How are you feeling today, Quinn?”

I sigh. “I’ll pay you a hundred thousand dollars, if you promise to drop that question from our sessions.”

Adriana Nathanson regards me silently for a full minute from the top of her rectangular glasses. She looks good for a woman in her mid-forties, would even pass for a decent blonde-and-blue-eyed MILF, although I glimpse signs of a burgeoning Botox habit. “Why do you want me to drop it?”

“Because we both know whatever answer I give would be a lie.”

“Here’s an idea. Why don’t you try the truth for once?”

“Here’s an idea. Fuck off, Dr. Nathanson.” My pulse barely rises, but there’s more than a hint of venom in my response, which surprises even me.

Her thin lips purse. “I thought we were past the hostility stage, Quinn. Making progress.”

“Did you?” I query with zero interest. “And why would you think that?”

“Because you haven’t shown signs of it in over a year.” She scribbles in her notes.

I remain silent.

Eventually she looks up. “Quinn?”

“Doctor?”

“Did something happen since our last session? You appear…agitated.”

I crack my knuckles loudly. “No. I am not.”

We stare at each other. We’ve played this game a thousand times.

“How are the nightmares?”

The space between my shoulder blades twitches. Have to hand it to her. She has her moments. They’re not many or I wouldn’t have been coming here for ten years. Although, technically there’s no cure for what I have.

I lean back, rub the twitch against the leather chair. “They’re still three shades above garden variety.”

“There’s nothing garden variety about them, Quinn. Tell me about the last one.”

The twitch intensifies. I shrug it off. “It was no different from the one before that. And the one before that.” No matter what I do, how loud I scream, she still dies in the end.

Her lips purse again. “It’ll help to talk through it.”

“I’m absolutely sure it won’t.”

She sighs, lays her Montblanc pen on top of her notes and removes her glasses. I’m hit with a set of determined baby blues. “Your father is back in town. Have you seen him yet?”

I freeze. The twitches abruptly cease. Before it manifests, I sense it. The abyss. It’s like a deadly virus, worming its way through me. It starts in my left wrist. Feeds through my veins and takes root in my brain. It’s not easy to control it, but I give it a shot. “No, I haven’t.”

“And your stepmother?”

I crack a sinister smile. “That’s a stupid question, Dr. Nathanson.”

She has the grace to look ashamed. We both know my stepmother has been banned from seeing me without my father present. Ergo…

“How do you feel about his return?”

“Half a million.”

“You can’t bribe me not to ask you questions, Quinn.”

“Then ask me different ones.”

Her head tilts. As if I genuinely puzzle her. I know I don’t. She knows exactly what I am. What lies beneath this mockery of civility.

“Don’t you want to get better?”

Another idiotic question. We resume the staring match. She uncrosses and re-crosses her legs.

“I called your office earlier today. Your EA said you left early.”

“Is there a question in there?”

She shrugs. “It’s not like you to leave the office until at least ten o’clock.”

“Again, I’m not hearing a question.”

“I was in the area. I thought I might join you for lunch.”

“Why?”

She gives a nervous laugh, the first sign she’s about to crack. I almost laugh. She’s so predictable it’s boring. “Why does anyone eat lunch?”

“No. What makes you think I’d want to eat lunch with you?”

“Because it’s what normal people do.” She immediately realizes her slip and grimaces.

“But I’m not normal, am I, Dr. Nathanson? Isn’t that why I’ve been seeing you every week for the last ten years? Isn’t that why you’ve been letting me come in your mouth since I turned eighteen?”

“Quinn—”

“Are we done, Doctor?”

“I need you to start opening up a bit more—”

“Are. We. Done?”

“For today, yes.”

“Thank fuck. Do me a favor? Please stop pretending you know everything about me. You only know what I share with you in this room.” I crack my knuckles again, a disgusting habit I’ve never been able to quit. I wait for her to close her leather-bound notebook and set it down on the table next to her. When her blue eyes return to me, I sit back and eye her. “Stand up.” She does as instructed. “Turn around, face the door. Is it locked?”

She shakes her head. “No.” Her professionalism is gone and her voice shakes with excitement. For a second, I yearn for a slice of that excitement, but what the hell. I’m about to pass a decent ten minutes.

“Good. Take off your clothes.”

The prim black suit comes off, followed by her cream silk blouse. She folds the clothes away and straightens. I take in her tightly knotted hair, the gold clasp of the pearls resting at her nape, the dove-grey lace underwear, the garters, the heels.

My ennui intensifies.

“Turn around.”

She obeys. Her front is marginally improved by a decent rack. I stare objectively. She’s beautiful, if a little on the too-thin side. Her legs are shapely, hips and thighs lean and toned. My gaze rises to her face and I read the myriad of emotions flitting over her features. None of them touch me. The black poison seeping through me deadens me from the inside. I lay my head against the chair and shut my eyes.

“Take the rest off and come here,” I say.

Her approach halts two feet from me.

I smell her pungent arousal. She’s as wet as fuck, and I wish I were in the mood to fuck her. My hands drop palms down beside my thighs on the sofa.

It’s the tacit permission she needs to drop to her knees. She tugs at my belt and unbuttons my pants. Cool hands reach into my briefs and she pulls me out. I hear her excited gasp a second before her greedy mouth closes over my flaccid head. Saliva lands on my dick and eager hands rub me up and down. Muscle memory kicks in.

The spark is there, but it’s pathetically negligible.

I open my eyes and stare at the white ceiling. In my periphery, I see her head bob up and down, faster and faster to keep me interested. I count the sconces, then drop my gaze lower to examine the genuine masterpieces and numerous accolades draping the walls. Absently, I count them. Twelve impressive citations.

