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His kisses were harrowing, as if he were unloading years of pain onto Kenna with each brush of their lips.
Tangling his fingers in her hair, possessive yet protective, he eased her down until her back met the arm of the couch. The position was far from comfortable but the arousal humming through her veins insisted she say nothing. Dr. Merino abandoned her long enough to discard his sweatshirt and returned with the cool press of his skin and a renewed hunger in his kiss.
Delicately, Kenna touched the surgical scar guarding his pacemaker. The small pink line that marked his entire existence as fragile. Handle with care.
“Don’t put pressure on it,” he said.
“Of course not.”
She barely allowed her fingertips to graze the spot for fear of hurting him before her hand flattened against his chest, roaming over the plane of smooth flesh. He was solid despite his lack of visible muscle and beneath lay a natural strength that needed no definition. A shudder passed through Kenna as his hands found the hollow of her back, forcing them closer.
Her pulse was deafening in her ears, louder than the rainfall, and the heat in the seat of her denim cutoffs had become maddening. She needed every layer of fabric separating them to vanish, to feel his bare skin on her own.
As if he’d been privy to her thoughts, Dr. Merino slid the bra and tank top straps off one shoulder, his teeth following in their wake. They roved over her skin like the flat side of a razor, harmless.
Until they sunk into her flesh.
Blood surged through her, boiling, and Kenna couldn’t separate her shoulder’s piercing pulsation from the shock of pleasure surging through her like a current. The source of the bite throbbed as he peppered it with kisses.
His lips ghosted down, down to her chest, halting at the border of skin and clothing. She shuddered at the unexpected coolness of his fingers delving into her bra to cast the cup aside. His tongue outlined the curve of her exposed breast and Kenna’s stomach rolled as a wild blush bloomed across her neck, her face, just at the thought of Dr. Merino performing such an intimate act. He captured her nipple between his lips and she squirmed beneath him, entranced by the heat of his mouth and sweep of his tongue.
They were practiced, delicate motions and, amid the passion, she found herself not caring who else had received this grade of his affection.
He reached to free the other breast and Kenna breathed his name, low and dripping with ecstasy, and he mumbled into the valley of her chest.
“I love hearing you say that.”
A billowing roar of thunder shattered the still of the night and Kenna’s entire body jerked in response.
It shook her from her spell, much like their moment of weakness behind the bar, realizing the scene was less glamorous than she’d envisioned. His bite had left her shoulder ablaze and an ache had spread through her back from being lodged against the sofa’s arm.
She’d been too distracted to realize that the length of the furniture prohibited them from lying together, and as a result, Dr. Merino had been leaning over her in a seated position.
“Are you afraid of storms, lamb?”
Stomach knotted, Kenna went still and prayed she had misheard him. “What did you call me?”
“Lamb.” He stroked her hair. “My darling lamb. Maybe it isn’t the storm that has you trembling. Is it me you fear?”
“You know what I think of you.”
“How can I be sure?” Dr. Merino caressed the spot he’d bitten and, though she wanted to recoil, her skin tingled beneath his touch. The laptop screen set half of his face aglow and, looming above her exposed chest, he looked every bit a villain pinning a maiden, his gaze wild.
His ability to charm was as flawless as his ability to conjure fear. Kenna supposed God couldn’t bring himself to decide if Dr. Merino embodied good or evil and so it had been a 50/50 split.
Seductive and threatening.
He was doubting her. Even if he was playing games, she had to convince him she was in.
She vanquished the knot rising in her throat and drug her lips along his scarred cheek. “Take me, Dayton.”
“Take you?” He laughed, a low sound that infected her with want, but his face grew serious in the same beat. “I’ve waited a lifetime for this. I intend to make the most of it.”
Another thunderclap echoed in the sky and Kenna’s limbs instinctively wrapped around him. The warmth radiating off his skin comforted her—a false sense of safety in a situation that was anything but safe. His arms encircled her and she became weightless as they traveled through the dark as one, toward the gates of Hell. Moonlight cast a faint glow on the hardwood in the bedroom and it was comical almost, she supposed.
Revisiting the very place she’d felt her life had been threatened in the name of satisfying some animalistic need.
Dr. Merino sat on the edge of the bed and she stood between his legs, leaning in, and tilted her lips toward his. But he made no move to kiss her. He studied Kenna with an intensity that had her heart turning over.
