Page 2 of Lonely
“You’ll soon learn that I’m not the enemy here,” I said as I came to stand beside the armchair.
He white-knuckled the armrests, and I studied his hair, imagining how the strands might feel between my fingers. It looked thick but soft. I had once had thick hair too, before time touched me with its cruel, gnarled fingers. But now, when I studied my tired face in the mirror each morning, I was confronted with graying hair and a receding hairline.
At least I wasn’t completely bald. Not yet.
The urge to sift my fingers through the strands had me fisting my hands in my pockets. “I’m here to help you,” I said, and he looked up at me. “Admittedly, the past cannot be erased. What’s done is done. But you can atone for your sins. That’s why you’re under my care.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he remained silent, and my fingers twitched in my pockets as seconds stretched into minutes.
“Although,” I continued with a soft sigh, if only to break the trance that rooted me to the floor, “I can’t do it without your help. You must want to get better. Here at Wellard, we have the means to treat your disorder. But treatment only goes so far.”
Sliding my hands from my pockets, I crouched before him. “You have to trust me.”
His green eyes excavated my face in the silence that followed. I thought back on all the unfortunate people with troubled pasts who had sat in this chair. Some never left these grounds, doomed to aimlessly roam the hallways. Ghosts of their former selves. Others, like this young man, were contained because they were deemed a danger to society.
The mind was a maze with many twists and turns. This man alone could lead us to the exit.
Until I deemed him fit to leave, he would remain within these walls, for his safety and for society’s.
He might not have realized it yet, but he was mine until I chose to set him free.
That word,mine, whispered in the recesses of my mind. Outside, the storm continued to batter the stone walls of the asylum while raindrops trailed down the glass like tears.
The young man flicked his eyes between mine, his face expressionless. When he looked away, dismissing me, I reached out and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, feeling him stiffen beneath my touch.
Power thrummed beneath my fingertips, subdued by the strong medications coursing through his veins. But it was still there. I could feel it. This young man was in his prime—strong and capable—with big hands, muscular thighs, and a broad chest. As my gaze drifted down the length of his body, his chest heaved with the effort of controlling his emotions.
He fisted his hands on his lap, drawing my attention to the bulging veins and his white knuckles.
Violence simmered beneath his skin. I pictured him unleashing the evil inside him, letting it spill out and wreak havoc like he had on those nights. The judge overseeing his trialhad owed me a favor and granted me access to the crime scene photographs.
All that blood. Splattered everywhere.
Red. Red. Red.
There was beauty in destruction. The Devil had good taste. He had proved as much when he chose this fine specimen to act as his vessel.
I could almost taste it . . . the evil in him.
The urge to bury my face in the crook of his neck and breathe in his pheromones stirred my dick. Yes, sending him here had been the right decision. A fine young man like him, with such capable hands, would have been popular in prison. I could only imagine how the others would have eyed him in the shower, seduced by the curve of his toned ass, narrow waist, and broad shoulders as he scrubbed his hair.
At least here, under my care, he was protected from predatory men.
I retook my seat behind the desk, pretending to be engrossed in his file while palming my solid length beneath the table.
Red. Red. Red.
When I looked up, he was staring out the window with a faraway look.What’s going on inside his head?I wondered.What does a young man like him think about?
Thoughts were pesky, elusive things. Always hidden just out of reach. How I wished they were solid. If they were, I could have extracted and examined them under a microscope. I would have taken my time, dissecting each one until I reached the core of his being.
I shook my head, disgusted by the twitch of my dick at the thought of removing the top of his skull just to poke at his brain, the squishy feel of it beneath my fingertips.
It was useless. I couldn’t taste his thoughts. Not even if I cut his brain into neat cubes and consumed each piece like cheese and crackers. No, they belonged to him alone.
“Are we done here?” he asked, his husky voice cutting through the heavy rain and distant thunder.
The storm was moving away.
