Bachelors In Love

by Jestine Spooner

  Yup. They’d spent the night together and then they’d spent the day together. Simple as that. And since she had a busy week and wasn’t sure when she’d be able to fit him in again, they spent the next night together as well and that morning and a little of that afternoon.

  It was pretty much two days since Eli had shown up at her house for their date and he was just dragging his ass home. He pulled his car into his driveway and bounded up his front stairs, feeling light and heavy at the same time.

  The effervescent joy he’d felt the last two days at Tia’s side was starting to dissolve away as he stepped into his empty house. He’d had the adrenaline, the momentum to keep him going this weekend without thinking too hard about what was happening.

  But now, as he stepped into his own shower, and then into a pair of sweats, the reality of his life was starting to settle over him. He was thrilled that she’d changed her mind about sleeping with him. It was the best experience of his life, hands down. But it also had intensified and crystallized everything he was feeling for her. Before, he’d simply let himself experience her. He knew they couldn’t be long term if she wasn’t ever going to have a physical relationship with him. He’d just let his feelings for her float and feel and be. But now, he suddenly found himself wanting to plan with her. To know what came next. It was a strange and foreign feeling for him. He’d never felt it before. With women, he knew what came next. Nothing. And with his friends he knew what came next. More friendship.

  But with Tia? He had no idea.

  He had the creeping suspicion that there were options that would feel good and options that would devastate him.

  “Yo!” a deep voice called out from the front of Eli’s house. Marcus.

  “Hey,” Eli said, scrubbing a towel over his hair as he stepped into the kitchen where Marcus was already helping himself to some leftovers.

  “Oh. You already work out today?” Marcus asked, squinting at Eli’s freshly showered hair.

  “Nah. Not yet.”

  “Wanna ruin that shower? I came by to see if you wanted to go on a jog.”

  “Hell yeah. Let me get my shoes.”

  Marcus had always been Eli’s favorite person to work out with. The man was durable, tenacious, and didn’t mind pain. Exactly the same as Eli. They had a lifetime of competition behind them. And honestly, it was only when Eli was in his top season shape that he could easily beat Marcus in a race. Marcus kept fit for his job with the FBI. He took his body very seriously.

  Plus, Eli didn’t really want his first few workouts back to be in front of the team trainer, or the other guys on his team. He needed a few days, maybe a week, to get some of his wind back before he went out there and tried to show them how he was doing. He knew that Marcus would push him but never judge him.

  A few minutes later, the two men bounded down from Eli’s back porch and headed down the five-mile loop along the water that they often did.

  “Gotta be honest, dude. You kind of look great, but you also kind of look like shit,” Marcus said as they hit a stride along the river.

  “Huh?”

  “I mean you look rested or whatever. But you look, I don’t know, unhappy.”

  “Yeah.” Eli swallowed his pride and decided that he needed to talk to his best friend more than he needed to hide the fact that he was already winded. He spoke in puffs of air. “I’m actually really happy. Like joyful even.” He looked sideways at Marcus. “Things are going really well with Tia.”

  “Ah.” Marcus slid his eyes sideways. “Y’all rang each other’s bells a little bit?”

  Eli shook his head and rolled his eyes at his friend. “You could say that. Yeah. We got down this weekend. Finally.”

  “And… what? It wasn’t good? Does that explain the storm clouds over your head?”

  Eli gritted his teeth against the ache in his ribs, the burning in his chest. “No, man. It was, ah, incredible. Best sex of my life. With a bullet. Hands down. No question.”

  “Alright, alright,” Marcus grumbled. “No need to rub it in.”

  The reminder that Marcus was not currently getting any had Eli’s grin growing irritatingly bigger. But it fell away as they hit an uphill stretch and Eli felt as if there was an elephant sitting on his chest.

  Marcus, seeing that his friend was physically struggling, endeavored to keep distracting him. “So, if the sex is good and things are good and she’s good, then what the hell is your weird mood about?”

  Eli’s face hardened, he tucked his head and sprinted to the top of the hill. He knew that the only reason he’d beat Marcus was because he hadn’t clued his friend in on the race, but still, it was just the boost he needed. Eli put his hands on his knees and looked down toward the river for a second before turning and jogging down the other side of the hill. Marcus followed close behind.

  “In a way,” Eli started, just when Marcus was beginning to think that he might not answer after all. “The fact that it is so good with Tia is making me really sad. I don’t know. It just makes everything I was doing these past few years, the girls, the partying, it just makes all of it seem really dumb. Really petty. I never thought I’d be ashamed of living my life the way I did. But here I am. Kind of wishing I’d pumped the brakes a little bit back then.”

  “She on your back about your history?”

  “Nah. Not really. I can tell she’s not totally thrilled about it, just little comments here and there. But no. I think this feeling is coming from me. I think I regret wasting all that time. And I’m ashamed that I’m surprised that this thing with Tia is so good. You know? I mean, my parents had such a good relationship. They loved each other, never strayed. I should have been able to figure out that connecting with one person is a hell of a lot better than hooking up with a hundred strangers. I mean, I’m embarrassed that I haven’t ever had a real adult relationship. And now that I’ve got this amazing woman, I don’t really know what to do with her.”

