasing. I hesitated, and she glanced up, her gaze flitting from the piece of paper to me.

  “Oh, hi. Are you applying for the cashier position?”

  You can do this. I smiled. “That’s right. You haven’t filled it, have you?”

  “The position is definitely open. It always is, to be honest. The cashiers come and go like this is a revolving door. I’ve been here for over a year, though.” She grinned. “Sucker for punishment. But don’t let me scare you away.”

  “Oh no.” I handed her the paper, then slid my palms over my skirt to dry them. “I’d very much like to apply.” She gave the application a quick read through—nothing in her expression indicated she’d seen a problem.

  “Nice to meet you, Shelly Laurent. I’m Dawn. Let me get the manager. He can interview you right now if you have the time.”

  She picked up the phone before I could even say yes, please.

  “Get your butt up here,” Dawn said, her eyes sparkling. “We’ve got a candidate, and she actually doesn’t suck.”

  Biting her lip to hide a smile, Dawn caught a lock of hair between her fingers. No doubt about it—she had a crush on the boss.

  “Okay, Jason. I’ll start, but hurry up.”

  She hung up. “He’s on his way, so I’ll just ask a few basic questions.” She looked down at the application. “Get the preliminaries out of the way.”

  Unfortunately, the preliminaries were huge barriers, at least to my mind. After all, that’s why they asked these questions. Who cared what month Johnny stopped showing up at Quickie Mart, at least for a cashier’s position? No, this application wasn’t about ability or even dependability. It was a test to make sure I was the right kind of person.

  Which I wasn’t.

  One time I’d mentioned it in passing to my best friend, Allie. She had laughed, not understanding. How could I fake it all those times, but I couldn’t lie for this? No, she didn’t see.

  That stuff was easy: I love what you do to me. I’m coming. You’re so big.

  This was different. Every attempt at normalcy felt like a tear in my gut.

  I’d only be able to try so many times before coming undone.

  Dawn leaned on the counter, still looking at the paper. “Have you worked in retail before?”

  I had plenty of experience in customer service—but not the way she meant. I cleared my throat. “When I was in high school, I had a part-time job in the library.”

  “That’s cool.” Her brow crinkled—there it was. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I reading these dates right? Because that would make it…”

  “Three years ago.”

  “You didn’t put down where you worked since then. Don’t worry if it’s not related to books or anything.” She laughed. “We’re not picky. The last guy quit a month ago—we’re desperate.”

  Right. This should be easy. They were desperate; so was I.

  I didn’t even have to lie, exactly. I had watched Bailey while Allie had been at work. I would leave out that she hadn’t paid me, that I had been the one to spot her a few hundred bucks when rent was due. I wouldn’t mention how I’d earned all that money, at night when Allie and Bailey were tucked in their beds.

  “Well, the thing is…I didn’t have a proper job.” An understatement. “I worked for my friend, taking care of her daughter. A nanny, all this time.”

  Dawn’s gaze surreptitiously slipped down my body, her doubt couched behind generous politeness. I didn’t look like the nurturing type, unless it was the kind with a fake nurse’s costume. Even the drab gray cloth that clashed with my blonde hair and was one size too large couldn’t hide what I was made for.

  “Oh.” Dawn paused, seeming to mull it over. Then she brightened. “So you can provide references, right?”

  My heart sank. I hadn’t wanted to ask Allie for help with this. If she knew I was looking at a minimum-wage job, she would know I was running low on money. She’d worry what I’d do when I ran out. Well, I was worried too.

  “Absolutely.” My voice was faint. “References.”

  She chatted to me about schedules. Schedules, as if I’d already gotten the job. I could walk out of here a legally employed woman. How mundane. How terrifying. I smiled at all the right places, cued more by her tone than an understanding of the inner workings of retail. I had always considered myself world-wise, world-weary, but it amazed me all the things I did not know. Things like clocking in instead of meeting for cocktails in the hotel bar, like getting a smoke break instead of a warm washcloth between clients.

  A salesclerk at a bookstore. My girlfriend works at a bookstore, he could say. It was unremarkable. Respectable. As long as I didn’t fuck it up.

  The thud of steps down the stairs alerted me to an arrival. I turned. My first impression was of a middle-aged guy looking trim in a polo and slacks. Too prissy for Dawn, I thought with some disappointment, and then he looked up.

  I froze as my heart skipped a beat, then two. I couldn’t place him, exactly, but it was definitely a hotel room somewhere. Maybe a year ago. He was coming closer and—Fuck. Fuck.

  A client. I’d had this nightmare, but it had always been me behind some counter and him a customer. Our encounter would be short and awkward, and with any luck, he wouldn’t look close enough to recognize me. But this was an interview. He would see me—he would know.

