To Love a Man

by Carolyn Faulkner

  “But—” He was already gone.

  When he returned a few minutes later with provisions, she was gone.

  “Where the fuck did she get to now?” he wondered aloud.

  “I’m in the bathroom,” Ellie informed him, although why, she wasn’t exactly sure.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  “If you’ll recall, my bladder waits for no man.”

  He did remember. He used to tease her all the time when they took car trips that she was going to make them have to stop every twenty minutes. It hadn’t been quite that bad, but for a man who could make a twenty-two hour trip and only stop twice, anything more than that was extravagant.

  After a few minutes, she clearly heard him say, “I’m coming in to help you back to bed.”

  Why, oh why hadn’t she remembered to lock that door?

  She knew exactly why – she lived alone. She rarely remembered to even close the door except when she was in company. Locking it had never entered her sex-addled mind.

  “No, you stay—” He was already in the room. “—out there,” she finished lamely, rolling her eyes. “Still not listening to me, I see.”

  “Still too stubborn to accept help, I see.”

  Ellie glared up at him.

  “Well, it is kind of stupid. I’m here. You’re having to limp or walk, why not use me as nature intended – for sex and where strength is needed?” He was quoting from one of her favorite diatribes about how men were only good for two things. “You’ve already had the sex.”

  “And heartily wish I hadn’t,” she finished for him.

  He looked appalled at her words, but she didn’t back down from them one bit.

  She was finished, but a sudden attack of shyness made her tell him, “Turn around.”

  He grinned in disbelief. “What?”

  “Turn around. I need to wipe and then stand up and flush the toilet.”

  Cal’s hands were on his hips, and nakedness not withstanding, he managed to convey scorn quite well. “Ellie, I’ve seen you naked lots of times, including about five minutes ago. There’s no need to go all modest on me.”

  “There most certainly is. You are no better than a stranger to me now, really. Actually, you’re much worse to me than any random stranger has ever, ever been.” She watched his expression darken dangerously but thought that that was just too damned bad if he didn’t like hearing the truth, “And I won’t feel comfortable doing what I need to do until you turn around.”

  “Well, then you’re going to have to learn to get used to feeling uncomfortable, aren’t you? ‘Cause I’m not going to do that.”

  They were at a standstill, and normally Ellie would have waited him out, but her ankle was throbbing too much, hanging down as it was, for her to do that. Finally, she sighed heavily, gave herself a passing swipe with a wad of toilet tissue and rose.

  Cal was there immediately to lend a steadying arm, which Ellie was loath to admit she needed. He even reached down to flush for her, washed his hands quickly but efficiently, then scooped her up and carried her to her bed. He located her dresser and began to rummage around in it, coming up with a nightgown. “Still Tinker Bell, I see,” he commented with a small smile, and she was surprised that he didn’t seem to be trying to be nasty about it. He added a fresh pair of undies and tossed them to her.

  At least he wasn’t insisting on dressing her himself. Ellie tried to be grateful for small blessings.

  He doled out ibuprofen, put the bottle and the big glass of water he’d gotten for her to take it on her nightstand, along with the remote to the TV, her computer, and a bag of ice that he placed on her ankle himself, looking down at it and sighing heavily. “I am sorry about this, you know. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “No, you just wanted to humiliate me and, if you were lucky enough, throw me in jail.”

  He surprised her by having the grace to blush.

  “Is there anything else I can get you or do for you before I go?”

  She had to smile, and he looked at her quizzically. “That was almost exactly what Cruz asked me before he left.”

  His face froze and then his brow furrowed and his face began to resemble a thundercloud. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told him when he got back from seeing to you: you stay away from him, Ellie.”

  She snorted. “You can tell me not to darken your door again. You can even tell me not to set foot – injured or otherwise – on your property. But I don’t believe you have any right what so ever, Mr. Jennings, to tell me who I can or cannot see. Fuck off.”

