Unorthodox (Sick Love Book 1)

by K. V. Rose

  He’ll take care of me.

  The gun dips down between my breasts, then over the plane of my abs. I feel the warm steel against the patch of skin exposed from where my shirt is riding up in the way he has my arms stretched over my head.

  Then the gun is on my inner thigh.

  My chest rises and falls at a rapid pace, and he arches a brow. “Don’t look away from me, baby girl. You’re safe with me.”

  Safe.

  He uses the weapon to nudge the fabric of my loose cotton shorts to the side and then it’s touching me…there.

  I suck in a breath, bite my lip, but I don’t so much as blink as I hold his gaze, even as tears well up behind my eyes.

  “Tell me you don’t want it,” he says, challenging me.

  I can’t speak.

  He runs the warm tip of the barrel up my slit, and I’m paralyzed with something that isn’t fear.

  It’s disgust.

  With myself.

  Long ago, my body stopped hating the monsters that tortured me in the night. It stopped hating them, and instead, it started to crave them.

  Now, it’s no different.

  He drags the weapon lower, and I suck in a breath, panic seizing through me.

  He stops moving the gun.

  “Shh,” he says, leaning down closer, so his mouth is over mine. “Relax, beautiful girl. You’re okay.”

  I’m so fucking far from okay.

  This is not okay.

  “Spread your legs wider.”

  I don’t move. For long seconds, I don’t move, and neither does he. He just stares down at me, waiting.

  Waiting for me to disobey him.

  Waiting for me to stop him.

  Swallowing, I draw up my knee, open it out at an angle, giving him better access.

  He cocks a brow but doesn’t smile. “Good girl. You’re such a fast learner.” Then he moves the gun lower still.

  Again, I freeze, my nipples tightening beneath my shirt as I bite my lip, hard.

  Is this real?

  Maybe this is a dream.

  “Don’t look away from me,” he warns, almost as if he knows exactly what I’m going to do, right before I do it.

  But I don’t want this.

  Even though I think he’s testing me, seeing what I’m capable of, I don’t want this.

  I close my eyes. I might not be able to physically fight him, but I can defy him like this.

  I realize immediately that it was a mistake. Whatever softness he’d shown me in the dark, now that Ben is dead, now that I’ve disobeyed him, it’s all gone.

  “Addison.” His hand leaves my wrists as my eyes spring open. His fingers curl around my throat and then he’s hauling me up to a seated position, shoving me against the wall.

  The gun comes under my chin, just like it was with Ben.

  With Ben.

  I open my mouth to scream, and he moves the gun, shoving it past my teeth, into my mouth.

  “You fucked up, baby girl.” My eyes are glued to his, the taste of the gun like iron in my mouth. My stomach churns as I realize it could be blood I’m tasting. “You fucked up, and I won’t let you do that again. If you disobey me one more time?” He leans in close, his nose running down the length of my jaw, barrel of the gun still between my teeth. “I’ll pull this trigger after I fuck you senseless.”

  Max Bennett is worse than the devil. At least you know Satan is going to eat you alive. With Max, he’ll make you beg for it first. Make you think he’s doing you a favor as he rips your heart right out of your chest.

  When he takes the gun from my mouth, puts it back on his hip, stands to his feet and offers me his bloodied hand, flecked with scars set against his pale skin, my entire body trembles.

  He put a gun in my mouth. He just shot a man in cold blood. He threatened to kill me.

  But I take his hand, because what else is there to do?

  Between ending up like Ben and shaking hands with the devil, I’ll choose the devil every time.

  Even if it terrifies me.

  I thought I was made for this. I thought I would be fine, biding my time while my father finds a way to get me back.

  Or my brother.

  But I wasn’t made for Max Bennett.

  No one is made for Max.

  Because despite what he did, despite what he still might do, when he pulls me close against him, I cave. When he wraps his arms around me, tears silently spilling down my cheeks, the taste of the gun still in my mouth, I sink into him, close my eyes and pretend he’s someone else.

  When his fingers tangle in my hair and he presses a kiss to my head, I pretend it’s because he’s sorry.

  For Ben. For the gun. For his threats.

  I pretend he has a soul, and I pretend, for just a few minutes, that I don’t hate him.

  The water is warm, but I still feel cold.

  There are two showerheads in this shower, and he stands under one while I’m under the other. I face away from him, because it’s easier that way, and yet even with the water as hot as my body can physically stand it, I’m shivering.

  The blood ran clear minutes ago, but I keep staring at the white tile beneath my feet like I expect to see more of it at any moment. With my back to Max, I almost expect it to be my blood going down this drain.

  But Max took my hand, led me up the stairs, through the enormous house that seems to be entirely made of shades of black, and he pulled off my bloody clothes, opened up the glass shower door, and pushed me inside.

