Page 21 of Unorthodox

---

I want to see if his finger is on the trigger, but I don’t look away from his eyes. Cold, but beautiful. Menacing but in this moment, comforting. If I don’t look away, he’ll take care of me.

He’ll take care of me.

The gun dips down between my breasts, then over the plane of my abs. I feel the warm steel against the patch of skin exposed from where my shirt is riding up in the way he has my arms stretched over my head.

Then the gun is on my inner thigh.

My chest rises and falls at a rapid pace, and he arches a brow. “Don’t look away from me, baby girl. You’re safe with me.”

Safe.

He uses the weapon to nudge the fabric of my loose cotton shorts to the side and then it’s touching me…there.

I suck in a breath, bite my lip, but I don’t so much as blink as I hold his gaze, even as tears well up behind my eyes.

“Tell me you don’t want it,” he says, challenging me.

I can’t speak.

He runs the warm tip of the barrel up my slit, and I’m paralyzed with something that isn’t fear.

It’s disgust.

With myself.

Long ago, my body stopped hating the monsters that tortured me in the night. It stopped hating them, and instead, it started to crave them.

Now, it’s no different.

He drags the weapon lower, and I suck in a breath, panic seizing through me.

He stops moving the gun.

“Shh,” he says, leaning down closer, so his mouth is over mine. “Relax, beautiful girl. You’re okay.”

I’m so fucking far from okay.

This is not okay.

“Spread your legs wider.”

I don’t move. For long seconds, I don’t move, and neither does he. He just stares down at me, waiting.

Waiting for me to disobey him.

Waiting for me to stop him.

Swallowing, I draw up my knee, open it out at an angle, giving him better access.

He cocks a brow but doesn’t smile. “Good girl. You’re such a fast learner.” Then he moves the gun lower still.

Again, I freeze, my nipples tightening beneath my shirt as I bite my lip, hard.

Is this real?

Maybe this is a dream.

“Don’t look away from me,” he warns, almost as if he knows exactly what I’m going to do, right before I do it.

---