Unorthodox (Sick Love Book 1)

by K. V. Rose

  There’s no use in even entertaining this question. What if I did choose Max? What if he did decide to fuck his greed for once in his adult life and keep me instead? What would become of me? I’d forever be a puppet on his strings.

  That’s not a life at all.

  “No one,” I tell him softly. Truthfully. “No one.”

  His steel and sky eyes, slivers of darker grey blended with shards of lightest blue, are startlingly beautiful contrasted against the look of pure evil on his face.

  Gone is the Max from a moment ago, willing to let me hold him.

  Instead, he wraps an arm around my back, slipping it under my shirt, and his tone is chilling as he speaks. “I want you to know, Addison,” he says quietly, “that you are so goddamn beautiful.”

  His words make me feel sick. I push my palms against his chest, trying to get some space between us, but his grip is firm, holding me steady.

  “I want you to know, too,” he continues, never letting me go, “that as much as you hate being here…I kind of like you in my house.”

  “Max—”

  “Doesn’t that make you happy?” he interrupts me. “Because you don’t look very happy right now, Addison.”

  I swallow down the lump in my throat, dig my heels down into the floor and I try to push off of him.

  He doesn’t budge. Instead, he tips my chin up, so I’m forced to look at him again, and I see his eyes search mine. “Aliens?” he says, and I frown, momentarily giving up my futile fight. Glancing behind me, he continues, “Conspiracy theories? That stuff makes you happy too?”

  My face heats with his words, confusion and warning ringing in my ears. “Max, where are you going with this?”

  His fingers are gentle against my face as he keeps my chin lifted, staring down at me. “You’re cute, love.” His words are soft. “You’re goddamn adorable.”

  Before I can take my next breath, his hand comes to my throat and he spins us around, shoving me against the wall beside his windows.

  His fingers hurt as he curls them around my throat and he asks, “And when was your fucking adorable ass going to tell me that you were planning to run off into the sunset with your brother, with the help of my fucking maid?”

  My blood runs cold while my face flushes hot. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what to say.

  But I know what I need to do.

  Mamie wasn’t stupid.

  I might’ve been, but she wasn’t.

  We planned for this.

  I know what I need to do, but with Max pushing me against the wall, the gun is too far away.

  “So goddamn pretty when you’re terrified, love.” He grabs my hip, right above my pelvis. “But I need you to answer my question.”

  I close my mouth, swallow down the lump in my throat as I keep my eyes fixed on his. “You’re going to sell me.”

  He moves his hand from my throat, traces his finger down the side of my face. I try my best not to flinch. Not to remember how he’s hurt me before.

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “You’re going to sell me,” I say again anyway, my voice growing stronger. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the reality that he might actually kill me this time, but the terror morphs into anger. If he knows mine and Mamie’s plan, then I’m already fucked.

  “You thought I wouldn’t try to run? You thought I’d just let you fuck up my whole life?”

  “I don’t recall asking for your permission.”

  I grind my teeth together, my hands balled into fists at my side. “You’re a piece of shit, Max.”

  His finger traces my lips and he looks amused. I grab his wrist, try to yank down his hand.

  He grips my hip tighter, right above the bone, and I freeze, holding my breath.

  “Let go of me,” he says coldly.

  I count to three. Try to steady my nerves, to grasp onto the anger permeating through my veins. To find more fight.

  But the fear is overwhelming, and I drop my hand.

  I need to appease him for now.

  I need to get him off of me, because I need that gun.

  “Good girl,” he taunts me with a smile. “Now, I’m going to need to know everything you and Mamie discussed in my absence. Every fucking detail. Because you might think you’ve got this all figured out, love,” he smiles, “but you’re not going anywhere. And if you don’t tell me exactly how you stabbed me in the back, I won’t hesitate to fucking kill you, Addison.”

  He loosens his grip, but the hand on my hip comes between my thighs, as if he didn’t already do enough damage there.

