Page 23 of Unorthodox
Max’s arms around me afterward.
I close my eyes, let my mind drift away.
When I first came here, I was drugged with a cloth held over my nose, then examined by a woman who said she was a doctor. She didn’t ask questions, didn’t meet my gaze as she probed me, naked, while Max waited by the door of my new bedroom, looking utterly bored.
Then I was waxed in the bathroom, by a different woman. Everywhere from the neck down, save for my arms. Max told her to leave my arms alone. I suppose I understood why. The fine, baby blonde hairs on them wouldn’t be worth removing.
But the hair elsewhere still isn’t growing back, and while I’ve been naked in front of a man before—Ben watched me get undressed every day, and even before I came here, I had been on display for vicious men who had no business seeing me naked—it’s different now.
Not just from the grooming and the waxing and the…inspection.
It’s just that being in the shower with Max, after what he did…it’s unnerving.
He hasn’t said a word since we got in here.
I stole glances of him unbuttoning his dress shirt, flecked with blood. Undoing his belt, taking off his pants. His black boxer briefs.
He’s lean muscle, a thin trail of hair from under his belly button leading…downward. His body is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But it wasn’t the hard muscle, the pale skin, the length and width of his semi-hard cock that made my breath catch in my throat.
It was the scars.
Across his torso, one down his inner thigh, dangerously close to something that should never be cut. Along his arms, thick ridges of lumpy pink raised against his white skin. I couldn’t look away, until he stepped inside and disappeared behind me.
I can still see the scars in my mind.
I have my own. Small circles on my chest. The scars from my implants below my breasts. A long, thin scar on my hip.
But compared to Max…I’m pristine.
“Turn around.” His voice makes me flinch. I have my arms over my chest, hands tucked under my chin, and my spine stiffens with his command.
I don’t want to turn around.
But now that Ben is dead, I assume Max will take over where he left off.
Slowly, legs trembling beneath me, I turn.
Max is looking down at me, the water running down his thick, dark hair, over his defined shoulders cut with muscle, down his neck, a blue vein visible against his pale skin.
I don’t take my eyes lower than that, even as I wonder if I should look away from him completely.
Water cascades down his long, black lashes, over the sharp planes of his face, and I pay attention to that to keep myself upright. To stop myself from sinking down to the floor of this shower and burying my head in my hands.
“Come here.”
My mouth goes dry, even as water runs over my head, down my body. I’m drenched everywhere except for along my tongue, which feels like a desert.
Keeping my arms up over my breasts, hands tucked under my chin, I take a hesitant step toward him. Then another. And one more, until there’s about a foot of space between us.
This close, I have to crane my neck back to hold his gaze, which is something I’m not at all sure I should be doing.
Surprising me, he snakes an arm out, wraps it around my waist, and pulls me toward him.
My breath catches, but I don’t dare move away.
My arms are still between us, but they brush up against his chest.
His fingers splay along my low back, but nothing in his face changes as he touches me. I hate that I can’t read him, because I need to. I need to know what I’m getting myself into.
