Page 8 of Edging Sanity

Bronwin flipped back a page in her notebook, skimming as if searching for the questions, but Rowan knew they hadn’t yet discussed them. “Would you like to explain why you sought another victim after your first? Were you unable to obtain the answers you were looking for?”

Rowan was watching Delilah closer than she should, ignoring the spot on the wall she usually stared at while pretending not to eavesdrop on sessions. Bronwin was going to chew her out for listening so obviously, but right now it was worth it.

“It wasn’t really a single victim question,” Delilah laughed again, a soft huff of enjoyment. “I want to better understand pain tolerance. How much could this one endure before he lost consciousness. I started small, little nicks and cuts with a scalpel, nothing too bad. I was testing which areas seemed to hurt the most. It was exactly where you’d expect.” Delilah gave them both a knowing smirk, letting them figure it out while the silence swirled around them. The lingering question in the air begging to be asked.

Unable to help herself, Rowan did just that. “So how long did it take?”

It was a mistake to ask. Rowan understood that the second the words were out of her mouth and Delilah looked at her with such a knowing look. A look that said we’re the same, you and I, and now we both know it, like Rowan had just offered herself up on a silver platter. A look that left Rowan cold inside.

“I didn’t learn that from him. He died while I was carving his foster daughter's name into his penis.” Delilah sighed in disappointment. Then when she looked at Bronwin, who was so clearly fighting the downward twitch of her lips, Delilah smiled. “I wanted him to remember what she felt like.”

There was a sort of sick poetic justice in that, Rowan thought, and she could feel herself starting to appreciate what Delilah had done. Delilah claimed not to care about the children, but it felt to Rowan like she was avenging them. Bronwin, on the other hand, looked like she might be regretting her line of questioning—not that regret would stop her from asking more, of course. But she might switch to a lighter topic while digesting the information.

Bronwin wasn’t going to stop taking advantage of what might be her only chance at a dive into the psyche of someone as twisted and unforgiving as Delilah Watson.

CHAPTER

SIX

Learning about Delilah’s kills was interesting to say the least. There had never been a record of her why on any reports Rowan could find—mostly because the police often didn’t care about that information. Everything was always how many victims and where were the bodies. But knowing the reason behind it all was oddly satisfying. Delilah looked at people like they were toys to play with. Experiments to test and unravel.

She wondered how Delilah would play with her, what Delilah would do to unravel her, and what experiments she’d use to seek out answers from Rowan. It was only in the confines of her own bedroom that she allowed these thoughts to circulate. The buzzing of her scarcely used vibrator was loud in the dark of the night, her computer open on her left with Delilah’s case reports and trial images. She wasn’t proud of what she was doing, but that didn’t stop it from feeling so good.

In the morning, she’d push the memory from her mind, ignoring the way she’d imagined Delilah’s fingers inside of her, curling and stroking. She’d forget the way the memory of Delilah’s mocking laughter had filled her veins and fueled her orgasm. Most importantly, she’d ignore the desire to have it all in reality, to take Delilah how she secretly wanted to.

And it was sort of true that, in the morning, she didn’t think about her night at all.

The bright screens of the security camera feed reflecting Delilah’s room showed exactly what she’d been aching to see as Delilah made it perfectly clear that escape had been the furthest thing from her mind when she inquired about the cameras.

Rowan’s attention was locked on the monitor in front of her. Sweat slicked the back of her neck in the cramped and overheated security room that was getting smaller by the second. Delilah stared directly into the eye of the camera, into Rowan’s very soul, as she slowly inched her hand down her very naked body.

The only thought Rowan had left that remained her own was to reach behind her and snap the lock on the door so no one would walk in on this. No one but Rowan would know that in the short span of twenty-four hours she’d crossed a line involving a patient. Twice.

Rowan squeezed her legs together. Just the knowledge that this show was meant for her was getting her hot. Boosting her ego. Ruining her boxers. She should be better than this—it was a violation in so many ways.

Delilah’s lithe fingers spread herself, legs splayed wide with one hanging off the bed, and Rowan couldn’t tear her gaze from the screen. There was no hiding as Delilah bared herself to the camera, to Rowan.

Her entrance glistened with arousal while she lazily swirled a finger around it, gathering her wetness and using it to coat her clit. The entire thing was obscene. It made Rowan’s mouth water. The look on Delilah’s face as her eyes fluttered closed when she slipped two fingers inside gave way to exactly how ready she was. Her mouth parted in a tease of a moan that she knew Rowan couldn’t hear.

It didn’t matter if she could literally hear it. Because her brain supplied her with a light, breathy sound—the gasp which Delilah had made the other day when Rowan had shoved her back down in the chair in Adele’s office. Delilah’s goading words during their search danced at the edge of her mind.

The room was getting too hot, the air too heavy with desire. Rowan white knuckled the chair’s armrests to prevent herself from taking this even further. Her own wetness was growing uncomfortable as she failed to look away from the show.

Delilah swiped her drenched fingers back against her clit, slow and languid, like she had all the time in the world. Like she was going to savor this. Or like she was waiting for someone to come in and take over. She was teasing them both, her movements not even enough to get herself close. And yet, Rowan was utterly entranced with the way Delilah reacted to her own touch.

She memorized the reactions. Every little movement was permanently etched into Rowan’s brain, slowly chipping away at her sanity.

Circles made Delilah’s eyelids flutter. Hard and fast swipes made her mouth part and her chest rise and fall in heavy pants. Two fingers—never more, never less—made her arch her back and close her eyes as she drowned in her own pleasure. And when she finally applied the pressure she needed in the form of grinding her palm down on her clit while she pumped into herself, Delilah went over the edge.

Her eyes stayed closed, her mouth open in a silent scream. Her body froze before she convulsed, twitching as she kept going, riding out her orgasm on her own hand. Rowan still couldn’t bring herself to look away. Couldn’t stop imagining those walls closing in around her own fingers, the sound of Delilah’s screams and demands for more.

Rowan held her breath as Delilah pulled her fingers out and sucked them into her mouth. Her eyes once more locked on the camera as she made a show of licking them clean.

Fuck.

Rowan stayed motionless even as Delilah wandered into the bathroom, swaying her hips. Guilt threatened to cloud her mind when Delilah vanished from the frame.

She’d violated Delilah. Rowan had violated a patient. It didn’t matter that no one knew. It didn’t matter that almost every security guard had done worse—every time, Rowan had fired the perpetrators as soon as she found out. That only made what she’d just done even more horrible.