Page 108 of The Doctor's Truth

She looks up at me and blinks. “Why’d you stop?”

I press my lips together. “You looked like you were struggling.”

She takes my hand again, guiding it back to her throat. “It doesn’t matter. Keep going.”

“It matters.”

She shakes her head and insists, “I don’t care. Choke me.”

But there’s something wrong about this. I can be as kinky as the next guy—but the look in her eyes, it’s off. She’s not here with me. I deflate slightly, my arousal taking a nosedive, and shake my head.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She looks at me like I’m crazy. “Having sex.”

“No. You’re not. You’re hurting yourself, and you’re using me to do it.”

Kenzi turns her head and looks away. Her face turns red, but she doesn’t speak, shame, maybe, or sadness trapped in her throat.

And maybe I’m the asshole here. Maybe someone else—maybe Donovan—would have choked her until she was black and blue, fucked her hard enough to make her bleed, and satisfied that masochistic itch inside of her.

Maybe these are my own demons—all the fights I got into as a kid, all the times I used my body to hurt people and then swore I wouldn’t do that again.

But the disconnect in her gaze unnerves me, and we’ve reached an impasse.

“I love you, Kenzi,” I tell her, my voice intense. “You know that, right?”

She still won’t look at me, but her bottom lip quivers at that.

I hover over her. Gently, I lean down and press a soft kiss to the side of her face, then another under her ear. “I love you,” I murmur. “All of you. Even the parts you don’t like.”

Suddenly, she grips the back of my neck. Tight. “I love you, too,” she whispers in my ear.

She says those words, and immediately, two things happen:

My heart swells twenty times larger in my chest.

I nearly cum, right then, just from hearing it.

“Say it again.”

“I love you…”

I moan and kiss her. She kisses me back—and this time, she feels solid, real. She feels like Kenzi. She’s not a ghost of herself, and she’s not desperately clawing at someone who isn’t there. She’s mine, and she’s here, present with me. I cup her face and stroke my thumb over her cheek and feel the wetness of her tears there. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, clinging to me, and we start again, making love now, as one.

We kiss and slide together, holding each other, tasting each other. I tell her I love her, again and again, and when she says it next, we crest together, and this hot, intense pleasure catapults from my soul into hers.

We ride it out, kissing, panting, and I’ve never felt closer to her.

53

Kenzi

When I wake up, Jason King is naked in my bed.

I want to say the light of day brings out his blemishes—an ugly wrinkle or an old, unsightly scar.

But it doesn’t. He’s perfect. Every inch of him. His strong jaw. His tousled raven hair. His stacked physique, dove tattoo sweeping over his chest and peeking out from under the thin sheet. His protective arms.

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