Never Forgotten Love Read online

  “After smelling cakes and pastries all day, the last thing I want to do is eat it.”

  She was so organized, she had all four machines going, all four ovens baking, staggered perfectly to have one oven empty as she finished another batch of whatever she was fixing.

  It is ten o’clock by the time we finish baking everything and have it cleaned up. The shop has been open for four hours already, I am beat, and I haven’t done anything. I don’t know how Harlow does this every day. I can see she is looking tired herself so I decide today will be a lazy day.

  When we get into the house we both head for the bedroom, I start the shower. I know I need to get all the flour and the stress of the early morning off me and I know Harlow needs to do the same. I walk back into the bedroom; Harlow looks as if she is sleeping standing up. I help her undress and taking her hand; I lead her to the shower. I toss my clothes in the hamper and follow her into the hot steaming shower. “Aw, this feels so good.” Picking up the shampoo, I squirt some on my hands rubbing them together. I place my hands on Harlow’s head and start to massage her hair into a lather as I caress her scalp. Her eyes are closed as little moans and groans escape her sweet mouth as the scent of coconut and jasmine permeates my nose. “I love the smell of your shampoo, but then again, how could you go wrong with coconut and floral.”

  “I know, when I found this shampoo and tried it, I was surprised because it not only worked well with my hair, but I like how my hair looked after using it.” After she rinsed I applied the conditioner letting it absorb into her hair. I leaned down touching my lips to hers. Her eyes had been closed and she was not expecting it, but her lips were right there, looking so soft, sumptuous, and wet, she had just licked a droplet of water off them, mixed with the smell of her shampoo still lingering in the air, I had no choice, but to taste her. I softly licked her bottom lip, tasting her, as I cradle her head in my hands, pulling her closer to me as my body pushes her against the side of the shower; begging to get as close as I can, but not feeling close enough. I need to be in her, filling her, smelling and tasting her and God; I love to hear all the sounds she makes. Shit, I need her. I am frantic to have her, will this feeling ever end. My mind says slow, but after a single kiss of her sweet, soft mouth the idea of slow is thrown out the window to fuck, long hard thrusts are all I can think about.

  She grabs my ass, pulling my cock to her, it’s throbbing, Oh God, she lowers her mouth to my nipple, sucking and nibbling it, which sends shockwaves to my cock making it throb even more. I let out a growl; my circling hips are rubbing my cock on her abdomen. I look down at her, asking with my look. She bites my nipple as we look at each other; that was all the answer I needed. I flicked off the water, grab a towel wrapping it around my waist then grabbing a bath sheet wrapping it around Harlow; I bend picking her up, carrying her to the bed. I take a little bottle out of my nightstand. Harlow looks at me with a cautious smile, “get on your tummy and just close your eyes, and relax,” I tell her. I have to slow this down, I have to learn to control myself, to make it last. I open the bottle, pouring oil in my hands. I rub my hands together warming it up, starting at her feet as I start to massage her still damp skin. Slowly moving my hands up her legs. I crawl onto the bed and straddle her, loving the feel of her small soft bottom undermine and my raging erection, each sound emanating from her ignites it even more. With most of my weight on my knees, I start at her shoulders slowly massaging the aromatic vanilla scented oil down her arms to her hands. I take her right hand in mine, slowly rubbing my thumb over the palm of her hand as she moans, her breathing is labored. I move to the webbing between each of her fingers then to the fingertips. I remember the time she massaged my hands, just thinking about it send shockwaves to my ever-hardening cock. I move to her left hand repeating the process. I reposition her hair over her shoulder and start at her neck. I massage down her back, to her hips then her thighs. I am massaging at the tops of her thighs slightly rubbing her sex, her moaning elevating her hips are moving and circling.

  She opens her eyes, turning to look at me. “Please Beck,” she says in a cry. “I need you.” God and I need her, but I want to take this slow.

