Page 10 of Psycho
August thought about it. “I don’t know. Nobody will believe him. He has no proof other than his intuition. He’s lost all credibility. I don’t even consider him a threat, really.”
“So, why bring him up?” Aiden asked, frowning.
August sighed, holding his glass to his lips, feeling the carbonation spring up and burst on his skin but not taking a drink. “He’s really…pretty.”
A grin spread across Adam’s face. “Oh, shit. I think August is crushing on his co-worker.”
Was he? He hadn’t really ever thought of men as anything but a means to an end. He rarely had sex, and when he did it was all rather perfunctory. He was unable to form attachments, and it had never seemed fair to any unsuspecting person to attempt a relationship when he spent many of his nights neck deep in entrails. “I just…like the way he smells. I look at him and I find myself wondering what his skin tastes like.”
“Oof. Easy, Dahmer,” Adam said. “Maybe don’t start with that.”
“Don’t start with anything. He thinks you kill people,” Atticus said, practically apoplectic at that point.
“He does kill people?” Adam reminded. “Noah doesn’t care that I kill people. Military spouses don’t care that their soldiers may kill people in combat. Maybe his little psychic connection won’t mind either.”
Aiden shook his head, a half smirk on his face. “Who is he?”
August flicked his gaze upward. “He’s the new criminal psychology professor.”
“Why not just date a cop?” Atticus snapped, hands flying upward, clearly beside himself.
“Um, a psychologist and a cop aren’t the same thing,” Adam said. “Stop trying to shut him down.”
August shrugged. “He used to be an FBI agent.”
Atticus gestured wildly. “See?” To August, he said, “You’re supposed to be the smart one.”
August flattened his mouth, giving Atticus a withering look before he said, “I am the smart one. I have papers to prove it and everything.”
“Then maybe start acting like it and stop thinking with your dick?” Atticus shot back.
August bristled. “My dick has no bearing on my thought process. There’s just something about him…”
Adam leaned in, bracing his forearms on the table, eyes shining. “Like what?”
August thought of Lucas, with his dirty blond hair and green eyes. “He’s…soft. Vulnerable. Fragile even. I want to…test his limitations.”
“Right, a fragile FBI agent,” Atticus huffed.
“He is. He’s a profiler. He sat at a desk. Something happened to him and it, like, fractured him.”
“You want to test his limitations?” Aiden prompted, brow raised.
August made a noise of frustration. “Have you ever just looked at someone or something and thought, I want to keep it? Like, I want to protect him from the outside world but, at the same time, his helplessness and fear are so…intoxicating? I want him to be soft just for me.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Atticus muttered.
August knew he wasn’t explaining himself right. But he didn’t know how to say he wanted to be the one who put Lucas together and took him apart. The one who could make him beg but also made him feel safe. The idea of playing with Lucas, teasing him, torturing him, maybe making him cry just a little…had August harder than he’d ever been, and he was grateful for the table blocking his lap.
“I get it,” Adam said. “It’s how I feel about Noah. Not the helplessness and fear, that’s a little fucked up—not that I’m judging—but the second I looked at him, I knew he was mine. Maybe it’s an evolutionary thing?”
Atticus rolled his eyes. “Leave the science to the people who know what they’re talking about. Obsession isn’t evolutionary.”
August cut his gaze to Atticus. “Well, I do know science, and I know exactly what I’m talking about. I want him. He already knows who I am. What I am. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“He uses you to gather evidence and then exposes us all? There’s a trial, a spectacle, Dad’s experiment goes up in flames and he dies disgraced,” Atticus said. “Just spitballing here.”
Aiden sighed. “He’s already made up his mind. Look at him.” He gestured to August. “Have you ever seen him look this cow-eyed and dopey when talking about anything but string theory or murder?”