  I close my eyes as he nudges my legs apart with his hand, then runs his palm between my thighs, inside of my pants.

  Suppressing a shiver, I clench my hands into fists. I inhale, and I can feel his chest pressed against me, keeping me pinned to the wall.

  “She didn’t want to hurt you, Max,” I tell him honestly, only able to speak without looking at him. “She never…she never said anything about D-Danik and…” I’m choking on my own words, trying to focus. Trying to breathe. “She just wanted to help me.”

  He doesn’t say anything, but his free hand goes to my inner thigh, spreading me wider as he runs his hand up and down the length of me.

  My knees shake, but I keep my eyes closed, my head tilted back against the wall. I’m not here. “She was just…she was just going to get me to Danik. She was just going to get me free.”

  “She was going to take you from my house herself?” he asks with humor.

  I nod, biting my lip.

  “And you know nothing about your brother being a fucking narc?”

  “No,” I tell him truthfully.

  He sighs. “You know, love, I’ve fantasized about shooting you since the day I first saw you with that knife in your hand, down at my feet. It seems that day has finally come.”

  My eyes fly open. “What is wrong with you?” The words are so quiet, I can barely hear them. “You think you’re the only who ever got hurt—”

  He moves his hand from my pants, clamps it over my mouth, fingers digging into my cheek. “Get on the fucking floor, Addison. You taste yourself? You’re still so wet.” He forces his finger into my mouth, but not past my teeth. “I think I should fuck you again before I kill you.”

  “No.” The word is muffled under his hand, so I say it one more time. Just in case he didn’t hear me the first time. “No.”

  He laughs. “It wasn’t a question.” He grabs my arm, pulls me away from the wall.

  I spin around, shoving him back.

  “Oh, you want me to make you hate it again?” he asks me, his voice cold as his grip tightens on my arm.

  “You’re sick,” I tell him, trying to shove him back again, but he doesn’t budge. I don’t care anymore. I might die here, but I want him to know that as brutal as he is, he’s also a fucking coward. “And more than that, more than being fucked up, you’re broken, and you can’t stand the idea that someone might see your fucking cracks.”

  As the last words leave my lips, I catch sight of the gauze over his shoulder, just under his shirt.

  And I don’t hesitate when I slam my fist down on it.

  He releases me, gritting his teeth as his hand comes to the wound.

  I nearly stumble backward, but I find my footing, turning toward the table and the couch, the gun lying next to the empty decanter. I run toward it, hand outstretched, blood pumping in my ears, chest heaving.

  But just as I nearly collide with the table, he grabs my wrist, spins me back around.

  “As much as I like to hurt you, Addison, I think you’re taking this a little too far. It doesn’t have to be so fucking violent.”

  I curl my hand into a fist and launch it at his shoulder again, but he’s faster, his hand catching around my wrist before I can touch him.

  “You could just enjoy it,” he snarls. He forces me backward, hooks his leg around mine to throw me off balance as he pushes me down against the table, the co
rner of the marble digging into my back.

  He kneels down over me and I try to get my hands free from his grip, but he’s stronger, holding me still.

  “Stop fighting me.” He yanks me down to the floor, and I watch as he grabs the gun, smiling as he turns back to me, pinning me down with one hand.

  I try to sit up, to yank his hand off of me, but he just climbs on top of me, trapping me beneath him, the gun to my head.

  I freeze.

  “Shh,” he says softly against my ear, running his thumb down the side of my neck as he holds the gun to my temple. “I’m just going to fuck you one more time, Addison. One more time before you’re gone.”

  I still beneath him, barely breathing with his weight against my chest, my hands pinned to my side.

  “Do you want me to make it good for you? Or do you want me to make it hell, Addison?”

  I take a deep breath. “Please don’t, Max.” I’m reduced to begging again, and I hate us both for it.

  “You know I’m going to. You fucked me over.”

  “You’re going to—”

  “Sell you, yes, I know. You’ve told me about a hundred times.” His voice is calm against my skin, and his scent, along with his body over mine and the smell of alcohol reminding me he’s more fucked up than usual, is overwhelming.

