I was always immensely grateful for what I had and was able to accomplish in my life. There were ups and downs. Of course. There always were. But never in my life did I ever feel the need to throw away my life. Never felt like the outcome was not worth the struggle. Maybe it was because I had studied human behavior. Or maybe because I knew why things didn’t work out sometimes. Or maybe because I had helped people to overcome such barriers which were just a part of our lives like anything else.

As I watched Maeve, sleeping beside me, her chest rising and falling peacefully, I forced my brain to recall everytime I bid my patients farewell after they had successfully recovered from their trauma. I tried to recall every happy face and beaming smiles telling me they were doing much better than when they had first met me. I tried.

But I failed to.

My eyes traced the subtle stains of dried tears that tainted her beautiful face. The serene look on her face making me anxious somehow. The faded scar below her ear.

Why?

I had met self-harm victims before. I had talked through sessions, and had seen them recover gradually.

But never…ever did I see their scars. I did not have to. It would have meant travelling back into their past, and taking them with me. That was not how therapy worked. At least not by me. It was helping them realize that it was never too late for a new beginning. That even after all that they had been through, there was still hope.

There was always hope.

But last night, I had seen hope crumble right in front of me, through Maeve’s eyes.

The stitched cuts. Healed burns. Scratch marks. Words carved on her skin with something sharp, like needles or shards of glasses. Everything that I saw on Maeve’s body yesterday, I wished I hadn’t.

Just looking at it made me want to rip my heart out, because fuck did it hurt. Why did it hurt?

A shudder ran through my body everytime I realized that she had did that to herself. She had cut herself, scratched her skin down to flesh, burned herself, because she found relief in it.

Maybe solace in times of distress.

And all those scars were in places of her body where no one else could find them. But why?

There were so many questions swimming in my head right now. But I couldn’t find the courage to put forth any of it. As much as I tried to tell myself to handle it like any other case in my hands, I couldn’t.

Maeve was not a case. Maeve was not a patient.

Maeve was a beautiful woman with a will strong enough to bring me down on my knees, and I would gladly oblige. She was a woman whose scars had physically made me ache, to kiss away those marks, to make her forget any such thing was ever a part of her. She was the woman who made me fall in love with every shade of brown and pointy stilettos.

I threaded my fingers through the waves of her hair, tracing every line on her face, hoping I had a camera vision which could capture and store her pictures in a small corner of my chest.

Preferably the left corner.

Maeve stirred and shifted in her sleep, with a soft moan. Switching from laying on her back to her side, facing me. She joined her hands together, placed it over my stretched-out arm, and rested her cheeks over it, looking fondly deep in her dreamland.

I smiled at her. Despite her eyes being closed, despite the wild, scattered thoughts running through my brain, I smiled.

That was what she always did. Make me forget what I was thinking until it was only her on my mind.

She is everywhere.

I was pulled out of my sweet reveries when Maeve moaned again, not as sleepily as before, and a little line ceased between her brows. The sound travelled right through my ears, all the way down to my groin, and I had to look away from her to let out a soft groan. As much as I was interested to know what she was dreaming about, I had to get out of the bed first.

Talks could wait.

I shifted slowly, trying to move my arm from below her without disturbing her sleep. But I froze when she gasped, her eyelids fluttering uncontrollably, then a strangled version of my name slipped through her lips.

My teeth ground together, bringing my jaws to clench painfully. Morning wood would be least of my problems right now if I didn't wake her up.

Her chest started heaving with soft, shallow pants, and my eyes widened in wonder as I watched her. I needed to wake her up, but I also wanted to see where she was leading to. She was moaning my name in sleep, that could mean only one thing.

Her lips trembled and another moan tore through her throat. My slacks had tightened beyond comfort now, and I was forced to reach forward as I reluctantly cupped her chin with gentle fingers.

“Maeve,” I whispered. She stilled. Her brows came back to rest, lips pressing together and eyelids coming to a slow halt. “Wake up now, beautiful,” my thumb lazily brushed across her lower lip. Soft and full and red with the remnants of her lipstick from last night. Her flushed face—which I was getting used to—slightly twisted, and her eyelids peeled open. She blinked several times before her eyes adjusted to the light in the room.

“Hi,” I smiled down at her.

Maeve blinked up at me, like trying to recognize my face through her morning haze, and then returned the smile, the red crawling up her cheeks again. “Hi, good morning.”

“Good morning, you. Slept well?”

She stretched her arms over her head with a muffled yawn. “Like a baby.”

“I could tell.”

I watched as her movements pulled up my shirt that she was wearing, sliding it over her thighs, almost giving me a glimpse of her black lace panties.

Christ. How was I just noticing it?

“How did you sleep?” Her voice drew my eyes back to her, and I was welcomed by a lazy smile plastered across her lips.

