Page 72 of Unorthodox
My teeth hit steel and Max sighs against my ear.
“Careful as you suck it, love. No one wants your fucking teeth. If you leave here, your owner might knock them all out if you make that mistake again.”
Tears well up behind my eyes as he continues pushing it in, pulling it out.
Finally, he stops, yanks me by my hair and spins me around, so I’m facing him.
His eyes are empty, but there’s that smile on his face that makes my trembling worse, my entire body nearly convulsing as he watches me, gun in one hand, fingers still tangled in my hair.
“You’re so nervous,” he says quietly, raking his eyes over my half-naked body. “I promise I’ll make it good for you.” He nods his head toward the bed. “Lie down.”
Without waiting for me to comply, he moves his fingers from my hair to underneath me, around my waist, and he shifts me up, so my head is back against my pillow, my legs stretched out on the bed.
“If you listen to me, this won’t hurt as much as it should.” Standing to the side of the bed, he points toward my knee with the gun and I shudder. “Bend your knee so the sole of your foot is against your calf.”
“Max,” I try, my fingers gripping the sheets at my side. My voice is hoarse, my throat aching. I shake my head, my lips trembling, tears falling freely down my face. “Don’t.” I know this won’t be like last time, in the basement. This won’t be a tease.He choked me.He’ll do this, too. “Please don’t.”
He smiles again. “Begging, Addison? You should’ve done that a long time ago.” He gestures toward me with the gun. “I don’t want to repeat myself.”
“You can’t,” I try instead, making to sit up but he calmly touches the barrel of the gun to my chest, keeping me down. My eyes widen, fear momentarily stealing my breath, but I refuse to look anywhere but at his face, even as I can feel the cold barrel through my shirt. “You can’t, because if you do, then you can’t still s-sell me.”He can’t know.
His eyes gleam, as if I’ve just told a funny joke thathe’squite proud of. “Sell you?” he repeats, shaking his head as he leans down closer, the gun still to my heart. “At this point, love, I don’t think there’s going to be anythingleftof you to sell.” His mouth is over mine, my lips trembling against his own as he stares at me. “Some things are worth the loss, I suppose.”
“Please don’t,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “Please don’t, Max.” I can feel his soft lips against my own as I speak. “I’m sorry I…I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry I broke the mirror. I’m sorry I—”
“Is that so?” he asks me, running his mouth over my own.
I stop breathing. I don’t open my eyes.
“Are yousorryyou did it, or are you only sorry because now I’m going to punish you for it?” He brushes his mouth over mine again, in something that’s not quite a kiss.
I grip the sheets tighter. “Don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t—”
His hand is around my throat again, making me wince, but the gun is off of my chest. I open my eyes as he stares down at me. “Of course, you’ll do whatever I want. Did you think you ever had a choice in that? Don’t bargain with things I already have, baby girl. That just makes you look stupid.”
His grip is tight, but not like it was, not enough to cut off my words, or my breath. “I don’t have anything else to give you,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “I don’t…I don’t have anything to bargainwith.”I don’t let myself think of the times I begged my father. I don’t let myself think of how he laughed, how he told me I was his daughter, and I was his to do with as he pleased.
No. No.No. Shoving it all in the box, I hold my breath.
Max stares at me for a long, long while.
It feels like an eternity.
It’s probably only a minute, but in that minute, I know he’s deciding what, exactly, he wants to do with me. My fate rests in his hands, just like it has since I stepped foot into this house.
He reaches behind him, and I realize, when I hear the contact of steel against wood, that he’s put the gun on my nightstand.
I don’t dare exhale a sigh of relief.
He moves his fingers from my throat to my temple as he sits on the bed beside me. He traces the curve of my cheekbone, his eyes tracking the movement. I hold my breath, wondering if he’s going to hurt me again, but I force myself to focus on something else.
Anything else.
And I notice, in this moment, that he looks so, so tired. The circles under his eyes that I first saw when he came into the room look worse, as if this entire thing has exhausted him.
I’m sure Max is used to being brutal and cruel, and what he’s done to me is nothing different from his everyday life. Still, as his fingers are gentle against my face and I try not to think about what he just did, I wonder instead why he doesn’t sleep.
I wonder what happened to him, and why he can’t put those things into a box.
