Even so, I can tell who it is. I’m pathetic after all, because I’ve memorized the outline of his body and his rainy-weather smell.
Simon Blackwood.
What the… Am I dreaming? Did I conjure him up?
I’m huddled by the wall, gripping my knees, trying to breathe, or rather, not breathe this fast. If I’m dreaming, then this has to be a nightmare. Why else would he come here, if not to torture me, torment me, and break me down?
Without turning around, he closes the door behind him. The soft click of it is a jarring force I need to realize that this is real life.
He really is here. Inside my room. In the middle of the night.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper-hiss, throwing the book aside, springing up from the bed.
“You didn’t show up for our meeting tonight,” he says in a low voice.
A voice that makes me jump.
Even though the rain outside is chaotic, his voice seems louder. His voice seems like a declaration of some sort.
A proclamation that he’s here.
Holy fucking shit.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I repeat my question, although on a whisper, ignoring his statement. “Who said you could come into my room?”
Technically, this isn’t the first time he’s been here. Last time was in broad daylight and everyone knew he was in my room. Doesn’t he remember though? Beth saw us. Not to mention, we almost got caught kissing in his office.
Stupid, fucking phenomenal kiss.
Simon takes a step toward me and my eyes jump to the little window on my door. I’m half-expecting to see an outraged night nurse or even Beth standing there, peeking inside, drawing all the conclusions – wrong conclusions – about his unexpected visit.
“I was waiting for you.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t you show up?”
“What does… I don’t…” He walks closer to me and this time I hear a creak that makes me jump. “Oh my God. Stop. What are you doing? Don’t move. This fucking hospital is falling apart, okay? Just don’t move.”
Of course, he doesn’t listen.
Of course, he wants to kill me. This is what it is.
He’s here to kill me. He’s a murderer. I wouldn’t put it past him because he is already stealing my breath away. He is already a thief. There’s a high likelihood that he’s a cold-hearted killer, too.
He keeps walking closer until I feel the heat radiating out of his body.
God, he’s hot. In temperature and in other ways. But I’m not thinking about the other ways right now.
I won’t.
“Do you think this is a game?” he snaps.
“What?”
I squint at him, trying to discern his expression. There’s no moonlight tonight; the rain is covering every inch of the ground and the sky. And the hallway light is dim, not to mention, this reckless man in my room is blocking it with his giant shoulders. So I can’t really see anything, other than his shining dark eyes and the shadowed lines of his face.
“Answer me, Willow,” he commands. “Do you think this is a game? Do you think your health is a game?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you show up for the meeting?”
Is he really asking me that? After he pulled a ‘temporary insanity’ clause on me?
“Because I didn’t wanna see you,” I snap back. “Can you go now?”
I swear I see a pulse on his jaw, as if he’s angry. Then he shakes his head, sighs sharply and asks, “Why were you crying?”
“What?”
“I saw you through the window.”
“You’ve been spying on me through the window?” I hiss, trying to keep it down, wiping the tears that I didn’t know I was shedding in the first place.
“Spying is a strong word. I was trying to check up on you.”
I raise my hand in a stop-right-there gesture, blowing at my bangs. “I don’t even wanna address the fact that this is a gross invasion of privacy. Because something much more drastic is at stake right now. Remember what happened yesterday back at your office? And before that? Beth saw us. There’re eyes everywhere.”
“Beth’s not here.”
“What?” I shake my head at his casual comment. “We have hourly checks, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“The nurse thinks I’m in the supply closet and the check isn’t for another fifty-six minutes.”
“You’ve been counting?”
He completely ignores me and instead says, “You didn’t answer my question. Why were you crying?”
I sigh, tired, but so charged up at the same time. I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Actually, I’m not even thinking that far out. I’m only thinking of now. Like there’s nothing beyond him and this moment.
“What does it matter to you?”
He leans closer then, and at last, I can see his features a little better. Like he’s come out of the shadows. His brow is furrowed and his hair’s sticking up on the sides making me think that he’s been plowing his fingers through it.
I’m almost shocked to see him this way, ruffled and bothered. Nothing bothers him, not from what I’ve seen. He’s a block of ice but not right now.
Tonight, he looks like a man who’s tired, exhausted, imperfect, and so fucking glorious.
“It matters to me because you’re my patient and you missed your meeting, and now you’re awake at night, crying.” His eyes glint, troubled. “Which is why I’m asking you again. Why were you crying, Willow? Why are you even awake? With Trazadone you should be fast asleep.”
I’m such a sucker that I can’t see him like this. I can’t see him upset. I should tell him I’m crying because of him. I can’t sleep because of him. Because he kissed me and then pled temporary insanity.
But as I said, I’m a sucker so I look away from him and tell him the other truth, “It’s not the meds, okay? I miss home.”
“What about home?”
“Hedwig.”
“You had a pet owl?”
There he goes again, stealing my breath. How fucking unfair is it that I’ve finally found a man who knows Harry Potter like I do, but he isn’t into me. “Goldfish. I set it free when I was twelve. Well, gave it back to the store and asked them to set it free. Right after The Funeral Incident…”
Okay, stop, Willow. Stop talking.
