Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)

by A. L. Jackson

  A cool rush of air prickled my skin, my flesh covered in chills as he leaned in and kissed across the upper curve of my shoulder.

  My head dropped back.

  His mouth fell fervid at my neck.

  Hot hands at my sides.

  I fumbled under his shirt and pulled it free. My hungry gaze roamed, as if I could decipher each bunch of his muscles, the flex and the bow, the smooth skin covered in tantalizing ink.

  My eyes wandered, just as greedily as my hands as I touched and explored, drunk on freedom and lust.

  My spirit unchained.

  Shackles released.

  Callused fingertips trailed over the warped heart imprinted on my chest. Translating. Communicating.

  Guard your heart.

  It was his.

  I shivered with his kiss that was just as cautious when he pressed it there.

  Oh God. This man.

  I arched up on my knees to meet him, my hands fisted in his hair. His mouth moved delicately across the lacy fabric of my bra, his breath like a warm caress across my skin.

  A tiny mewl slipped from between my lips and I held him tighter. Closer as he licked then softly sucked.

  The need to know him was greater than it’d ever been. His dark, dark spirit taking on shape and form. It snuffed out the air until the only thing I knew was him.

  I slid my palms over both his shoulders, slipping down his arms. Across the designs. The pads of my fingers played across the song on his left arm and over the name hidden there.

  Tell me who you are.

  The question begged at my tongue, but was silenced by his when he suddenly moved to capture my mouth. Hand on the back of my head, he tilted his to the side, kissing me deeper, carrying me away into his twilight.

  Tell me who you are.

  Lyrik scooped me from the floor and carried me to his bed. He laid me in the middle, never letting me go as he climbed over me.

  Enclosing and surrounding and engulfing.

  But where Lyrik and I normally lit, we smoldered.

  His movements were controlled. Purposed. He edged back, never releasing me from the grip of his gaze as he lifted me by the ankle and unzipped my boot, turned and did the same to the other.

  That bold, beautiful body inched forward to flick at the buttons on my jeans, my pulse going wild as I was eclipsed by his shadow.

  A sigh puffed from between my lips as I lifted my hips to help him.

  He dragged them down, taking my underwear with them.

  “Blue,” he whispered at my belly, hand palming the apple on my thigh.

  “What have you done? What have I done?” It was all a jumbled whir, lost to the energy.

  I shuddered, pinned to his bed by the weight of his intensity. His severity so dense and dominant I felt our spirits coalesce.

  There was nothing but us.

  My head spun, dizzy on this feeling.

  Light. Light. Light.

  He was suddenly over me, that beautiful body bare, guiding himself into me.

  Whole.

  Never before had I felt so whole.

  He gripped me by the back of the neck, our chests pressed close, the thunder of our hearts the only quickening in the room.

  He rocked forward, slow and somehow desperate.

  A soft moan fluttered from between my lips.

  Those bottomless eyes latched onto mine in the darkness, his mouth a breath from mine.

  He pinned my wrists over my head.

  His body worked a steady beat, a frenzy barely kept at bay.

  A raging storm contained.

  Our pants leapt into the air.

  “Lyrik,” I gasped out.

  He swayed and pitched, buried his face in my neck as he released my wrists. My arms were around him, holding him close as he rocked and drove and pled. “Blue…what have you done? What have you done?”

  “Lyrik…please…” It was a petition unnecessary, because I was already rising to the top where pleasure gathered fast.

  “Blue.”

  My body stretched tight beneath him as I came undone.

  Lost.

  Where I floated in the darkest skies. Where I drifted through clouds that rumbled their threat. Where I glided through the danger of this building storm.

  The buzz before the strike.

  Lyrik jerked and his mouth dropped open, this volatile boy clinging to me. Unhinged. Fingers dug into my skin.

  Almost painfully, the words came from his mouth like distress.

  “You sing my soul.”

  So quiet.

  Yet deafening.

  You sing my soul.

  Everything froze. The spin of the room and the hammer of my heart and the panicked boy who lay stock-still on top of me.

  It was unmistakable.

  The grief that suddenly poured into the room, seeping from his pores and from the shattered breaths from his lungs.

  “What did you say?” I didn’t mean for it to come out so needy, but I couldn’t stop it from fleeing the confines of my mouth.

  Because I needed to know.

  I tried to edge him back. To see his face.

  He jerked his head to the side. Jaw rigid. Throat tight.

  Still refusing to look at me, he slowly rolled out of bed.

  Nothing was said as he slipped on his underwear and jeans, the silence suffocating as he buttoned them.

  He snatched his shirt from the floor and yanked it over his head.

  The whole time I lay there with his sheet clutched to my chest. Shocked. Stunned. Both joyed and terrified.

  “What did you say?” I begged again.

  “Nothin,” he mumbled with a rake of his hand through that dark hair.

  I clamored off the bed. “Don’t tell me it was nothing when we both know it was something.”

  He looked at me. Hard and furious. “Said it was nothin’. Drop it.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Lyrik.”

  He shook me off and headed for the door.

  What the hell?

