Medicine Man (Page 80)

He knows this is my happy place, or at least this is where I go to find it.

The door to our bedroom opens and in three short steps, he’s here. He opens the door to the closet, bringing the sunlight in.

I blink a few times, trying to adjust to the light even though I’ve only been inside for about fifteen minutes. I’m much more suited to darkness and closed spaces. But strangely, I don’t mind the sun now that it’s illuminating my husband’s massive, toned body, his dark hair, the sharp, mature lines of his face.

He’s wearing a light blue shirt that brings out his eyes. I picked it out for him this morning before his meeting. He also wore a gray tie to go with his gray suit, but he isn’t wearing the tie or the jacket right now. Probably took them off on his way back home.

He does that after a long, hard day. Like he can’t wait to rush back and relax. Like he can’t wait to be the Simon I know – warm and safe – after being all cold and professional, Dr. Blackwood.

Biting my lip, I look up at his towering form that somehow still makes me lose my breath after all this time. “Hey.”

Without looking away from me, he closes the closet door, but not all the way. He leaves it slightly open, so the sunlight can stream in. I don’t mind. He’s here; the sun can’t touch me.

Taking off his glasses – he wears them all the time now, he settles himself on the floor beside me, where I’m huddled, almost hiding between his clothes. I crawl up to him, putting my head on his chest. He gathers me in his arms and kisses my forehead. “Hey, baby.”

I close my eyes and just breathe that word in. It’s a seemingly ordinary endearment but from his mouth, it’s the magic word. Like he made it just for me.

 I pop open a couple of buttons on his shirt and nuzzle my nose in his bare chest. It makes him chuckle softly.

“Here.”

He fishes something out of his pocket and offers it to me. A lime jello.

I smile. “You brought it for me?”

“Uh-huh,” he almost purrs, as if he’s finally at peace now that he’s back home. “I knew you’d need it.”

I take it from him and dig in. “Thank you.”

Sighing, he kisses my hair again, his fingers going up and down the bare skin of my arm, calming me, making me feel steady.

Tucking my chin in his chest, I ask, “How was your meeting?”

“They want me to expand on a few things. I thought the book was done. But apparently not.”

I can hear the slight frustration in his voice and setting my lime jello aside, I pop open a few more of his shirt buttons so I can really touch his naked chest, and that tattoo he got for me. I rub my hands in circles, tracing that inked spot, trying to soothe him, like he soothes me. He groans and his head falls back to rest on the wall.

“I’m sorry,” I almost coo. “I know you want it to be over.”

His arms snake around my back as he plasters our bodies together. “It’s just taking longer than I thought.”

I know. My poor baby.

Kissing his chest, I whisper, “Do you wanna tell me about those changes?”

His lips twitch, telling me that he’s onto me, and that he’s amused.

I know that it helps him when he talks. Not that I understand anything. Most of the time, I don’t get what Simon is talking about. Like, at all. But I always offer to be his sounding board.

I become one now, as he tells me about all the little tweaks he has to make in his second book.

His first book did great. Obviously. Like there was ever any doubt of his capability and awesomeness. The publishers asked him to write a second one. It’s based on the same topic, bipolar patients, but this time, it’s really from the perspective of a patient rather than a provider. I think its Simon’s way to pay homage to his mom.

It doesn’t stop with his book, however. Over the last few years, he’s participated and consulted in various studies that deal with bipolar patients and their care all over the country.

Yup, my husband is pretty fucking famous.

There were rumors about him and his conduct for a long time, but things simmered down. He doesn’t want to go back to practicing, however. He says he likes the research aspect of medicine. But maybe one day.

When he finishes, he slants me a look. “Did you get all of that?”

I peek up at him through my lashes. “Uh-huh.”

“Yeah?”

“Yup. I got that my husband’s brain is fucking sexy and I’m in love with it.”

He shoots me a smirk. “Just his brain, huh?”

I nuzzle my nose in his hard chest again and flick a tongue over his tattoo. My hands wander and go down the grooves of his sculpted stomach. “Well, I can’t deny that I love his body, too.”

He puts his hand on mine, stopping me from playing with his belly button and the dark trail that leads down to the best thing in the world: his dick.

“Willow,” he rumbles.

“What? It’s true.”

He rubs his stubbled jaw over my forehead. “Don’t start what you can’t finish.”

“I can finish.” I lick my lips and his pupils flare. “I can finish you, at least. I know you need it.”

Maybe this is the answer right now. A quickie in the closet. A simple fix. Endorphins from an orgasm. God knows my husband gives me the kind of orgasms that put me in another dimension, where everyone is always happy and mellow.

His grip tightens over my hand. “Tell me why you’re sitting up here.”

Or not.

I frown. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me anyway.”

Sighing, I sit up, or try to. At first, he tightens his hold, but then reluctantly he lets me go.

Swallowing, I whip my bangs away from my forehead and whisper, “She was crying.” I blink my eyes, trying to clear out the flashes that my words have caused. “And I got so scared. She wouldn’t stop, Simon. And I thought she was like me. I used to cry like that. On my birthdays. No one could get me to calm down. My mom used to get so frustrated and angry and sad. And I was…”

“You were what?”

I look at his big, sprawled form. He looks so king-like, sitting like this. His shirt half open, his one leg stretched out and the other folded at the knee, his expression all alert and focused. He looks like he could do anything. Anything at all. He could protect me and her, all with his bare, healing hands.

“What if she’s like me?”

Anger flashes through that alert expression of his. “So what?”

“It’s going to be hard. So hard for her.”

His jaw clenches. “And?”

I wring my hands in my lap, an urgency taking over me. Ever since her, I get anxious very easily. Simon knows this. He helps me calm down. He helps me see reason, but when she cries, something comes loose inside my chest. My anxiety can’t be controlled even though I know I’m not being rational.

As a person suffering from depression, I know anxiety. I’ve lived with it all my life. The hopelessness sometimes takes a more dangerous form. It becomes sharp-edged, laced with fear and paranoia.

Paranoia that I might have made her like me.

“I’ll teach her everything,” I say, with my eyes on the man I love. “We’ll teach her everything. We’ll never let her feel less, Simon. She has to know that we love her, no matter what. She has to know that she’s strong. She can do this. She can fight. She has to…” I trail off, not knowing how to convey this to him, my fears.