I thought I hated talking. But something about him makes me want to talk and spill and bare my soul.
I’m so stupid.
“Why?”
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I can’t believe he’s here.
How is this my life?
I glance at the little window on the door again before focusing on him. “Because I thought she was alone and she needed friends.”
I want to say more but I grit my teeth. Enough. I’ve already told him so many things about me, while I know nothing about him. Not that I’m interested.
I’m not.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Didn’t you need friends?”
Fisting my hands, I say, “I was okay. I was handling it.”
Thunder cracks and reverberates through the room, throwing the light of the sky on him. My intruder. The face sculpted by the gods. It has to be. And those eyes. They were probably drenched in the rain clouds to get that rich, gray color.
Everything about him is so poetic. And everything about his poetry is fucking tragic. For me.
“That’s what you do, don’t you?” He scans my face in the darkness. “You handle things. All alone. You fight for them. Every time. All the time. You fight.”
My eyes feel heavy, grainy. “Yes. I’m a warrior. Maybe I should tattoo that. Warrior Willow or something.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Maybe you should.”
“Okay, now can you go?”
I b
low at my bangs again and I see his eyes roving to my loose hair, and I’m racked with such longing. It grips every part of me. My lips, my fingers, even the roots of my silver strands.
Will he never fist them? Will he never kiss me again, taste me, cure me, let me taste him?
There’s so much to do, so much to discover. I didn’t get to touch him last time the way I wanted to.
God, please. I want him to touch me.
Perhaps his thoughts are the same as mine because instead of going away like I asked him to, he puts his hand on me. Again.
And I squeak. His fingers circle my throat, his thumb pressing on the fluttering pulse on the side of my neck, like he did yesterday. As if he wants to feel the life inside me, my essence.
My vitality.
My eyes are wide and shocked. “Wh-what are you doing?”
His eyes are on his fingers, as if he can’t believe they are there. He puts pressure around my neck, and it arches and so does my back. He isn’t hurting me. There isn’t even discomfort. It’s just that he’s touching me, holding my throat in such a possessive way that I can’t help but make room for him. Or rather my body can’t help rearranging and shifting.
“S-Simon…”
Without answering me, he bends down, like really down, his hand leaving my throat so his arms can go under my ass.
Then, he does something that I never, not in a million years, expected him to do.
He lifts me in his arms.
Oh my God.
I’m in his arms. He’s carrying me in his arms.
Like I weigh nothing.
“Simon…” I squeak, a little too loudly for my comfort. “What are you doing?”
His large palms are under my ass, and my thighs and arms are wound around his big body as he carries me to the wall, by the bed, the wall that I share with Renn. He props me against it, his arms secured around my waist.
I’m panting as if I’ve been running or doing yoga. “What the…”
Simon adjusts himself, his body shifting between my legs. Like a big mountain.
My night pajamas are short, covering only the tops of my thighs, and I didn’t even realize that my legs have been bare all this time, until they scraped against his clothes. The sensation makes me squeeze them, and all I feel is miles and miles of sculpted muscle. A terrain of muscles.
“Do you live at the gym?” I blurt out the first asinine thing in my head.
God, why am I so lame?
He doesn’t answer me. He doesn’t even acknowledge my question. He simply moves closer when he’s happy with the way he’s situated me.
His forehead grazes mine and his torso presses into the juncture of my thighs, making me squirm. “I want you to promise me something.”
I fist his shirt on his shoulders. “What?”
Simon grabs my face then, forcing me to focus only on him. Like I wasn’t already. Doesn’t he know? I can’t focus on anything but him when he’s close.
“You won’t miss an appointment again,” he rasps. “Ever. With me or with your therapist. Your group session, your meds. You won’t miss any of it. You won’t jeopardize your health in any way or fashion. Promise me.”
“Simon—”
“Promise me, Willow. Your health is the most important thing to me. It’s not a joke. Do you understand? You won’t let anything affect it. Anything. Least of all a man like me. Tell me you understand.”
His voice is so dark and heavy, laden with things I have no clue about. All I know is that it’s imperative for him that I say yes. The way he’s looking at me like I hold all the answers to his problems, like his life depends on me, I can’t deny him anything.
So, I nod. “I-I do.”
His chest expands with his long breath. “Good.”
“What do you mean, a man like you?” I ask, my hands traveling up to his hair. I sink my fingers into the strands, feeling the rich softness.
Simon doesn’t answer me for a few heartbreaking seconds and I want to hug him so badly. Because I know something is bothering him but he won’t tell me what.
“A man prone to mistakes,” he says, at last, in a ragged whisper, his eyes on me. In fact, his eyes are roving all over my face. Back and forth. Up and down. Fast and slow. All at the same time.
It’s like he’ll never see me again, and it scares me.
“What kind of mistakes?” I ask, massaging his scalp, scraping my fingers through his hair.
He groans, his eyes almost dropping shut with pleasure.
Despite everything, I smile. I smile because I’m giving him pleasure. Me. Somehow, Weird Willow is making this man groan.
