Kiss the Stars

by Jackson, A. L.

  A dark lure.

  I took a step backward like I could possibly get away from it.

  He took one forward.

  It brought him into a stream of light.

  My mouth dropped open and my belly bottomed out.

  I couldn’t tell if he was terrifying or beautiful.

  Terrifyingly beautiful.

  Yes, yes, that was it.

  Tall and lean. Different than my brother, though.

  Shoulders wide. Corded muscle visible, arms rippling with strength. The guy wearing a tee and tattered jeans and Vans to a gala in the Hills.

  His jaw was clenched, a perfectly carved stone held so tight that I feared it might shatter and crack.

  His nose straight and his brow defined. Plush lips set in a firm, hard line.

  His eyes were the only part of him that could have even hinted at softness. The color of brown sugar. The edges the hardest, deepest black. Like maybe he’d witnessed too many horrible things and the grief and hatred had crystallized into slate.

  And I was standing there gawking and flustered and trying to get my legs to cooperate. To knock some sense into myself because I was locked in a dark room with a stranger.

  But I couldn’t move.

  Stuck in a quicksand I could feel pulling me under.

  His eyes traced me.

  Blatantly.

  Bluntly.

  Something that sounded like a growl crawled up his throat when his attention fixated on where my dress was ripped at the seam. Realizing it was gaping open, I rushed to gather up the material that was split so high it was threatening to reveal my panties.

  His massive hands curled at his sides.

  “What happened to your dress?” His question came out sounding like a threat.

  “Nothing . . . it’s fine.” It flew from my mouth at warp speed.

  He surged forward, and I gasped.

  He touched my chin.

  A gentle prod that angled my face up into the light. He let his fingertips trace up the side of my face until his thumb was running softly over the knot that had already risen on my forehead.

  Tremors rolled and I was having a hard time making sense of anything right then.

  “Liar,” he grunted.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Don’t look so fine to me.”

  Those warm, sugar eyes traveled to where my hand was fisted in the skirt, his jaw ticking as he angled his face toward mine, his presence invading.

  The words scraped across my cheek as he issued them. “I’m probably not the only man here who would gladly rip this dress off you, gorgeous, but it doesn’t look to me like you agreed.”

  Turbulence rolled like thunder in the room.

  The man too bold.

  Too crass.

  Too forward.

  And I knew I wasn’t alone in this crazy attraction that fired and pulsed and covered me like a wicked dream.

  I should run from it. No question, something that powerful was dangerous.

  But I wanted it.

  To feel it.

  To feel alive and whole.

  To stoke this spark that suddenly came to life inside me. One I’d thought had forever gone dim.

  The fantasy flashed of him actually doing it. Him pushing me against the wall, hands finding my flesh under the frayed fabric, pushing it over my hips.

  The clink of his belt as he freed himself.

  As he took me.

  Touched me and kissed me and owned me until the only thing I felt was him. Until the pain had been chased away.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I was just asking for it, wasn’t I?

  Bad judgement and all of that.

  I blamed it on the PTSD.

  Looking for something to make me feel good in the middle of the grief, but I knew those rugged, masculine hands weren’t going to help a thing. No doubt, it wouldn’t take more than a brush of them to leave a scar.

  Knowing myself, I’d be worse off than where I’d started.

  “I handled it.”

  A rough, disbelieving chuckle left him. “By running in here scared? Locking yourself behind a door? Hiding? Is that what you call handling it? Because I could think of plenty better ways of handling it.”

  Tension bound the room, the stark violence that oozed from this man.

  Something intense and protective rising up and taking over.

  Urges slammed me on all sides.

  Coaxing me to slip into it.

  Get lost.

  Maybe see if it was powerful enough to make me forget.

  I swore, the man had me intoxicated.

  Enraptured.

  “I thought you said you were doing the exact same thing?” I challenged on a whisper, his lips so close to mine, my eyes tracing every line of his face.

  Looking for something.

  Trouble.

  That’s what it was.

  It took about all the strength I had, but I edged back an inch, desperate to put some space between us before I did something I was going to regret.

  Like it knocked him out of the daze, he took a step back, too. Frustrated, he dragged his fingers through the wayward, unruly locks of his brown-hair, the longer pieces on top hinting at a disaster but the sides trimmed around his ears. “Don’t like parties much. Especially the kind going on downstairs.”

  Even though I knew better, my eyes went exploring, taking him in through the lapping shadows. The strength of his arms that peeked out beneath his rolled sleeves, wiry and vibrating.

  Like his demons were crawling his flesh.

  All his wrongs written in the jerks and tics of his packed, bristling muscle.

  Everything about him was brutal.

  No pretenses and zero fucks to give.

  Exactly the kind of guy I’d sworn off years ago.

  I tore my attention back to his face, doing my best to claw my way back to solid ground.

  Only that wasn’t a safe place, either. One glance across those lips and up to his eyes and my stomach was clamping in a needy fist. “Then why are you here?”