  “Rollover on your back; I’m going to savor you Harlow, slow and sweet.” I’m going to drive myself crazy is what I am doing, but I know this is something she needs, I need it too as difficult as it is, I want to make love to her. I move over to her breasts. Her nipples are already hard and I haven’t even touched them. With my tongue, I swirl it around her nipple. It is so hard, Harlow is writhing under me, her moans are getting louder. I move to the other nipple sucking it and nibbling on it as she let out a low groan.

  “Beck Please!”

  I start to lick and kiss my way down her stomach as I get to her sex. With the oil still on my hands, I start to massage the front of her thighs, moving up to the apex of her thighs. I massage the outside of her folds as she moans louder; her breathing is fast, panting almost as I tease her sex with my ministration. I crawl off her, taking her ankles, and spread her legs apart, kissing up her legs now as I massage her clit with my thumb. I slowly kiss her soft wet sex, moving my tongue to her clit, she cries out. “Slow baby, I want to make this last,” I say as I look up at her.

  “Beck, you’re killing me!”

  “You taste so good.” I feel her body starting to tighten up and I stop. My stomach does a flip and my cock twitches just thinking about being inside Harlow; “I want to go slow, but don’t know if that will happen once I am inside you, just feeling you around my cock makes me wild.”

  I lay on top of Harlow, resting most of my weight on my forearm that is on the bed. I hold my cock in my hand at the opening of her sex. I look her in the eye as I rub the crown of my cock over her clit. She lets out a low rumbling growl and her hips start to move with urgency. Harlow grabs my ass, her nails digging into my skin, I feel myself get even harder with the pleasure of the pain. I had always heard there was a fine line between pleasure and pain. God, her nails feel good. She is panting hard now. I slowly push into her while looking deep into her eyes. I try to go slow, trying to savor the feeling, but fuuuck, what she does to me… She pulls me harder into her; she is so tight her sex pulls me farther and farther in. I lean down kissing her beautiful soft lips, drawing her tongue into my mouth sucking it. I am so turned on, I wrap my arms around her and roll, she is now on top of me. She sits up, leaning back and start to ride me. I place my hands on her hips. Her head is tilted back, her back arched and her breast bounce to her movement, she now has a constant moan escaping her lips, she is so sexy, I feel her starting to tense. She is so tight I know I won’t last long; I’m groaning, “Fuuuck, Harlow.”

  “Oh Beck, Oh God, Beck! Beck, Now!”

  As she says it, I explode. “Harlow, Fuuuck, Harlow, God, Awe!” Still holding her hips, I rock her as my climax rips through me. Harlow lays forward on my chest, as we both struggle to catch our breath. I wrap my arms around her, pushing her wet hair away from her face and kissing her as we both fall asleep.

  I am jolted awake to the sound of my phone ringing; Harlow is still asleep on top of me. I reach over to my nightstand picking up my phone silencing the ring, hoping not to wake Harlow. I don’t recognize the number and set the phone back down. Looking at my clock, it reads three fourteen. After a few minutes, the tone for a voicemail rings out. I reach for the phone and start to listen to the voicemail. I hit the replay on the voicemail as I slowly inch my way out from under Harlow, I sit up at the side of the bed and hit replay again. I pull a notepad and pen out of the nightstand drawer, writing down a phone number and name. I put my robe on and walk out to the kitchen area sitting at the bar I call the number on the notepad.

  “St. Vincent Hospital, how may I direct your call?”

  “Yes, I just received a call from the ICU, they said my mother was brought in.”

  “What is your name Sir?”

  “Beckett Dalton, her name is Cheryl, I don’t know the last name her ID has, but it would either be
under Piper or Dalton.

  “One moment Sir and I will check.”

  “This is the ICU, how can I help you?”

  “My name is Beckett Dalton, I received a call that my mother was in there.”

  “Yes, Mr. Dalton, your mother was brought in last night.”

  “May I ask what happened?”

  “I am sorry Mr. Dalton, but we are not allowed to give that information out over the phone, but I would suggest you come as soon as you can and please don’t forget to bring your proper identification with you.”

  “So you are telling me this is serious?”