  “You need help figuring out what to do with her?” Marcus raised his eyebrows suggestively and easily absorbed the punch to the shoulder he knew was coming his way.

  “Shut up. No, I mean everything’s fine when we’re shacked up at her house or my house. Great, actually. But then I leave and come home and I’m not sure what to do next. Like, everything in my life is up in the air right now. My health, football, and now my social life is on its head too. I just don’t really know what to do.”

  “I think,” Marcus said as they veered off the river path and into a wooded area. “You just gotta enjoy it, man. And do your best to treat her right.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Three days into not seeing each other and Eli was coming out of his skin. At first, he’d been glad for the bit of space her busy job was affording them. It was allowing him to get his head back on straight after she’d blown his mind all weekend. But now he was missing her, sore from working out, and bored.

  Eli pulled out of the parking lot of the physical therapy clinic and pulled up to a red light. He idly pulled his phone out of his pocket, checked that the light was still red, and sent a text to Tia.

  Hey shorty. You busy?

  I’m sorry, did a teenager hijack your phone? She texted back a few seconds later. Eli grinned.

  Just thinking what I might have texted you in high school.

  We didn’t have cell phones in high school.

  Way to make me feel old as hell.

  Anyways I think we’ve moved well beyond the whole high school thing this weekend. Because I was certainly not doing THAT in high school.

  Doing what? Letting a grown man leave beard burn between your thighs?

  Eli… I’m a highly professional woman at a highly professional job. Don’t distract me by reminding me of the hottest 48 hours of my life. And definitely don’t remind me of when you slipped into the shower with me.

  Eli pulled the car over. He was a hazard on the road right now.

  You mean the way I put your hands on the shower wall and didn’t let you tur
n around, no matter what I did?

  You’re putting patients’ lives at risk with your inappropriate texting.

  He grinned. When does your shift end?

  Midnight.

  He grimaced. It was barely noon.

  Got a lunch break?

  Got one scheduled for one, but you never know. I might get called in to surgery.

  I’ll be there and if you have to bail, you have to bail, ok?

  Ok.

  Eli was whistling as he bounded up the back stairs of the hospital. Not even the awful, sterile hospital smell could put a damper on his mood right now. He’d made it easily up those stairs, his ribs were behaving, and he was about to see his girl.

  His easygoing smile evaporated off his face when he opened up the door to Tia’s hallway and he watched as a man stormed out of her office. A good looking man in a white doctor’s coat and scrubs.

  The man didn’t even spare Eli a glance, he just walked to the end of the hallway and slammed through another door, presumably his own office.

  Eli strode to Tia’s door and opened it cautiously. Tia stood at her window, looking out thoughtfully. Her chin rested on her fist. Eli felt his chest squeeze. If he’d expected tears from her, he should have known better. That was not Tia’s thoughtful, calm style.

  She looked up in surprise at Eli. “Oh! You’re early.”

  “Is that alright?” He suddenly remembered how he’d felt last time in her office, too big and clumsy. Was he intruding here? He didn’t feel that way at her house, but here was a whole different can of worms. Here was where she was a surgeon. If he got in her way or threw her off her game, lives were at risk.

  She turned to face him fully, slid out of her doctor’s coat, tossing it aside, and crossed the room to him. He breathed out a sigh of relief when her arms circled him. Her cheek pressed into his chest. He immediately held her right back. And damn she felt good all pressed up against him like that.

  “Of course it’s alright,” she said, her voice muffled against his t-shirt. “I missed you.” Her cheeks were peachy blushed when she looked up at him.

  He couldn’t resist tossing the food he’d brought aside, plunking down in the chair across from her desk and pulling her with him. He knew it was highly inappropriate to have her snuggled up on his lap, but he had to kiss her. Just for a second.

  “Was that your ex I saw leaving your office a minute ago?”

  “Yeah. That was Owen.” Tia’s voice was low and frustrated.

  “He looked pretty mad when he left.”

  “Yeah. I, uh, told him I was seeing someone. And that if he didn’t understand it was over, then I was going to have to speak to the hospital director about it.”

  Eli grinned. “Good for you! That’s awesome, T. Seriously. He needs to get the damn picture already. I’m so glad you did that.”

  But she didn’t respond in kind. Actually, she cast her eyes downward, like she was ashamed of something.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  “Oh. Well.” She lifted herself up off his lap and went over to the window again, looking out for a second. “That wasn’t exactly all that I told him.”

  “Ok…” He cocked his head and listened.

  She pulled at the shirt of her sky blue scrubs for a second. “When I said I was seeing someone, he said that that was fine. That he’d tolerate me experimenting for a while and that he’d be waiting when we were through.”

  Eli’s hands wanted to turn into fists. But he knew that, as big a man as he was, everything looked threatening. And he never wanted to make Tia nervous. So he took a deep breath. “And what did you say?”

  Tia pressed those serious lips together for a second, pinning him with her silver gaze. “I said that I didn’t see us breaking up anytime soon. That he was wasting his time. Because you’re my boyfriend and we’re serious about each other.”

