Page 114 of Unorthodox
His hand slides under my dress, his fingers brushing my inner thigh. “If you don’t answer me, I’ll have to find out myself.” He runs his hand over my underwear, and I whimper, unable to keep the sound in, even as I bite my lip so hard, I finally taste blood. Mine. His. I don’t know anymore.
“Shh,” he says softly as he keeps touching me. “You can nod yes or no, sweet girl.”
Where is Max?
Where is Max?
It’s the only thought in my head, and even if it’s not therightone, even if Max isworse, I don’t care. I want him to take me away from here. I want Zeke to get his hands off of me.
I want to go home. I’d take my father’s bruising fists and violent words over this any day. He stopped raping me a year ago, and I can live with the other kind of violence.
I can live with that, but I just want my body to be my own right now. Just this once.
I tell God I’m sorry for wanting a different family. A different life.
I didn’t mean it.
I want it back.
I need it back.
Zeke’s fingers trail against the edge of my underwear. “No hair,” he says with a little laugh. “Has Max fucked you already, Addison?”
My eyes fly open, connecting with his.
“He wasn’t supposed to do that.”
My skin crawls. My heart skips a beat as Zeke’s hand goes still, too close to where I don’t want him.
“I need you to answer me,” he says, and there’s no smile on his face now. Just cold, hard anger. “Because I want to fuck your cunt dry, and I need to know what kind of consequences—”
There’s a thudding sound at the top of the stairs. Doors closing.
I flinch, and Zeke lets go of my wrists, startled too.
My hands go to my mouth, my breaths coming out in fast pants as I twist my head to look up, at the landing we came in from.
“Fuck off,” Zeke snarls. He turns to me, knocks my hands away from my face and covers my mouth, his eyes boring into mine.
Hope springs in my chest anyway, despite his angry command.
Because it’s Max at the top of the stairs, and it’s his cold voice that says, “Let her go, or I’m going to fucking kill you.”
When I see the “harmless runner,”Zeke, at the bottom of the stairs with his hands around Addison’s throat, I feeltwitchy.His body is over hers as she kicks and screams beneath him, her cries growing hoarser with the amount of pressure he’s putting on her windpipe. There are tears down her cheeks, and I see blood on her lips.
Her red dress is hiked up to her waist, exposing her black, silk panties.
There’s a pounding in my ears so loud I can’t hear the words Zeke is saying, his brow furrowed, face angry, a vein ticking in his temple.
Adrenaline rushes through me, tunnel vision on his hands around her throat as I run down the stairs, reach down and grab the collar of Zeke’s white shirt, hauling him to his feet, off of Addison.
I sweep my gaze over her, see blood on her throat, and her skin is unnaturally pale, but she’s breathing, and when I pull Zeke off of her, she scrambles back toward the wall, sitting up.
I push Zeke against the wall adjacent her, edging the stairs I just came down from, his shirt in my fist.
“Do you mind telling me whatthe fuckyou’re doing?”
“Get your hands off of me—”
