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17

P IS FOR PSYCHOPATH

ASHER

H er eyes changed as she pulled out a folder from her drawer. “This is Doctor T’s browser history,” she said. “I combed through his files and copied it. I found nothing substantial, except for this,” she said, sliding a paper toward me.

“What am I looking at?” I said, going through the papers.

“He was researching drugs for mentally ill patients for a long time, but these aren’t FDA-approved. They’re experimental compounds, likely still in preclinical phases or even rejected. What if he did unauthorized human testing? I have seen this before—patients being used as guinea pigs without consent.” She clenched her hands on the table, nostrils flared. “What if he was using Hollowhaven as his research ground?”

“And he got caught?”

Diya nodded. “That would be the perfect ammunition to pull Doctor T into this. Blackmailed him to help them,” she said, shifting to the side, wincing a little.

“You okay? Are you still sore? Do you want anything?”

“I’m perfect,” she snapped.

Something was wrong. Something had changed.

“You’re perfect, but you know what I’m asking, Diya.”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said, her whiskey-brown eyes steely.

It was that kiss. I had a feeling she felt it too. The change in that kiss. And I was sure she didn't like it.

“You called me impossible. Who’s being impossible now?” I turned to face her. “You don’t have to bite me like a fucking rabid dog just because I asked a question,” I said.

The shutters came down. Hard. It was like watching a channel change.

“Listen, I want to help you. I truly do, but…”

“I already know what you’re going to say, Diya,” I said. I should be happy, shouldn’t I? “I know this is not a friendship. This is a business transaction.”

“Then just let it be,” she said. “I’m going to keep an eye on all the staff.”

I rolled my eyes at how not-so-subtly she changed the subject.

“We need to focus on the ones who were there when Riley was.”

“So… Doctor Stanley and Camille are out,” she said, grabbing the diary she always kept with her. “Doctor T is…” She made a whoosh sound. “The doctors who worked with Doctor T back then?”

“There must be some record,” I said, watching as she opened the diary. “Do you really write in that stupid notebook during therapy?”

I had seen her scribbling on it during our sessions, even when I never said a word.

Her lips curled into a sly smile, the frost slowly lifting.

“Want me to read you yours?” Without waiting for my answer, she flipped open the notebook to a random page. She cleared her throat theatrically, her eyes glinting with mischief, and the darkness was gone.

Diya Sharma was a contradiction, and it was giving me a whiplash. She smiled like sunshine one minute and told me to fuck off the next.

How I would give anything to be a mind reader right about now!

“No, thanks,” I bit out.

“Let’s see... Asher Maddox. A classic narcissist, but he masks it with charm and wit. He exhibits a persistent need to be the smartest person in the room, coupled with an annoying habit of underestimating others. Most likely has a savior complex.” She looked up from the page, her smile widening when she met my glare. “Oh. I added a little note here just for you. Likely to annoy the hell out of me sooner rather than later. Diagnosis? Pain in the ass. Treatment? Let’s kill him.” She closed the book with a grin, her eyes overflowing with smug satisfaction. “How did I do?”

“Fucking hilarious,” I said with a growl, and she gave me a dainty shrug.

“So… back to business. We’ve got Nurse Becca, Nurse Dona, and Oswald,” she listed off. “Any one of them could be Rip,” she said, waving her hands, looking animated.

I raised an eyebrow.

“You were dying for some action, and I came in the right fucking moment.” I was nothing special. She would have helped anyone if they were in my place. “You could have pretended not to know anything, but you made sure I knew you knew, because knowing I was trying to kill you gave you that rush. The chase… it excited you, didn’t it?”

She smiled.

“You needed something to make you feel alive again now that you have stopped killing.” I still didn’t know what to make of her, or her hobby. “One more thing. Are you a psychopath?”

She hummed, tapping her pink-painted nails against her lips.

“Not all serial killers are psychopaths, and not all psychopaths become serial killers. It’s psychiatry 101.” Her tone was clinical, almost as if she were giving me a lecture on psychopathy. “What am I? Hmm… I have never fit neatly into any boxes. For me, this is all about control and justice—my version of it, anyway.”

“Do you enjoy it? The kill? I ask because I think I’m beginning to enjoy it. Does that make me one?”

“For me, the thrill didn’t come from killing them but catching the predators. I do miss that, you know, to show them I was better than them…” she trailed off with a smile, eyes reminiscent. “But I love my sisters, I feel as deeply as anyone could and I empathize with the victims. My emotions were not learned. They’re real.”

“So?”