  I dressed as fast as I could, on his heels as I chased him down the stairs.

  Ash and Zee were just coming through the front door as we hit the landing.

  Shit.

  But I wasn’t letting this go.

  I refused to let go of this rigid, impenetrable man who was so obviously broken.

  Because God, maybe he needed me just as badly as I needed him.

  Maybe he needed a little saving, too.

  It didn’t matter who was there to witness it.

  I didn’t care.

  Because what I cared about was him.

  What I cared about was what he said and what it meant and where it would lead us.

  “Lyrik, please,” I begged as I grasped at the tail of his shirt.

  Lyrik spun around. The words he spat from his tongue were low and vicious and vile. “Please, what, Red?”

  He was looking at me like I was garbage.

  Dirty.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what this was,” he continued. “Two months and you got what you wanted. You fuck like a pro. Congrats.”

  A strangled gasp wheezed into my lungs and I recoiled. Mortified. Slammed with a misery so great it nearly dropped me to my knees. After everything I’d revealed to him. After what I’d trusted him with. And this was his response?

  My hand cocked back before I could stop it, and I barely registered the force of it as it flew through the air toward that too-fucking-pretty face.

  Guess I was right all along.

  Lyrik West was nothing but a bastard.

  THERE ARE TIMES IN your life you know without a doubt you’re doing everything wrong.

  When you know you’re nothing but a liar and a bastard and a cheat.

  Hands down, this was one of them.

  It was like watching everything go down in slow motion while your mind’s still set to real time.

  Taking everything in while there’s not a fucking thing in the world you can do to stop it.


  Especially when you were the piece of shit who’d set it all into motion in the first place.

  I could see it coming, and I braced myself for the bitter bite of her hand.

  Welcomed it, really.

  Hate me, Blue. Hate me.

  It was the only option we had left. Not after I’d fucked it all up.

  The crack echoed off the walls.

  Vibrating with the magnitude of the wound I’d just inflicted.

  Hate me, Blue. Hate me.

  I knew those words would cut her deep. But they were the only ones that could maybe undo the words that had left me without permission upstairs. The only ones that’d maybe keep this gorgeous girl from looking at me as if I were her savior and her light and her life.

  Because God knew that’s the way I’d come to look at her.

  My cheek stung like a bitch when she drew her trembling hand away. Holding her wrist, she cradled her hand against her chest, her expression altogether horrified and hurt and maybe a little bit shocked that she’d actually hit me.

  I deserved it.

  I fucking deserved every repercussion that would come my way for letting loose those words from my mouth.

  Both the ones that left me without permission upstairs and the ones spurred by this blinding panic still beating at my heart.

  Who didn’t deserve it was Blue.

  Brave, beautiful Blue.

  I wanted to shout a thousand apologies. To drop to my knees like a goddamned beggar and pray for forgiveness. But like she’d told me before, it was a good thing my apologies were rare because they didn’t mean all that much anyway. And me opening my mouth now would only hurt her more.

  Should have turned around and walked away the first time she made me feel different. The first time she filled me with regret and remorse. The first time she made me feel those flickers of joy.

  Knew where they would lead.

  And like a bastard, I’d chased her all the same. Again and again. Unable to let her go.

  Selfish.

  That’s what I did. I took those bits of good I’d been given and crushed them.

  And right now? There was no question that’s exactly what I’d done.

  Crushed up an innocent girl because I was too fucking weak to stay away.

  My red-headed siren who was trying with all her might to stand tall, to pretend I hadn’t just slayed her straight.

  But it was those warm wells of blue that told no lies.

  I felt it in my gut and it trembled around my blackened heart. That feeling I couldn’t afford to feel.

  You sing my soul.

  God, this girl made me want more.

  I looked away, to the ground.

  Loyalty.

  That was the one good thing I had, and it didn’t matter how much this was killing me. How badly I was hurting her. This had to end. I had to stop this madness before it was too late. Before I obliterated the lines that I kept pushing and pushing further out. A fool to pretend like I wouldn’t eventually cross them.

  Slowly, Tamar stepped back, her head shaking as if she were trying to orient herself to the disaster that’d just gone down.

  We’d been a bomb waitin’ to go off.

  That bundle of fireworks just waiting for a match.

  And I just loved playing with fire.

  “Fuck you,” she finally said, her mouth trembling, soaked with the same tears that hadn’t stopped falling since that kid had recognized her back at the club.

  Yeah.

  Fuck me.

  Because all I wanted to do was reach out. Hold her. Beg her to stay when without a doubt it was past time for her to go. I’d already let this drag on for far too long.

  When I didn’t respond, she spun around and ran up the stairs. I could hear her banging around up there, and I was all of a sudden aware of the heat of Ash’s glare burning like daggers into my back and the unease radiating off Zee where they stood in the niche of the kitchen entryway.

  Just what I needed.

  A damned audience while I cut down another life.

  She came hurtling back down, suitcase bouncing on each step as she dragged it behind her. She blew by me like a tiny ball of fiery energy, yet so fucking big and profound.

