Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(29)

But this…this…

Her.

She was hard and soft. Tattooed and clean. Vixen and angel.

Dirty and pure.

The war I’d been fighting regrouped for another battle. Screaming at me to run. Because my stomach twisted and my heart fisted tightly. A foreign feeling I barely remembered formed in my chest.

Gritting my teeth, I forced it down and instead pulled the rosy-bud of one of those tits into my mouth. I sucked at the pink, pebbled flesh, rolling it around my tongue. Flicking and tasting and teasing.

She arched and gasped.

A growl rumbled in my chest. “So damned hot…f*ck, Red…f*ck…you are every girl I’ve ever wanted.”

I didn’t even know what I was saying. The words were a mumbled mess. Logic not quite fully firing from my brain. All rational thought had been stripped from me as I made a move across the tattoo on her chest and on to her other tit. I lapped across the top of the curved swell before rising up to take that nipple in my mouth.

Nails scratched at my back and her hips bucked against mine.

Begging.

When I couldn’t take it a second longer, I climbed off the bed and unbuttoned my pants, stripping myself to my underwear while I watched Red writhe on the bed. Eyebrows drawn and pulled up tight. Hands fisting in the sheet below her.

Knew I was about five seconds from setting off that bundle of fireworks that sizzled and burned.

I crawled back over her and knelt between her legs. They were trembling. Rolling with need and lust. I gripped her knees, her skin hot and flushed and making my mouth water. My hands slid down and my fingers traced over the serpent and around the apple on the outside of her left thigh as I watched her blue eyes flare.

At the contact, she released a tiny cry.

The sound had me straining harder. I leaned forward and bent over her leg so I could dip down and get a good taste of that tat. My tongue dragged over its lines, across her skin. I just kept moving, taking a path over the top of her thigh and to the inside. I sucked at the tender skin that met the edge of her panties as I gathered the tiny bit of material at her hips in my hands.

They needed to go.

I started to drag them down.

Red whimpered again, and there was something about it that sent a tremor of unease through me. Her legs clenched down around my sides.

Not to hold me close.

But to keep me at bay.

They were shaking. Almost as badly as her arms were shaking at her sides.

I jerked my head up to look at her face.

“Red,” I whispered urgently. At the sight of her expression, I scrambled back like I’d dipped my fingers in flames.

Blank panic.

Her eyes were wide and trained on the ceiling. But somehow I got she wasn’t really there. Not with me. Not anymore. Her body was rigid and tears streamed unchecked from the corners of her eyes and into her hair.

This time when she whimpered it sounded more like a sob.

“Red,” I whispered again. A whisper that was close to begging, because I’d beg if it’d bring her back from wherever she’d gone.

My heart pounded. Fuck. I was so far out of my element, I didn’t have a single clue what to do. I moved back enough to give her space.

To let her breathe.

But there was a piece inside that wouldn’t let me get far. Even under the warning roaring in my head to f*cking up and run. It was the piece that urged me to comfort her. To soothe her. To take it away.

Some f*cked-up piece that got all twisted and mangled when I looked at her like this.

When she was completely vulnerable and exposed.

Angel.

Innocent.

She rolled onto her side and drew her knees protectively to her chest. Her head just kept going deeper, burrowing into the pillow.

Her body wracked and shuddered, heaving with sobs that got louder as she curled tighter. Like she’d give anything to disappear.

Again, my heart fisted in my chest. Painfully. So tight I couldn’t breathe. Like this thing—like a monster inside me—was suffocating me. An inhuman swell of protectiveness I couldn’t afford to feel. Rage set up a slow boil just under the surface of my skin.

Get out. Go. Go. Go. You can’t do this.

Helpless, I climbed to my feet, searching her room. For what, I didn’t know.

An answer.

Or maybe a name.

Yeah.

A f*cking name. Because I was pretty sure I needed someone to kill. To hunt down whoever had hurt her.

I looked back at the girl who was lying there half naked, shivering like she’d been left for dead out in the snow. I grabbed a blanket and covered her.

“Red,” I whispered. Cautious, I ran my fingers through her hair.

She flinched but didn’t freak out like she had before.

“Red, baby, Red. It’s me…it’s Lyrik, I won’t hurt you…I promise, I won’t hurt you,” I kept murmuring as I gathered her in my arms.

Crossing another line.

I carried her to the big plush chair she had in the corner of her room and settled her on my lap.

She kept crying and trembling in my arms.

“Red.” I rubbed my hands up and down her back. Rocking her. Shushing her. Anything to take it away.

To make it better.

Fuck. Why couldn’t she have just said no?

I’d begged her to.

Then neither of us would be here. Right where we shouldn’t be.