Suppressing a groan, I ate up the magnificent sight in front of me. No doubt, it would be the last one I would get.
“Now,” he said.
My attention jerked to those consuming eyes, and I shuddered as I slipped out of my heels, my height dropping by five inches.
The man towered over me.
Impassable.
Impenetrable.
Unattainable.
But for tonight, he was mine.
My fingers trembled and fumbled as I worked free the first button on my blouse, exposing the top portion of the deformed heart tattoo.
Guard your heart.
Too late.
It belonged to him.
Chest heaving, I went for the second. Lyrik’s body visibly hardened.
“Do you know how many girls I’ve been with?” The words were jagged, to the point of anger.
I sucked in a breath and my fingers stalled. “Please, don’t,” I begged. That was the last thing I wanted to know. The countless bodies and faces and girls who’d come before me. The ones who would most definitely come after. Still I managed to free the third button. My lacy white bra came into view.
A strangled sound lodged in his throat. He spoke around it, ignoring my plea. “So many I can’t count. So many I didn’t even try to keep track. So many I don’t remember.”
Cruel.
Why did he have to be so cruel?
That same jealousy I’d experienced earlier at the bar ignited a path of fire through me. A spike of the venom that had roiled in me during the last two weeks. The sting coursed through my veins.
I never wanted to be one of those girls.
Forgettable.
Used up and tossed aside.
But not even that could stop me from untying the knot at the bottom of my shirt and letting the fabric fall from my shoulders.
Because I was helpless.
My mind was entranced by his words and the despair coating his expression.
Shivers covered me under his intensity, my spirit wrapped up in the energy, that building storm gaining speed.
“And you…it’s you I can’t get off my mind. You I can’t rid from my thoughts. You I can’t wash from my body. It’s you I can’t forget.”
With his words, goosebumps sprang to my flesh.
Covering me whole.
Holding me hostage.
“Shut up,” I told him weakly. Nothing he said now could possibly matter. This was the end and the seconds were ticking by.
This was our last goodbye.
He flicked the top button of his jeans, and those dark eyes grew darker. The gold and grey flecks dimmed to pitch. Setting like the sun where I was sucked into his endless twilight. Where I floated somewhere between light and his dark. Lost somewhere between the malice, spite, and danger, and this soft, soft boy who’d taken the time to see me.
Taken the time to care.
I matched him move for move. We both shrugged out of our pants at the same time.
I went for my bra.
“Don’t,” he said, stalking forward. He approached, taking up my space and my breath and my reason. My head fell back farther and farther until his too-pretty face hovered an inch above mine. He wrapped one of his arms around my back to keep me from falling.
It was then I knew. I already had.
He’d taken me piece by piece until there was nothing recognizable. Until I didn’t know who I was except for his.
Eyes roved, voracious, as if he needed to memorize me the way I’d memorized him.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Those sounds wheezing from his lungs came harder and shorter and faster.
Whatever had been holding him back snapped.
Sheared.
Or maybe Lyrik cracked.
He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing. Arms encircled me. His kiss overpowered. His body prevailed.
“Red,” he muttered against my mouth, twisting a hand in my hair and yanking it back to gain him access to my jaw, to my neck, to the disfigured heart that seemed to have come alive. He pushed me back on the bed, and he twisted out of his underwear at the same moment his mouth latched onto my breast.
He sucked hard and I bucked my hips. A pleasured pain shot through my body, pumping fuel to the desire that became a steady beat between my thighs.
“I’d never hurt you, Blue,” he murmured softly just before he bit down.
You already have.
“Don’t call me that,” I implored, low and wispy. One last-ditch effort to cling to Red, the girl who couldn’t be touched. The one who wasn’t vulnerable and trembling in his arms. I cinched my hands in his hair, yanking and tugging and demanding more.
He growled, his dick heavy and hard and more than ready where it pushed at the inside of my thigh. Inches from where I needed him most.
This was the one thing I knew for sure. Of all the things I was certain about.
I’d found freedom in Lyrik’s touch.
Gained the belief not all hands were vicious.
The assurance not all touches were vile.
The rest was a mess of confusion and disorder and doubt.
He pushed up onto his hands, his hair as wild as his eyes. My chest rose and fell. As if our hearts had caught time. Both quick and jutted. Intense and free.
He ran his fingers through my hair. A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “You were sent to torment me, weren’t you?” he asked.
The words slid out close to a tease though it rode on the current of the madness he’d provoked within the room. “Always lookin’ like my favorite fantasy.”
He almost laughed, but the intonation was sad. “Temptation. That’s what you are. An angel wrapped up in a demon’s body. Heaven and hell. A gift and my greatest demise.”
Confusion narrowed my eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“Not much to get, baby. One look and you win.”
Despair clotted, heavy on my chest. “Then why does it feel like I’m going to lose?”
“Fuck…fuck, Blue.” His shoulders bunched up as he pushed up onto his hands and dipped down to kiss me, our lips just barely brushing, tongue licking against mine. So, so soft. “If I could, baby, I’d give it all to you.”
