Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(52)

Frantic, I pushed my jeans down to around my thighs, because I was just greedy enough to take a little more.

“Slow,” I struggled to say.

Slow. Slow. Slow.

I kept chanting it in my head. Even though she was begging for it, I knew Blue wasn’t ready for sex.

I was starting to wonder if I was. If I could handle her. Even though I was dying to sink into her.

I slid my bare cock against her, gathering all the slick desire coating her center, and clutched her shoulders while I rocked against her.

A small gasp escaped her. Confusion and desire.

I did it again, getting her closer because I couldn’t seem to get her close enough.

No. I never moved enough to f*ck her, even though with one slip, I’d be home.

I just moved against her like some twisted f*ck who needed to get off.

I made sure to drag back far enough so the ridge of my throbbing head flicked across her clit.

Our faces were a breath apart, our lips just touching, eyes wild and open and vulnerable.

And I rocked and rocked and rocked. Using up this girl who was supposed to be using me.

I was beginning to wonder who of us needed who.

“Lyrik.” She gripped me harder, pressing her tits to my chest as she tried to get closer.

“Let it go,” I whispered at her ear.

She shuddered below me when she did, nails breaking skin, the little pricks of pain the perfect conflict up against the pleasure that had my body wound up tight. Tighter and tighter.

So warm.

So wet.

Too much.

Fuck. Me.

Burning, agonizing bliss.

I came all over her belly with a groan.

My head dropped and I buried my face in her neck, sucking in any air I could find.

All of it was her.

Every breath Blue.

Reluctantly, I shifted and gazed down at her. I brushed the back of my fingers down her cheek. Those blue eyes swam as they stared up at me, tears still streaming over her temples and into her hair.

Blue.

Sweet, soft, trusting Blue.

“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.

She blinked and swallowed hard, voice sincere. “I’m not.”





I DRUMMED MY FINGERTIPS across my top lip.

Paced.

Then paced again.

The blinds were drawn in my bedroom, the dwindling sunlight beyond breaking through at the edges. I glanced back at my desk where my old Canon sat like a beacon to my past. Like a bridge to everything that once had been and everything that felt just out of reach.

It was as if I simply dragged my fingertips across the divots and grooves, I’d be transported back there. With a twist of the rings, I’d be focused on their faces, dialed into all the things that had once been important to me.

My goals and hopes and dreams.

I’d thought they’d been obliterated. Wiped out.

But there they were…waiting just below the surface. Where Lyrik kept scratching and scratching and scratching. Exposing more of who I once had been.

My spirit throbbed with possibility.

Scariest part? All those possibilities had begun to revolve around him. Coming to life under his touch and his words and those dark, mesmerizing eyes.

But I never claimed to be sane when it came to him.

Three sharp knocks at the door and my heart rate spiked. The few threads of reservation snapped, jarring me forward.

Before I lost my nerve, I scooped up my camera. For a moment, my eyes squeezed closed as I cradled it like a lost child. As if I was holding a missing part of myself.

A loss regained.

A casualty resurrected.

Another knock rang against the wood, and I spun on my heel and headed toward the door.

Eager.

Hopeful.

Different.

I twisted the lock, and before I could turn the knob, Lyrik was pushing his way across the threshold.

I gasped, then giggled like a giddy schoolgirl when he came for me and wound both of those strong arms around my waist. Pulled me up close against his overpowering body. His presence so thick and heavy and bold.

I’d once taken it as a warning.

A foreboding omen of the danger that was to come.

I never would have imagined it would be safety I found in his arms.

Big hands slid up my sides, traveling all the way to my neck, leaving a trail of chills in their wake. He urged my head back so he could kiss me. Quick and hard. Stealing my breath.

He pulled back. Ebony eyes flashed their light.

Mischief and mayhem and the promise of a blinding, blissful ride.

I was so ready to take it.

“Hi.” A smirk took hold of that lush mouth, full lips hovering, strands of black hair flopping across his forehead as he bent me back. Clearly, the arrogant, cocky boy had come out to play.

No one would see me complain.

I loved when he was this way. Loved when he was playful and free.

But I loved it just as much when he was intense and vulnerable. Loved when he protected and loved when he pushed.

Shit.

I gulped over the disturbance that rumbled in my chest and climbed my throat.

The energy suddenly manifested in the form of a shiver across my skin.

The buzz before the strike.

“Hi,” I whispered back, the word hoarse.

He’d moved his hands to my ribs to keep me steady, and edged back and let his gaze travel down my bowed body.