  This girl larger than life. All sex and sin. Pure and soft and sweet.

  An enigma.

  Temptation.

  I raked a hand through my hair, feeling like my insides were getting ripped to shreds.

  She headed for the door, not even glancing my way.

  Panic flapped all around me like frantic wings and before I could stop myself I was calling her name. “Tamar.”

  She froze.

  Shit.

  Was that the first time I ever called her that? But I knew anything else would amount to nothin’ but a snub. Another insult thrown her way.

  Slowly she turned, and my gut clenched, because this girl was so damned beautiful it knocked the breath from my lungs. So damned pretty. And she was looking at me like she was begging me to beg her to stay.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I dug my wallet from my back pocket and pulled out all the cash I had.

  Six neatly pressed hundred dollar bills.

  She was just standing there, dazed, lines of confusion darting all over her forehead. I urged them into her hand and closed her fingers around them.

  Hopefully that’d be enough to at least get her home. To get her away from this place. Away from me. Where I couldn’t hurt her like that bastard Cameron had done.

  And I wondered just how different we were, me and him, destroying something so utterly good.

  Finally, she looked up at me. Her eyes narrowed. A flash of Red. “What the fuck is this?”

  I swallowed hard. “Money…to get you home.”

  Her face twisted. Offended. Words bitter and incredulous. “What? You think I’m your whore now? You think I want your money?” She balled it up, fisted it in front of her, before she threw it in my face. “You can go to hell, Lyrik West.”

  Not a problem.

  I was already there.

  She rushed for the double doors, yanked the right side open. It crashed against the interior wall.

  She was halfway out it when she flew back around, like she’d changed her mind. “Do you know what?”

  As she stared across at me with her chin lifted high, those bits of Red that’d tried to make a resurgence were gone.

  And it was just my girl.

  Blue.

  Brave, beautiful Blue.

  She pointed at the ground beside her, like she was staking a claim. “No.”

  No.

  My chest tightened.

  In all the times I’d begged her to tell me no, this was when she was going to use it on me? When I couldn’t do anything about it? When I couldn’t respect her in the way I knew I should?

  Hate me, Blue.

  “You don’t get to do this,” she said, taking a step forward as I took one back. “I’ve spent years hiding and I know what hiding looks like.”

  She touched her chest. “And I know you. What you said upstairs…”

  I fisted my hands at my sides. Trying not to lose my cool.

  “I don’t know exactly what it means but I heard what you meant.”

  I rubbed my hands down my face, and she just kept on talking, like she didn’t get she was completely tearing me apart.

  “You asked me for two months. Two months, Lyrik. And in those two months you changed everything. You forced your way into my life, shook up everything I thought was right when the way I’d been living was so very wrong. You breathed the life I didn’t know was missing back into me. I thought we had a time stamp. An ending. And it turned out you were just the beginning.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, like maybe it could block her words from impaling.

  Piercing.

  Crucifying.

  Except I was no saint.

  Hope made its way into the sadness on her face. “I’m going home, Lyrik. Home to Ari
zona. To the place I’ve been running from for years. I’m going because you reminded me what it’s like to be brave. You showed me it’s okay to be scared and vulnerable. That sometimes that’s the best place to be. And no, I’m not healed. I have a lot of scars to work through…”

  She swiped at the tears still streaking like shimmery rivers down her face and sucked in a steeling breath. “And yeah, it’s going to fucking terrify me to sit on that stand and testify against Cameron. But I’m going to do it because it’s the right thing to do. Because I can no longer run from who I am. Because you made me stop and look at her.”

  She took a step back. With a shake of her head, she cast her attention to her feet, her grip firm as she held onto the handle of her suitcase.

  Contemplating.

  Finally, she looked back up at me.

  So brave and bold. Vibrant colors. The darkest dark and the most blinding light.

  “I love you, Lyrik West. And when I walk out that door, I promise you, it’s going to hurt.”

  She stared me down. “But you are worth all the pain.”

  Grabbing the door handle, she turned to leave.

  I gnashed my teeth so damned hard I was sure they’d be ground to nothing but powder, fucking forcing myself not to respond. Not to give in when that was the only thing in the world I wanted.

  Because all I wanted was her.

  But I couldn’t have her.

  Told her before, my heart wasn’t mine to give.

  But fuck, if it didn’t feel like she was taking all of it with her tonight.

  Pausing, she slanted one last glance over her shoulder. “And for the record, I think we were the best idea you ever had.”

  Then she softly clicked the door shut behind her.

  And I let her go.

  Like Ash said.

  Most of us just broke our own damn hearts.

  I stood there staring at the blank space where she’d been.

  Hating myself.

  Hating my choices.

  Wishing I could go back and erase it all.

  Somehow make it right.

  “So that’s it…you’re really gonna stand there like a straight-up pussy and let her walk out that door?”

  My eyes shot to the right where Ash and Zee were standing.

  Shit.

  I’d all but forgotten they were standing there, bearing witness to the shit-storm that continued to dominate my life.

  “Nothing’s changed, Ash. Told you that before.”