Villainess (15 page)

Jonah

It was worse than I thought. The truth was—I wasn’t completely sure what I was dealing with. I’d suspected Theo of using some kind of conditioning to sway Leila to do things she didn’t necessarily want to. Sex, and guilt were popular methods that cult leaders and other such manipulative people often employed. I’d thought I’d uncover markers that pointed at Theo, but—but what I’d just scratched the surface of in Leila’s subconscious was something else entirely.

What I’d told her was true. Children often used monsters as coping mechanisms to hide horrific things within their minds. Her seeing aliens wasn’t surprising in itself, but the rest was utterly disturbing. I just had to hope that maybe the rest had been exaggerated by her young mind as well. I needed to dig deeper next time. I was almost afraid of what I’d find. Again my protective instinct reared its ugly head.
Someone like Leila shouldn’t be at this hospital. I wish I could take her away—away from all the ugliness. I could protect her from everything that wants to hurt her.

Shit.
I knew none of that was possible. The most I could hope for was to steal as many private moments with her as I could and to help her case, make sure she didn’t get the death penalty. There was no reality where the two of us could end up together. I was the insane one if I started believing such nonsense.
I’m thinking with my dick again. That’s all.
But I knew that wasn’t exactly true either. Sure, the first real taste I’d gotten of Leila earlier was definitely coloring my view of things. She was just as addictive as I knew she’d be.
I’ll never have enough of her.
Letting her go with Matt after her hypnosis session was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
Is he trying to comfort her right now?
A dark pleasure coursed through my veins at the thought that even if he was inside her right at this moment, I’d been there first tonight. I’d come inside of her the second time, marking her—
What the fuck am I thinking? Who am I becoming?

I forced my thoughts away from Matt and Leila. I didn’t have time for petty jealousy. I needed to figure out a course of treatment to best help Leila. Her life could very well depend on it.

I took a sip from my steaming mug of coffee and settled in at my desk. It was going to be a long night.

“Jonah?”

I came to instant awareness, jarred from a fuzzy dream about Leila. “Ella?” I swiped at the side of my mouth, sure I’d been drooling. I glanced over at the window, early morning light streaming through the blinds.

“Were you here all night?”

I glanced down at my rumpled clothes and then back up at Ella, quirking an eyebrow. “They pay you the big bucks because you’re so observant apparently.”

She scowled. “Someone’s cranky this morning.” She took a few tentative steps towards me. “You going to share what had you so worked up that you didn’t even bother to go home?”

“Yeah. Some things have been nagging at me with Leila’s case, some inconsistencies in her actions and—well—last night I did a hypnosis session with her. I—”

“When? When did you do the session?” Her lips pushed into a thin line as she stared at me.

“Last night. But don’t get your panties in a bunch. Matt, one of the night orderlies was present and I recorded the whole thing.”

The news seemed to appease Ella slightly, and she sat down in the chair across the desk from me. “Okay. I get it. I’ve been trying to give you some space to work your magic on this case. But Jonah, you can’t just do stuff like that. We could get in a lot of trouble for—”

“Just listen.” I was in no mood to hear another lecture from Ella who didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. She may have been my boss, but sometimes I wondered how she’d gotten the position.
Okay, that was bitter and uncalled for. She’s right. I’m in a mood today.
I heaved a long sigh. “Just listen, all right?” I didn’t meet her gaze as I pressed play on my recorder.

The slow ticking of the metronome could be heard, and then the low drone of my voice. I slid my eyes over to study Ella as she listened. She stared blankly at my desk as she concentrated, her features pinched. I watched as surprise morphed her expression with Leila’s words. When the recording came to an end, I stared at her, waiting for a reaction.

“I—well—shit—Jonah—it looks like you were right. There’s definitely something else going on with her. But maybe we should call in a specialist. Maybe this is a bit above—”

“No.” I slammed my fist down on my desk causing her to jump slightly. “This is my case. You give it to someone else now and if they break it then they’ll get the recognition. You know what blowing this wide open could mean for my reputation.”

“You sure that’s all this is?” Ella’s eyes burned with jealously.

Fortunately, she was only half right. Yeah, there was more to it than the case. Leila had wriggled underneath my skin, and I cared about her. I didn’t want someone else kicking around in her head. Who knows what had really happened to Leila. She was going to need me. “She trusts me. I’ve worked tirelessly to get this far with her. I don’t want someone else to piggyback off of what I’ve already done and then to take credit. You know how frustrating that can be.”

“Yeah, I do know.” Ella stood, coming around to my side of the desk. “But in the end, there will always be other cases, more opportunities to—”

“Not like this one,” I growled. And not anyone remotely like Leila. Even though Ella wasn’t actually suggesting that Leila herself was just another case, a faceless number to be treated and discarded, something inside of me was pissed off at the notion.
Someone like Ella doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as Leila.
Wow. Where did that come from?
I was really starting to lose my shit. Leila had done more than gotten under my skin—she’d infected me. I had to remember that just because something traumatic happened in her childhood, she was still a killer. I needed to think with something other than my dick.

