Blast From The Past 2 Read online

  Within twenty minutes or so, Julie was so psyched about her impending night on the town that she asked me if I minded if she left early.

  “Of course not,” I said, thinking she was leaving just on schedule. “Have fun tonight. You deserve it… I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me.”

  “Whatever,” Julie said, tussling her pink hair behind her head. “Enough sappy shit… I’m outta here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I waited a few moments, until I was confident that Julie was not only out of my hallway, but out of my building, and then I ran over to my phone to see if I’d received any more messages. Sure enough, there was another one from Tommy. Be there a little after 7, he wrote. I looked at my watch, and it had just turned six.

  I felt something churning inside me as I cleaned up my apartment and freshened myself up. I was really excited to see Tommy, even though I wasn’t quite sure exactly why I’d invited him over. He’d been the one to ask me to get together—again—and I’d said yes, but I didn’t know what I expected from it. Did this still have something to do with my problems with rEcore? Or was this something else?... Was it a date?

  The way I layered on my black eyeliner and brushed my hair up, you sure would have thought it was a date—and the “boob shirt” I decided to wear showed just enough cleavage to confirm it. I felt the need to look sexy for Tommy—maybe like he felt the need to show me he was a better lover. I was no longer Patty the bookworm, after all. I was Trish, the modern, powerful woman… and I wanted Tommy to see that.

  Around 7:10 p.m., there was a knock on my door—and I rushed to it to find Tommy waiting there with a huge smile on his face, a bottle of wine, and a bouquet of flowers. Obviously, I told myself, taking in all he had to offer, this isn’t about rEcore anymore.

  “Come on in,” I said, opening the door for the first man who’d ever been inside me. He handed me the flowers, and I smiled.

  “Here,” he said, holding out the bottle of wine. “Figured this never hurts… and, if we get hungry, we can always order take-out.”

  “Actually,” I said, thinking of the feast in my kitchen. “I had take-out earlier today—and there’s a ton of leftovers. So, if you’re hungry, the food’s already here.”

  “Well, why don’t we go into the kitchen, pop open that bottle, and you can show me what you’ve got,” Tommy said, walking past the couch toward the destination he’d just mentioned.

  I walked into the kitchen with him, dug through my drawer, and handed him a corkscrew. As he went about opening the bottle of wine, I opened the refrigerator to show him the surplus of take-out containers, most of which were still full.

  “Fuck,” Tommy said, staring at the food. “Why’d you get so much food? What’d you do this afternoon—throw a party?”

  “No,” I said with a giggle. “My friend ordered it.”

  “Who the hell’s your friend?” Tommy asked, pulling the cork out of the bottle. “Donald Trump?”

  If only he knew! I told myself.

  “She’s just a little extravagant, that’s all,” I replied. I said “she” instead of “he” for added precaution.

  “She definitely is,” Tommy said, looking at the different boxes. “But I guess that’s a good thing, ‘cause I am pretty hungry.”

  Tommy and I each made a plate of food and poured a glass of wine, and then we sat at my kitchen table to eat.

  “This is pretty good,” Tommy said, putting a forkful of rice into his mouth. In that instant, I suddenly felt guilty. It felt strange having Tommy—my ex-boyfriend, my date—eating the food that J.R. had purchased.

  I tried to ignore my feelings and, instead, focused on my food, but I ended up more focused on the piece of meat sitting across from me. As I watched Tommy eat, drink, and be merry, I felt a primitive, raw attraction to him, and I wanted to take him—right then and there—on the table. He just looked so good moving his hands, mouth, and face, and I still couldn’t get over how much he had changed.

  Tommy must have sensed some of what I was thinking. He didn’t look like he was done with his meal, but, nonetheless, he put his fork down.

  “I’m glad you had me over tonight,” he said, licking some type of sauce from his lips.

  “I’m glad you wanted to come over,” I replied.

