Page 11 of Unorthodox
I know why.
I know what he’s doing. I know that despite his touch and his care and his quiet comfort in the dark, I know he’s manipulating me.
But after six days with Ben, I don’t care. I thought I was ready for this. I thought my father’s rough hands and my uncle’s twisted commands made me different. Stronger.
I’m not.
And I’m not strong enough to manipulate Max in the way he’s manipulating me.
Even though he has to know that when I leave this house, I’ll be so far from his to fuck with, it’ll be laughable. He has to know that if he wants me, he should take me now.
Because one of these days I’ll leave completely, and I won’t come back.
One night I won’t be here at all.
He’ll come from his room to mine as he’s done the past five nights, and he’ll find this bed empty.
One night I won’t come back, and what will he do then?
Maybe someone will replace me.
Maybe another girl will be pining over him exactly as I am now.
He kneads his fingers against my bare shoulder and I almost groan at his strong, sure touch. At the way he works the aches in my muscles out, the way my days spent training and pushing my body and mind under Ben and honing it as close to perfection as I can possibly get it all fade away under his touch.
This pressure is firm and sure and strong, but it’s…kind.
He isn’t always so kind.
He’s not a monster like Ben, but sometimes he tells me horrible things. Sometimes he taunts me with wicked words of what he’s going to do to someone else after he’s gone back to his room. Sometimes the anger in my chest manifests into violence in my fingers but fighting him is a waste of my time.
It always ends the same way. My face in the mattress with his erection against my back as he pins me down.
But he won’t finish it.
He never finishes it.
I hate him for that.
I hate the way his hands move up the column of my neck now, gently coming around to my throat, then he curls his fingers around my flesh.
I hate that I know what he’s doing. I hate how he squeezes slowly so I don’t squirm. Even as he steals the breath from me.
Even as he pulls me by my throat onto my back and props himself up to look down at me as he chokes me. In the darkness of my room, he can barely see me, nor I him. But the TV is glowing blue along one wall, and the light illuminates the planes of his face, smooth and sharp and pale like they’re carved from granite.
I hate how even that light dissipates as my vision turns to black and I open my mouth to gasp.
I hate how much I love that his saliva drips from his mouth onto my tongue and he tastes clean, like peppermint, and just as I’m slipping under, and all I can feel and taste and breathe arehim,he leans in close to my ear.
“That’s right, baby girl, all you need comes from me.” Then he loosens his grip around my throat and I’m pulling air, but before I can get enough, he kisses me, harsh and possessive and raw.
His teeth clash with mine, his tongue is down my throat, and his hands haven’t left my neck.
“Is it like this with him?” he asks me, pulling away, letting me breathe. “Does he fuck with you this good, Addison?”
I buck my hips, wanting him between my thighs. Any part of him. I’d takeanything.I just wantmore.
But he laughs, sucking my bottom lip harshly, biting it between his teeth before he pulls back, hands still around my throat. “I don’t want your body, stupid girl. Everyone will have that. Pay attention, Addison. It’s your mind I want to fuck.”