  He couldn’t suppress a small grin. “That was extremely reminiscent of what he said to me, too.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s a smart man.”

  “I’m not kidding, Ellie. Leave Cruz alone.”

  “I’m not kidding either, Cal. You are no one in my life any more.” It felt better than she wanted it to when she saw him flinch slightly before he managed to cover it up. “Sex and the highly out of character Florence Nightingale routine not withstanding, you couldn’t have proven it to me any better this time around than you did the last time you completely rejected me. So fuck you.”

  He wasn’t very happy with the idea of leaving things at that, but he didn’t have much choice, he supposed, and he liked that even less. He was a man who was used to having options – money usually did that for him. But when it came to Ellie and whatever it was that was between them – what had been and would never be again, despite this delightful interlude – he was beginning to think that he’d brought it all on himself, although he couldn’t see how that could be.

  He strode to the head of the bed and leaned down to kiss her, but she coyly turned her head. Not that he put up with that. He caught her chin and turned her head, giving her a slow, lingering kiss. As he rose, he couldn’t help but notice something that only contributed to the upset he refused to acknowledge he was feeling – the clear outline, in darkened black and blue relief against her pale white skin, of his hand where he had grabbed her bicep to haul her unceremoniously out of his house.

  His jaw began to tic again, not that she noticed. “If your ankle gets any worse, let me know. I’ll have my personal physician come and take a look at it.”

  “Oh yeah,” Ellie snorted sarcastically. “You’ll be the first person I call – not!”

  He stared down at her and she finally did see the tic in his jaw that meant he was pissed. Well, too bad about him.

  “When you get up the next time, be sure to throw the deadbolt behind me. I’ll lock it, but don’t forget to do that, too.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Good night.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  ***

  As luck would have it, the next day was Sunday, so she didn’t really have anything pressing to do. She was supposed to go grocery shopping and vacuum the house, but that stuff could all wait. She had enough food on hand that she wasn’t going to starve, and if all else failed, there was delivery, although she hated to spend the money.

  She’d stayed in bed – in deference to trying to use her foot as little as possible, she certainly wasn’t getting any rest while doing so. Her phone had rung on the dot at nine – it was Ash. She knew damned well better than to call her any time before that unless she’d been run over by a bus or just fucked a celebrity. And Ellie was willing to bet that no one at Cal’s party – filthy rich as they may have been – qualified as a bona fide celebrity. “Hello?”

  “Ells!”

  She hated that particular nickname but she couldn’t seem to dissuade Ashley from using it, so she continued to refer to her as ‘Ash’, when she knew she hated that name, too. Turn about, etc., etc., etc.

  “So I heard there was some kind of commotion about you and Mr. Too Handsome For Words yesterday.”

  Leave it to Ashley to be pretty much oblivious about things that went on with anyone else. If it didn’t directly affect her, it didn’t much interest her even when it involved her supposed best f
riend.

  “Yeah. He spotted me and bodily threw me out of the house.”

  “In front of anyone?” She sounded positively horrified.

  “In front of everyone, apparently, except for you.”

  “I was—”

  “Let me guess – giving the mayor a blowjob?”

  “HIM? As if!”

  “Okay, giving a captain of industry a blow job?”

  “They were all too old – grossly old,” she added, because Ellie knew that ‘old’ wasn’t necessarily a deterrent to Ashley’s gold digging tendencies; they just couldn’t look that way.

  “Okay, giving a blow job to a congressman?”

  “Not quite, but you’re warm – it was a congressman’s son!”

  Her “congratulations” was meant sarcastically, but sometimes that kind of intonation just went right over Ashley’s head, especially when she didn’t want to hear it in the first place.

  “Well, I met someone myself – in the midst of being thrown out the front door. Although I didn’t give him a hummer.”

  “You did?”

  Ellie wasn’t sure whether she should be insulted at just how surprised and shocked Ashley sounded, or whether she should just let it slide. She wasn’t feeling up to par, so she let it slide. “Yeah. Cal did, literally, throw me out the door and I broke the heel of one of my sandals – you know, the creamsicle colored ones—”

  “Oh good, just those ugly things. No loss then – yay!”