  I haven’t washed my hair. Haven’t washed anything.

  I’ve done nothing but try to forget the spray of red from Ben’s head. The taste of the gun in my mouth.

  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 m
e, 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.

  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.

  “Addison,” he says, a warning in my name. “Drop your fucking hands.”

  My heart is rattling around so hard in my chest it’s almost painful, but I don’t. Ben might have tamed me, Max might have drugged me to get me to crave him, but this is a new fight.

  The rules are different, because he just killed a man.

  “Stop touching me.” I hate that my voice is hoarse, that my legs are trembling beneath me, but I don’t let go of him.

  He stares at me a long moment, the water beating down on his back, over his shoulders, tracing rivulets through his scars.

  Then he moves, slamming me back against the shower wall, jarring my spine. His hands are still over my breasts, pinning me beneath him as he leans his weight against me.

  A gasp escapes my throat, and when he lifts one hand, yanking his wrist from my grip, I hold my arm up to protect my face, my body tense as it anticipates the blow.

  But he doesn’t hit me.

  Instead, he knocks my arm away, and his fingers are gentle against my jaw.

  “Look at me,” he says softly, his mouth over mine. He’s still gripping my breast painfully tight in his other hand, so hard my eyes water, but I open them, doing as he asked, holding my breath as he trails his fingers up and down the side of my face.

  “When I ask you a question,” his thumb brushes over my mouth, pulling down my bottom lip as his eyes bore into mine, “you answer me. And don’t ever fucking touch me like that again, or it’ll be your blood we wash down this drain.”

  I can’t speak, the words caught in my throat as he keeps his thumb tugging on my bottom lip.

  His grip on my chest loosens, his hand comes down my side, gripping my hip instead as he pulls me closer to him.

  I can feel his erection against my stomach, rock hard and warm. Too big. I bite my lip to keep the pressure building behind my eyes from turning into tears down my face.

  “Do you understand, love?”

  I keep my trembling hands by my sides, but ball them into fists as he moves his finger from my mouth, trails his hand down my throat, and goes back to caressing my breasts.

  Slowly, I nod.

  “Now, let’s try this again.” He gently pulls one nipple, then the other, and I bite my tongue to keep from gasping. “Why did you get implants?”

  “I wanted them,” I lie immediately, unable to hold his gaze. The words come out in a rush, my face on fire, but I can’t tell him the truth. This is humiliation enough. I won’t give him more. I look down at his big hand all over me, squeezing me, caressing me, water streaming down our bodies, his other hand still on my hip.

  His grip turns nearly painful and I gasp, my eyes meeting his.

  “Don’t lie to me,” he says quietly, but there’s a warning laced in his words.

  I lick my lips and look away from him at the clean white tiles. Then I close my eyes for a moment, my mouth going dry all over again. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t even know why he wants to talk about this.

  But his words come back to me: “I don’t want your body, stupid girl. Everyone will have that. Pay att
ention, Addison. It’s your mind I want to fuck.”

  This is part of the appeal for him. Where Ben wanted physical control, Max wants to fuck my head and control me in a darker, more dangerous way. He wants to make me uncomfortable. Humiliate me. That’s what gets him off.

  But to what end? What happens after this? How far will this go?

  Someone will come for me.

  “I’ll pull the trigger after I fuck you senseless.”

  “My father wanted me to have them,” I finally say, forcing myself to push my shoulders back, hold my chin up and hold his gaze even though I am feeling anything but proud.

  But I learned a few things from my father. Not because he taught me, but because I watched him. I might have been a toy, but I was a smart one and I paid attention, so I didn’t get hurt any more than I had to. I learned how to affect confidence.

  Max looks almost amused, his eyes locked on mine as he caresses me. And in this moment, above all others, I actually hate him.

  But then, surprising me, he says, “Your father is a fucking piece of shit,” and just when I thought he was a monster, he’s fucked my head again. Offering me scraps of something that feels like compassion.

  I bite my lip once more, refusing to let the tears pricking behind my eyes emerge as he keeps running his hands over me, gentler than I’d think him capable of.

  His thumb grazes over the small, circular scars on my chest, and I see a question in his eyes as he stares at my skin, but he doesn’t voice it.

  I exhale, thankful that I don’t have to give him more of my dirty secrets.

  And when he finally drops his hands, letting me go, I don’t feel free. I don’t feel relief. Instead, I want to hide. Cover my body and curl into a ball. At least when he was closer to me, his eyes could only see so much. But when he steps away, I’m fully exposed.

  “Turn around,” he says quietly, eyes back on mine. I’m confused about the eye contact, worried any misstep will have another gun in my mouth, have me back against the wall, but I don’t ask him about it. Instead, holding my breath, I do as he says, my body tense.