  “And now that you have me here,” Tommy said, leaning forward, “what are going to do with me?”

  “I really don’t know,” I said, being completely honest.

  “I have a few ideas,” Tommy said. He reached across the table and placed his hand on mine. “Would you like me to show you?”

  I knew that this was one of those moments in life when the ball was entirely in my court—and it was up to me whether I wanted to run with it or drop it.

  I sat there for a moment—probably too long—and pondered how I should respond to Tommy’s advances. I was definitely attracted to him, there was no doubt about that, and it’d been a while since I’d been with a man, so I could definitely have used the action. But, beneath all that, there was something else going on inside me, and, no matter what, I simply couldn’t ignore it.

  Even with a hunk like Tommy sitting there tempting me, I kept think of J.R.—and, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why. J.R. had already made it clear that this investigation was business, and that he didn’t want to cloud it with personal things. But, over the past couple days, I’d definitely developed feelings for him, and they were definitely personal, and I knew he wouldn’t be down for that.

  There was some part of me that was infatuated with J.R. in a way that’s very hard to explain. I’m sure there are tons of women—literally—who would be infatuated with him for any good variety of reasons. But, none of their reasons were my reasons. I didn’t care that he was a billionaire or a genius, or that he had the world at his fingertips. All I cared about was how he played my heartstrings, and he was definitely playing them in a way that sent shivers all through me.

  I guess you could say J.R. really was a charmer. It had been his charm that encouraged me to hook up with him years ago, and it was his charm that still drew me to him—which made me realize, as much as I liked Tommy for how he’d changed, I liked J.R. for how he hadn’t.

  But the point remained that, no matter how much anyone had stayed the same or changed, right now, after all these years, J.R. and Tommy were both strangers to me. One of them wanted to keep things strictly business, and the other was desperately trying to woo me.

  The two glasses of wine I’d just consumed, and the fact that I hadn’t been laid in months, soon took over.

  “Okay,” I said, standing up from the table. “Show me what you want to do… But please—be gentle.”

  Tommy stood up and immediately wrapped his arms around me. His muscles felt so smooth against me, and I wanted to melt into each ripple, dimple, and crevice.

  Our lips drew together like magnets, and, before I knew it, we were passionately kissing each other, and my backside was pressed up against the counter. Tommy wasted no time letting his hands roam, and he slid his strong hands over every available inch of my body.

  I moaned slightly at Tommy’s touch, but yielded completely to it. I spread my legs a bit and leaned back further on the counter, inviting his body toward mine. Without hesitation, he lunged into me, and I felt his throbbing hard-on press into me, right where I wanted it to press.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head to the side as Tommy ran his tongue along my neck and collarbone. He was already proving to be a better lover than he’d ever been before, and we hadn’t even gotten that far yet.

  “Oh, Trish,” he said, digging deeper into me, nearly bursting out of his pants.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but bit my lip before I could—and I’m glad that I did. The letter sound that was forming on my tongue was a “J,” not a “T,” and I was about to call my lover J.R., not Tommy.

  The mere thought of my narrowly missed mistake made me recoil, and I instantly pulled away from Tommy.


  “Tommy, I’m sorry,” I said rather abruptly. “But I think you should leave now.”

  “What?” he asked, still panting and grinding his cock against me.

  I liked the feel of what he was doing, but couldn’t avoid my thoughts any longer. I pulled myself down from the counter and pushed him away, making my way toward the living room.

  “I have so much going on right now,” I said, trying to explain myself. “And this is just going too fast for me right now… I can’t deal with it all. I need time.”

  Tommy had followed me out of the kitchen, and he looked like a kid who’d just discovered that there’s no Santa.

  “All right,” he said. “I’m not going to pressure you into anything—and I will leave, if that’s what you want me to do… Is that what you want me to do?”

  Again, the ball was in my court, and I either had to run with it, or drop it.