  He angled his head with a rumble of low, seductive laughter. “I’ve been asking that question myself.”

  “Did you figure it out yet?” The words came out a breath.

  The slowest grin pulled across his sexy mouth. “Starting to get an idea.” He reached up and fiddled with a lock of my black hair, eyeing me as he did, the world unsettled and vibrating around us. “How about you, gorgeous? You don’t strike me as the type who begged someone to get through that door. Don’t seem like you belong in a place like this.”

  Defensiveness blustered through my being. “And what kind of place is that?”

  He laughed a scornful sound. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it. The greed and the gluttony running rampant downstairs. Every prick showing off what he’s got. Desperate for more. To elevate himself. Not caring who the fuck he tramples to get himself there. Money and fame fucks with your head. Or maybe they were all already fucked, and that’s what got them here in the first place.”

  “And you and I somehow don’t count?” It was disbelief. Maybe disappointment. Because I was so not about lumping people into a group and labeling them.

  “Didn’t say that,” he grated.

  My family’s faces flashed through my mind. The rest of the band and their wives and their children. All these amazing people who had knitted themselves so intricately into my life that they’d become a permanent part of me.

  Family.

  “Not everyone is looking for an opportunity to take advantage of someone else. Not everyone here is bad.”

  “Maybe not.” Brown eyes glimmered in the rays of murky, shimmering light. “But you sure seem to keep running into the worst of them.”

  It was a warning. One I heard loud and clear. This man was lumping himself into his own pile.

  Bad.

  Vile.

  Destructive.

  But it was the bare warmth hiding in the poo
ls of his eyes that kept me pressing.

  This man nothing but a raging contradiction.

  Emphasis on the raging.

  Energy came off him like a storm held in the horizon. Dark and ominous.

  And there I was, itching to disappear into it so I could discover why it was.

  “I think you’re wrong. I bet I could ask you to hunt down the guy who got handsy with me and you’d do it without blinking. I bet you wouldn’t even care or consider the consequences.”

  “I was right,” he said with a coarse chuckle, eyes skating my face.

  Confusion pulled a frown to my brow. “About what?”

  He was back to fiddling with that strand of my hair.

  Winding me up.

  “That you don’t belong here. You came running in here just as lost as me. Except you don’t have the first clue when you’re running straight for danger. You don’t make people earn your trust—you trust first and regret it later. You dig around to find the good when there is no good to be found. Sound about right?”

  Air wheezed into my lungs, the room spinning with the blunt force of his words.

  “Wow. You’re kind of an asshole.”

  He laughed. A low roll of scorn. “You say it like I’m not already fully aware of who I am.”

  It felt like he’d called me out on my every deficiency. Accused me of being weak for the sake of being kind.

  But the truth was, I was begging him to give me a reason to trust. Praying that this seed of bitterness wouldn’t take hold and invade every element of my life. I didn’t want the last grains of hope I was holding to bleed through my fingers.

  Gone forever.

  And the scariest part was I could feel it slipping away.

  On top of that, I was left asking the question—why him? Why was I always drawn to what would clearly hurt me?

  He edged in so close that our noses brushed, the scent of him invading my senses.

  Clove and whiskey. Warmth and sex.

  Dizziness spun.

  “So yeah, you want me to go after whatever prick messed with you?” he rumbled, head angled low. “Make him pay the hard way? You’re right. I’d do it in a heartbeat. Say the word, and it’s done. I’m really good at destroying whatever I come into contact with. Whatever I touch.”

  He reached out and ran a fingertip down the side of my face.

  Chills tumbled down my spine.

  “Question is, is it gonna be him or is it gonna be you?”

  Three

  Leif

  Do you believe in fate?

  In destiny?

  In that fairytale bullshit that everything happens for a reason?

  Living each day thinkin’ every event, conversation, and person that passes through our lives has been set on that path long before we even know what direction we’re headed?

  Carved in some proverbial stone eons before we were born?

  All comin’ together for the greater good?

  Fuck that.

  If you asked me, our lives were nothing but a pile of rubble. Debris made up of the mistakes that we had made.

  Every horrible choice another piece that carved and morphed us into something more and more appalling.

  You disagree?

  I had proof.

  It was right there in the fact that I was going toe-to-toe with this girl who obviously came stumbling in here, nothing but a lost-fucking-soul desperate for reprieve.

  Seeking sanctuary close to the clouds.

  Way up close to the stars.

  And she had the grave misfortune of running into me.

  She blinked up at me with these intense, sable eyes. I didn’t know if it was the destitute belief shining in them or her fucking tight, sexy body that had gotten me hard the second I’d seen her fumble through the door.

  Girl coming in here floating through these crazy-ass paintings that filled the room like some kind of gorgeous, fading vapor, wearing this whimsical white dress that had the power to leave me weak in the knees.

  Wonder in her being and something sweetly seductive oozing from her soul.

  I’d instantly wanted her.

  To take her.

  And I was really fuckin’ good at taking what wasn’t mine.