  “Yo, boss. This is Shelly.”

  My gut tightened. Dawn was practically breathless at the sight of him.

  “She’s cool, and you should hire her. Trust me on this.”

  “Shelly.” He looked at me, smiling, his warm brown eyes not registering a thing. “Two minutes, and you’ve already earned an endorsement.”

  My heart threatened to beat through my chest. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  He laughed. “The last time someone
called me sir, it was a cop half my age, and he was writing me a speeding ticket. Call me Jason.”

  “Right. Jason.” Nervously, I licked my lips.

  His gaze lowered to my mouth; his brow furrowed.

  Distantly I heard Dawn make another pitch for me, a complaint about the guys working here being lazy bums and how she really needed another girl to commiserate with. I wanted to say something, to put a stop to the train that was about to crash into me, but the air was too thin—I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

  Frowning slightly, he took the application and scanned it. I saw when he passed the work history section; his gaze skittered back up. His mouth opened, snapped shut. If he had already suspected, he’d definitely figured it out now. My stomach hollowed out.

  He stared at the paper, clearly unseeing—frozen like me. The last time I had seen him, he’d been lounging naked on white sheets, his skin flushed and sweat-dampened as he’d handed me a nice tip from his wallet. Now both of us were trapped in this moment by our sins and by Dawn’s hopeful expression.

  “Um, boss?” she said. “Remember you were just saying how much we needed someone.”

  She laughed, but we must have been giving it away, because the sound was thin.

  “I figure she’s gotta be better than Damion. He wiped his nose on the books.”

  Jason remained silent—damnably so. Yes, the quiet said. She’s worse than you know, worse than the guy who put snot on books. His lips worked, closing around empty air. The silence stretched, bottomed out. And then I started to pity him.

  He had dipped his toe into the dark pool of Chicago’s underworld. Paid-for sex with a pretty girl and a strap-on was par for the course in my world, but he’d probably sweated the morality—and possibly the cost—for a long time after. I was the one out of my element. I was the one who didn’t belong here.

  It was time to leave.

  “I probably should mention that I have a busy schedule,” I said.

  “What?” He blinked at me with those puppy-dog brown eyes, the pleading look that once had words attached to them: “Please, spank my ass. Harder, harder.”

  I sighed. “I have a life, you know. So I don’t want to work weekends, and I need to be out of here by five on the weekdays.”

  Understanding lit his eyes—and gratitude. “I’m afraid weekends are required for this position. Lots of them.”

  I snorted. “Good luck if you expect me to show up.”

  Dawn’s mouth hung open. Maybe I was laying it on too thick.

  “Look,” I said. “I thought this might work out, but…I see now that it won’t. Sorry to waste your time.” I snatched the application from the hands of a very relieved Jason.

  On my way to the door, I heard Dawn’s scandalized whisper. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Dark curiosity slowed my step.

  “No wonder she doesn’t have a job,” I heard Jason say. “She’s probably on drugs.”

  Outside I threw the crumpled application into a trash can. Hell, if sweetly rebellious Dawn thought I was a stoner, so what? Better that than the truth. Those years hadn’t been empty. They’d been full of things not to discuss in polite company. Nothing to qualify me for participating in the real world. He was right not to hire me. Why did I even care?

  Chapter Two

  Back in the car, I looked at my phone and flipped to the number I never called. My thumb hovered over the Call button. If I told him I had tried to get a real job, would he laugh? No, but he’d pity me when he learned why I failed.

  I put the phone down and drove home.

  In the lobby of my apartment building, the doorman Evan sat behind the security desk, looking spiffy in his uniform. He always broke my heart just to look at him, perpetually deflated. He needed a sweet-faced woman to dote on him, to do dirty things to his skinny body and fill him up with pride. He brightened when he saw me.

  “Hi there, Shelly.”

  “Hey, Ev. How’s the view?” I could have been talking about the city vista through the large bay windows. But I knew he would check me out. And he did.

  “It’s great.” He blushed. “I mean good. How are you?”

  I’ve been bad, Mr. Thomas. You should punish me. Today, the script hovered on the tip of my tongue. “A rough day,” I said.

  Concern lit his face. “Can I do something to help?”

  I could imagine it. I would ask for a hug and then wriggle closer, put my breath against his neck and my breasts against his chest. Then he’d be in the back office with his pants around his ankles, having an afternoon he would never forget.

  I really was bad to imagine it, but my skin was still raw and his admiration was a balm. What would it feel like to be that girl even for an afternoon? “I’ll be fine. I’ve got to run.”

