Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(33)

I whimpered.

“How many?” he demanded.

“Four.”

I couldn’t keep the word in. It was as if he pulled it from me.

I watched the thick roll of his throat as he swallowed hard, and his attention shot off to the side as if he needed to gather himself, before he looked back. Something desperate coated his severe words. “Did you want it? To be with me?”

The answer was a tight rasp when I finally forced it from between my lips. “Yes.”

The scary thing was how much I’d wanted it.

“Do you still want it?”

Maybe he saw the answer in my eyes, in the way my lips parted and a needy breath left me. Because in a flash, his mouth came down on mine, and his big hands wrapped around both sides of my neck, his fingers extending all the way around to the back.

Possessive.

The shock died on my tongue when he licked at it in a dominating dance. Energy stirred, that thrill I’d lived for speeding free and fast, igniting every nerve ending and skating across my skin.

I moaned, fingers tugging at his hair. “Lyrik.”

“Tell me,” he mumbled against my lips, “tell me you still want it.”

“Yes.”

It was all the response he needed.

He kissed me like I wasn’t the fragile, broken girl who’d crumbled in his arms last night.

A small piece of me fell for him. Right then. Right there.

He spoke between his kisses, his voice raw. “I’m here for the next two months. Let me spend it erasing every memory of that bastard from every inch of you. Until he no longer exists and I’m the only thing you know.”

A breath escaped me, and my heart beat so hard I could hear it pounding in my ears, this constant boom, boom, boom that raced to keep up with my speeding thoughts.

Because there were some wounds that went too deep they could never be erased. But God, I wanted him to try. To erase some of this acute loneliness. To sate some of this inescapable attraction.

All I wanted was to feel and to touch and to be touched. To love and to be loved.

But I was no fool. Lyrik wasn’t going to love me. Not like I needed to be.

Pulling back an inch, he cupped both sides of my jaw. His eyes searched my face. “Yeah? We take it as slow or as fast as you want.” He squeezed. “All you’ve have to say is no.”

My tongue darted out to wet my dry lips, and the raspy, imploring words tumbled out before I could stop them. “What if it hurts…when you leave?”

God. He must think I was pathetic.

Darkness flashed, those eyes setting like the sun, and one side of that delicious mouth tweaked with a half smirk that tore at my insides. Because it was every kind of sad.

“Baby, I promise you, I’m not worth the pain.”

“We’re a terrible idea,” I murmured in some kind of last-ditch effort for him to come to the senses that neither of us seemed to be able to find, wishing I could push him away when I just kept getting closer.

Sinking deeper.

Our voices quieted with each word we spoke, the tension increasing. Thickening the air. Our breaths strained and our bodies stretched tight.

“Yeah. A terrible, terrible idea,” he said. “All these months you pushed me away? You were right…everything you said. I’m rotten to the core. And f*ck…know I should stay away…tried to all f*cking day. Told myself again and again to leave you alone. To let you be. And here I am. I told you last night…I can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop wanting you. And I can’t stop thinking that maybe you might need me just as bad as I need you.”

He reached out and ran his knuckle down the side of my cheek, turning it to lift my chin toward him. I didn’t flinch, just blinked up at this beautiful, dark, menacing boy who didn’t seem so menacing after all.

We seemed to be set to pause. Hung up on which direction to go. Whether to push rewind or flash-forward or delete.

“I don’t believe you,” I finally whispered, so soft it was barely heard. I reached up to clutch the neck of his T-shirt, exposing more of the ink littering his body across his strong chest and climbing up his neck.

I trembled, wanting to touch and taste and explore. For a few moments, to feel like the old me. That was the problem with Lyrik West. He zapped that brave girl back to life. But I wasn’t sure who she was anymore. “I think you might be a little perfect underneath it all.”

I could almost feel his heart rate increase. “Believe me, it just gets uglier the deeper you get.”

It felt a little like it was his last warning.

“Funny, because the more I see, the more I like.”

A small smile kicked up at the corner of his mouth, and he shifted and wrapped one arm around my waist, pulled me close, up against all his hard and heat and danger, the other palm coming soft against my cheek.

“Blue,” he whispered.

Blue.

My nose scrunched in confusion.

He smiled wider and ran his fingers through my hair. “Wild, wicked Red and sweet, beautiful Blue.”

Oh.

Shit.

Yeah. A little too perfect. And every single kind of wrong.

Chewing at my bottom lip, I let loose a soggy laugh. As if maybe I could float away from the heaviness of this world, as long as I was safe in the security of his arms. “Are you accusing me of being bipolar?” I teased, my feet barely touching unsettled ground.