  “It is,” I said, letting Tommy’s hopes down. “It’s just too much, too quickly, and I don’t want to do anything I’ll regret later… I’ll call or text you in a couple days, no matter what—I promise. But, right now, I just need some space.”

  “As you wish,” Tommy said. He said it like Wesley, from The Princess Bride, and he walked out of my door just as considerately and politely.

  ~ Chapter 13 ~

  The next morning, I woke up with a bit of a headache. I’d finished the bottle of wine Tommy opened after he left, then fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position on the couch. I meandered around my apartment for a bit, trying to work the headache off, and eventually got a shower to start my day officially.

  Once I got out of the shower, I decided to throw on nothing more than a clean nighty and panties. It was still relatively early in the morning, and I had a long day ahead of me before anyone else was expected to arrive. One of the liberties of working from home, I’d learned, was the liberty of choosing a lounge-worthy outfit, even on a Sunday.

  I had a few specific things in mind that I wanted to accomplish that day, and I thought about each one of them as I put on a pot of coffee. But, as soon as I made my mug, got my laptop, and sat down at the kitchen table, all those thoughts kind of faded away and converged into one… Tommy.

  The night before, when Tommy had been ready, willing, and able in my apartment, I couldn’t get J.R. out of mind, and, now that Tommy wasn’t there anymore, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. All told, it made me feel a little foolish. There I was obsessed with two guys, and I didn’t even have the courage to go after—I mean really go after—anything with either one of them. In their own special ways, they each reduced Trish to being Patty.

  I decided to take another gander at Tommy’s social media profiles—not for research purposes, but for personal ones. I guess I wanted to torture myself by looking at pictures of the stud I could have had the night before. I knew well enough that Tommy would be able to tell I was checking up on him, and I didn’t care—really, wasn’t that to be expected at this point?

  I’d made it through about three pages of Tommy’s “Mobile Uploads” photos when, unexpectedly, there was a knock at my door. It wasn’t even noon yet, and, like I said, I didn’t think anyone was gonna come calling for several hours.

  I stood up and brushed my nighty down a little, trying to cover myself up as completely as I could, and I made my way to the door. I still didn’t know who it would be, though I had a few good ideas as to who it could be.

  “I need to talk to you,” J.R. said the moment I opened the door. He walked right in, without waiting for me to invite him.

  “I thought you weren’t coming here until later,” I said, shutting the door behind him, increasingly aware of my scant attire.

  “I wasn’t going to,” J.R. said, trying not to look at me. “But I’ve been thinking about things, and I had to come here early… There are some things we need to discuss.”

  J.R. sat down on the couch and looked at me finally, waiting for me to join him.

  “Okay,” I said. “Shoot.” I sat down and did my best to make sure that my panties weren’t showing.

  “I think we’ve made a lot of progress with things,” he said, looking down at my knee, then looking away. “And I think it’s been really great that we’ve worked on this together… But I don’t think we should work on it together anymore… And by that I mean, we should keep up our research, but we shouldn’t keep getting together like this.”

  “Why not?” I asked, expecting him to tell me something like Tommy would say—about how it was too risky to be seen together.

  “Because yesterday,” J.R. said, looking straight at me, “Julie wasn’t the only one who was jealous.”

  My head cocked to the side a little, and my heart fluttered.

  “When I heard you went home with someone from the bar, I was furious,” J.R. explained. “I know I have no reason to be, but I was… And I know you said it was your cousin—but, still, the idea of you going home with someone just really got to me.”

  J.R.’s tone was serious, and the look on his face was solemn. “It made me think about what happened between us, too,” he went on, “and it brought up a lot of bad memories.”

  “I know,” I said, rolling my eyes. "You felt stupid about your mistake, right?” I hated using that word, but J.R. had used it.