“I don’t remember the last time I slept so well,” I reached over and brushed my knuckles down her warm cheeks. “It must be you.”

She chuckled. “Lies.”

“I am a doctor, sweetheart. I don’t lie.” My thumb brushed against her lips, and the amusement blended into something else across her face.

We locked eyes again, her brown eyes turning golden under the sunlight, before they flickered down, over my naked upper body. It might have been completely unintentional when her tongue tipped out and ran along the seam of her lower lips, a darkness suddenly shadowing over her soft expression. But it did things to me.

My cock twitched in my pants as a response.

“Can I touch you?” The question hung in the air between us as Maeve looked up at me, expectantly. Sleep had fled from her eyes, and what I saw there now, was pretty much everything I was feeling at the moment.

I was ready to write off everything in my name if I could feel her hands running over me right now. And her asking for it was just a cherry on cake.

But I couldn’t say that.

So, instead, I said. “Go ahead. I’m all yours.”

Maeve arched a brow at me. “Mine? Mine how?”

I reached down and took her hand, bringing it up to my chest. Her palm was warm against my skin. “However you want to put it.”

A silent oh slipped through her lips and her other hand came up beside the first, sliding down my chest, and over my stomach, then travelling up again. Slowly. As if memorizing every inch of the skin.

Her touch was indeed worth writing off my inheritance. Probably more than that.

“You hide a lot under a simple button-up shirt.”

Her comment made me smirk. “Only the shirt?”

Her eyes flickered up, hands still tracing up and down my chest, as she seemed to ponder over the question. “Well, I haven’t exactly been able to see through your pants,” she merrily returned my smirk.

This woman…

I ran a quick scan of her face to make sure she was serious, then grabbed both her wrists, and flipped us around, pulling her over me. Her knees dug into the mattress on either side of my hips, and I grabbed the base of her neck, pulling her down into a kiss.

A kiss I wanted to steal since the moment I had opened my eyes this morning, to the sight of her curled in my arms.

Her hands started at my chest again and moved down, synchronizing the movement with her lips, making me groan for more. I buckled my hips, pushing my clothed erection against her, unable to help myself.

Maeve pulled away with a gasp. “You…you’re…” she fumbled.

“Yes, your fault.” I flipped us over again, pulling her under me, as I held her down with my hips between her legs. I pressed myself against her, hard enough to make me hiss and her moan. I hardened further against her warmth.

I wanted her to know this was because of her. For her. That I got hard just watching her sleep.

Somnophilia? Adoration? Pheromones?

Just creepy.

Shut up!

Maeve arched her spine, her breasts pushing against my chest through the thin fabric of her…my shirt.

“Can I take this off?” My fingers trailed under the shirt and caressed her stomach.

Her hips ground against me, seeking friction. “Please,”

I reached for the first button of the shirt, and undid it. Just one. It was too big on her, and that one undone button gave me complete reach into her cleavage.

I buried my face between her breasts, her soft skin pressing against either side of my face and grazing my stubble. Her scent, her gasps and fuck, her body, it was enough to make me orgasm without even being touched.

“What were you dreaming about?” I rasped out against her chest as another button came undone, then another.

Maeve was panting beneath me, as we locked eyes and for a moment, she looked surprised by my question. Maybe confused.

“You were moaning in your sleep, Maeve. Moaning my name.” I told her, and she closed her eyes tightly before turning her face away from me. Clearly embarrassed. I let out a chuckle and brought my lips down on her now exposed stomach. I kissed a scar below her ribs. “Tell me, baby. I want to know.”

“Why?” She breathed out the question when I nibbled down on her skin.

“So that I can make your dirty little dreams come true.” I looked up from where I was sucking at her skin and saw her cleavage, with the curve of her beautiful breasts on either side. A breathtaking pathway leading up her neck. “If it’s something I can do right now, I will.” I said, just as she brought a hand up and pressed the palm against her mouth, stopping herself from spilling the words.

Okay…

“Did you come?”

I heard a sharp inhale of breath, and then her soft voice. “No. I woke up.”

I hummed, undoing another button to reach her navel. I stretched the shirt, so that I could see her cleavage, down till her navel, but not her breasts.

Not yet.

“Did I use my fingers?”

She shuddered beneath me. “Yes.”

“My tongue?”

“Y-yes,”

I smiled against her skin, and crawled my way up to her, trailing my lips through the path I just went down. “I fucked you with my tongue and fingers in your dream?”

She stared up at me, wide eyed, and slowly removed her hand pressed against her mouth. In this moment, she looked so innocent, so open to anything I was willing to give her. I couldn’t help myself. I leaned down and brought our lips close, close enough to kiss. But I did not kiss her.

“Do you want me to make you come with my mouth?” I asked her, softly. “Because I sure as hell want to taste you.”

She blinked up at me, eye scanning my face, then fervently nodded, making me smirk.

Good girl.