Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(15)

I’d just carry on.

Business as usual.

Except taking those two girls did nothing to quell that fire.

Only Tamar had the power to put it out.

Ash chuckled with a shake of his head. “What’d you do, man, take her in the restroom then let those girls go crawling all over you? I’d be tampering with your drink, too. That shit ain’t cool. This is Tam Tam we’re talking about. Not some random chick you aren’t ever gonna see again. Where’s your head, man? She’s like family.”

Family? I had all the family I needed.

“So maybe I said some shit she didn’t want to hear.”

“And you thought it wise to promptly go and pick up Candi and Bambi?”

I quirked a brow. “Oh, was that their names?”

“Dude, you’re a straight-up *.”

“Who was their friend?” I sent out the challenge with a smirk playing at one side of my mouth.

Caught, he laughed. “No clue, man. Birds of a feather flock together and all that shit. Don’t you know anything?”

Apparently I knew nothing.

I’d thought I had it all figured out. Thought I had all my shit under lock and key. But when it came to Tamar, I felt like I was slowly but surely losing my head.

It was indescribable. The crazy sense of power, the thrill of ego and pride, that gripped at my chest when I heard her door rattling this morning at just the perfect moment. It was a feeling like I was conquering some unknown feat when that fiery ball of red got tripped up at her door just as I was shoving the two blondes out of mine.

Yeah. I knew she lived next door when I’d rented the place. So what?

Of course the joke was on me, when she’d come stumbling out, wearing next to nothing, hair a total mess where she had it tied on top of her head.

Holy f*ck, the girl had the tightest body I’d ever seen. Heavy on the tits and ass, this curvy little bombshell I knew would fit perfectly in my needy hands.

But that wasn’t what’d rendered me speechless.

I hadn’t ever seen her bare before. Void of the makeup I had no idea could possibly alter her appearance so much.

It’d been like a punch to the gut, finding out just how gorgeous this girl really was—all natural and soft—exposed in a way I doubted she let many see, those blue eyes wide with shock and brutal honesty, and for a fleeting moment flashing with something that looked like innocence.

That was a description I’d never associated with Red before.

Innocent.

Angel.

The thought had gone sailing through my head and struck me dumb.

Then I’d gone and said it, just another jab that got to the heart of what I wanted.

I liked to get dirty and I wanted to get dirty with her.

But shit. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to forget the horrified expression that had shut down all the fierce intensity that normally radiated from her and something else entirely took her over.

Like I was being slammed.

Wave after wave.

Hurt.

Shame.

What bothered me most was I thought I saw something that looked like fear.

Ash plucked at a few notes. “Did you really think hooking up with those girls wouldn’t piss her off after you’d just gone propositioning her?”

“That was kind of the point.”

And God, it made me feel…bad.

“You just love messing with her. You do realize you’ve been doing it since the night you called dibs on her when we first started hanging at Charlie’s? One of these days, you’re going to regret it.”

Regret. Remorse. Those were emotions I didn’t allow myself to feel. Not anymore. They just made you susceptible to all kinds of bullshit and pain.

Fuck.

I jerked my hands through my hair, yanking at the longer pieces on top as I went, before I threaded my fingers at the back of my neck.

I had no idea what I’d done so bad. But whatever it was, it was damned wrong.

And there it was.

Regret.

Remorse.

This heavy, sick feeling that gripped my chest like an iron fist.

Didn’t like feeling it.

Not at all.

But with her?

I did.

“What, are you really seriously pissed at her for that drink? That shit was classic, man.”

A roll of bitter, confused laughter bled free. “I don’t even know. She just…” I trailed off, not sure what kind of label to put on it.

The amusement drained from Ash, this tenseness I wasn’t used to feeling filling up the air.

Exactly the reason I tried to stay away from all this bullshit.

My shoulders lifted to my ears in my own confusion. “I said something really shitty to her this morning. Hurt her. Saw it the second I said it. She freaked the hell out and took off.”

What scared me most was I’d had the overwhelming compulsion to chase her down and kiss the hell out of her, and kissing was a no go. That shit was too damned personal.

But maybe it would have been enough to warm whatever had gone cold.

It’d felt like the chill of snow. The freezing of rain.

The heat always boiling between us had evaporated and morphed into razor sharp shards of ice in less than a blink of an eye. So I’d put a hole through my door with my fist instead. My throbbing hand was nothing less than an effective end to that delusional, dangerous impulse.