Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(121)

His words slammed into me like a freight train that had no time to slow.

They just blew straight through me.

Impacting everything.

“Brendon.” It scraped from my throat as that awareness took hold. The name woven through his song. The heart of his story.

The word was reverent when he murmured it back. “Brendon.”

He shifted, still holding me tight as he stared down at me. “Told you I f*ck everything up, Blue. I take the good things I’m given then crush them. First day I met him? That was the day I had to tell him goodbye.”

Pain radiated from him. A crestless wave. Endless. “I got to hold him once. Once, Blue. I didn’t get to keep him. Fuck, I wanted to so bad…but I had to give him up because it was the only thing I could do. The best thing I could do for him.”

Tears soaked my face as he kept talking, “I made him a promise…I promised him he’d be the last person I ever fell in love with. In some twisted way, I thought it’d make up for something, condemning myself to my own personal hell.”

I was shaking. Shaking all over.

My heart breaking.

For him.

For the child.

For the girl in the photo.

Just the same as it swelled with jealousy.

“You have a son,” I whimpered.

He tried to draw me closer, as if that might be the only way he could get me to understand. “How could I go and find happiness after I’d left him? How could I, Blue?”

Edging back, his brow twisted and pinched, gaze relentless. “But then there was you. This beautiful, bold, brave girl. Think I knew from the get go you were off limits. That I shouldn’t touch you. That I should stay away. Because I knew if I did, I wasn’t ever gonna be the same. And I’m not, Blue. I’m not. Because you changed everything.”

My spirit thrashed, stirred by a sudden gust of wind. Tension winding fast.

His expression locked in sorrow. “Look at you…”

He brushed his knuckles across my cheeks, sending a rush of chills spiraling through my senses.

Body and soul.

“All I f*ckin’ do is make you cry. Hurt you more. But I’m done, Blue. So f*cking done with that. I know you think my apologies don’t count for anything, but this one…this one is all I have to give. I’m so f*cking sorry for the things I said. For the things I did. I won’t try to make excuses or pretend the way I treated you was right…but I need you to know I was trying to protect my heart because I thought it could only belong to my son.”

My chest heaved and he drew in a ragged breath. “And there you were, breaking up all the broken, brittle parts and making room for something different. For something better. Waking me up from the dead. Making me realize what it’s like to feel again. Making me feel things I’ve never felt before. You were making room for you.”

“Lyrik.” It was so soft. Broken like this boy.

Energy swelled. The storm gained speed.

The buzz before the strike.

My entire body shook, all my hopes floating to the surface, clashing with my fears. With that image branded in my memory, the picture of him and the girl, the words he’d said when I found it.

Not you.

“If you still love her—”

He gripped my jaw, forcing me to stop talking and to look up at him. “No, Blue. I don’t. It’s you. It’s you.”

Lyrik suddenly dropped to his knees on the grass.

An offering.

“Do you hear me?”

And for the first time, I was the one towering above this intimidating man.

Wind whipped through. Gathering strength.

It was as if nitrogen and oxygen had come alive.

Every element in the dense air combustible.

Explosive.

Chills raced up my spine.

“I don’t know how to trust you.”

But God, I wanted to.

I wanted this boy as much as I wanted breath.

But more than that, I wanted love. The real kind. I wouldn’t settle for anything less.

His words were hoarse. “Let me prove it, Blue. Let me show you that every night, I want to be the one making love to you, and when you wake up in the morning, I want it to be me who has their arms wrapped around you.”

His tongue darted out. Nervous but sure. “And when you wear a ring on your finger, I want to be the one who put it there.”

Emotion swam in those eyes the color of pitch. Twilight and the sunrise. “And when you become a mother, I want you to be holding my child.”

I panted.

Overwhelmed by this man.

This time it was my turn to drop to my knees.

Floored.

Gone.

His.

He gathered my face in his hands. Thumbs brushed the tears from my cheeks. “I’m in love with you, Tamar Gibson. Do you hear me?”

I hear you.

I hear you.

“Be with me, Blue. Tell me you’re mine. Because I don’t think I can let you go. And there’s a good chance my son’s gonna be a part of my life. Because it was you who taught me what it’s like to be brave. That if I was gonna move on, I had to face my past. Share it with me, Blue. My past and my future.”

He buried his face in my hair, mouth at my ear. “Please…don’t tell me no.”

My voice was a rasp. “I couldn’t.”