Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(120)

He strummed a single chord and cleared his throat. “You know a song says more than any words I could ever speak. Listen, Blue. Fuck…” He raked a hand through his hair. “Please…just…listen.”

Quietly, he plucked through another chord, and when he opened that pretty mouth, the words were raw. Rough. Coarse and bleeding emotion.

Trembles rolled when I recognized the haunting cadence of the music.

He was playing the unsung song. The song coiling his arm, wrapping him in mystery and unseen misery.

Tears blurred my eyes.

Will you ever know

Just what it meant

Holding you high

Now I’m down on my knees

Begging for the pieces

That no longer belong to me

I’d have given it all

But instead I got lost along the way The intensity of the song increased as he drove into the chorus.

But I’m coming…

I’m coming home to you

Finally found forever

It’s been waiting all around

I’m coming…

I’m coming home to you

Tell me what I have to do

To get the chance

Say you’ll let me spend it with you Tears poured free, and my chest ached and throbbed while my shaky world spun.

I’d once thought he’d laugh when he watched me fall.

But I knew now. There was a huge part of Lyrik that wanted to hold me up.

I just wasn’t sure he knew how.

His fingers stumbled across the frets, and a pained breath left him. “Blue.” He leaned forward, as if he could get to me from across the space. “Blue…I wrote the beginning of that song a long damn time ago. But it’s not finished. I know it now. Let me end it with you.”

The screen went blank.

A sob shot from my mouth.

Let me end it with you.

I climbed from the chair and paced the quiet of my room. I gripped my hair, feeling like I had to be insane. Completely, entirely insane.

Because that’s the way this boy made me.

Weak.

But I refused to be a fool.

Not because I was rigid and forging walls.

No.

Because I wanted to be loved. Loved the way I deserved to be.

So confused, I fumbled from my room and down the hall, hand darting out to the wall to keep myself from falling.

That intensity swelled. I nearly choked over it.

Thick.

Heavy.

Dense.

Needing a breath, clarity, I flew out the front door and down the steps to the thatch of grass lining the front.

I faltered to a staggered stop.

That dark, foreboding boy stood at the edge of the graveled drive. Tattooed hands stuffed in his pockets. Hair wild as it whipped around his head.

My mouth went dry and I took a single step back.

He took a pleading one forward. “Blue.”

My head shook as another gust of wind blasted through.

Those dark eyes swallowed me whole, his voice hard. “Been sittin’ in that hotel room for the last three days, since the moment I saw you on the stand. Being brave.”

My face pinched. As if it could protect me from his words. From this boy who held the power to desolate and destroy.

To build me up or break me.

“All these months…” His head shook, as if he were trying to make sense of it. “The way I felt? Feeling like I wanted to wrap you up and protect you? Hunt down that bastard and make him pay for what he did to you? Didn’t get it, Blue. Didn’t get what it meant. Not until that night back at my place in L.A.”

I took another step back. Wanting to run. To him. Or away. I didn’t know.

“I can’t let you do this to me, Lyrik. Not again.” I fisted my hand at my chest. “I can’t take it…you drawing me closer before you push me away. I don’t know what you want from me.”

He laughed this bemused sound, mouth pulling up at the side. “You know…when I first met you…thought that was what I liked about you most. The push and the pull. All that attracting and repelling. That crazy contradiction I felt around you. Was something I just couldn’t resist.”

His expression turned somber. “But it was so much more than that. And as much as I wanted to launch myself across that courtroom and tear that piece of shit to shreds, I knew you sitting up there on that stand, doing it yourself? It’s what you needed. Even when I knew I wanted to be the one there if you needed me. To catch you if you fell, even when I knew my girl was gonna stand.”

My girl.

The air whipped into a frenzy.

And that feeling blazed.

The thrill.

I shivered as it rolled over me.

Wave after wave.

“I need to tell you something, Blue.”

“You can’t—” I attempted.

He edged forward, so damned tall and strong and so ridiculously soft. Those dark eyes were tormented as he reached out and grabbed both my wrists, hauling me forward.

And I felt so small and vulnerable.

Caged.

“Please…listen to me.”

I struggled and he held tighter though his tone softened. “Listen to me, Blue…I need you to hear this.”

I gave. So f*cking weak. Because that’s the way this boy made me.

He gathered me closer and his voice dropped to a whisper as he uttered the confession at my ear. “I have a son.”