Adriana Nathanson is accomplished.

But clearly she’s getting progressively worse at sucking cock.

I sigh loudly. She bobs faster. One hand creeps over my abs and up my chest.

“No.”

She returns it to my cock.

I sigh again.

I’m being blown by my thousand-dollars-an-hour shrink, one of the most acclaimed in New York City. She’s bare-assed naked and on her knees with her office door unlocked. Depending on who walks in, she could lose her license. I should be excited.

Instead, I’m losing my barely-awakened wood.

Just as I’m about to push her off me, a face slides into my mind.

Lucky.

My cock twitches back to life. Adriana moans and gags with happiness as I thicken in her mouth. My eyes drift shut and the image sharpens. Tumbling caramel hair replaces ice blonde. Worn T-shirt replaces pearls. A full, soft pink mouth wraps around my cock, tongue swirling. A teasing graze of teeth along my thick vein. I roll my hips. She takes more of me into her mouth. I hit the back of her throat. She growls low and long, her membrane vibrating against my cock head.

Air expels in a half gasp. The veil shrouding my ennui ripples, attempts to lift. Sea green eyes rest on me as she devours me.

Her hand creeps over my abs and up my chest.

My eyes blink open.

Adriana.

“No,” I snarl again. Disappointment blackens my mood.

Her hand returns to my cock and she attempts to deep throat me. I’m too big for her. Her gag sickens me.

“Stop.”

Shock hits her eyes. My deflating dick pops out of her mouth, wet and heavy.

“Quinn? Is something w—?”

“Get the fuck off me.”

She has the nerve to appear hurt. Rapid blinks designed to imitate held-back tears makes my mouth twist. To her credit, she retreats without protest.

I tuck myself back in and zip up. She’s hurrying into her clothes as I stand and buckle my belt.

“Next week, same time?” I say sarcastically.

She pauses mid-dress. “I can fit you in later this week, if you want?”

I know why she’s offering. My father is back in town. And perhaps the rare chance that I might fuck her. “I don’t want.”

Concern attempts to shift her Botoxed forehead. “Quinn, I’m really worried about you,” she murmurs.

I laugh. A genuine, hearty-as-apple-pie laugh that splits my face. Sadly, it doesn’t last. It too is sucked into the empty void. “You’re worried about me?” There’s only a thin veneer of reason left. I need to leave this place. Now. Her nod stops me.

“Yes,” she replies. Her hands tremble as she resumes dressing.

“You really are delusional, aren’t you?”

She finishes buttoning her blouse and zips up her skirt. “I don’t know why you’re being this way.”

I laugh again. “Don’t you, Adriana? What does your shrink say about our little arrangement?”

She pales and her mouth drops open. “How do you know about that?”

I scoff at her expression. “What, you think it’s some big secret that you have a shrink too? I guess I should be comforted to know you’re not too far gone to recognize that you need help. So, tell me, is there a diagnosis for your condition?”

 The breath shakes out of her. “I…I’m not prepared to discuss it with you. Like our sessions, mine is also confidential. You get what that means, right?” She’s regaining her composure. Her voice holds a touch of warning. I want to laugh again, but the whole fucked up situation suddenly weighs me down.

“Cut the confidential crap, Adriana. I started coming to you when I was seventeen. You’ve been sucking my cock since my eighteenth birthday—I’m guessing crossing the line into pedophilia was a step too far for you?”

Her bravado vanishes. She holds out a hand. “You’re not…You can’t tell anyone about us, Quinn.”

“There is no us!” I hiss. “And don’t deny a part of you wants to be discovered. You blow me most of the time with your door unlocked, after all. The idea of someone walking in on us gives you a cheap thrill, doesn’t it?”

Her pale face turns guilty. But her gaze rushes over me with sickeningly carnal hunger.

I stride to the door and wrench it open.

“Same time next week,” she says behind me.

I leave without responding.

Two hours later, I’m in the VIP lounge of XYNYC, the Soho club I co-own with an old college buddy. It’s one of several business ventures in which I’m a silent partner because all that obscene Blackwood money needs to go somewhere, right?

I nurse another whiskey and watch scantily-clad girls dance below my roped off lounge. Several cast suggestive glances my way. I clinically assess and discard, my gaze searching but not finding what I’m looking for. I wonder why I even bother. Maybe I don’t want to give in to the inevitability of the expanding blackness just yet?

In spite of knowing and accepting my fate, does a part of me want things to be different?

My phone buzzes in my pocket, the fourth time since I got here. I abandon my useless thoughts but ignore the phone. I’m not in the mood to deal with Maxwell Blackwood. He can wait.

I settle on a skinny brunette in a silver backless dress and crook a finger at her.

The swiftness with which she abandons her friends and hops up the steps to me is almost comical. I nod at the bouncer to let her in and take her back to the velvet couches grouped in the back. My private waiter delivers a glass of vintage champagne to her. I sit back in the seat and don’t protest when she settles her long-legged figure next to me. Over a thumping The Weekend number, she babbles about fuck knows what. I don’t speak. With her third glass of champagne, she grows bolder. She leans closer and her fingers tease my shirt button. Sultry words whisper in my ear.

I allow my hand to play in her hair as I slip deeper into my personal void. I note absently that the blackness is increasing since I gave up my attempts to hold it back.

My phone buzzes again as her hand creeps over my crotch.

I lay my head back and unlock the vault where my darkest plans reside.

In eighteen months, I’ll be thirty.

I’ll inherit fifteen billion dollars.

I’ll be one of the richest men on earth.

I’ll also, if my plans succeed, be a murderer.