  Ellie sighed, closing her eyes and rubbing her brow. Maybe Cal was right. She needed to get some new friends. “Yeah, well, because the heel broke I twisted my ankle, so I had to kind of hop to my car and Cal sicced his bodyguard or security guy on me, and he turned out to be a really nice guy.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He’s big – you know I like ‘em that way – and used to be in the Army as a medic. He carried me to my car. Then, because it’s a standard and I couldn’t drive it very well, he moved me onto the passenger’s seat and drove me home. And then carried me into my apartment and took care of me – put ice on my ankle and everything.”

  “Wow – sounds like a winner! What’s his name?”

  “Cruz Montoya.”

  “Well, it sounds like we both did all right yesterday!”

  Ellie didn’t bother to repeat her side of things – thoroughly humiliated in front of most of the town, hauled out on her ass, sprained ankle... as far as Ash was concerned, in her little corner of the world, if a man paid attention to you, then it was a win.

  Chapter 4

  And that was hardly the only phone call she received that day – since most people just texted her, it was like friggin’ Grand Central Station!

  Long about two o’clock in the afternoon, she got a call from someone who had identified himself on her cell phone as Cruz Montoya – That Cute Guy Who Brought Me Home – as if she was going to forget who he was, and he’d even done a quick selfie – in front of her car – so that his face came up, too.

  Cheeky bastard.

  “Hello?”

  “Ellie?”

  His voice could give Cal’s a run for the money. “Cruz! You made it back to the party okay, I take it?’

  “Yes, I did, but it wasn’t really a party for me. It was work.”

  “And did Cal dock your pay for the time you were with me?”

  That got her a laugh. “No, he didn’t.”

  “I’m surprised. Did he beat you up?”

  Another chuckle. “No, he didn’t.” He carefully didn’t mention that they had very nearly come to blows over her, and that he wasn’t quite sure why, except that the big man must’ve had some sort of residual feelings for her – besides the obvious hate – that made him jealous of Cruz.

  Neither of them said what was on their minds about the situation – that he had told them, for unknown reasons, that they were not to see each other. Of course they had both told him off, too.

  “How’s the ankle feeling?”

  “About the same – no better, no worse. I’m staying in bed today, trying to keep off it as much as possible. Gotta go to work tomorrow regardless.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I teach school.”

  There was a long pause. “Um, it’s summer. Isn’t school out?”

  “You never heard of summer school?”

  His laugh was awfully close to a giggle, which was highly unusual for a man his size and made her laugh, too. “Oh, yeah, well, I am intimately acquainted with summer school, actually.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I don’t think I ever got a full vacation. I was always having to make something up in summer school.”

  “And until I became a teacher, I had never been to summer school.”

  “Lemme guess, you were a straight A student, teacher’s pet, honor roll, all that crap?”

  “Guilty of all that crap and worse. Science Club. Debate Club. Need I go on?”

  “You were a nerd!”

  “Hell, I still am a nerd!”

  They had a great chat, and near the end, he asked, “So, would you be interested in going out with me some time?”

  “Definitely!” And she wasn’t kidding, wasn’t having to work up interest or pretend because she felt obligated to him for how nicely he’d treated her. She really was interested in him. At this moment, with the morning after regrets she was facing, she was interested in pretty much anyone who wasn’t Cal.

  But Cruz was more than that.

  “But I reserve the right to cancel, though, if my ankle isn’t feeling up to snuff.”

  Another long pause, but this one she wasn’t expecting. “If your ankle isn’t well enough to go out with me by Friday, that means you should have gone to the ER, like, yesterday, when I suggested it to you.”

  Damn, she didn’t need two men in her life that talked to her in that tone of voice! Well, Cal really wasn’t ‘in her life’. He’d just wreaked havoc and left, not that she let herself off the hook for having been the impetus for their little mistake of a dalliance yesterday.

