When Lightning Strikes (The Storm Inside Book 3)

by Alexis Anne

  “Tell me the fucking story!” she finally yelled into the phone.

  I yanked my ear buds out and popped my ears. “Thanks for fucking blowing out my eardrums.” I stopped at the corner and carefully put them back in. “Could you possibly talk without making me deaf?”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Story.”

  “Fuck.”

  She giggled. “You know we each owe Jake a drink now, right?”

  “Fuck it.” Jake was sick of hearing us both say “fuck” all the time so he’d imposed a drink rule. Every time we said it more than two times in a conversation we had to buy him a drink. It was fucking stupid and annoying as shit. And the bastard had gotten at least a bottle of liquor out of each of us in the last month. “Fine.” I started down the next street and took a deep breath. There was only one person I’d ever be this girly and honest with, and that was Eve. “I met someone two nights ago. I offered to give her an orgasm, she turned me down.”

  “So you shredded your sheets in misery?”

  “No.” I replied flatly. “I went out to dinner last night with Chuck and the guys.”

  “She was there?” Eve gasped.

  “Yep.”

  “And she didn’t say no twice?” Her voice went up a few octaves with each word in the sentence.

  “No she didn’t.”

  And then there was the gasp I was expecting as she put two-and-two together. “Wait…you took her home?” And then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is she still there?”

  “Of course not. But yes, I took her back to my place, thus the need for new sheets.”

  “What kind of crazy sex did you two have? I mean, Jake and I have crazy sex, but we don’t need new sheets every time.”

  I gagged thinking about my best friend and his wife doing it. Jake was like my brother and Eve was essentially the sister I never had. Thinking about them having sex was as gross as thinking about my parents doing it. “Thanks for the visual.”

  “What? We’re adults. We can talk about this stuff.”

  “Maybe I’m not nearly as evolved as you are.”

  “Whatever,” she sighed. “Don’t you have a spare set you can use?”

  “Have you seen my condo? Do I look like the kind of guy who keeps coordinating sheets around for the hell of it? Sally washes them once a week while she’s here. I don’t need a second set.”

  “Says you,” she grumbled. “So you met someone who actually made you stop and think for a few seconds and now you need to exorcise her from your condo. Bed, Bath & Beyond at the mall should have what you need. I’d offer to help, but I need to have crazy sex with my husband.” There was a squeal in the background and the sound of Jake’s voice in the distance as Eve’s giggle disappeared from the line.

  I was always a little jealous of those two. They had fun together, they understood each other. I was really happy for both of them, but sometimes I got that same ache in my chest that I got when I thought about Jenn. I was having it right then, so I ran faster.

  It didn’t help the ache.

  I got back home and jumped in the shower for the second time that morning. As the water beat my shoulder muscles, I did what I knew I had to do. I let myself remember Jenn. I’d fought it as hard and as long as I could, and I’d lost again. Not that I minded losing, but sometimes the pain was overwhelming.

  We would have both been thirty-six this year. It would have been our fourteenth wedding anniversary if we’d made it to our wedding date. We might have had kids.

  It was the “would have’s” and “might of’s” that always broke me.

  She deserved to live a full life, instead it was cut short.

  I studied the scar on my wrist as the water washed over it, almost making it invisible.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Just like Jenn. She was almost invisible to me most days, but never gone. She was always there, and she always would be.

  I’d made so many choices as a reaction to the night our car ended up wrapped around a tree. I’d run away and spent most of my adult life in the desert. I’d hidden from friendships and both of our families.

  Until I met Jake. It was the first time I’d met someone more screwed up, more in love, and more regretful than me. He fascinated me. But there was something else. I could see his life so clearly. I knew what he needed to do, and how easy it would be for him to do it, even though he couldn’t see it for himself. It seemed so dumb to me—until I realized he was me. I couldn’t see my own life or the choices I had in front of me, either.

  We were equally blinded by our regrets and doubts. I wasn’t ready to help myself, but I knew I could help him. I took Jake under my wing and helped him in all the ways I wasn’t ready to face my own life yet. Call it “living vicariously” if you will.

  And then I met this woman who was the love of Jake’s life and fell in love with her, too. Not in the same way—I wasn’t attracted to Eve or romantically in love with her. But we instantly bonded over our shared love for Jake. We both wanted him to have a good life, and as we banded together to help him, I found a little bit of happiness for myself.

  Jake and Eve were kind of my fantasy. I could look at them and imagine what my life might have been like if Jenn hadn’t died. We would be happily married. We would have an enormous library in our house. We would be thinking about the future.

  I think I’d gravitated toward them—and stayed here in Tampa even after they got married—for that reason. I loved Eve like a sister, but I also loved that she reminded me of Jenn when we were kids. Not just the books, but the attitude. Eve always called me on my shit and could keep up with me in conversations—just like Jenn.

  So, in a strange way, I loved having Eve in my life because she was a constant reminder of the good times. It kind of helped keep the happy memories alive.

  It was the bad memories I kept avoiding. And those were the ones that were haunting me now.