I shoved my chair away from me as I lurched to my feet, wrapping Ella’s hair around my fist. I forced her to her knees in front of me, unzipping my pants with my free hand. I wanted Ella to submit to me in that moment, to suck me off and swallow down everything I gave her because—because she thought she was better than Leila. I hoped she tasted Leila on my cock, remnants from last night and our time together since I hadn’t showered yet.

Ella’s eyes widened with shock as I pushed into the back of her throat. She sputtered around me, attempting to push me away. I met her gaze and smirked, holding her in place. “We’re not a couple, Ella. We never discussed exclusivity on any level. Yeah, I fucked someone else last night. But you’re not going to care because you know you love what I do to you.”

Tears spilled down Ella’s cheeks as she began to move her mouth up and down on my length. I grinned. “That’s right, lick up every bit and tell me how good Leila tastes when you’re done.”

Fuck.
I shook my head to dislodge the twisted fantasy from my head. It’d been so real for a second, the shock of seeing Ella still standing in front of me, my cock not in her mouth was jarring.
Maybe I really should give more credence to Freud’s school of thought opposed to Jung’s because apparently my libido is the driving force in my life.
“Ella, please. I’m too tired for this today. I made a break-through last night. I want—no, I
need
to keep moving forward with this. Don’t stand in my way.”

Ella’s dark hair fell in front of her face, her eyes roaming over me with heat. Did she expect me to persuade her with my dick? Probably…since that was about par for the course with us. The thing was, even though I’d just fantasized about Ella sucking me off, I only wanted Leila. Even though there was a very real possibility that Leila had fucked Matt on the heels of me being inside her. That thought made me want to punch the wall.
Focus on the present. Focus on the now.

“I don’t have time for this bullshit today.” I gathered up my notes and laptop, shoving them into my briefcase. “I’m going to head home for a few hours. I’ll be back this afternoon to resume my sessions with Leila.”

Ella’s long nails dug into my arm. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Jonah. I’m the boss here.”

My nostrils flared as I kept my gaze locked straight ahead. “You keep telling yourself that.”

I shrugged out from her hold and stalked out of my office. It probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing to antagonize Ella. I’d been walking on eggshells for a while in order to avoid doing just that. But ever since Leila slithered into the picture, I’d been doing nothing but stupid things. For the first time in my life I truly understood the expression ‘that woman makes him stupid’. Leila most definitely was turning me into a fool.

Her
fool.

Leila

I hadn’t slept most of the night, and when I’d finally passed out from sheer exhaustion, my head had been filled with horrific nightmares of aliens and being experimented on. Even as the early morning light illuminated the small window in my room, I was left feeling like a small child, scared and vulnerable. I knew the images in my mind that the hypnosis session had stirred up weren’t real, at least as far as the aliens went, but the rest—the rest—well I didn’t know and I was terrified to find out.

“Leila—” Matt’s voice caused me jump slightly, the door to my room opening hadn’t even registered, which was weird since I felt hyper-alert in other ways. I guess I was just lost in my head.

“Hey, Matt,” I rasped, my voice a dead giveaway of my lack of sleep.

“You okay?” Surprisingly, Matt hadn’t even hinted at sex last night. He’d simply held me. It had been both welcome and disconcerting.

I smiled weakly. “Yeah, I’m not really sure.”

“I’ll be there for you again today. Doctor Yoshihara already asked for me to sit in on the session.” I nodded. “Once we get you fed and showered he wants to see you. You going to be able to handle that?”

“I want answers.” Those three little words said it all. It didn’t matter if I thought I could handle it or if I was ready, my need to have answers superseded everything else. I had to know what was done to me—what was real and what wasn’t. In a matter of minutes my entire world had been turned upside down and I needed to right it.

“I think we all do, ” Matt mumbled.

Tick…tick…tick…tick…

Fear raced up my spine. I fought the urge to listen to Jonah’s soft rumbles. He was commanding me to sleep.
No! I don’t want to sleep! I don’t want to go back there! But you have to. You need to know
. As my internal battle waged, I slipped under despite my resistance.

Tick…tick…tick…tick…

“Tell us what you see, Leila.”

“I didn’t see anything.” But that was a lie. I saw two faces. One would be my savior and one my ruination. The trouble was, I didn’t know which one was which. No matter how much they tried to change that fact, my visions were weak at best and completely random.

“She’s lying,” a boy a little bit older than me whispered. He was an empath. They’d brought him in to tattle on me. He was obviously more in control of his abilities than me.