  I want him off.

  I want out of this nightmare.

  “We’ve already done this a few times.” He laughs, digging the gun in harder against my temple. “And this. Don’t you think we should try just once more?”

  I close my eyes tight, my chest heaving beneath him. “Max, no.” I choke on my own jagged sob, tears welling behind my eyes. “Don’t do this.”

  “Why not?” He still runs his thumb up and down the side of my neck, his mouth against my ear so I can feel his every breath.

  “You’re not this,” I whisper against his throat. “You’re not this. You’re better, Max. What they did to you, what happened to you, you’re so much more.”

  He laughs against me, shifts between my hips so I feel his erection against my stomach. “You know better than that, baby girl. I’m not more. I’m so much worse.”

  My mind spins, my stomach clenching as I think about what he’s going to do with that gun he’s holding to my head.

  “You killed Ben,” I remind him in a hoarse whisper. “You killed Ben and last night, what you did for me—”

  “You’re a means to an end.” He runs his nose along my jaw, breathing me in. “If you think I did those things for you, you’re delusional. I did them for me, Addison. For what I get from—”

  “That’s not true,” I say quickly. “It’s not true. You care about me, and you can pretend you don’t, and you can pretend that you only want to destroy me, but I know better. I know you have a heart and—”

  “I never thought of you as a stupid girl, love. But right now?” He presses a kiss to my cheek. “Right now, you sound really fucking stupid.”

  “Stop it!” I scream, trying to move my hands, but I can’t with the way he’s on top of me. “Stop, Max.” I try to turn my head, to meet his gaze, but he nudges my face to the side, further into the barrel of his gun. I tense but I don’t stop talking, even as tears run down my face, warm and wet and a sign of all the ways I’m weak. “I don’t care what you say. I don’t care if you kill me. I don’t care if you fuck me again or sell me or shoot me. Someone hurt you, just like they hurt me. And you think if you hurt everyone else, you can heal yourself. But it doesn’t work like that, Max.”

  He brushes my hair off of my face as I catch my breath, but he doesn’t let me turn my head to look at him. Instead, I’m staring at the floor.

  “Oh yeah? It doesn’t? Is that why you, with the bleeding heart of gold, trying to find compassion where there is none, have a gun to your head and I’m the one holding it there?”

  “You saved me,” I tell him, ignoring his words. “You saved me last night.”

  “Just as I would have any kilo of coke, Addison. You’re nothing more than—”

  “And when I told you what my uncle did to me, you were angry,” I continue. “And if he ever walked through the doors of your house, you would—”

  “Kill him,” he finishes for me, and for the first time, I feel him tense against me. The pressure of the gun against my head lets up. “I would fucking kill him.”

  I take a shaky breath, inhaling his scent. “If this isn’t love, if this isn’t something like it, then what is it, Max?”

  He pulls back. “It’s simple, baby.” His eyes meet mine. “It’s just a game. The rest? That’s all in your head.” He taps the gun against my temple for emphasis. “I don’t love you. I don’t know you, and I don’t want to know you. I told you, I want to fuck with your mind. It gets me off. And having you thinking that I might actually give a fuck about you because I’d kill a pedophile?” He smiles as he stares down at me. “That really gets my dick hard.”

  My chest caves with his words. It feels like my heart shatters, too.

  All this time, I thought I saw something in him, beyond the monster.

  But there’s nothing.

  He’s not in there. He doesn’t have a soul. His father and whoever else hurt him took it, or maybe he was born like this.

  Either way, there’s no reasoning with the devil.

  So, I don’t even try.

  If he wants to fuck me again, if he wants to rape me, I’ll let him.

  I’ll go somewhere else, just like I did last night. Max can take my body, he can fuck with my head, but I won’t let him strip my soul. I won’t let him take that piece of me that believes somewhere in the world, there’s goodness.

