Page 26 of No Asylum Here

This poor woman.

She had no idea where she was. What was Rook thinking, assigning me to her? What was his game?

“I’m not a man, Dr. Beckett. Haven’t been for a long time.”

“Then what are you, Mr… I’m sorry. Your last name wasn’t in your file.”

“Just call me Patient Seventeen. And has our session officially begun? Are you analyzing everything I say? Recording me so you can report back to your boss?”

“No. Everything said here stays between us. Now, Patient Seventeen. If you’re not a man, what are you?”

“I’m a monster,” I said simply.

“Just because you’ve done things in your past you regret, doesn’t make you any less human.”

At that, I hacked a manic laugh. “You’re so naïve. Poor little lamb. Wandered into one of the darkest corners of existence, and you don’t even know it. You're in Hell, Dr. Beckett. And you're talking face to face with its most deranged demon.”

“You mean face to burlap?

I balked at her response. Despite the evidence that she was flustered, her voice didn’t betray it. She even cracked a joke. Couldn’t remember the last time someone had the balls to fire one back at me.

“Your file mentioned that you’ve been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Do you hallucinate often?”

She didn’t believe me. Of course, I didn’t blame her. I did sound crazy.

My lips curled with a slow, acidic smile beneath both my masks. “Don’t we all?”

By the way she recoiled, I’d hit a soft spot. I savored the accelerated thrum of her heart, and the delicious taste of her anxiety lacing the air.

Just when I thought she was reconsidering calling the orderlies back to take me away, she surged toward me and snatched the sack off my head.

An unholy growl crawled up my throat the moment I parsed her features.

Pert lips.

Golden hair that lit up with the sun pouring through the window behind her.

Her curvaceous body wrapped to perfection in a tantalizing skirt and sweater combo that had my cock swelling against my thigh.

Every sinew and muscle in my body twitched and bulged. My primal side strained against my restraints.

It was her.

Tuesday wasn’t just the woman I’d fallen for in my dreams. She was not only real, but she was my new physician.

It all made sense now.

My father was using Tuesday—Dr. Beckett—as a means of torture. And fuck me, for the first time in a long time, it was agony.

She looked like an angel. But I knew the truth. Rook was turning the woman of my dreams into my personal demon—a nightmare in the skin of a beautiful woman I ached to touch.

My father was getting smarter. And somehow crueler.

Didn’t think that was possible.

Finally, he knew traditional torture methods were no way to break the monster he’d created. He was switching methods by teasing me with a toy I couldn’t have. A woman who would never return my obsession, no matter how much she seemed to want me in my dreams.

I’d seen this whole plot coming a mile away, and I’d still fallen for it.