Notes of the Past (Lightning Strikes Book 2)

by Jodie Larson

  Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? You know, as if you’re watching the scene from above? As our lips connect with tender brushes, that’s how I feel. My body is not my own. It’s his. It always has been. Each press of our lips and swipe of our tongues sends chills down my spine. I don’t care if we’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk in a city I’m not familiar with. We could be standing in the middle of the desert and it wouldn’t matter. If Myles’ lips are available for the taking, damn right I’m jumping on that.

  Somehow we end up in the hallway outside my room. Does his talent also include teleporting powers? How in the hell did we get here so fast?

  He pushes me against the wall, pillaging my mouth again as I grip his hair like it’s the only thing keeping me on this earth. My nerves are on fire, need coursing through my veins. Weeks of teasing, of wondering if this could ever happen, finally seem to be coming true.

  “Get your key,” he roughly growls in my ear, taking the lobe between his teeth.

  Holy fuck. At this rate, we’re going to be getting naked in the hallway. Or I’m about to orgasm in front of anyone who walks by.

  The damn card doesn’t want to go in on the first two tries, but lucky number three works. Myles swings the door open, nearly knocking me over in the process. With frenzied mouths and busy hands, we land on the bed, leaving a trail of clothes in our wake.

  This is it. It’s finally going to happen. After so many long, painful years, Myles and I are going to reconnect.

  And everything will be fine.

  This woman is going to be the death of me. Seeing her on the dance floor, getting mauled by that guy set something off inside me. Like a million different explosions all happening at once. My focus was only on her, on that skimpy little dress she was wearing. Fucking cock tease. All she had to do was sneeze and the damn thing would be over her waist.

  Something about her though…it’s as if my heart hasn’t fully let her go. Even Andrea couldn’t do anything for me. Sure, I brought her there to make Tatum jealous. I had no intention of doing more than that with her. I wanted a reaction. And she delivered.

  I run my hands up her pale skin, tracing every curve along the way. Such a beautiful sight. Tatum spread across the bed, naked and waiting.

  As much as I want her, I shouldn’t. Not like this.

  “We shouldn’t do this,” I say, rolling off her body. She sits up, letting her hair cascade over her shoulder.

  “Why not?” Her staccato breaths accentuate her breasts, their rise and fall catching my eyes.

  Great question. What was my answer again?

  “You’re drunk. It’s not right. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of the situation.”

  Tatum climbs on top of me, straddling my hips. “It’s not taking advantage if I want it too. And Myles.” She licks my lips, teasing them to open for her. “I want you. I’m not as drunk as you think I am. Not anymore.”

  A part of me thinks she’s lying. There’s no way she can sober up that quickly. But my dick twitches to life when she leans back and brushes her ass against it. I can’t resist grinding my hips into her, not when she moans like she does, like she’s in pure ecstasy.

  The corners of her lips turn up, the smile breaking across her face in a seductive, evil way. If she asks me to take her now, I won’t be able to refuse. Not that I ever could. No wasn’t exactly a word in my vocabulary when it came to Tatum Mitchell. Based on these last few weeks, nothing has changed there, even though I try to fight it.

  And I’m done fighting it. At least for tonight.

  Tatum pushes me back down, hovering over me like she’s in charge. Silly girl. She wants to play pretend. We both know who’s in charge here and it’s definitely not her. It’s not her personality. Tatum wants to be taken care of, to be pampered and adored.

  That I can do.

  Soft and tender, her breasts fill my hands, squeezing them while she grinds on top of me. I’ve missed this, missed the closeness of her body. But she’s not close enough. I wrap my arms around her and our chests press against each other. She moves her arms so her hands can run through my hair. Soothing strokes against my scalp send tingles all through my body. I close my eyes and take a deep inhale.

  Intoxicating.