  Maybe it’s delusional. Maybe it’s a conspiracy theory, as far-fetched as alien abductions, but I don’t care.

  I won’t let him take that bit of hope.

  “Nothing to say?” he asks me, propping himself up on one elbow, half off of me as he traces the gun down my body.

  I barely feel it as I stare at the ceiling, and I don’t answer him.

  “I’ll make a deal with you, baby girl.”

  I still don’t look at him.

  “If you pretend you like this,” he nudges the gun against my side, “I’ll make it good for you again. It’ll only hurt a little, because it has to for me, but I’ll be gentle.”

  My heart thuds dully in my chest, mental fatigue and maybe the alcohol making my head spin. I know Max will be good to his word, which means he’ll make sure it does hurt if I don’t pretend to want it. To want him.

  “Okay,” I say softly, still not looking at him, thinking of the gun in his hand. Of what he’s going to do with it.

  I hold my breath.

  Say a silent prayer.

  Then he lays the gun down on the floor. Grabs my chin. Forces me to face him. “You need to look at the devil when you’re making a deal with him.”

  I smile at him, my eyes locked on his. For a moment, we just stare at each other, his hand on my face. I marvel at how much I hate him, and how much my heart breaks for the fact that he’s a man who is impossible to love.

  I wonder if he hates himself, too. I think about him holding that gun to his head, finger on the trigger. I wonder how many times he’s thought about killing himself.

  I wonder when I’ll ever stop wondering about stupid things. When my heart will simply disappear, like his has. And when I reach for his stupid fucking gun, aim it at him, and pull the trigger before he can react, I wonder if it just did.

  “You fucking bitch.” His hand is over his upper arm, just below his shirt, blood pooling beneath his fingers, soaking his skin.

  I scramble backward on the floor, out from under him, holding the gun with both hands, aiming it at him as I jump to my feet, take a step back from him.

  My ears are ringing, my arms shaking, but I don’t look away from him.

  He’s still propped on his side, his face contorted in pain, those blue-grey eyes staring daggers at me.

  “I’m leaving yo
u, Max,” I tell him quietly, backing up toward the door, trying not to panic. Trying to remember to breathe.

  There’s so much fucking blood.

  He takes a shallow breath, his chest rising and falling slowly, muscles flexing. There’s a vein in his neck that’s throbbing against his skin.

  “I’m leaving you, and I’m never coming back. I’m going to fucking put you in prison for the rest of your life.” I almost laugh with those words, because I’m free.

  I’m fucking free.

  I’m right at the door, gun still pointed in his direction.

  “You’re going to rot in a cell.” I reach behind me, unlock the door, not taking my eyes off of him as blood pools on the dark floor beneath him. “You’re going to rot, and no one is going to cry for you, Max. Because no one gives a fuck about you.”

  His pale face turns a sickly shade of green, and I feel that part of me that cares for him trying to betray my mind. Poison my resolve.

  I won’t let it.

  He deserves this.

  I pull open the door.

  If he bleeds out in this horrible house, he deserves that, too.

  “Addison,” he says, his voice a strangled groan.

  I smile at him as I step back into the hallway. “Yes, love?”

  “Don’t do this.” He sits up, trying to push himself off of the floor.

  I pull the trigger again, wincing as the shot rings out. It doesn’t hit him, and instead imbeds itself into the wall behind him, but he doesn’t move again.

  He just keeps bleeding all over the place, staring at me like he wants to kill me, and I’m sure he does.

  But for once, Max Bennett can’t get what he wants.

  I can barely hear myself speak as my ears ring, adrenaline pumping through me, but I still manage to say, “Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ll make sure Mamie helps you get cleaned up.” I take another step out into the hallway, putting more distance between us before I get ready to run.

  I glance at where I shot him, the left side of his torso drenched in blood, his shirt sticking to his body. I wonder if he’s actually going to die right in front of my eyes.

  It’s painful, thinking about it. I feel physically sick.

  But his words echo in my head: “I want to fuck with your mind. It gets me off.”