  I finished up in the shower and hoped my short walk down memory lane would be enough to get me through the rest of the weekend. The ache in my chest was still there, but it was fading. I made my trip to the mall for new sheets and threw away my old ones.

  I didn’t even want to wash them. I never wanted to see them again. I had enough trouble with memories; I didn’t need sheets reminding me of yet another woman.

  Then I watched some baseball while working in front of the television. It was getting dark before I realized I needed food for dinner. As usual it had slipped my mind to do any grocery shopping for the weekend.

  Maybe I needed to start having Sally do my shopping, too. Domestically, I was apparently a complete lost cause. I didn’t know where to buy sheets and I couldn’t be trusted to buy food.

  I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  Since I was going to spend the entirety of my Sunday flying to and from New York, I decided to raid the grocery store and stock up for the coming week before I settled in for my quiet Saturday night alone. I’d gone out. I’d socialized. I’d had a one-night stand. It was time to spend an evening in my pajamas, reading books, and drinking a bottle of wine.

  But damn, what a one-night stand. I didn’t regret a thing about it. We’d been safe, Greg had been very nice, and the sex had been fantastic. He’d been very careful to make sure I was taken care of from a thoroughly satisfying orgasm to a taxi home. I’d gone home with a smile on my face and a renewed energy about my life. I was going to step out from behind this armor I’d been hiding behind and figure out what it was I really wanted for the next ten years. I’d told Natalie I didn’t need a love life, but I think I’d been wrong. I didn’t need a husband—a love life wasn’t the same thing. I just needed to figure out what was acceptable for me now, and as Natalie got older. But first, I needed food.

  So here I was, at the grocery store. It seemed like such a simple thing to do: grab some food, a few toiletries, and some household items. But then I ran into him.

>   Like, actually ran into him. With my cart. On the cereal aisle. Somehow I’d managed to shop my entire life—sleep deprived early years of motherhood included—without running into a single human being. But I was so distracted by all the random thoughts flying through my head, and the store was so eerily quiet on a Saturday night, that I wasn’t paying attention to anything I was doing. I had my ear buds in, listening to the latest One Republic song, lost in my head, and came around the corner, right into Greg.

  He stumbled backward a half step, throwing his hands in the air. In one he had a box of Fruit Loops, in the other he had a tray of premade sushi. He was wearing a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans, his hair was fantastically mussed, and his beard was thicker than the night before. I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the music, but the words on his lips were pretty easy to read: Fuck. Watch where you’re going!

  I stopped and smiled while I waited for him to recognize me. His eyes widened and he dropped his hands to his sides. I chuckled and pulled out my ear buds. “Sorry.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  I looked at the boxes of cereal beside us. “Shopping?”

  “Obviously you’re shopping. Why are you in this store?”

  “You mean, why are you in my store, right?”

  He sputtered and shook his head. “No, this is my store.”

  We must have different schedules because in all the years I’d shopped at that grocery store, I’d never once seen Greg. It did make sense though. This little store was my favorite and it was close to work…it was also the closest one to Greg’s condo. If I were to guess, Greg usually shopped at times like this—times I was usually at home with Natalie. “Mr. Hamilton, it appears we’ve been missing each other for quite a while.” And now we couldn’t seem to stop crossing paths.

  “You know what this means, right?” He peered into my cart.

  I hadn’t had a chance to get much more than produce yet, so there were no secrets to be had in my cart. “No, I don’t know what this means.”

  “It means you need to come home with me again.” He looked at me intently. He was serious. It made that part of me that loved to figure people out go a little wild. Greg was so confusing to me. He was a nice guy, he took me home when he never took women back to his home, and now he was asking me to come back again, and that was making me incredibly curious.

  “I thought we agreed to one night.”

  It was strange how in the florescent light of a store, dressed in an old shirt and jeans, he was every bit as handsome as he’d been in the bar and at the restaurant. Actually, he was hotter. This more relaxed Greg was another dimension. He was a little more casual looking, and that made him seem less like a dream and more like a real person.

  He cocked his head to the side and looked me up and down. “Do you always follow the rules?”

  “Not always. But I do usually stick to my promises.”

  He straightened up, pulling himself up to his full height. Somehow it made his shoulders seem broader and his muscles look fuller. My belly fluttered as desire flooded my veins. Damn it all…I wanted Greg to seduce me again.

  “I didn’t realize we were making promises that night.”

  “What were we doing then?”

  He moved beside me, effectively blocking off the aisle from anyone else, leaned in toward my ear and whispered, “Indulging in opportunity.”

  The words vibrated across my skin. Greg was the ultimate indulgence. A dangerous guilty pleasure. Well, maybe that wasn’t the right word, because he was all pleasure and there was absolutely no guilt that went along with that. “I’m an indulgence?”

  I saw him swallow. His Adam’s apple bobbed, drawing my attention to the vein pulsing in his neck. “I think you are,” he whispered. “You can’t possibly be healthy for me.”

  “That’s a terrible line,” I chastised him.

  Greg smiled and his eyes flashed. “But it was so good. You’ve got to give me credit for that, c’mon.”