“I don’t think I fit into the neat little labels people use to make sense of things. I just understand what I need to do to survive and to keep those I care about safe. Sometimes, that means making choices others might call monstrous. But does that make me a monster?”

Her words were calm, and measured, and I realized something then. Diya Sharma wasn’t just dangerous. She was the perfect predator, and I… I was barely anything when compared to her. My need for vengeance was personal. Hers went beyond that.

“You look scared,” she said.

“I should be, shouldn’t I?” I asked, and she laughed, standing up from the couch.

“Oh, you should be.”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her down on the couch.

“But I’m not scared right now. I’m turned on.” I took her hand and pushed it against my cock. “You should start paying off tha t debt you owe me.”

Her eyes widened.

“Now?”

“Touch me, Diya.”

“Oh, fuck, Asher.”

“Please.”

“I love it when you beg.”

There was no way I couldn’t not beg.

“On your knees.”

She licked her lips, eyes half closed. “But—”

“Next time you open your lips, my cock better be between them,” I said, tugging at my pants. She groaned, eyeing me with a frown before she went to her knees. She watched, her eyes dark, as my fingers slid up and down my cock. “Pay that fucking debt now.”

She leaned closer to me. I sat still, my body waiting for the shock of her tongue. I jerked when the tip of her tongue finally traced the head of my cock.

I had never been so hard, not like this.

She took her time, just giving me a lick here, a kiss there, until I was going fucking mad. I wanted to fuck her throat now until she was gagging on my cum.

“Now.”

Her lips made an O before she sucked me in, and my body trembled. I wanted to relish it, to take my time, but I knew I wouldn’t survive.

She was slow, trying to learn my pace, but she didn’t have to. She made me hard just by existing, and with her mouth on my cock, she didn’t need to do anything else.

“How much more can you take, Little Poison?”

How much more can I take?

She mumbled something unintelligible but didn’t even lift her face. Her tongue swirled around my cock as her fingers rubbed under my balls.I grabbed her by the hair, pulling her closer to me.

She nibbled the end of my cock, and I groaned.

“Diya…”

“Mmm…” She let my cock go and looked up, eyes blazing, lips pink. “You want to come for me, Pussycat?”

“Yes,” I gasped.

“But I don’t swallow,” she whispered, much to my displeasure.

Groaning, I tightened my fingers on her hair. “I don’t care. Just…”

“Asher…” she said, standing up, and pulling me from the couch.

“What? The fuck? Where are we… right when we…”

She walked me around the table and pushed me down to the chair.

“Sit.” Her eyes were glazed as she pulled open a drawer and took out handcuffs, like this was the most normal Therapy Tuesday in the world.

I mean, if this was therapy, I would willingly attend every one of the sessions.

I blinked, my mouth in a little O.

She smiled, and it wasn’t innocent at all. It was one of those unhinged, deranged smiles, and my traitorous body came alive, my cock tightening with need.

Before I could regain all the brain cells I’d lost, she looped the handcuffs through the chair and snapped them on my wrist. “I have dreamed of you like this too many times,” she whispered, her voice low, sending shivers down my spine. “Helpless, and…” she trailed off, her eyes scanning me like I was a particularly delicious steak she wouldn’t mind sinking her teeth in.

“Helpless and what?”

“At my mercy. Now, Ash… be a good fucking Pussycat and beg for my mouth.”

The wild look in her eyes, the almost savage grin, made my head spin. This woman was going to be my destruction, and I, even knowing that, was helpless to fight back.

“I want your lips around my cock, Diya. Please. I-I need it now. Please. I’ll be your good Pussycat.”

If I wasn’t in the sex-crazed little bubble, what I said would haunt me in both my dreams and nightmares.

Good Pussycat?

There was no running from this.

She laughed, licking her lips.

This woman, with all her chaos and temptation, was a siren to my already-sinking ship. And when my life implodes, I’d die knowing I had fucked her to every inch of her existence.

Oh, I’d die a happy man.

“See, Pussycat, if you had actually gone through with killing me, you would’ve missed out on all this fun.” She shrugged, eyes smug as fuck, and her lips closed around my erection. It took me everything to not come with that single touch, but then again, I had come when she wasn’t anywhere near my cock that night.

“Diya… Faster.”

“Patience, Pussycat.”

“Fuck patience,” I grunted, and she let out a delighted laugh. “Pay your debt properly, or it is going to take you a very, very long time.” She moved faster. “Ah, Diya… Fuck…”

She jerked away when there was a knock on the door.

