“Out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.” I recognize the voice immediately from the liquid smoke sound it emits.
My head snaps to my left and sure enough, it’s Elijah.Eli.I’m surprised, shocked and a little out of breath by his presence. What the hell is he doing here? Did he follow me here somehow? Is he stalking me? I thought this was a private party.
I don’t know why, but I’m irritated and a little pissed off that I can’t get away from work or this man who has been on my mind all evening. Like somehow my thoughts conjured him up and now here he is.
My reply is flat as I glare at him. “This ain’t no Casablanca.”
His blue eyes light up, eyebrows lifted as his effortless male sexuality hits me with a force that nearly knocks me off my chair.
BOOM
TKO
And when the corners of his mouth turn up into a lazy smile, I honestly think Boston just experienced an earthquake because my entire body quakes. Did lightning just strike, too?
Perhaps the irritation I’m feeling really stems from my pent up sexual frustration and somehow this man has found my on button.
My head feels a little dizzy as I watch him prop an elbow on the bar and casually lean into it, allowing his chest to open up in my direction. His t-shirt is stretched tight across his pecs, showing off the tantalizing ripples and valleys of his torso.
“Well hello there, doc. Fancy meeting you here.”
I try to ignore the strange feeling emerging, centered low in my gut. I give him a casual tip of my chin before returning my gaze to my drink, my fingertips skimming the rim of the glass. Casual being the operative word, since I feel anything but right now.
Confusion grips me as a boulder-sized attraction rips through my chest. Unfurls and curls under my skin and into my blood like a drug.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his arm stretch across the counter, the edge of his tightly fitted t-shirt banding across his muscular bicep, and his slender, tapered fingers slip around the stem of my martini glass, as he slides it out of my grip.
My mouth drops open, and I stare with strange fascination as he boldly, and dare I say,brazenly, takes a sip of my martini. Without so much as a “may I, please?”
“Just go ahead and help yourself, why don’t you,” I snip, although it doesn’t come out with much bluster. Or even as a question. It’s more of a simmering, begging plea.
Eli sets the glass back down and I notice a sheen over his lip; drops of the stolen liquor. It beckons something inside me to wipe it away with my thumb and then taste it on my tongue. But I stop myself from certain humiliation as he whisks it away on his own.
Picking the glass back up, I plant my lips in the same place his just touched. It feels intimate. Erotic. Hotly exciting.
I finish it off with one quick gulp, drawing the courage to finally turn and examine the exquisite man sitting next to me. The man that has meandered into my professional life and has now found capacity to rock me off solid ground on my personal time.
It’s not all that surprising to me that I’m attracted to Eli. This isn’t the first time I’ve been drawn to a man. I realized I was bisexual when I was fifteen and popped a boner after Mike Collins scored a goal and whipped off his t-shirt out on the soccer field.
I watched in lustful awe as the sweat dripped down his sleek chest, seeping into his shorts, and the glory of his exposed torso. I was so hard, I had to whip off my own shirt (which they thought was in solidarity of our goal) to cover my erection, and then feigned illness to the coach so I could leave the field and go straight into the locker room to whack off.
And since then it’s been hit or miss. I haven’t gone out of my way to seek out male companionship. While I find masculinity to be sexy, I’ve only had one sexual experience with a guy named Brant, from med school. Otherwise, I’ve just naturally gravitated toward relationships with women. With all that was required to finish my doctorate, get into my residency and fellowship, it was always just an easier prospect to hook-up with women.
And forgive me for saying this, but I wasn’t about to pimp myself out on a gay dating app.
It was also less complicated. Coming out to my family and friends would have created a lifetime supply of questions, and honestly, I just didn’t want it.
But now, I’m being pulled toward Eli like I’m stuck in a tractor beam. Sucked into his sexual vortex where I’ve lost all semblance of what I should want versus what I want right now.
Based upon Eli’s sexy smirk, he seems to know it, too.
Fuck me.
This wasn’t what I expected to happen when I returned to Boston.
I wanted to get settled in, get into an easy groove. Eli, however, feels like a big risk. A snag in my carefully ironed out modus operandi that will only cause complications in my life.
Eli’s magnetism, though, might be too much to resist.
