Dread over what that means barrels through me, and I move away from his touch. “Let me go.”

With languid movements, Alex does as I ask, slowly sitting up to brace his forearms on his knees. “It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling, Blakely. It’s normal.”

I run my hands through my hair. “I just need…quiet.”

“You’re overstimulated. Just relax.” He eases behind me, placing me between his legs.

My skin is raw. His touch abrasive against my nerves. I try to fight out of his hold, but he wraps his arms around me, tucking me securely to him.

“Trust me,” Alex says. Then he slips his hand between my thighs.

It’s almost painful as he touches the pads of his fingers to my clit, but soon the pain transitions to that ravenous, lusty need that I can sense in my lower back. Alex wraps his free hand around the length of my hair and holds it aloft, his mouth landing on the sensitive juncture between my neck and shoulder.

It happens fast. The orgasm takes hold, my sex clenching as he circles his fingers over my clit.

My chest tightens, my head goes light, and euphoric little pulses of sensation flutter through my body.

I fall back against his chest, unable to fight the crash of my body. The calming effect is instant. La petite mort. The little death. Some part of me died with Alex, and I don’t know how to mourn…or if I should.

How can something so tragic be so beautiful?

Alex places a tender kiss below my earlobe. “Overactive nervous system,” he says, as way of explanation. “Your brain is trying to sort every new sensation. It needed more pleasure points to map out.”

His arms shield me as the water tumbles down the rock face around us. My breathing slows and evens out, my body acclimates to the tranquil water.

I despise every word that leaves his mouth—and yet, he’s the expert. Even when it comes to sex, Alex is in control of the sensations I feel. I tense with that realization and a restlessness takes hold. All serenity shattered.

I push forward and scramble away from the comforting heat of his body.

I lied to Alex. I lied and I felt nothing. I told him his treatment worked. I told him I had these feelings…and I felt nothing about the lie—a lie that was supposed to save my life.

Now, that same lie is tormenting me, because I made it true.

I felt every connected second with Alex.

“I’m cracked,” I say to myself. Alex broke my brain back in his crude lab, and none of this is real. “I have to get the hell out of here.”