  “Yes, well...”

  “No ‘yes, well’, Ellie. If your ankle is hurting that badly, then you need to see a doctor.”

  “I can’t afford to miss work—”

  She heard him clear his throat. “Do I need to come over there and take you to the ER myself?”

  Ellie swallowed so hard at this dominant tone that she hoped he didn’t hear it. “No, I told you, my ankle isn’t bothering me that badly. I just don’t know what it’s going to be like after I’ve been on my feet all day, every day, for five days, and I wanted to let you know that it might be a reason why I’d cancel.”

  “All right,” he agreed grudgingly. “It goes against my better judgment, but I suppose I won’t storm over there and take you to the vet— uh, the doctor’s—”

  But it was too late to recover from that one – at least she didn’t sound mad, though. She was, in fact, laughing so hard she was practically howling. “Oh, man, if you hadn’t been so nice to me yesterday you’d be in some deep shit, even if that was a slip of the tongue. As it is, I think we’re now on an even playing field, even if I’m not feeling particularly insulted.”

  “Oh, it was definitely a mistake. I’m sorry. I was thinking about needing to make an appointment for my dog at the vet, but I called you first. I am so sorry.’

  “Please. If my ego is that delicate then you should start running in the other direction now.”

  “Well, I’ve known plenty of girls who would have held that over my head for quite some time—”

  “Who said I’m not going to?” she asked innocently, and got him to laugh.

  “So, Friday?”

  “Yes, barring, as I mentioned, complications.”

  He rang off then, and it wasn’t until much later, around ten or so, that she got her last call – and she didn’t even need to look to see who it was. She had a bet going with herself and she was right.

  “Good evening, Cal.”
<
br />   “Good evening, Elise.”

  Her name on his lips sounded like something at once both vulgar and angelic. It already had her shifting against her pillows, as if his fingers were between her legs, where she ought not to want them, but she most definitely did.

  “How’s the ankle?”

  “About the same, thank you, but at least it’s no worse. I’ve stayed off it as much as possible all day.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  He certainly wouldn’t mention it to her, but as he’d left her place last night, he’d had to fight himself not to want to bring her back home with him, and he realized how stupid that sounded even in his head since he’d thrown her out of his place only hours earlier, but sometimes he couldn’t control his impulses, and this was one of those times.

  Making love with her had stirred up all those feelings he should have known better than to feel, and he found himself more conflicted than he wanted to be; about her and most of all, about what he’d done to her – now and then.

  He shouldn’t even have called her, but the numbers seemed to dial themselves and then he heard her voice and it did the same damned thing to him as it had always done – brought him to a full, painful erection that had little chance of receding any time soon. Unless she’d agree to phone sex, and he highly doubted that.

  “So, you called because…” she prompted, wondering what the real reason was, whatever one it was that he made up to give her.

  “I just wanted to check on you.”

  “Uh huh. Well, you’ve done so. Good night, Cal.” You fucking bastard. Now I’ll go to sleep thinking of you, she thought.

  He paused, and she thought he was going to say something else, but he apparently thought better of it. “Good night, Ellie. Sleep well.” But not as well as you would have if I’d fucked you ‘til you screamed, like I want to. Like I know I shouldn’t want to, but I do, he thought, sighing as he took a long pull on his scotch. He’d thought he’d succeeded in keeping her out of his life – out of his overeager, overactive mind.

  And he’d done a reasonable job of it, too. She rarely came to mind... during the day, anyway. He kept himself busy enough that it wasn’t much of a problem, if at all. No, it was the nights when she visited him – even this many years later – in his dreams. He’d wake up sweating, the sheets tangled around his ankles, thrusting his yearning, straining erection at nothing, not even able to complete the wet dream and cum for lack of her, until he closed his own fist around himself and let fly with the fantasies, which were really just rehashing of what had been their life together.