Page 90 of Forever and Ever

Letting go of her face, I reach for her blanket and tighten it around her. “Let’s get in the shower. I can buy a new couch; I’m not worried about that right now.”

“I can use the guest room,” she says as she stands and secures the blanket under her arms. “Give us some space to clean up.”

“No.” I catch her hand before she can turn and pull her against me. “Let me take care of you.”

Her eyebrows pinch like she wants to argue. Or maybe she’s confused, or embarrassed. But she has no reason to be, and I need her to understand that.

“Okay,” she says, letting me lead her across the house and into my bathroom.

I turn up the heat of the shower until it’s steaming and ready for her when she comes back from the toilet.

There’s blood all over me, and it’s something that I honestly would have thought would freak me out—or gross me out—but it’s the least of my worries, because all I can think about is what it could mean.

After Merry told me about the severity of her condition. I did a lot of googling. I looked up uterine fibroids, reoccurring cases of them, treatments, surgical scarring. I thought I knew a lot about a woman’s body, but apparently, I don’t know shit.

From what I could gather and based on what Merry told me about her experience with it, she has some of the more severe symptoms. Depending on the time of the month she’ll get intense cramping, even heavy bleeding. And even though they surgically removed the ones they found before; new ones grew back. So, the chances of another surgery fixing it permanently isn’t likely.

She’s been managing symptoms with her doctor, and doing the least aggressive treatments, but it’s a waiting game for them to go back in, and from the look on her face when she told me, she’s nervous about what they’ll tell her when they do.

Stepping into the shower, it’s like Merry can read my mind as I run the soapy luffa over her arms and back.

“It’s just a period,” she says, although she doesn’t sound all that confident. “They’re heavier because of what I have.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to stay calm for her even if I’m freaking out inside.

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay,” I repeat, moving slowly down her legs to her feet, where pink water swirls down the drain. “You still need to tell your doctor.”

She sighs. “I know.”

That admission alone worries me even more. Because if she honestly thought nothing of it, she would argue with me.

All she wants to do is finish her demo tape right now, and it’s probably really frustrating to have to think about putting that on the back burner, but it doesn’t matter. She needs to do what’s safest for her body.

I keep all those thoughts to myself as I wash her, no matter how much my tongue hurts from biting it. She doesn’t need me lecturing her right now on top of whatever is going on in her head.

After I’ve washed her whole body, I soap her hair. It’s thick and straight in the water, and I love watching her tilt her head back and close her eyes as I massage her scalp. When I’m all finished, she rinses it out and I grab my luffa to work on myself.

“Here,” she says, taking it from me.

I try to pull it back. “You don’t have to do that. I’m the one taking care of you right now.”

But she tugs the luffa from my grasp. “And let me take care of you.”

Her eyes narrow, and I drop my arms to my sides in defeat.

It feels good as she rubs the soapy luffa over my body. I’ve never had anyone wash me before, and it’s intimate, standing here, letting her clean me. Not moving as she works her way over my back, my ass, down the backs of my thighs. Then she moves to the front, washing my chest before moving down further. Most of the mess washed off from the spray of the shower, but she doesn’t pause or hesitate to clean me of the rest.

We’ve been dating for only a month, but it already feels like my whole life. I would hand this woman the heart from my chest if she asked for it. I’d share my entire world with her.

I decide right here in the shower, as she sets the luffa down and runs her fingers on my scalp, that I belong to her body and soul from here on out.

“I can help with that,” I say, swiping the shampoo out of her hands, noticing that she’s struggling with my height to get to me. “Nice try though, shorty.”

She giggles and lets me take it, and it’s nice to see smiles returning to her face. Because although she’s still my grumpy girl with a cheery name, she does smile a lot more recently than she used to, and I like seeing it.

As I rinse my hair out, her hands move over my chest again, tracing the muscles, and I feel like a total jerk when my cock twitches from her touch.

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