  “I’m sorry Mr. Dalton, but again I can’t give you that information on the phone, but I would advise you to come as quickly as possible.”

  “Ok, thank you.”

  I hang up the phone and head back to my bedroom getting dressed as quickly as possible. I am just tying my last shoe when I hear Harlow. “Beckett?”

  “I’m sorry baby, I didn’t mean to wake you up, but I need to leave for a little while, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Standing from the chair, I walk over to her and kiss her on the forehead.

  She is lying on her stomach and raises herself onto her forearms. “What’s going on, what’s wrong?”

  “I just received a call from St. Vincent’s, Cheryl is in ICU.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  HARLOW QUICKLY TURNS OVER and sits up pulling the sheets to her chest. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, they wouldn’t tell me anything other than to get there as soon as possible.”

  “Can you wait five minutes for me to get dressed?”

  “Harlow, you need to rest, you have been up all night.”

  “And so have you Beckett, plus you were in the hospital last weekend, I don’t work tonight so I can catch up on sleep tonight. Beckett, I know you haven’t been close to you mother, but she is still your mother and I can see how upset you are.” By this time, Harlow is out of bed and tying her shoes, she walks into the bathroom brushes her teeth with one hand and her hair with the other, and before I can say anything else, she has my hand and we are walking to the door.

  In the car, Harlow pulls her hair up into a high ponytail; you would never know she was asleep five minutes ago.

  We arrive at the hospital and park in the parking structure. Trying to keep a clear mind, I start to look around at my surroundings; I still need to be cognizant that Brad is still out here somewhere and my guess is that he has something to do with Cheryl being here. Taking Harlow’s hand, we stride for the hospital entrance and check in at the reception desk. They proceed to tell us the floor she is on. We step out of the elevator on the floor that accommodates the ICU. There are big metal double doors with a phone beside the doors. I pick up the phone as a females voice answers on the other side.

  “ICU, how may I help you?”

  “This is Beckett Dalton to see my mother.”

  I hear a buzzing sound at the doors. “You may enter Mr. Dalton.”

  I push the door open as the smell of antiseptic and cleaners permeate my nose. I grip Harlow’s hand tighter and she places her hand on my arm. It’s funny how just that simple touch makes me take in a deep breath and I instantly relax. I glance around and see how all the patients are in little glass rooms with glass sliders surrounding the medical staff, which is all in the middle of the room. There were monitors all over the place beeping and blinking. The staff is buzzing around as they are monitoring their patients. A police officer is standing by one of the glass suites. A woman with a friendly face approaches us and asks us whom we were there to see. She leads us to a small office area and tells us to take a seat that she is going to call the Doctor to come and talk to us.

  About five minutes later an older man in a white lab coat walks into the room we are sitting in. He holds out his hand to me then to Harlow and introduces himself as Dr. Hanson. “Mr. Dalton, I had you brought back here to talk to you about your mother. Do you happen to have your identification with you?” I look at Harlow, thinking this seems unusual.

  Reaching into my jacket, I pull out my wallet. “Dr. Hanson, can you tell me what is going on and what happened to my mother?”

  Handing back my ID the Doctor continued. “Your mother was brought in here last night after an altercation she was involved in. She was shot at close range and is in critical condition.” Harlow gasps and grips my hand tighter and looks up at me, concern burning in her eyes. “We have done all we can for her and she is resting comfortably at the moment, but there was a lot of damage done to her internal organs and all we can do is wait. The next forty-eight to seventy-two hours is going to be critical. Were you aware of your mother’s mental issues?”

  I glance at Harlow, and then look down before looking into the Doctor’s face. “Mental issues? No, I was unaware of any issues, but if you know something, I would like to hear what you have found. My mother and I have been estranged for several years now. She wasn’t the…best parent ever, in fact, now days if anyone knew of the abuse and neglect I had received from her I would have been removed from her. Is this mental issue you are speaking about, could it have something to do with the abuse she caused?”

  “It could have, especially if there were alcohol involved.”

  I chuckled, “My mother was always a heavy drinker, and that’s when I saw her at her most violent.”

