bruises on his face were as mottled as the ones on my shoulder and hip, but at least the swelling had gone down for him and Ian both.
He sat up as soon as I opened the door, going from asleep and adorable to rumpled and adorable as he swept a look over me from head to toe. “All good?”
“Yep,” I said as I climbed in. He reached past me without a word and snagged the seatbelt. As soon as he clicked it into place, he kissed me gently and I sighed against his lips. “What are you going to do when I get my wrist back and you guys don’t have to do everything for me?”
“Enjoy the hell out of driving you nuts by doing it anyway,” Jake said with a grin.
Rolling my eyes, I touched my fingers to his cheek and then sighed as he settled back in his seat. “Can I ask you a kind of awkward and potentially invasive question?”
Eyebrows raised, he said, “You had definitely better ask whatever it is now.”
“Have you ever been tested to make sure you’re clean?” I’d never really asked before. I kind of assumed, and Jake was pretty clear about always wearing a condom. I liked to assume the other guys had been as careful, but…
“Specifically?” He shook his head. “Do you want me to be? Or better phrased, do you need me to be?”
I glanced down a beat, this was kind of embarrassing. I’d given him a blowjob—more than once now. So it wasn’t like I hadn’t been up close and personal. “I’d like to be one hundred percent sure. Or as sure as we can. I got blood work done and it’s part of the panel she’s going to do so I can say I’m clean.”
“We know you’re clean, Baby Girl,” Jake stated firmly. Even though the engine was running, he made no move to pull out of the parking spot. All of his attention was focused on me. “I had a physical right before school started. Bloodwork and everything. I’m clean. I’d wager Bubba can say the same, he had to get the same physical I did.”
Made sense. Football.
“Thank you.”
“Hey,” he said, threading his fingers through mine, and I leaned toward him to rest my head against his shoulder. “No thanks required. Though…can I ask what brought this up? You’re okay, right? All the guys have…”
“Everyone uses condoms,” I told him in a rush. “And no one gave me anything.”
Some of the tension went out of his arm.
“I just want to make sure we’re all covered. I mean you guys and me.” Since I was having sex with all of them, well, not Ian yet. But hopefully, maybe soon.
I froze. How insatiable was I that I had Jake, Coop, and Archie, but I was really anticipating Ian, too?
“Wow, I’m turning into a—”
“You be really careful about the word you choose,” Jake all but growled at me, and I lifted my head to meet his fierce gaze. “Nobody talks bad about my girl, not even my girl.”
A shiver raced up my spine. “Got it.” Then I stuck my tongue out at him, and his entire expression shifted as he cracked a smile.
“You’re adorably the worst. You know that, right?”
“So you have told me.” This time, he kissed my fingers before releasing my hand and shifting the car into gear.
“By the way, Coop and Archie hit the grocery store on the way home. There is a chocolate feast waiting for you, weepy movies, heating pad, and some kind of back massager thing that Archie insisted on buying. We might need a bigger boat for shark week just to carry all the crap they got.”
I busted out laughing.
My guys rocked.
The weekend flew past, and the guys spoiled me rotten. Shark week was never fun, and the first two days inevitably sucked. Not only did they get me a chocolate feast, they ordered in all my favorite take-out foods and coordinated with the movers Archie brought in to empty out Maddy’s room while the cats and I hid out in my own.
In between rom-coms and dramas, Archie continued his campaign for the bigger bed. He kept showing me different ones and even suggested we all go to the different stores to test the beds to find the one we all wanted.
There was something awkward and yet utterly natural about that. The guys had all but moved into the apartment with me. A part of me wondered if I should be pushing back