  “I’ve missed this. Missed you,” I say, running my hands down her smooth back. Tatum wiggles, pushing her breasts against my chest while trying to seek out some sort of friction. When she sits up and rests her hands on my chest, I almost lose it. Everything about this woman is perfect. The way she molds against my body, how she whispers my name every time I touch her just how she wants. Her sighs, her moans, even the little high pitched squeak when she’s coming.

  Tatum rears back, brushing some hair out of her eyes. “Tell me you want me.”

  Again, I can’t say no.

  “I want you.” Reaching over to find my jeans, I dig a condom out of the pocket. Tatum watches as I roll the barrier down my cock. We never used to be this way. There was never anything between us. Times are different. We are different. And with difference comes change, whether we want it or not. I’ve never gone without a condom since her, but I don’t know about her history so I need to protect myself.

  With the condom on, Tatum sits up and slowly slides down my shaft, taking me inch by inch. I want to roll my eyes into the back of my head. It’s so good. She’s still as tight as I remember. And like a memory, my body takes over, knowing exactly what to do. Only I let her decide the tempo, not me.

  Tatum takes every ounce of pleasure at her pace. Fast then slow, each thrust of her hips bringing me closer to the edge. But I don’t want to stop. Not yet. I grab her hips, directing her to the tempo I need to make it last as long as possible. Tatum’s sly grin is her only response before her face transitions to ecstasy again.

  “Myles, oh God.” With a high-pitched squeak, she lets go, her body shaking in my hands as she collapses on my chest, panting.

  I brush the hair from her eyes and smile. “Not yet, Princess.” Her brows crinkle as I turn us over, taking my position of power. Now it’s my turn.

  Pinning her legs to her chest, I up the tempo. The wetness of her pussy drives me more, the heady scent of lust swirling around us. Within minutes, she calls my name out again, her eyes rolling back and her mouth forming a perfect “O”. As she finds her release, I let everything go. For the first time in a long while, I don’t have to imagine her face in order to find my nirvana. Instead she’s here beneath me, calling my name in short gasps of breath.

  I look deep into her eyes and come hard inside her. The foreign body surrounding my cock numbs the sensation a little. Everything’s the same as I remember. Except that. We’ve never had anything between us, never needed to. This is wrong, makes it dirty somehow. Cheapens her to be like the others, though she’s not. She never could be.

  After I dispose of the condom, I smile at what I find. Tatum hasn’t moved. She’s curled into herself, but not protectively. Almost like a child sleeping. Her bright smile greets me when she rolls over.

  “That was amazing.” There’s a spark in her eyes, as if she’s hungry for more.

  “Yeah,” I say, huffing on my nails and brushing them against my chest. “It was.”

  Tatum rolls onto her back, leaving the sheet behind so her body is fully exposed. The devilish imp is back, teasing me with her body. I stare without moving, admiring her curves and defined lines. She’s art in every form. If I was a more talented man, I’d paint her for all to see. That’s a lie. No one is allowed to see her like this. She’s my personal muse, which she has always been.

  With slow, methodical steps, I sit next to her on the bed, running my hand up her naked thigh. Something bumpy grabs my attention when I graze past her pelvic bone. I twist my brows in confusion at what I find. The heart tattoo she got when we turned eighteen greets me first. Oh, shit. She kept hers after all this time. For whatever reason, I didn’t think she’d still have it. Guilt creeps in, but only for a second.
The raised scar in the middle grabs my attention.

  “What’s this?” The impish smile fades quickly, turning to something akin to fear. All the color drains from her face as she tries to move my hand from her hip.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Bullshit. That’s a scar.” One that’s perfectly splitting her heart in two. Taking hold of her chin, I direct her gaze back to mine. “What happened?”

  Tatum tries to sit up, but I crawl into bed next to her, forcing her to stop. Something instinctual takes over. Whatever this is, I know it’s bad. “Really, it’s nothing.” She buries her face into the pillow, turning away from me. I gently turn her back to me, running my hands through her hair before cupping her cheek.

