Page 24 of Unorthodox
What happens now?
“Drop your arms.”
I don’t want to do that.
And I don’t know if it’s what just happened. I don’t know if it’s Ben’s mutilated corpse in the basement, or if something in my head breaks, but I forget about everything Ben taught me. Everything he did to me. It was one week, but it was a hell of a week. Before that, though…before that I had eighteen years of hell to prepare me for this. And I’m not a mouse. I’m not a quiet, obedient girl.
Not at heart.
It’s what earned me some of my scars. It’s what made my father hurt me. It’s what got me pushed down the stairs. I would hate to let that reputation go down the fucking drain.
“No.” It’s a simple thing, that act of defiance, but saying it and holding Max’s gaze…it feels good.
Someone will come for me.
I repeat it in my head as I stand what little ground I still have. It’s a mantra I hold close. That no matter if Max forces me back into the obedient pet Ben temporarily morphed me into, this won’t be my life.
I endured four years of being my father’s own toy.
He never let me leave, until I fled to Danik, because he knew I might become someone else’s plaything.
I won’t do this again.
This isn’t my life.
Max’s expression is unreadable. I almost want to grab him. Shake him. Scream at him, but even I’m not that brave. Not after what he just did.
He doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he grabs my wrists, his long, pale fingers circling around them easily, and he jerks them down, forcing my arms away from my body. He holds them down by my side, and his eyes dip down to my breasts.
Anger rushes through me like a hot flame, and I’m no longer cold in this warm shower. Instead, I’m burning up. My pulse is pounding, my jaw clenched, and I want to spit on him.
How dare he.
But even with that thought in my brain, I imagine his hands around my throat. I imagine the taste of the gun.
And I see him pull the trigger when he held it under Ben’s chin.
Hear the shot echoing in the basement, so loud my ears rang. So loud I didn’t scream, because what was the point?
Now, I don’t say anything. But despite my anger, my nipples harden as his gaze lingers, and just as I do every night he’s slipped into my bed, I hate him for how my body responds to him.
A long time ago, my body started doing that. Betraying me under the eyes and hands of wicked men. That betrayal is worse than any other anyone could ever give you. You can cut people off. If you’re lucky, you can leave your family.
But you can never detach from your traitorous body.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Max’s gaze travels back up to my eyes. “Why did you get implants?” He lets go of my wrists as he asks the question, skims his calloused hands up my sides and palms my breasts, causing me to gasp, to forget that I should be shocked. I should find his question intrusive. Insulting.
But that’s a joke, because what he’s doing and what he’s done is so far past “intrusive”, I suppose he could ask me anything he fucking wants, and it wouldn’t hold a candle to what just happened in his basement.
Still, I can’t keep my hands by my sides.
I grab his wrists, try to pull him off of me as I whisper, “Let go.”
He stills, hands still over me, his eyes locked on mine.
My fingers don’t circle his wrists completely, but I keep trying to pull him off of me.
He doesn’t budge.