Fuck. Not now. Not when my life and my orgasm are hanging by a thread.

She didn’t waste a moment to uncuff me from the chair. I stuttered as she pushed me toward the couch, slamming the drawer closed.

“Pants.” She motioned to me.

I was too stunned to even move.

“Who is it?” Her voice was so calm as if she hadn’t just completely obliterated my ability to form coherent words.

“Doctor Sharma, the sheriff is here to see you,” Nurse Shelly called out from the other side of the door.

Fabulous. Nothing says good timing like the sheriff showing up when your pants were around your knees.

Diya let out a long string of curses as I stood there blinking like a malfunctioning robot.

Vincent fucking Bricks.

I knew he hated me, but this? This was overkill.

“What about my blue balls?” I almost whined when Diya glared at me. Shaking her head, she tugged my boxers up until my cock was pressing against the fabric. She trailed a nail up with a smirk, and I jerked back.

“Five minutes, Nurse Shelly.”

“Okay, doctor.” Nurse Shelly left.

“Epididymal hypertension is not life-threatening, Ash,” she said with a smile.

“Epi-di-dicky what? I feel like my life’s in danger right now, Diya,” I said when she zipped up my pants before combing my hair back with her fingers.

“Stop being dramatic. I have to go meet Vincent,” she said, whirling away from me and staring at the mirror. “Oh, shit. I look like someone was thoroughly fucking my mouth.”

I chuckled, and she threw me a frustrated glare.

“This isn’t funny.”

I shrugged as she splashed water on her face, scrubbing it with a growl, before adjusting her sweater.

She opened a drawer and grabbed a lipstick. She painted her lips pink and studied herself in the mirror.

“Do I look okay?”

“You look sexy as fuck, and that mouth…” I whispered, slumping on the couch, and crossing my legs when Diya opened the door. I stiffened when I heard Vincent’s voice.

The fucker couldn’t wait by the reception?

Diya looked shocked to see him there too.

“Hello, Sheriff Bricks,” she greeted him, composing her face.

Vincent walked in, and his smile fell when he saw me on the couch. Diya gave me a look that said I should leave.

Do I want to leave her with him?

NO.

“The session is over. You can leave now.”

“I don’t feel good, Doctor Sharma,” I said, leaning back. She didn’t look pleased, and her eyes promised retribution. Well, I could take it. What I couldn’t take was leaving her alone with him, when he was looking at her like he wouldn’t mind being handcuffed by her.

“He can stay,” Vincent said, throwing me a withering glare, before he turned to her, his eyes instantly transforming into a charming smile.

That chameleon-like bastard.

“What is it, Vincent?”

“I—there’s been another murder,” Vincent said with a wince. “We suspect the perpetrator is the same one.”

Diya stumbled back from Vincent, her face a picture of shock and surprise. Her hand daintily went to those magnificent breasts, drawing Vincent’s gaze to them.

The way he looked at her was enough to make my blood boil.

Jealousy was a twisted monster, and if I gave in, I’d make a big mistake, but…

My mind raced with dark thoughts of hurting him. I wanted to find a knife and carve his eyes out so that he couldn’t look at her like… like he wanted to eat her.

“Wha-what? When? But-but… who’s the victim?”

The woman was good enough to become an actor. If psychiatry didn’t work out, she could try Hollywood—or maybe Broadway. Scratch that, Bollywood . She’d fit right in. Throw in a slow-motion hair flip and some suspenseful background music, and she’d have the audience eating out ofher fucking hands.

I was, and I knew she was lying.

“Tomas Hannigan. He owned a gentlemen’s club just outside Hollow Heights. The Gates.”

“I’ve heard about that.”

“It’s not exactly a secret,” Vincent said with a frown.

“Leads?”

“No. There’s no CCTV around the club. There is one on the inside, but I found nothing from that. I… it’s a headache.”

“So, why are you here today?” Her eyes narrowed.

“To find out the connection between Doctor T and Hannigan,” Vincent said, throwing a look in my direction. “Is it possible to get out of this place and then sneak back in without being seen?”

“It’s hard, but not impossible, but one needs to be really careful. We have two guards, we have night-duty nurses, and orderlies are always checking for any disturbance.”

She was right, but I was good enough to slip past all the watching eyes, only to get caught by her.

Vincent turned to look at me again before drawing a deep breath. He walked to where I was slouching.

“Asher.”

I looked up, arching a brow.

“You’re coming with me,” Vincent said. “We need to question you about your possible connection to the recent murders.”

I almost laughed.