And with that thought comes a flash of the last session. Strapped to the gurney. Paddles clamped to my temples. Severe pain stabs at my head, blinding white light webs across my eyelids. Panic is a lead weight in my chest, fear that it will concave under the pressure.

“I can’t breathe,” I say around a gasp, but my body claims differently, my lungs struggling to drag in each inhalation. The higher I climb, the heavier the weight pushes down, and I cling to Alex, unable to stop the onslaught. “Oh god, more. I need you deep inside me, Alex.”

He answers my demand with a powerful thrust as he buries himself inside me, shattering the fragile and tenuous insulation that’s been holding me together.

I break.

We’re flesh and bone. A conflict of soft and callous. Every tender surface of our bodies grates against rigid rock, shredding us bare layer by layer. The sharp edge of stone slices into my hand. I smear my palm along his bicep, across his chest, fascinated by the dark trail of blood staining his skin.

It’s intoxicating, and I’m intoxicated with his scent and his arousing sounds. His groan rumbles against my ear as he grows harder inside me, and I arch my back, needing him to touch every inch of my skin.

I bite down on his shoulder. The pain urges him on, the way the burn of the rock against my flesh steers me closer to that maddening edge.

He cups the back of my head, holding me tight to him. “I never want to stop.” His words race with his erratic movements. Every pulsing, painful lunge deeper teeters us both closer to the precipice.

“Don’t ever stop,” I hear myself say.

“Ah…fuck. I want all of you.”

The confession digs beneath my Teflon layer—all the pain and bliss and elation sets something fierce and uncontrollable free.

Alex hooks an arm beneath my knee, spreading my thighs wide so he can get even closer. He fucks me hard. He fucks me with wild, insatiable abandon that destroys the last of my sanity and control.

And when I feel the building pressure, I push back against him to alleviate the achy need tearing through me.

“Fuck, Blakely… I love you.”

His words spear me, and the burn blazes through my body like a brushfire. I squeeze my eyes closed as I try to hold back the dam, only the hot sting of tears threaten, and the release gives over to something volatile and explosive as it rips through my chest.

“Oh, god…it’s too much—”

“Let go.”

A war rages between us. My fight to restrain; his struggle to make me release. Soon the clash unfurls a light from the darkest corner—and I can’t fight anymore. I’ve lost.

“Don’t let go,” I say, clinging to him harder.

“Never.”

Emotion claws at my breastplate like a caged animal trying to tear free of its prison. My heart constricts, and finally the tears fall. They streak my temples, hot and quick, like a match setting a trail of oil ablaze.

Alex braces a hand to my neck, thumb pressed to my pulse, and seals us together with a severe kiss. I’m dragged down by the undertow. All fight gives over as a surge of emotion rushes to the surface.

Sex doesn’t feel this way. Something is wrong—something is very, very wrong with me, and it webs inside, sticking to my insides like tar.

I push past the fear and fall further into Alex and the kiss. The place safe enough for me to release.

My walls clamp around Alex, and as the orgasm fires through me, a feeling so overwhelming it defies words sweeps through, decimating me.

I sense the moment Alex breaks; his body hard and tensing, his cock pulsing against my walls as he groans, and as I straddle the wave with him, I feel the chill bumps rise along his skin.

Alex collapses on top of me, and the full weight of his body on top of mine is an unexpected comfort. His breaths are heavy and uneven. I listen to him breathe as the last shockwaves pulse and ebb throughout my body.

I’m relieved that he takes his time recovering, because the tear tracks still stain my face, and I’m terrified about what he’ll see in my eyes. I’m terrified to look at myself—fearing the reflection of the emotions that ripped me apart and the wreckage they left behind.

As the tide recedes, it takes with it the unwanted feelings, and exhaustion claims my body.

Alex lifts up onto his elbows and stares down. He uses his thumb to wipe the tears away. I turn my head, preferring the cold, unforgiving rock to his probing gaze.

“Don’t hide,” he says, and my immediate reaction is to do just that.

He rests his hand on my chest, right above my heart. And with a frantic start, I realize what he feels. My heartbeat is racing. My pulse thumps so hard I can feel the beat of it against his palm.

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.”

Everything that just transpired between us is all in my very fucked-up head. Wires are crossed. Neurons are misfiring. And it will all end as soon as I’m free of this place and Alex. Whatever visceral disease has infected me, I have to stop it from spreading.

I flee Alex’s arms and dive into the river.

20

Entropy

Alex

There’s a scientific word for the physical and conceptual state of chaos. By definition, entropy is the measurable state of disorder, unpredictability, or uncertainty.

In a closed system, entropy can only increase, therefore the process is irreversible.