  I shook my head and then shivered as he ran his fingertips up my arm. “It’s a Saturday night and we clearly don’t have any major plans for the evening. Come home with me one more time. I swear I’ll run in the opposite direction if I ever see you again.” He crossed his heart with his index finger.

  “I’m gonna have to start shopping in a different store,” I grumbled.

  “Is that a yes?”

  I glanced at the fruit and vegetables in my cart. I could abandon them, just this once. “One more time. That’s it.”

  He grabbed my hand. “You like sushi and fruit loops, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Good.” It took two minutes to check out and walk out into the parking lot. The sky had turned dark and angry while we were inside. The early hints of summer were in the air as it whipped through the parking lot, sending leaves and abandoned garbage flying. In the distance, thunder rumbled, promising there was a lot more wind and rain to come. “Follow me?”

  I nodded, pulling out my keys and unlocking my car. I spotted Greg’s red Porsche on the next aisle. He would be easy to follow in that thing.

  The drive only took a few minutes, but it was pouring by the time we reached his condo. He slid into his spot in the garage and waved me into the empty space bedside it. Luckily he seemed to have very few things, so his tiny two-car garage had enough room for both of us.

  As I stepped out of the car, Greg hit the button to lower the garage door. Rain was coming in sideways by that point and sprinkled me from the waist down.

  I looked up at Greg standing by the door. I was back.

  When I left in a taxi last night I was positive I’d never see Greg again. And now here I was, walking back into his apartment. This was too much of a coincidence, and yet, I couldn’t explain it. We’d been living minutes away from each other all this time, I’d never seen him before, and now…I couldn’t stop running into him.

  The universe was playing tricks on me. I was certain of it.

  “I’ll get you a towel,” he murmured as I shut the door and set my purse down on the kitchen counter. The picture windows were a perfect viewing spot for the rain and lightning—like a massive IMAX movie screen, except this was real life.

  “Here.” He shoved the bath towel into my hand.

  “Thanks.”

  I sat on a stool and toweled off while Greg opened the refrigerator and pulled out two different bottles of beer. “Either of these strike your fancy?”

  “Fat Tire works for me.”

  He placed both beers on the counter, then popped off the lids and poured them into glasses he had pulled out of the freezer. While I took a sip, Greg opened up the tray of sushi. “How do you like to eat it? I usually just pour the soy packet over everything and eat with my fingers.”

  I shrugged. “Works for me. And Fruit Loops will be an excellent post-sex dessert.”

  Greg grinned and tore open the packet. We devoured the sushi like a couple of starved lions and finished our drinks before we said another word. “Bedroom?”

  I got the feeling Greg was a little afraid of opening another can of worms. If we sat at the counter and made small talk, it would lead to more talking—not that talking wasn’t fun, because it was. Greg had a way about him—between the cursing and the grunting—that made any conversation entertaining.

  But that also made our one little night of fun into a lot more.

  “Bedroom.” I agreed.

  He nodded and stalked off down the hall, not even bothering to grab my hand. He was tense. His muscles were rigid, his jaw was flexing…and now he was stalking. I was making him nervous, and that made me feel pretty damn sexy.

  I sauntered slowly down the hall, feeling my confidence swell. Loose v-neck t-shirt and jeans could be just as sexy as any cocktail dress. It wasn’t the fabric or the cut, it was the person under the clothes that made them sexy. I knew that because it was how I saw Greg. He was sexy as sin in those suits of his, but right now, in his t-shirt and jeans, all I could
think about was how damn manly he looked.

  He walked right up to the bed and turned around, waiting for me to join him.

  “Your bed is different.”

  He scowled. “No it isn’t.”

  “Yes it is.” I studied it for a moment, trying to figure out what was different. It looked sterile. Much less inviting than it had the night before. “It’s the sheets. You changed the sheets.”

  He grunted. “So?”

  I shrugged. Why was he so upset that I’d noticed his stupid sheets. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “They’re just stupid fucking sheets,” he muttered under his breath and yanked his shirt over his head. “Do you want to redecorate my condo or have sex?”

  His condo could really use some attention, but it wasn’t my place to tell Greg that. “Let’s have the sex.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It really wasn’t her fault I needed new sheets. Well, it was. But it was me who had the problem with the sheets. It wasn’t her fault that I apparently couldn’t handle the smell of a woman on my sheets, even after all these years.

  I felt bad for the way I snapped when she pointed them out. But fuck. She noticed. Who notices sheets? It made me feel even stupider for changing them.

  I needed to stop thinking about the damn sheets.

  Boobs.

  Her shirt was off, the bra was gone, and that gorgeous rack was on full display. Her nipples did this thing to my brain that made it stop working. She had perfect, and I do mean perfect, nipples. Pink, round buds that I swear to you, beg me to suck and lick them. Bulls have the color red, men have nipples—and hers were all I could think about.

  The breasts that went with them were quite nice as well. A very generous handful and a very attractive teardrop shape.

  “Like what you see?” she asked.

  “How can you tell?”

  She smiled and her eyes dropped to my pants. I followed her gaze to the rather obvious erection holding my pants out.

  “Just a wild guess.”