My spirit ached. It groaned. A muddled turmoil ushered in by the abstract assertion. Questions swirled on the tip of my tongue, silenced by the sudden assault of his.
“Red.”
I yelped when he suddenly hauled me up from under my arms. He guided me onto my knees and turned me facing away.
That big body eclipsed mine from behind, and he leaned over and curled my hands close together around the metal frame of my headboard. One hand held me captive by the wrists.
Erratic, my pulse sped, a hammering thunder beating out from every cell.
Oh God.
I whimpered.
His mouth brushed the shell of my ear. “All you have to say is no.”
Shivers spread far and free. My body alight. Shuddering, my hands fisted tighter onto the metal. “I can’t.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted him and everything he had to give. For him to mark me and scar me, to leave me with the memories of what he’d taken the time to erase.
My breath hitched when I felt him running the tip of his cock up and down the crease of my ass. The only barrier my black lace underwear.
“Blue,” he murmured. He shifted and placed the palm of his free hand flat on my chest. Against the battering roar of my heart, the same as what I felt beating against my back.
Tonight. Tonight. Tonight.
That’s all we had, and I leaned back, into the scorching heat of his body. An entreaty for more.
“Please.”
My gaze tipped to watch as his tattooed hand explored downward, dragging over my breasts. My stomach quivered as he pressed against my belly, before his fingers dipped into the front of my panties. Gently he brushed between my folds, exhaled against my ear.
“So warm. So soft. So good
.”
I panted.
On a grunt, he released his hands from my wrists and began to remove my panties. Like I weighed nothing, he lifted me enough to drag them down my legs and free them from my ankles.
“You’re mine,” rumbled from his mouth.
The sound at my ear sent an electric charge racing down my spine. It gathered low. I could feel it building and building and building. The excitement and the thrill. The flashes of energy in the air. The anticipation thick. A consuming cloud disorienting my senses.
Mine.
I wanted to be.
But that was just a fantasy.
He flicked the clasp at the back of my bra. The straps tickled down my arms that were still pinned to the headboard.
He grunted, his breaths labored, his chest heaving against my back. That motion only served to wind me higher and higher as our skin brushed.
Hot and fevered.
“He tied you up.” It was a pained lament at my ear, so low and full of anger I shivered. In anticipation or fear, I wasn’t sure which.
I nodded.
Lyrik already knew he did.
“Do you trust me?”
I nodded again.
It should have been in reluctance. But it wasn’t. Because I did. I trusted him with my body and foolishly trusted him with my heart—my spirit so desperate with longing to feel—to feel close to someone who understood.
Lyrik West was the only one who could.
He wound my bra around my wrists and tied it to the headboard. Loosely. The hold not a restraint but a promise.
He whispered in my ear, “All you have to say is no. All you have to say is no. You are in control. You control me. You own me…” The last trailed off in some kind of misery.
I swayed on my knees, overcome by lust and by this man. He enclosed me with his body, his darkness a protective shroud.
His hands tightened on the headboard on either side of mine. “What do you want, Red?”
“You. Everything. Everywhere. Take me.” It tumbled out like water gushing from a collapsing dam.
Freed.
Sucking in a breath, he positioned himself at my center and thrust into me from behind.
So deep and hard.
I gasped.
Breath gone.
He pulled out and did it again.
“Blue…Blue…Blue.” It was a blur of mumbled affection.
I wanted to beg him to call me Red. But she was nowhere within the room. Every vulnerability, every fear, and every hope was committed to him.
He drove into me.
Again and Again.
Relentless.
Merciless.
Ruthless.
Hands moved to clutch my hips. Fingers burrowed into my skin.
“Do you trust me?” he demanded again. Desperation had taken over, his movements almost frantic. “Tell me, Blue. Tell me you trust me. Want to take it all the way. Let me.”
“I trust you.”
He reached over to the nightstand and rummaged in the drawer. The tube he produced made my already erratic pulse take off at breakneck speed. He pulled out of me, and I could feel him shaking. Shaking just as uncontrollably as me. I panted and gripped at the headboard as I waited, my head bowed, the hair falling around my face obscuring my vision.
Yet every move played out in vivid Technicolor that flashed in black and white.
He uncapped the tube and coated himself, before his fingers were on me.
Gentle.
Gentle as he swept them up and down the cleft of my ass.
I stiffened as he slowly pushed one finger inside.
“All you have to say is no.” His voice spun around me like a whirlwind. Whipping and whirring.
He knew this was my greatest fear.
A physical barrier.
One I was offering to him.
“It’s you, Blue…you.” His hand was suddenly back at the front of my neck, under my chin, his mouth next to mine as he forced me to look up at him. His eyes were so dark and hard and tortured. Although when they locked on mine they went soft.
“Do you hear me?” he whispered. “It’s you.”
“I hear you.”
His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and his body shook with restraint as he adjusted and carefully began to press into me.
Darkness flickered at the edges of my eyes.
The spark of a storm.
Streaking light.
