Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(17)

I had this sick compulsion to track him when he’d come sauntering out his door in all his notorious rock-star glory, stealing more of my breath when I’d catch a glimpse of his dark, wild hair, those big hands shoved in his pockets, body powerful and jaw rigid.

Harder still was stoically pretending he didn’t exist during the few times he’d come into the bar. I really hated admitting the pang of displeasure I felt when I realized he’d decided to pretend I didn’t exist. To respect my wishes to leave me alone.

It was what I’d wanted, after all.

Until it wasn’t.

Because worst of all?

It was the time spent sitting on my living room floor with my back propped against my front door.

Lost in his deep, haunting voice.

It floated on the dense air, as if the sadness it bore was alive, its ethereal fingers slipping through the cracks of his apartment into mine during the deepest, loneliest hours of the night.

As if voice and guitar wept as those vapors wrapped around me like ribbons of his sorrow. Each time, he’d play the same song. It was a song I’d never heard before, other than coming from within the walls of his apartment, the lyrics muted and obscured, though the message was clear.

Sorrow.

In those few foolish moments? I hazarded this idea we had become partners to the other’s void. Filling up that dreadful, hollow space. As if we somehow fit.

Because the anguish in his voice?

It promised he was as empty as me.

That emptiness was blatant in the times I caught him watching me, too. In the moments when the intensity in those dark, cryptic eyes spiked with something regretful and real. Overridden in shame. Gone before I could give it a name.

Like I said, foolish.

Shaking off the thoughts, I grabbed the railing and jogged up the steps.

A loud clatter coming from his apartment slowed my ascent.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he cursed in a quick panic, his unmistakable voice coming from his open window.

Cautiously, I edged up one step and then another.

My heart was beating like crazy when I hit the landing, a gasp shooting from me when his door suddenly flew open. A billow of smoke came filtering out.

“Shit,” he said again, his door standing wide open while he disappeared back inside, clearly not noticing my presence.

At a loss to stop myself, I inched forward.

The old, broken pieces inside me flailed, fighting to break free, that na?ve, ignorant girl led by curiosity.

And that was the root of it all, why I knew I should stay away.

Lyrik West threatened to zap her back to life.

“God damn it,” I heard him mutter.

Another shiver of unease wound with the pique of interest that traveled my spine.

The buzz before the strike.

In hesitation, I sucked in a breath, held it in as I tiptoed forward.

Drawn.

Like one of those ditsy actresses in a horror flick you knew was walking straight into a trap.

You know the kind. That senseless girl who runs up the stairs where there’s obviously no possible chance of escape, stumbles and falls flat on her face the second before she has a knife impaled through her heart?

Yeah. Her.

So rash and predictable, yet here I was, inching closer.

The pull.

How was it possible this man held some kind of spell over me? But it was there. Invisible strings tied in all the wrong places, to my heart and my mind and my spirit, those wicked eyes tugging and tugging and tugging until I stood helpless before him.

Run.

But I found I couldn’t.

I stood at his open door. And just like that ignorant girl in the movie, I stepped forward in a daze.

My eyes widened as I took in his apartment that looked as if the Tasmanian Devil had come spinning through.

Smoke billowed from the oven, and Lyrik was tossing down potholders next to a burnt cake he’d yanked out and dumped on the stovetop.

“What happened in here?” Concerned words I had no business speaking were out before I could stop them, and Lyrik’s attention snapped toward me.

Shirtless.

Of course he was.

Could I have hoped he’d be any other way?

The sad part was I really didn’t know the answer to that.

He came closer, waltzing back to a small round table where another cake rested on a platter.

My eyes flicked to where a streak of chocolate frosting was smeared across one sharply angled cheek then down to the dab on his shoulder where he’d obviously tried to wipe his cheek without using his hands.

I had the overwhelming urge to lick it.

I sent up a thousand silent curses.

Dark eyes narrowed, and a flash of that same mischief lit them up.

I felt their spark from across the room.

“Oh, I’m thinking the better question would be what the hell are you doing in here, wouldn’t you, Red, considering you’re standing uninvited in my apartment? Lookin’ like a pin-up girl straight outta my favorite fantasy, no less.”

The words came out sounding like he didn’t know whether to be angry or amused.

I glanced down at my attire, at my sleeveless floral-printed button-down blouse with the bottom tied just below my breasts that revealed a thick strip of my belly, to the flare of my short shorts, down to my little white loafers.

“It’s hot out,” I mumbled almost incoherently, completely caught off guard.