  Eli was out of his chair like a shot, lifting her up onto the windowsill and kissing the breath out of her.

  “Oof. Eli!” Tia laughed as he immediately kissed down her neck, one hand snaking around her waist.

  He knew they were in her office, that she was at work. But then he felt her feet lock behind his waist and he knew there was no going back. He traced his hand over her scalp and deepened the kiss. She hummed in the back of her throat and melted against him.

  He couldn’t get enough of that. The melt. Before they’d slept together, she’d been like cuddling electricity. All slippery, twisting vibration. Wanting him, but never letting him get the right grip. But now, now that they’d opened up to one another in that way, she was relaxing into him, melting, giving him a handful. He loved it.

  “Tia, I really think—” a man’s voice cut off immediately as he burst into her office.

  Eli broke the kiss, looked over his shoulder, instinctively shielding Tia from the visitor. And if it wasn’t the little dickwad Owen the ex. Live and in the flesh.

  All the blood left the smaller man’s face as he took in the scene before him. He’d obviously come back to Tia’s office, barged in no less, in order to badger her about their break-up some more. He certainly hadn’t expected to see her knee deep in passion with another man. And he certainly hadn’t expected to see a famous football star.

  “Elijah Bird,Tia?” Owen asked accusingly. “Elijah fucking Bird?” He threw his hands up in the air.

  “You got a problem?” Eli asked, helping Tia down off the windowsill and turning to face this guy, pulling to his full height of 6’5”.

  Owen shrank backwards but the movement only seemed to concentrate his anger in one place, intensify it. “No, not a problem. I’m just stunned that Tia would utterly ruin her reputation by associating with a man-whore like you.”

  Man-whore? Eli looked down at Tia, mouthing the word.

  She sucked her lips in and tried not to laugh. That would only piss off Owen even further.

  “Who I date is really not your concern, Owen,” Tia reminded him.

  “Yeah,” the man paced before turning back to the doorway. “I take back what I said, Tia. I’m not taking you back after he’s done with you. I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole now that that walking STD has slobbered all over you.”

  “Yeah.” Eli took a step forward and stretched his shoulders, his neck from one side to the next. Owen’s eyes grew wide. “Definitely time for you to leave, little guy.”

  Owen took a step back out of the room. “I can’t believe you, Tia. I just can’t believe it.”

  Eli slammed the door in Owen’s face, locking it for good measure. He turned back to Tia and couldn’t help but smile at her. He kept expecting her to be in tears. And she never was. She stood there with a complicated expression on her face. She looked torn between embarrassment and laughter.

  …She thought this was funny?

  “Are you laughing?” Eli asked incredulously.

  A little giggle escaped before she clapped a hand over her mouth. “A little?”

  “Which part? The part where you’re a fallen woman or where I’m a diseased whore?”

  Another laugh escaped her before she choked it back. “Um, kind of the part where I was climbing you like a tree when he barged in here. I’ve never seen the wind go out of his sails so fast. He probably didn’t even recognize me at first.”

  Eli cocked his head to one side. “Why wouldn’t he have recognized you?”

  Tia waved a hand through the air. “Because I never kissed him like that. Oh. But I am sorry he said those things about you. Even if they are kind of true.”

  Eli’s mouth fell open. Was she teasing him? At a time like this? Hell, Eli’s adrenaline was still up. He was still spoiling for a fight. If he hadn’t been hospitalized two months ago, he might have let loose on that uptight, holier-than-thou, little shit.

  He joined her at the window. “You really think that shit is true? That I’m a man-whore? That I’m a walking STD?”

  Tia pressed her lips together but couldn’t stop the laughter. “I know y
ou don’t have STDs, Eli. I was your surgeon. I read your damn chart.”

  Eli’s mouth fell open. “Wow.”

  Tia shrugged. “It wasn’t an invasion of privacy at the time, we were still doctor/patient.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I would ask before I read your chart, like I did before.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know my chart had my whole sexual history on it.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said dryly. “Trust me, there wouldn’t be a clipboard large enough to hold that much paper.”

  “See! I knew you believed the man-whore part.”

  Tia shrugged and walked over to poke at the bags of food he’d brought. “I would never call you a man-whore. Those were Owen’s words.”

  “But you believe the sentiment. That I’ve, what, tricked for women?”

  Tia pulled a chicken sandwich out of one bag, sniffed at it. “No, of course I don’t think you charge for your services.”

  And then she had to turn away or risk letting another burst of laughter explode out of her. She wasn’t even sure why she thought this was all so funny. Actually, Eli’s lengthy sexual history was something that generally bothered her. It was just a whole lot to reconcile. But right now, between Owen catching them and Eli’s sweet little look of outrage. And the way Owen had scurried away right when Eli had stood up to his full height. Oh, it was just all too much. And teasing Eli was the perfect way to let go of some of this tension. Plus, she never wanted to yell at Eli about his sexual past, or shame him. So this light teasing was a good way of letting loose her feelings without permanently damaging his.

  Eli stalked over to the chair, scowling, and dropped into it, holding his hand out for a sandwich. She tossed him a roast beef.

  It was quiet while she handed him a coke, took one for herself.