  “Your mother was treated here before, a couple months ago and was given a prescription that helped control that part of the brain. It’s like with any mental disorder, most patients start to feel better and they think they are cured and stop taking the medication and fall back into the same situation they were in before the medication.”

  “Wow, if only I knew as a child, it could’ve changed my childhood.”

  “We found an empty bottle in her purse when she was brought in and figured she had been off of them for a while. Unfortunately, it can be a little on the expensive side, especially if she didn’t have insurance. We have put her back on it, so you might see a little bit of a change.”

  “Thank you, Doctor, so what is with all the formalities? Granted, I haven’t visited anyone in the hospital for a while, but I haven’t ever been asked for ID to see a patient.”

  The Doctor looks down, then back up at me. “After your mother was brought in, someone claiming to be her son got into the emergency room and was messing with her machines and IV. Luckily, a nurse walked in on him and he took off. We changed her IV instantly, just in case it had been tampered with. The police were called and there is an officer in front of her door, and I know they are going to want to talk to you.”

  “So this medication she is now on, does it really make that much of a difference?”

  “It’s like night and day.” Harlow squeezes my hand, places her other hand on my forearm, and looks into my eyes giving me a weak smile. She didn’t have to say anything for me to know what she was thinking.

  “Can we please see her?”

  “Yes, of course, once she was on the medication, she started asking for you and she got agitated, she kept saying she needed to help you and had to tell you about a bad man?” Harlow and I look at each other again.

  The Doctor leads us to Cheryl’s room; the police officer asks to see our ID and writes something on a notepad. As the Doctor opens the door, I see Cheryl, her skin is so pale, her eyes were closed, there were wires everywhere from blinking beeping boxes to parts of her body that were covered with her hospital gown. I walk over to her, it’s funny, that with all the pain and misery she caused me as I was growing up I feel a pain in my heart for what she is going through. I place my hand on her arm, almost afraid of what her reaction will be. I don’t ever remember touching her before, only the touch of her hitting or slapping me. It is a sobering thought. How can a child live with someone for seventeen years and never once touch that person in a loving and kind manner? As soon as I touch her arm her eyes pop open and her head turns quickly to look at me. I jump and remove my hand. She looks down at wher
e my hand had been and then back up at my face. A heartrending look comes upon her face and a tear slides down her temple.

  “Please don’t remove your hand; it is so nice to finally feel your touch.” I look at Harlow then back at Cheryl again, as I softly lay my hand back on her arm; she looks back up and smiles at me. I don’t know if I have ever seen her smile before.

  Seventeen years of pain hit me at once, I can’t talk, there’s a lump in my throat, my eyes burn as tears fill them. It is ironic how a small smile can melt all the hurt and pain away. Harlow hands me a tissue. God, she knows me so well. I have so many questions and I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity to get any of them answered. I dab my eyes to wipe away the un-fallen tears.

  “Mom, can you tell me what happened?”

  “Oh Beckett, I am so sorry.” Tears flood her eyes. “I never knew, I never knew, she repeated.” Her shoulder shook as she softly cried.

  “What mom, what didn’t you know?” I pull a tissue out of the box on the nightstand and dry the tears that were now running down her temples.

  “I didn’t know I was so sick, I remember how horrible of a mother I was to you. How I hurt you.” She started to shake again; softly crying as she remembered the pain, she had put her only child through.

  I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t ever experienced this from her before; I didn’t know how to act or what to say so I just stroked her arm.

  “Beckett, you have to watch out, there is someone after you, he took my pills away and I had just bought them, and he took them away. He said he wouldn’t give them back until I told him about you, about you and the little girl you used to play with all the time, but I didn’t know anything, and he wouldn’t give them back, it had been so long since I had seen you, and the pills, they were making me feel better, I could feel it.” She was almost rambling. “Beckett, I am so sorry I was a horrible mom, you were such a good boy, I was so full of hate, I hated everything, and I hated me. I hated me, I hated me, I hate…” She closes her eyes and she was asleep.