  “I know I haven’t earned the right for your trust, but, come on, Tay. We shared everything together. You were my best friend. I just want to know what’s happened to you. Maybe we can get back to where we were.” I’m still not sure if that’s something I want yet, but holding her in my arms feels so right, I’d say just about anything to keep her from running away again.

  Tatum swallows hard, her chest moving on deep inhales. Finally, she looks into my eyes and speaks.

  “A while ago, I went to the doctor because I kept having pain in my abdomen. They ran all sorts of blood tests and everything came back clear. So I ignored it, pretended it was going to go away on its own. It never did.” She draws circles absently on my chest. “I went to my OB/GYN after my doctor suggested it. For a brief moment, I thought she was going to say I was pregnant.”

  What? Pregnant? Anger slowly builds inside me. Does she honestly expect me to sit here and listen to her describe how she got pregnant with someone else’s baby?

  When she looks up at me, she runs a finger over my brow. “I was happy at first because it was something I had wanted. Not right then, but eventually. Then after living in my head, my joy turned to panic because of all the pain I was in. What if there was something wrong with the baby? What if it was ectopic and I couldn’t carry it? We did an ultrasound to see what was wrong.” Her palm presses into my cheek. “I wasn’t pregnant.”

  Relief floods through me, almost to the point of drowning. But my relief is short lived when I see the devastation on her face.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to continue.”

  “No, you need to know.” She looks away, but I turn her chin back toward me. “The ultrasound showed a mass on one of my ovaries. We didn’t know if it was cancer or not without a biopsy, so she made an appointment for me to come in a couple weeks later.”

  Cancer? My poor, sweet Tatum.

  “Wh-when was this?” I can barely form the words, let alone a coherent thought. A million different scenarios flood my mind. Has she gone through treatment? Is she in remission?

  Tatum swallows hard and bites her bottom lip. “Nine years ago.”

  Nine…that means…

  “Wha – no. That can’t be right. Nine years ago we were together.”

  Her sad eyes look into mine, the green dulled from the vibrancy they held just minutes ago. Tatum doesn’t speak, just nods, confirming what I didn’t want to believe. She was sick and didn’t tell me.

  “Was this before or after you left?” Please say after.

  “Before.” I almost didn’t hear her response, her voice barely above a whisper.

  This means she never told me what was going on with her. We told each other everything, never kept secrets between us. And now this. A chill runs down my spine. I feel numb, betrayed. Throwing the covers away, I jump from the bed, slide my boxers over my hips, and run my hands through my hair. Before. Fucking before. She knew she was sick, knew something was wrong and never said a damn word. Tatum sits up, drawing the sheet over her body before hugging her knees.

  “Myles, please, there’s more.”

  The anger from before starts to creep in again, simmering just below the surface. Does she honestly believe I’m going to just sit here and listen to her lies?

  “Give me one good reason why I should sit here and listen to you? You lied to me.”

  “No, I never lied.”

  “You didn’t tell me what was going on with you.” Memories filter in from right before she left. The images aren’t clear, but looking back, I remember her looking more worried than usual, paler, with less energy.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t seem like yourself?” I pull her into me, kissing her temple. Tatum smiles as she wraps her arms around my waist.

  “Yeah, just a little tired, that’s all.”

  I pull back to get a better look at her face. There are more worry lines around her eyes than usual. I know she’s been stressed out this past year, especially since she’s still dealing with her parents’ fighting, even though they’re divorced, but these are new.

  “Are you sure? You know you can tell me anything and I’ll understand, even if I don’t.” She smiles and kisses my lips.

  “That’s why I love you.”

  I knew something was wrong but never pushed her to open up. I’ve never had to before. Tatum has always opened up to me about everything. Never would I have imagined she was keeping something like this from me.

  Tatum chews on her lip again. “I guess I was trying to spare you. Didn’t want you to worry unnecessarily.”

  I stop pacing and turn. “You were just told you may have cancer and were going in for a biopsy. If you were worried, I should have been worried right next to you. That’s the point of a relationship. What one does affects the other. I jump, you jump, remember?”