  “No,” he said, leaning down over his knees. “It made me think about your mistake… What happened back then really, really hurt me, Trish. What you did was brutal. Do you know what it’s like to go to your bed expecting to find a beautiful woman there, only to find it empty? You left me without so much as a word. You didn’t give me a chance… That’s your mistake, not mine—and, every time I’m around you, I can’t help but think about it. I can’t help but remember how you left me and shot me down so coldly—and the thought of you rolling around in some other man’s bed? Well, that’s just the icing on the cake.

  “So I don’t think there’s any way we can keep working together like this. There are too many unresolved issues and feelings.”

  I had to admit, I was very moved by everything J.R. said. I’d never realized—or considered—that he would have been so hurt by my actions all those years ago.

  “Let’s try to resolve them then,” I said, leaning forward, bringing myself closer to J.R. “For what’s it worth, I never meant to hurt you… I was only protecting myself. I’d never had a one-night stand before, and I’d only heard horror stories about them.”

  “But who said it had to be a one-night stand?” J.R. asked, turning toward me. It looked like maybe there was a tear or two in his eyes. “You left before we could even discuss it.”

  “I didn’t want to discuss it,” I confessed. “I didn’t want to give you the chance to reject me, so I rejected you first… I mean, guys like you—”

  “Hold up,” J.R. interrupted. “Guys like me? What does that mean? You never stuck around long enough to learn anything about me.”

  “I just meant guys who pick up girls in the bar,” I said, trying to save whatever face I had left in this conversation.

  “Just because we hooked up at the bar doesn’t mean that’s my thing, does it?” J.R. asked. “Was it your thing…? I’m not saying it’s the first or last time I ever did something like that, but, trust me, I never made a pattern of it. I’m not like that—and, maybe if you hadn’t run away from me so quickly, you’d have realized that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said simply. I was apologizing for what I’d said just then as much as for what I’d done years ago.

  “I’m sorry too,” J.R. said, standing to leave. “But, obviously, you can see now why I said I don’t think we should work together like this anymore.”

  J.R. walked toward the door, and the sight of him leaving triggered something inside me.

  “Wait,” I said, rushing toward him. “You’re right. I wasn’t with my cousin the other night. I was out with a man. But, I assure you, nothing happened—and nothing happened when I saw him again last night.”

  “God, Tris
h!” J.R. said, running his hands through his hair. “Why in the hell are you telling me this? I already told you I was jealous.”

  “But you don’t have to be,” I said, reaching my hand out and running it along his arm. “Like I said, nothing happened… It couldn’t—because I couldn’t get you off of my mind.”

  “Really?” J.R. asked, his tone softening a little.

  “Really,” I replied, bringing my body closer to his.

  J.R. looked at me for a long, hard moment, and then he reached his hand behind my neck and pulled my face toward his. Our lips met, and it felt like magic. I knew that there was no way I was going to call this man the wrong name.

  As if it were something that had been waiting, waiting, waiting to happen, our bodies came together, then moved back together, in concert. We were lustfully stumbling back to the couch where we’d just ben sitting, with J.R.’s swollen manhood posed like a compass-head pointing us in the right direction.

  The next thing I knew, J.R. was on the couch again, and I was on top of him, straddling him and pressing my body against his. His hands were up underneath my nighty, and his thumbs were teasingly brushing against my nipples.

  “You look damn good in this thing,” he said, eyeing my bargain outlet nightgown. “Now take it off.”

  Without hesitation, I did as instructed and slid my nightie off over my head. Before I even had it off completely, I felt J.R.’s soft, warm mouth sucking on one of my nipples. It made my body throb and caused me to press even harder up against him, rubbing my mound against his.

  Still working my nipple in his mouth, J.R. wrapped his hands around my back and let them find their way to my ass. He held onto it tightly and squeezed me closer to him, groaning as he rocked my body against his.

  “I have to have you,” he said between groans. “Right now.”

  “Then take me,” I said, though it probably sounded like begging.

  A second later, J.R.’s hands were running over my body again, and they rested on the waistband of my thong panties.