Page 80 of Texting Dr. Stalker

I wanted to talk in person instead of via text.

I wanted to hear his rumbly, gravelly voice and hope I was cured by morning.

With a soft growl, he snaked his arm around my shoulders and tugged me slowly but firmly into him. My hand landed on his chest, not pushing him away but bracing myself all the same.

He froze. “I’m only trying to make you comfortable. That’s all.” He went to unwind his arm from around me, but I shook my head.

“Don’t.”

He sucked in a breath. Our eyes locked.

Ever so slowly, he gathered me even tighter against him. “Scoot down. Use me as your pillow.”

Dropping my stare down his chest, I drank in the black hoodie he wore, wondering just how trim and perfect he was beneath it. His heartbeat thundered beneath my fingertips.

A frisson of power returned to me. The faintest re-awakening of my missing sexuality. Any ideas of femininity and desire had died the moment Milton strangled me.

I hated that I was the fairer sex.

I hated that I hadn’t been able to fight back.

That I was smaller, lighter, and weaker than him.

But in that moment in X’s protection, I liked that I fit perfectly against him. I liked the sensation of him looking out for me. I liked that I could surrender to him all because I knew he would keep me safe.

“Get some sleep, Lori,” he purred, soft and hypnotic.

I yawned and scooted my way down his firm, toned body until my head rested on his lower belly.

Shifting me a little, he stole my pillow that I was no longer using and placed it behind his head. Angling himself so he wasn’t sitting upright but wasn’t fully lying down, he ran his fingers through my hair.

The first jolt of him touching my scalp where Milton had torn out chunks made me gasp.

He stopped immediately. “If there are places I shouldn’t touch, just tell me. Don’t suffer through it because you don’t want to be honest.”

Nodding, I forced myself to lose my sudden shyness and put my hand on his stomach.

His heartbeat pounded loud beneath my ear, and I smiled at another surge of power.

“You weren’t lying when you said you have a crush on me,” I whispered.

He laughed abruptly. “Am I shaking that much?”

“Your heart is racing.”

His fingers feathered to my neck beneath my ear. Finger-mark bruises still collared me and I could barely touch that part of myself without suffering flashbacks, but X’s touch was exquisitely soft. Endlessly gentle. Just a worshipping caress in the night.

I shivered as he pressed two fingertips to a pulse point there. He didn’t speak for a moment. “I’d say yours is going just as fast.”

Sifting his fingers through my hair again, he sucked in a breath. “Is this okay?”

My eyes closed, sinking into his petting. “Yes.”

“You’ll tell me if I do something that unsettles you?”

“I promise.”

“In that case, close your eyes and let me restore your faith in men.” He sniffed as if scowling beneath his mask. “Let me undo everything he did.”

---