  “Okay.”

  He drew the word out, stalling. Maybe he sensed how close he had come to rapture. It wasn’t worth the price. I wished I could tell him. Even for free.

  “But if you need anything…”

  “I’ll call you,” I lied.

  I leaned against the satin-covered wall as the elevator took me up. The glass bubbles that held the security cameras reflected my progress down the hallway. I keyed the combination into the keypad and pushed open the heavy door, pretending not to mind that this felt more like a gilded prison than a home—at least it was safe.

  Once inside, I breathed out a sigh of relief and threw my keys on the kitchen bar.

  A flash of black caught my eye. I turned, but a large body already held me in its bruising grip. The second asshole flanked me from the other side, though it would only have taken one to subdue me. None, really, considering who else would be in the room.

  “How have you been, sweetheart?” came the voice from my nightmares.

  I had mastered this. For years, I had trained for this moment, to respond coolly, act casually. But not now, not so soon after the humiliation at the bookstore. Henri’s gravelly voice rubbed salt into my wounds. At one time he’d been my savior. Now he was just a pimp.

  He strolled out of the shadows, his pale, strong face impassive. High cheekbones and white-blond hair spoke of a Nordic ancestry, though his accent was slight. As usual, he wore a three-piece suit, all in black except the vest and tie in matching teal.

  How did he get in? How did he know where I lived? He shouldn’t even have been searching for me. I had quit the life, and he had agreed at the time, but that had been a lie. The question of how was superfluous, because here he was. The question of why was too obvious to bear; I made him an awful lot of money. Now I saw. His return was inevitable, like trying to keep the ocean off the beach. Maybe for a time it would leave, but it would always come back.

  Thick fingers cut into my arms, but I flipped my hair out of my face in a charade of unconcern. “I went shopping.”

  Henri gave me a detached perusal, inspecting his wares. “You look like a secretary.”

  “I’m a professional,” I managed drily. And it was true, just not of the business variety. A hundred men in Chicago’s upper echelon could attest to what a pro I was. “What are you doing here?”

  “Is that how you greet me?” His voice was too mild. “And here I’ve missed you.”

  My blood began to pound. He wouldn’t beat me in my fancy apartment in the middle of the day. It would make too much noise, and someone would call the cops. Unless he had them on his payroll. Unless the fancy security I paid for, that had served me so well until now, also included soundproofed walls. No one would hear. No one ever cared.

  He set the glass he was holding down on a side table with a quiet thud. “I blame myself. I should have known better than to let you go with him.”

  He never should have let me stay with Philip, he meant, even though he had gotten a placement fee and a monthly stipend the entire time I’d been Philip’s mistress. Hardly anything to complain about, but he was right. Philip had given me the financial means to leave. He’d also given me the confidence. Though now it seemed more li
ke hubris. Leave it to Philip to confuse the two.

  Henri gripped my chin with his fingers and grunted. “Such a pretty face.”

  I slid my gaze away from his flat eyes to stare straight ahead. My pretty face, my beautiful, hated face and matching body that made me want to puke just to think of them. Let him look. Didn’t he know he burned us both? Like trapping a butterfly, the only way to catch one was to kill it.

  “You’re wondering if I’m going to hurt you. Probably.” He ran his thumb over my lips, his fingernail catching on the tender skin. “Can’t dirty you up now, though. Tomorrow you have a party.”

  My gaze met his. I hated parties. All the girls did. Decent money, but not enough to compensate for too many men getting drunk and nasty. An escort was never more than an object to get off in, but a hooker at a party was a piñata.

  But I would do it because I had no choice. I would do it because I needed more money to afford this fancy apartment with all the security that clearly did not work. And most of all, I would do it because I could do nothing else. I’d known it all along, from when I was young, too damned young, and this afternoon underscored that.

  “A party,” I repeated dully.

  “Good girl.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I’ll send you the details.”

  Then they were gone, and I crumpled to the floor. Belated, terror swept over me, drenching me and then leaving me chilled in its absence.

  Stupid, thinking I could work at a bookstore as a clerk. Stupid that I’d want to. I would make more money in fifteen minutes at this party than Dawn would make all day. And she, confined to her feet. I would earn mine on my back, on my hands and knees, any which way they pleased.

  Hooking had been the only thing I could do, once upon a time. Seemed it still was.

  In the interim since I’d quit, I had counted down the days until I wouldn’t stink of dirty money. Until I would be worthy of him. But yearning wasn’t enough to buy a new life. Pity was worth nothing, and self-pity even less. I, however, was worth a whole awful lot. My daddy had taught me early and taught me often. I may have been born a whore, but I’d always been high priced.