  She’d let me. I knew that she would. Could feel her almost trembling with the kind of sorrow that could only be assuaged by letting go.

  By completely getting lost.

  But there was something about her that was stopping me.

  She stared up at me, unsure, maybe disappointed.

  “Is that what you want?” she demanded in that wispy voice. “To hurt me? I guess maybe I did stumble into the wrong room.” Her sweet brow curled in disgust, and her words whispered like regret through the dense air.

  The chains that would forever bind me only cinched down tighter.

  A warning.

  Didn’t matter.

  My arm was looping around her waist, tucking her close. Clearly, I wanted the pain.

  Hers or mine, I didn’t know.

  The bare skin of her back exposed by the drape in her dress scorched my arm.

  It sent a shock of lust running rampant through my veins.

  “Problem is all the things I’m wanting to do to you,” I murmured down at her. Straight up. Because I was betting this girl deserved the truth. “Pretty fuckin’ sure it would scar us both.”

  Greed flash-fired.

  A thunderbolt that struck in the middle of us.

  Hot enough to torch this fucking ridiculous house. Leave it nothin’ but ash.

  “And there’s no fucking good that could come of it.”

  “Because you don’t want it or because you don’t deserve it?”

  “Because I will ruin you.” The words were hard. Angry in their truth.

  Sable eyes narrowed like she didn’t have the first clue what to make of me. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I’m already ruined, baby.”

  We were swaying, swept up in this unstoppable dance that I never saw coming.

  I hadn’t felt anything similar in three years.

  Guilt clotted the flow of air to my too-tight lungs.

  That realization right there should have been enough to send me hauling ass out those doors.

  “I should walk away, shouldn’t I?” she whispered.

  I gave her a tight nod.

  She touched my chest.

  Motherfucking flames.

  “So what is this feeling that’s begging me to stay?”

  “No doubt, it’s the exact same thing that is going to make me push you away.”

  Otherwise I was going to have her pinned against the wall and ripping that dress the rest of the way from her body.

  Using her up.

  Feeding from all the soft sweetness I could smell radiating from her flesh.

  Revulsion clenched my stomach.

  No.

  I’d never wanted to become who I had.

  Had never wanted to be revered and respected in a way only brought about by brutality.

  Had never wanted to be feared.

  Had never wanted to be the bad guy.

  Maybe the reality was that I’d never known how to be anything else.

  Fated. Vile from the get go.

  Depravity written in my DNA.

  This elusive feeling pounded around us. A song that started low.

  A melody ushering in what was to come.

  Dark and mesmerizing and sexy as fuck.

  “What if I don’t want you to push me away? What if we were meant to be right here? Even if it is only for tonight?” She blinked hard, her teeth raking her plump bottom lip, making it glisten and my mouth water. “Do you feel it? Whatever this is?”

  Rough laughter broke free, and I couldn’t even answer that question. Because if I did, I knew there would be no stopping the direction this would go.

  “You don’t have the first clue what you’re asking for, gorgeous,” I told her instead.

  Didn’
t even know why it mattered. Why I cared. Clearly, this party was all about excess. Over-indulging. And taking of this girl would be nothing but gluttony.

  “You’re right. I don’t. But what if I want to know you? Maybe I stumbled in here and found exactly what I’ve been looking for.” Vulnerability flashed across her striking face. Nothing weak about it.

  I was getting the feeling that maybe for the first time in a long time, she was feeling brave. Pushing herself to take a step that she should know better than taking.

  “And maybe you’re looking in all the wrong places,” I tossed back, voice grit, and still I was tucking her closer. Her unforgettable face pinched in confusion, girl so damned pretty she was hard to look at.

  Stoic and soft.

  Determined and pliable.

  In contemplation, she pursed her lips, that mouth painted in this lust-inducing red, a stark contrast to the pure-white of her dress.

  Her head slowly shook.

  I saw it for what it was.

  Regret.

  Disappointment.

  Acceptance.

  Neither of us owed the other anything.

  Yet somehow, it felt like I did.

  I owed her this—walking away.

  I knew better than to dip my fingers into places where real beauty lived.

  She wound herself out of my tight grip.

  “I guess I usually do find myself in the wrong places,” she said, words thick.

  I had the urge to apologize.

  For me. For who I was. For who I wasn’t ever going to be.

  And I didn’t even know her goddamn name.

  Realized in that second that I was in more danger than she was.

  That I was the one with more to lose.

  That this angel had me enraptured.

  Taken in a heartbeat.

  My phone dinged and vibrated in my pocket. Sound of it jolted us both from the cocoon.

  I dug it free and took a quick glance at the message.

  Lyrik West: Where are you, asshole? Been looking for you the last thirty minutes. Meeting in downstairs office in five.

  Could almost hear the smirk in the dude’s voice. Had known him for all of forever. Since all the way back to who I’d been, and he’d still invited me here. Up until three days ago, I’d thought there wasn’t a thing in the world that could temp me into returning to this fuckin’ wasteland of a city. Was stupid as shit, relenting.