  A tear falls down her cheek. Fuck, I’m doing it again. Seeing Tatum cry eats a hole into my stomach every time. All I want to do is wrap her up in my arms and comfort her, but my feet are glued to their spot. She owes me an explanation. Guess I better hear her out.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, putting a safe distance between us, I lift my hand in encouragement for her to continue.

  Tatum wipes her face, the tears falling more freely now. “The day I left was the day my appointment was scheduled. I had done some research on cancer treatments and it scared me. It basically puts the patient and everyone around them through hell. I didn’t want to trouble you with that.”

  The low-lying anger simmers again. “That wasn’t your call to make.”

  “I was scared!” Tatum’s voice cracks at the end. “And I didn’t want to make you worry. I thought I could handle it on my own. Or I was hoping it’d be nothing and then you would never know. We could just go on being happy without ever having this little blip.”

  Tatum grabs my button-down shirt off the floor and slides it on. Nothing but bare legs and the hint of her breasts peeking through the unbuttoned top. Goddamn she’s so fucking hot. For a brief moment, I allow myself the pleasure of taking in her beauty, forgetting that we’re working out nine years’ worth of hurt and anger. My dick wants to spring to life, to bury itself inside her again. But there’s more that needs to be said, to be worked out between us.

  Keeping an open mind, I lean forward with my arms on my knees. I close my eyes and take a cleansing breath. “Okay, so, you were scared.”

  It’s her turn to pace the floor. “Like I said, I was hoping for the best. But during the biopsy, she was using the ultrasound to navigate and discovered the mass had grown, or shifted, or something like that. Which meant it wasn’t good. She was going to rush the lab results, but it would still take time to get them.” Tatum takes a seat in one of the empty chairs across from the bed. “So I panicked. The doctor told me there was a good possibility that even if it wasn’t cancer, I’d still lose my ovary, reducing my chances of conceiving. And we had just talked about kids and when we wanted to start. We were building a future and this wasn’t part of the plan.” Another tear rolls down her cheek. “I called my mom and she booked me on the next flight to California to stay with her. I left instructions with my doctor to call me with the results and then forward my medical chart to my new doctor as soon as I found one.”

  “S
o you ran.” My brain’s about to explode from information overload. “Okay, and then what?”

  “The results came back as benign, which was good. My mom set me up with her doctor and scheduled surgery right away. The plan was just to remove the mass, but when I came out of the anesthesia, the doctor told me the mass had wrapped itself around my ovary and fallopian tube.” Another tear. “They had to remove both, leaving me with a fifty-percent chance of ever getting pregnant.”

  “The recovery process took longer than I thought, which threw me into a deep depression. Every day I wanted to call you and tell you what happened, but as soon as I picked up the phone, I remembered that all of our dreams may not come true now and I chickened out. It took me years to get my head straight. My therapist said the only way I would truly heal was if I came back to Kansas City and talked to you. My mom agreed and she sent me back to my dad’s.” She leans forward, clasping her hands to her mouth. “Only she didn’t know my dad was sick.”

  Without thinking, I slide over to her, gathering her in my arms as she cries on my shoulder. First she has her own health problems, then she comes home to find her dad is sick too? How much can one person bear? Tatum wraps her arms around my neck, her quiet sobs echoing around us. I swing her legs over my own until she’s cradled against me.

  This beautiful, strong, loving girl has tried to protect everyone else, regardless of what it does to her. Even though there’s still a piece of me that resents her keeping this secret, I can’t help but want to comfort her, make her feel safe. She was my world once upon a time. She probably always will be, if I’m honest with myself.

  “Shh. Shh. Baby, don’t cry.” I rub my hands up and down her arms, her back, her legs. Every inch of her skin is cold, like there’s no blood running through her at all. The tears start to slow as she softly mewls into my neck. “But your dad’s okay, right?” Tatum shakes her head. My stomach sinks. No, not Tom.

  “He died about five months ago. I got home late last year, so I was able to spend a few good months with him before things got bad.”