“How old are you in that picture?” Elliot asked, sitting in the chair by the bed.

“I’d just turned fifteen. Mom didn’t want me to have him. She thought I was too irresponsible. I swore I was going to prove her wrong.”

“Did you?”

“I did, until recently. When Amanda died, I kind of left him to the stable. Fuck. He was mine; I trained him. He was so good. Perfect temperament, moving off my legs easily, finding the bit like a champ. And I just abandoned him as if he didn’t even matter. And I want people to care about me? Fuck, I am worthless.”

Elliot handed me a box of tissues, and I had to laugh through my tears.

“Fucking therapists,” I said.

“What?”

“Like the most important thing in the world is giving me a place to put my snot.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The most important thing is that, by doing that, I show you you’re not worthless.”

I blew my nose. I felt so bad, as if a rotting, twisting ball of blackness curled inside me was getting bigger by the minute. I knew how to push it back. I knew how to manage it, and watching Elliot’s fingers woven together between his knees, I started wondering how to get him into bed. When his hand touched my forearm, a blazing heat fell between us.

“You were out for the morning session. So our last one’s in an hour.”

He needed to stop touching me. He needed to back the fuck off. I had to swallow my reaction to him like a horse pill.

“Okay,” I said, not looking at him.

I knew his eyes would be warm and inviting, and his lips curved like a promise. He smelled of musk and desire. His fingers slid a quarter inch over my skin when he removed his hand. When he walked out, he took the air with him.

Oh God.

I was swelled.

I needed it.

If I went into Elliot’s office like this, I would do something stupid. I would lose control. Touch him. Get close to him. Show him my body. And that would be it. I’d be stuck in Westonwood, because despite the heat I felt in his touch, he was a professional. A therapeutic fuck wasn’t on the table. My brain might have been high on fuckjuice, but that didn’t make me stupid.

An hour. I had an hour to get unswelled. I was in a mixed-gender ward with sixty minutes to find willing, slightly sane cock. How hard could it be?

In two days, I’d gotten the hang of the schedule, more or less. I went into the rec room. It was off hours, meaning most of the residents had therapy or visits. Jack wasn’t in front of the TV cataloging flowers. Karen was outside, scribbling in her journal as if homework was due.

“Looking for something?”

I spun around. Frances stood behind me with her hands behind her.

“I was. Uh, Jack’s usually hanging around here?”

“You might check his room.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I stepped back.

“Miss Drazen,” Frances said.

“Yeah?”

“The doors stay open.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I scuttled off toward the hall that led to the rooms. After I made the first turn, I doubled back to the garden. The rain had disappeared for a full day, and rainy-ass Los Angeles was sunny-ass Los Angeles again. I looked for someone, anyone. I drifted over to the creek, thinking maybe Jack was picking up nettles or something. He wasn’t, but Warren Chilton was. His eyes cut through me from the other side of the fence.

“Hi,” I said. “Whatcha doing?”

“What’s it look like?”

“Jerking around.” I poked my head through the hole in the gate. “Want help?”

I came out on the other side just as Warren tossed a rock into the creek. It got lost in the rushing swells without even a splash.

“They kill you with boredom in this shithole,” he said.

“Got a cure for that,” I said, taking his hand.

I put it on my breast, which was usually a non-event, considering their size. But Warren, without missing a beat, grabbed the nipple and pinched.

“These were pierced,” he said.

“They took everything. You know that.”

He twisted. God, it felt good. I didn’t like the guy, but I liked how he was making me feel.

“I’m going to fuck you so hard you’re going to have to stay here another ten years.”

“Get to it, preppy.”

He searched my face for a second, as if discerning whether or not I was looking to trap or double-cross him. I moved my hand to his cock, which was at least half hard. God, I hoped his meds didn’t make him unable to do it, because I had no time to work him. He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me against the fence.

“Wa…” I couldn’t finish the word, such was the pressure on my throat.

I didn’t like it, and I wanted to tell him to stop. When I tried to push his arm away, he ignored it and yanked at my pants.

“Keep still,” he said, fingering my cleft under the standard-issue panties. “Oh, you’re ready.”

