“Just feel,” he whispered, hovering his lips over mine. “Endorphins are rushing into your bloodstream, giving you a natural high as pain alerts your nerve endings that something exciting is happening.” He slid his free hand up my back, tracing the outline of my spine through my blouse.

I breathed in the air he was breathing out, warm and sweet. The scream of hurt in my scalp made me want to wriggle but being held so firmly and confidently kept me still. The heat of the discomfort slipped down my nape and neck and over my shoulders, then combined with the lovely sensation of him stroking my back.

“Can you feel it?” he whispered. “Pain mixing with pleasure, the lines between the two blurring.”

I could feel it with every fiber of my being. My skin was alive with awareness, my breasts were heavy and desperate for stimulation, and between my legs I was buzzing for action. Good, hard man action, preferably of the naked, sweaty variety. “Yes,” I gasped.

He adjusted his hold on my ponytail of hair, stepping the pull up another level.

“Ouch.” I fisted my hands against his chest. “Travis, please, let me go.”

“If you promise me one thing.”

“Ow, yes, come on.” I squirmed against him. That really did bloody hurt now. “What?”

He shut his eyes, sucked in a breath. Pushed harder into my body as he squeezed me closer.

Even with the distraction of having my hair yanked I could make out his now completely solid erection. “Travis!”

“Just remember what it is your body is crying out for at this moment in time.”

More.

That was the word that jumped into my brain, flooding my thoughts and blinding me with shock that I could want more pain, more hair-pulling, more heat blasting through my body.

Damn, the guy made me feel tiny. Even though I was wearing heels, his broad chest and wide shoulders were looming over me. “Okay.”

He twitched the right side of his mouth into a half-smile. Now he looked like a hunter who’d captured his prey. A trickle of fight or flight seeped into my system. Which would be my best option?

“Now that’s the first rule.” He reached up and undid the clasp holding my hair on the top of my head. It tumbled around my shoulders as the clasp fell to the floor. “Consent.”

“Doesn’t consent require knowing what you’re agreeing to?” Fuck, with him this close and stroking my hair, spreading it out, I’d pretty much agree to anything. Who was I kidding? Fight or flight was not an option, the only thing that shot through my mind was giving myself over to him. Allowing him to do whatever he wanted, control my body, feed it what it needed.

Damn, it had been too long since I’d been with a man. It was making me desperate.

He slotted his other hand over the left side of my head, the sound of him sliding his fingers over the shell of my ear noisy. My breath hitched and I locked my knees to stabilize my stance. I stared up at him, noting the small shafts of black hair sneaking out of his skin on his chin and the way his bottom lip was a little plumper than the top.

“You see, some pain,” he said, gathering my hair up at my crown and tugging to create tension on the roots, “can heighten the awareness of everything else going on in the body.”

He pulled harder, forcing my head to tip back.

I gasped as discomfort shot across my scalp.

He increased the pressure a little more.

I reached out and clutched at his shirt, felt his hard chest beneath. “Travis, I—”

“Shh, I’m just showing you.” He slipped his arm around my waist, dragged me close and yanked my hair, really hard.

“Ow, I—” A barrage of sensations blasted through my system. The feel of him pressing up against me, hot hard male, all wide pecs and solid thighs. The pain from having my hair tugged with force, and the awareness that my belly was shoved right up against his groin. A groin that held a wedge of thick flesh.

He placed his hands on his hips, kept his back to me. “Come here, Marie.”

“Why?” I looked at the back of his head, how his dark hair sat like silken fingers on his collar.

“Do as I ask.”

I was about to retort that I’d do no such thing. I was his psychologist and I’d stay in my chair, but something in me wanted to comply with his request. Perhaps it was the way he’d said it, as if I had no choice but to go to him, or maybe it was some kind of magnetism his sexy aura gave off that pulled me in like a fish on a line.

Placing the notebook and pen on the chair, I moved to the window and stood next to him, about a foot away.

“Some people like pain,” he said, still not looking at me.

“Masochists you mean?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

Shit, was he trying to tell me that he enjoyed the pain the accident had left him with? If so, we really needed to discuss this. “That’s not the majority of people though.”

“No, but more than you think. And some people like administering pain.” He turned to me, cocked his head slightly and moved into the space I’d left between us.

I looked into his eyes. Swallowed and tasted his cologne as it traveled into my nostrils and then laced my tongue. “Would you consider them to be good people, Travis? These individuals that like to hurt others.”

“I’ve known a few people who like to give and receive higher sensations, and most of them I consider to be good friends as well as good people.”

I hesitated, felt his body heat radiating toward me, wrapping around me as I pondered his words. We were close, very close, and his consuming presence made logical thinking much harder than normal. “I’m not quite sure what you’re telling me.”

“You talk about pain like it’s a bad thing, Marie.”

“It is.”

He smiled but it wasn’t a sweet smile, more like one of a hunter who’d spotted prey.

“Pain is unpleasant for a reason,” I said. “Because it’s bad.”

“I disagree.” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes. It was a challenging, cocky gesture.

A tingle snaked its way up my spine and threatened to wreak havoc in my body by turning into a tremble. But I beat it down. I wouldn’t let a patient get to me this way. I was the one supposed to be holding the reins here.
“Maybe, Marie, you should open your mind to new ideas with a little more grace.”

“I fail to see how I haven’t been graceful in discussing your theory that pain is good.”

“Can we keep it that way?”

“I hope so.”

“In that case,” he flicked his attention from my eyes and looked at my hair, “would you like me to demonstrate?”
Damn, the guy made me feel tiny. Even though I was wearing heels, his broad chest and wide shoulders were looming over me. “Okay.”