Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(34)

He laughed, a throaty sound I felt in my belly. “All I’m accusing you of is being every single thing I like. Rough and hard and brash. Sweet and soft. This sexy little contradiction I want to decipher, bit by bit.”

My insides shook. “Now you’re just asking for trouble, rock star.”

He leaned in close to my ear. “And I can’t wait until I’m drowning in it.”

Lust pooled low and I clutched him tighter.

The truth was, I wanted that, too. To know this perplexing, infuriating man. Inside and out. Mind and body and soul.

Would he let me?

“This is crazy,” I said.

“Probably.”

A smile wobbled on my mouth as I looked up at him. “I’m not even sure I like you.”

He laughed a rumbly sound. “Sure you do. At least a little bit.”

He brushed his full lips across mine. I was right. They were just as delicious as that damned apple.

Softening, he ran his thumb over my cheek. “You’re so damned pretty. You make me lose my head.”

No, losing their head was all on me. Because there was no question. I had to be insane. Completely, totally insane.

Because I knew better than this. Was stronger than this. Had rebuilt my world to become who I wanted to be.

And with a touch, Lyrik brought it crashing down.

Straightening, I put an inch of space between us, needing a breath so I could try to make sense of this complicated situation. “How does this work?”

He shrugged. “However we want it to.” My favorite smile worked its way on to his mouth. The deadly kind. The kind that could desolate whole cities unaware. Just a flash and you were owned. “Think we should start by you getting back over here so I can kiss the hell outta you. Now that I’ve started, I’m not sure I want to stop.”

My eyes dropped into slits. “Just you and me? Because there’s no chance I’m going to sit inside my apartment watching a flock of sexed-up girls stumble out your door every morning.”

A low, satisfied chuckle rolled in his chest and he edged closer, hand cinching tight on my hip. “There she is…Red.” He dipped down closer. Sincerity wove through his expression. “That was wrong, Blue. Pulling that shit with you. Shoving something in your face you didn’t deserve to see. Two months…just you and me. And I promise you…you’re the only girl who’ll be in my bed.”

And Lyrik kissed me.

Kissed me like he didn’t want to stop.

I guess I really had lost my mind.

The distorted heart engraved between my breasts throbbed.

Guard your heart.

Guard your heart.

Because I was worried this boy might just be the one to steal it.





I SLID INTO THE secluded horseshoe booth with my crew. Ash was sitting directly across from me and Zee was stuck in the middle. His eyes flicked between the two of us.

I got why his nerves were all kinds of rattled.

Zee was the blameless of the bunch. Not a malicious bone in his honest body. Sometimes I wished he wouldn’t have stepped up to stand in his brother’s shoes. Mark had gotten messed up, mixed so deep in the corruption that was our lives, he’d lost his in the middle of it.

When Mark died two years ago, Zee took his place as drummer. He wanted his brother’s legacy to live on through him. I totally got it. That didn’t mean I was okay with him seeing the ugly shit that defined our world. With this kid getting tainted by it. Not when it felt a little like he was our responsibility.

“She good?” Ash asked with a rigid lift of his chin. The lights strobing from the stage just barely lit up the lines set in his face. Ash was normally as casual as they came. Nonchalant. Everything a f*cking joke. Until the shit going down wasn’t funny at all.

“Yeah. She’s good.” I swallowed down some of the violence still screaming through my veins. Seeking a release. Because if I was being honest, I wasn’t sure she really was. “Is that piece of shit good?”

Ash shook out his right hand, flexed his fist. “Yeah, man. Taken care of. I don’t think anyone’s going to see the cocksucker hanging around Charlie’s any time soon.”

I nodded tight, because I really wanted it to be me who got to beat the * bloody. But Ash knew me well enough to know when I needed to be sidelined. Saw it the second I was about to come unhinged and things were going to get ugly.

Last night when I’d left Tamar and gone back to my apartment, I’d tossed and turned all f*cking night. Worried about her when I didn’t have the right to. Fought the goddamned overwhelming compulsion to track down the f*cker who’d hurt her and inflict whatever pain he’d caused her a hundredfold.

What I’d fought against hardest was the need to go back to her place and wrap her in my arms. Hold her and soothe her pain away.

And that right there was what led me to the decision to walk. To turn away and never look back. Just like I should have done in the first place.

I couldn’t afford to worry.

To care.

I had convinced myself getting involved in her mess would just make it messier.

Get her dirtier.

And I knew without a doubt this girl didn’t need that. She needed no part of my black, filthy heart.

She needed the good shit I couldn’t give.

Funny how it hadn’t taken Ash all that much to persuade me to head down to the bar for a couple drinks. Not after I’d spent the entire damned day watching out my window for a glimpse of her. To make sure she was okay. Guilt ate at me like some kind of flesh-decaying disease, because no question it was me who’d pushed her over the edge.