It makes me happy. It makes me horny, and I rock, rubbing my core against his torso.
His eyes open, shining and black, his hands going to my hair, his thumb grazing my jaw. He’s touching me on the face, but strangely, it resonates in my stomach, pooling and swirling like liquid lust.
“Do you know I watch you?”
“What?”
His nostrils flare. “Yeah. I watch you. In fact, I can’t stop watching you.”
“Y-you watch me?”
“Yes.” His reply is so guttural, so full of loathing that I don’t know what to think or do except tighten my thighs around him.
And blurt some words that I don’t think make much sense. “I didn’t… You…”
“You didn’t know, did you?”
I shake my head.
It makes him chuckle, my ignorance. But there’s hardly any humor in it.
“You love strawberries, but you hate blueberries,” he murmurs. “You always leave them out of your fruit salad. You always like to sit on the bench closest to the gate while feeding your pigeons, like you’re planning to make a run for it. You blow on your bangs when you’re nervous or agitated. You’ve started to laugh more ever since you talked in the group. And you know what else?”
I don’t think I can talk right now. I don’t know any words. I don’t know any sensations and emotions, except him. He’s all I know in this moment.
My ice king.
Good thing he doesn’t seem to need an answer because he goes on, his fingers flexing in my hair, as if his body is flooded with all the electric energy. “I fucking hated it when you laughed at him.”
“At who?”
“At the new guy. Tristan. You were playing cards and he was teaching you and I fucking hated it. If a nurse hadn’t called me away, I would’ve done something… regretful.”
I vaguely remember it, playing poker with Tristan and a few other people. Mostly I wanted to piss Renn off, because she starts blushing whenever he’s around and it’s fun to watch. But I didn’t… I didn’t know…
He was watching me.
Oh God, he’s been watching me all along.
My lips part as I stare at him with wide eyes. My skin flutters, raises itself in goose bumps. There’s a buzzing in my stomach, my pussy. My soul. It’s like every single molecule, every atom I’m made of is excited.
“Simon, I –”
“Stop looking at me like that,” he spits out, cutting me off.
“Like what?” I wiggle in his lap, his authoritative voice making me hotter and hornier.
His one hand goes to my waist to stop me from moving, plastering my spine to the wall. “Like I’m some kind of a hero. Like this is a fucking fairy tale.” Grabbing the back of my neck with his other hand, he pulls me closer, bringing me flush to his chest, almost flattening my breasts.
“I told you, Willow. I’m not supposed to think of you in any other terms but as my patient. Do you know how unethical this is? Me coming into your room in the middle of the night? Do you know what kind of men do things like this? Weak men. Men who fail. Men who can’t control themselves. You don’t want anything to do with men like that, Willow. You need to be smart. You need to stay away from men like me.”
I want to tell him that smartness, playing by the rules, being good… all of
this is over-rated. And then I want to grab the back of his neck too and plaster my mouth over his because Jesus Christ.
He’s been watching me, and he wants me. But he hates that. His strange protective instincts are turning me on so much. And if it’s wrong, him watching me like a stalker or like I’m prey, then fuck it. I don’t care.
I love it.
I cup his hard jaw, feeling his rough stubble and hardly controlling myself from moaning out loud. “Simon, you don’t –”
“My only solace is that I don’t give in. When the thought of you becomes too much and I want to touch you or see you or jack myself off, I don’t. I run. I work out. I fix that house. But I don’t give in.” His breaths are choppy, coming in short bursts, waves. “I can’t give in. I can’t fail.”
Lightning streaks across the sky again, illuminating his severe features and mussed up hair. Illuminating Simon. My Simon.
He’s telling this to himself, reminding himself that he can’t fail. Why? Why is it so important for him not to fail?
Why is it a failure to begin with? Wanting me? Wanting this?
“But I do,” I whisper, my eyes on the verge of leaking water, trying to tell him that he isn’t alone.
He focuses on me then, like he’s seeing me after quite a while. “You do what?”
“Touch myself.” I lick my lips and he homes in on the tiny movement, as I continue, “At night, when I can’t sleep, I touch myself. My breasts, they become so heavy and they hurt me so much. And my nipples poke through my t-shirt and I have to pinch them. A-and I imagine that you’re doing it to me. But your hands are so big and large, and I always end up being disappointed with my own fingers. So, then I…”
“You what?”
I flinch at his words and without meaning to, I rub up against him, going up and down. My breasts scraping against his chest and my pelvis hitting his stomach. His dick.
It’s hard and lodged between us. In fact, it’s lodged right where it should be. Between the lips of my pussy.
“You what, Willow?” he asks again, and I bite my lip, watching him through my lashes as I writhe against his hard pole.
He shudders – shakes – at my movements and his eyes turn even darker, if possible.
“So then, I-I put my hand under my shirt and cup them. I try to… I try to push them together, and then I close my eyes and I think about you sliding your dick in between them, like you’re – you’re fucking me. But then, I get so self-conscious, you know. I d-don’t know if my breasts are big enough for you. If you’ll be able to fuck them. I…”
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