For a while he stood watching her, his gaze shrewd in its cruelty, his body tight beneath a wrinkled shirt and linen pants, and mannerisms that were more fitting for an affluent man that had stepped out of the past into the modern world. She could imagine a man like him with a coat that had tails hanging down over the firm round mass of his behind, a fitted vest several shades lighter than his coat, worn over a crisp white shirt with jeweled cuff links glittering at his wrist. She had no problem believing he would wear a pocket watch, the gold chain dangling at his hip, reminding each person around him that he was intelligent, powerful...wealthy. He had the swagger that came with the silver spoon life, the hawk-like gaze of a man that could rule any room he happened to deign to enter.
Unsure why he reminded her of a time long gone, she trembled where she sat, attempting in vain to ignore the frantic beat of her heart, the pulsing need for escape that echoed across her bones with every solitary second he stood deathly still and studied her.
The steps began again, each one closing the distance between Alice and her nightmare. Her muscles tightened with every beat, the shaking of her body becoming more violent with every foot of space between them that was lost. But when he'd come within arm's reach of her - when he paused as if this single moment would be the one that tore her to shreds over a bed of elegant silk - he paused long enough to make her mouth go dry, to add fuel to the already blazing fire of panic that burned across her chaotic mind.
However, he didn’t touch her. He simply walked away.
Replacing the distance between them, Max blended into the shadowed interior of a large closet, lost to Alice's sight as quickly as he'd appeared.
Alice released a shaky breath, her trembling hands wringing in her lap, her heart rate dropping back to a steady rhythm that could sustain a fleeting life.
His absence wasn't long. Within a minute, possibly two, he returned from the black shadow of the closet, a flowing garment of pristine white held tightly in his hands.
And like every time he approached, Alice's heart sped back to a dizzying, frantic rhythm, her breath caught in her lungs and burned for release. A caged animal now, cornered and abandoned by the entire world, Alice watched his boots move across the floor, finally arching her neck to gaze up at the beautiful face of a man who was as silent as he was menacing, who wore forbidden lust as a second skin, who gazed back down at her with discontent behind his sharp, chilling eyes.
"Get dressed," he instructed, the nightgown falling from his hands to puddle at her feet, the command leaving no room for her to argue.
"Right here?" She swallowed down her panic, forcing her fear-swollen heart from her throat back to that empty place in her chest.
He inclined his head, taking two measured steps back to allow her room to stand.
Barely able to force her muscles to move, she picked up the nightgown from the floor and pushed herself to her feet. The soft fabric bunched tightly around her delicate hand, a rope binding her until the skin around that fabric became white from lack of blood.
Max didn’t move, his body so still she would have sworn it was made of steel or stone, hard, impenetrable plaster like that of the statues she’d admired in a museum so many years ago. Not a twitch of his muscles. Not a tic of his jaw. The only part of him that screamed there was life inside his body were the ever-watching, haunting eyes that spoke of dirty secrets, sordid trysts, and dark, depraved desires.
Unable to pull her gaze away from the silent witness in the room, she loosened her grip on the nightgown to place in on the mattress. There was no point delaying the inevitable. He would see what he wanted to see, regardless of whether she welcomed the intrusion or not. She knew that now, knew the lengths he was willing to go in order to take what he considered his.
Her eyes flicked up to the television screen mounted in the top corner of the room, a momentary distraction from the living, breathing threat that stood only a few feet away.
Her sister sat on the bed, her body dressed in a white nightgown much like the one Max had given Alice to wear. But her head was still covered by the rough, brown hood that, as far as Alice knew, hadn’t been removed since she’d been forced to her knees in front of her, put on display as the whipping girl who would pay for the misdeeds of her sister.
A shiver ran down Alice’s spine, but she returned her attention to Max, allowed her eyes to settle on his eyes before chasing the mottled lines of the scar that ran across his left cheek. Rather than making him more frightening, that scar somehow made him more human.
What caused it? She wondered. What nightmare did he suffer that undoubtedly created the man he was now?
The taste of sympathy was acrid across her tongue, she’d rather hate the beast than feel sorry for him. But the emotion was there anyway, because she knew what it was to be mistreated and hurt.
Letting out a resigned sigh, she squared her shoulders and told herself that she wasn’t doing this in submission to the man that believed he owned her, she was doing this to save the woman on the screen because, in many ways, Alice was stronger.
She’d endure.
She’d play the part.
She’d walk the line he was drawing so clearly in front of her.