Page 9 of Unethical

So why am I thinking about him?

There’s a draw to learn more about him, even though I know I won’t like what I discover. When I peel back the layers ofothers, I usually find a soft inner core that needs nurturing. No matter how I peel Maxim, what lies beneath will surely be hard and toxic. Dangerous. I’m inclined to leave his layers untouched and make it through this mandated course of therapy as best I can. But it doesn’t help that he’s infiltrating my thoughts and interrupting my life by existing in the same fucking world as me.

I get out of the shower, grab my towel, and rub it through my hair. When I drag the brush through the wet strands, I leave too much hair behind. It’s the stress. The eating takeout almost every night. The long hours spent at a desk. It’s not giving myself grace.

I wrap the towel around my waist and wipe the fog from the mirror. I lift my shoulder and smile, remembering the lesson I was taught to tell others: Smiling at yourself can release the feel-good hormones we need to be happy.

So does getting yourself off, but that isn’t happening for me now. So I smile at myself like a fucking idiot, as if a facial expression can fix all of this.

And like a big, shitty cherry on top, I have to meet with Maxim tomorrow. I have to wear this smile and sit in front of him while he analyzes me as much as I try to analyze him.

There’s a darkness in him that I don’t want to shed light on. It’s safer for me to leave him in the shadows.

But it’s my job to hold a flashlight inside these dark spaces. To look around until something skitters from the recesses and steps into the beam of truth. What hides within Maxim is more likely to charge forward instead of skittering, though, and instead of stepping toward truth, I have a sinking feeling it will go straight for my throat.

I’ll need to be more cautious moving forward.

Chapter Nine

Maxim

“Have you been able to hold a job?” she asks.

What a stupid question. Of course not. People don’t readily jump at the chance to hire a felon.

“Nah, but I’m currently working under the table for a mechanic. Learned quite a bit about cars while on the inside.”

She starts talking about how a routine would be good for me. I hardly listen. I’m too busy staring at the silky deep-green shirt beneath the buttons of her jacket.

Since I started watching her, her breasts have become familiar to me, and I focus on the bare image of them in my mind. I can see them so perfectly, and it makes me hard as fuck. I cross my legs to keep her from noticing. I imagine ripping off her jacket, then that silky shirt and black bra, and devouring her chest as I raise the front of her skirt.

“Maxim? Are you listening to me?” she asks, a sharp rise in her tone.

No, I’m not listening, because I’m imagining her mouth being used for something besides analyzing me. I’m thinking about her last night.

I’m pretty certain she was using that showerhead for nefarious purposes. I wonder what she was thinking about. Was it one of her many clients? Could it have been me? Have I wormed my way into her mind yet?

“Yes, doc. Routine is vital to my rehabilitation, yadda, yadda.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Do you even want to be helped?”

No. But I can’t say that. Like a fish on the end of a line, I need to string her along at least a little bit. “Of course I do.”

“Then why are you so closed off about your past? Your present? What am I supposed to talk to you about?”

I’d prefer it if she used that mouth for something other than analyzing me, but here we are. She breaks her professional facade and allows her shoulders to fall. She sighs.

I’m frustrating her, and I love it.

“I do my best, doc. I wasn’t raised to talk about my feelings. It’s not gonna happen overnight.” I reel out a little more line, a sentence that makes her think she’s peeled back a thin layer to learn more about me. She hasn’t, but I’m happy to let her think she has.

Her shoulders rise, as if my words have rejuvenated her. It’s so cute. “Tell me how you were raised, Maxim.”

“I mostly raised myself.” I smirk because I’ve only pretended to open the door so I could close it in her face once more. I’ve gone right back to dead-end answers.

She blows out a breath and clicks her pen once. “I’m done with this session. I’m clearly the only one taking our sessions seriously, and I can’t help you if you don’t want to help yourself.You’re welcome to stay for the hour, but I’m done placating you today.”

She stands up, goes to her desk, and plops down in the cushiony computer chair. From the top left drawer, she produces a pair of reading glasses. She slides them over the slender bridge of her nose and proceeds to ignore the fuck out of me.

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