“Fuck,” Lyrik whispered hoarsely, clutching me tighter. “Tell me you’re okay, baby. Tell me, Blue.”
“Yes.” It barely passed through my trembling lips.
He pushed in deeper, body stretching mine in a searing pleasure, just as my breath stretched thin, the pain scorching and blissful and dangerously dark. I gasped and writhed as he seated himself deeper. Deeper and deeper until I was trembling and shaking.
Forcing himself to keep still, he hugged me closer. There was no space left between us. No room for breaths or thoughts or actions that weren’t shared between the two of us.
Dirty.
Memories of the cursed word flitted at the outskirts of my mind.
But, no.
Never before had I felt closer to another soul. Never before had I touched on a beauty quite like this.
The kind found in complete surrender.
In a place where you’re defenseless.
Willingly.
Where your preservation comes from the hands that could just as easily crush you.
Emotion gripped every cell of my body, taking up my heart and filling my head. It grew so profound I felt it shatter my spirit. It scattered in a frantic bid to meet with his.
Lyrik had knocked down every wall. Wiped out every physical barrier. Eclipsed every fear.
And he’d replaced them all with himself.
Just like he’d promised from the beginning.
But I knew it was so much greater than that.
This menacing, mysterious boy had completely captured my heart.
“Tell me you’re okay.” It came through gritted teeth, and I knew he was barely hanging on to a quickly unraveling string. “Tell me you’re with me. Me.”
“I’m with you.”
Because he’d captured all of me.
Taken.
Possessed.
He slowly withdrew before he slid back in. He wrapped an arm just under my breasts, the other winding up at the side of my hair. He tugged me a little to the side, his mouth coming down on my exposed neck, nibbling at the skin, trailing my chin. Oh so soft as he brushed it against my ear.
“Do you have any idea what this feels like? Being in you this way? Fuck…so fucking good, Blue. No girl should feel this good.”
He struggled for a breath. “But it’s more. You. Trusting me. Letting me take. Fuck…just wish I could give. Do you hear me? What have you done? What have you done?”
I’d fallen.
He began to move in a hypnotizing dance.
Slow and fierce.
Careful and abandoned.
Pained and perfect.
That energy rose up on all sides. Billowing and blistering and building.
The entire world dropped away, and we were in a free fall.
It was the weightlessness that felt so good. No thought given to the ground that would come up so quickly. No consideration for the sharp, jagged rocks waiting to pierce us when we landed.
Lyrik released his hold from under my breasts, his hand so hot against my stomach as he rocked into me, our bodies lost to a heedless, reckless rhythm. Callused fingers played across my lower abdomen, drifting lower until he spread me, stroking my clit.
“Lyrik.”
He melted with me until I was lost. Until my head spun with dizziness and my body burned with bliss. Until I was shivering and pushing back against him, wanting more when I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
Until just like he said, the only thing I knew was his name.
Lyrik.
Lyrik.
Lyrik.
I screamed when I came, falling apart in his arms as he clung to me, holding me up as my bound hands went weak in the same moment as my legs.
His hips jerked and his body bowed around mine.
He shuddered and groaned.
“Blue.” The whisper caressed like the wisp of a silken sheet.
I sagged against him and he quickly loosed the tie he’d made in my bra and freed my hands.
I crumbled in his hold. Carefully, he shifted to lie us down in the middle of my bed, never letting me go. Up against all his hard and heat and mystery, I curled into a ball. He buried his nose in my hair, exhaled into the night. “My brave, beautiful Blue.”
Silence took us over, the only noise the faint whir of a passing car in the distance, the cold air pumping in through the vents, and the erratic beat of our pounding hearts.
God.
I felt it.
Felt it as if it’d become detached.
Physically removed.
That tightly held roughened exterior gone.
Shredded.
That girl I’d run from for so long relieved, as if she’d lain in wait amongst the deepest roots. Dormant for the winter. Blossoming beneath the sun. Sprouting new growth.
Freed.
Lyrik squeezed me closer, and I could feel his hesitation, a suppressed turmoil that pressed against the warmth enveloping us. Like an echo of my own fear and hope. “Come with me to California tomorrow.”
Shock froze me, but he continued on, his words pouring out as if maybe he wanted to stop them but couldn’t. “We’re heading out early and I’m going to visit my family before the show Anthony has organized for tomorrow night. Come with me. Shea’s gonna be there one last time before the baby comes. I want you there, too. Stay the weekend. I’m not ready to let this go.”
“This?” I hazarded the question, no longer able to camouflage how raw he made me feel. The things he made me want. “Us? Or the sex?”
His swallow was jagged. “I’m not sure anymore.”
In confusion, I lifted my head and looked at this volatile man where he lay silhouetted in the glow of moonlight. This boy who I could no longer view as bad.
But I knew.
I knew the words coming from his mouth made him more dangerous than ever. I blinked and tried to orient myself. To find solid ground, even if it was Tamar Gibson who was finding it.
“Who is she?” I whispered as softly as I could to keep him from freaking out. Softer still to hide the jealousy the memory of her wrapped in his arms had flared.
Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3) Page 23