His grip on my neck moved to my upper chest when he got his dick out. I breathed.

“No choking, Warren.” I pulled one pant leg down. “I’m warning you.”

“Sure.”

“Hey.” The voice wasn’t loud, just firm.

Fuck. A guard stood behind us. Warren jumped back as if his hand had been in the cookie jar, but I could have told him he hadn’t even gotten the lid off yet.

“What are you doing on that side of the fence?”

“It was her.” Warren pointed at me, the fleshy rod swinging from above his waistband making a lie of his participation.

“Chilton, get the fuck out of here,” the guard said. “Don’t make me write your ass up again.” He got out his walkie-talkie, observing the hole in the fence. “Hey, Ned,” he said into the radio. “There’s a breach at four-seven-two.”

Warren ran through the hole and past the grove of trees. The guard glanced at me after I’d gotten my pants up.

“Go on inside,” he said. “You get a pass this time. Go on.”

He indicated the building, and I hustled. I had forty-five minutes left. My clit rubbed on my inner thighs when I hustled back inside, swelled to pain and wanting release so bad it swallowed my brain. All I could think about was fucking. Fucking swell. I hated my needs. For the first time, they seemed more of a burden than an indelible character trait.

Warren was a dead issue. That asshole was going to mark me and get me in trouble. He must have been the source of Karen’s mark.

When I got back to the residents’ hall, I realized I had no idea where Jack’s room was. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Was he even in his room? And what if I couldn’t find him? I was starting to think about Elliot in ways I shouldn’t. Ways that would come out in hypnosis. He’d touch me again, and I’d say something like, “Hey…let’s—”

I ran down the halls, looking in each room. All the doors were open. Most of the rooms were empty, or being cleaned, or occupied by strangers. In forty minutes, I’d be in front of a man, and he had a dick, and I could maybe convince him to fuck me.

But I kept thinking about being tied to the ceiling, the knots in the rope rubbing my skin, and Deacon’s cock sliding against the back of my thigh.

Tell me how badly you want it, beautiful kitten.

Bad bad bad bad….

My ass. My poor ass as he’d paddled it, holding back the avalanche of need. I lost days to his ministrations. I needed him. I had no control without him.

And I’d stabbed him.

I didn’t believe his denials for a minute. His refusal to implicate me only meant one thing: I’d done it. I’d stabbed him.

What the fuck?

What the actual fuck?

“Hi, Fiona.”

I spun. Jack was standing in the hall with a paper towel of yellow petals.

“Jack, I was looking for you.”

“Job well done, then. You found me.”

I stepped close to him so I could say something without being overheard. “You said you weren’t completely unfuckable.”

“I’d like to think so. Why?”

It was as if the cues and clues I’d given men my entire sexual life were a foreign code to this guy. Normally I’d reveal some part of my body, but we were on camera.

So I tilted my head and pressed my lips together before whispering, “I want to show you how fuckable you are.”

His bottom jaw went slack, and his eyes widened. He made a little tick in the back of his throat as if an attempt to swallow had failed. I took that as a good sign.

“Do you want to touch my tits? The nipples are hard already. I know places we can go to do it, where they can’t see. I can put your cock down my throat so deep I can lick your balls. And I’ll swallow your load, every drop.”

He didn’t say anything, and when I went to touch his arm, he dropped his paper towel, sending yellow petals adrift.

“Jack?”

He ran down the hall as if his ass was on fire.

I guessed I had that coming. It was a mental ward, after all. But talking dirty had made the swell worse. I had thirty minutes to release it, and I didn’t even have a damn vibrator. I was just going to have to take care of myself and hope for the best.

My room was a few doors down. I ran in and closed the door. The window was still open, and the shade blew in, slapping back against the window when the breeze went out. I went into the bathroom. Frances didn’t want to hear me, I got that. I knew I could be quiet. I’d done it for Deacon a hundred times.

Slipping out of my crazy-proof cotton pants and shoes, I eyed the sink again, its smooth texture and cold surface. It was good in a pinch, but this wasn’t a pinch. This was something else entirely. I wanted warm skin and a fullness, a filled feeling.