Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(59)

So f*cking sweet.

“You taste so damned good.” It was a groan at her mouth.

Red, delicious lips. Tart little tongue.

Red.

She moaned.

My movements were frantic, desperate as I edged her into my apartment and flung the door shut behind us.

Darkness swallowed the room. All except for the glittering lights of Savannah filtering through the balcony doors. That and the flashes of lightning blanketing the sky.

With each one, short gasps would escape Tamar’s mouth. Those hot little sounds wound me up tighter than I’d ever been. Tension curled between us. It was this fierce energy blistering across my skin that I couldn’t shake.

Sucked into her turbulence.

So hard and brash and sexy as f*ck. Simple and sweet and good.

Couldn’t even begin to make sense of the enigma.

Instead, she let me discover it. Bit by bit.

Rain pelted against the windows and beat against the roof. It echoed through the walls, a pounding rhythm. It filled up the air with need and lust and an insistent greed.

My dick strained. Pressing hard and hot at the seam of the jeans I’d thrown on right before I’d practically dragged her back to my bike after whatever the f*ck had happened on the beach.

After she’d lain out there in the night and let me snap picture after picture. Let me urge her to show me what she wanted me to see. Her expression had knocked the breath from me. So full of faith and hope. And still brimming with the old pain that threatened to split me in two.

Eradicating it had become like some kind of twisted, f*cked-up Holy Grail.

Never had I wanted to destroy someone the way I wanted to destroy that bastard without a name. Had never ached for vengeance. For blood. For revenge.

Scariest part was why I wanted it so f*ckin’ bad. Why I felt like I needed to wrap up this girl and keep her safe from all the atrocities of this world.

The rational side of me knew I should be pushing her away. I needed to shut down this insanity before it went any further.

But that logic became a dull, nagging sound against the roar to wrap her up and protect her. To coax her out of that shell. To let this girl shine because she was the most vivid thing I’d ever seen.

A rush of dizziness swirled through my head. I needed her so damned bad.

Fucked. I was completely, irrevocably f*cked.

Touching her felt like a tease. Like torment.

I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been sent as additional punishment for what I’d done.

Because not a soul was perfect. But goddamn, if this girl wasn’t perfect for me.

And soon she would become another piece ripped from this half-life.

Guilt clenched my heart, and I pushed her up against the wall, a little rough. Just as my hands gently cupped her face.

Conflict and contradiction.

“Red.”

Flattening myself to her body, I rocked against her, my hard cock begging at her belly.

A tiny moan rolled from her tongue, and I got lost in her intense blue eyes as she stared up at me.

In emphasis, I squeezed her face. Giving her an out.

No question, both of us would fare a whole hell of a lot better if she took it.

“Going to f*ck you tonight, Red. I’m not going to stop until I make you mine. Until I erase a little more of that * from your skin. Not unless you tell me no. Tell me no and you can walk right out that door.”

Walk away.

Please.

She fisted both hands in my shirt. “I wouldn’t let you stop if you tried.”

On a growl, I spun her around and started backing her down the short hall, kissing her like the madman she made me while I pulled her shirt over her head. Under it, she still had on that tiny piece of red fabric she liked to call a bikini.

Truth?

The barely-there slip of material was my utter demise.

Her tits swelled over the top and the tat engraved just above them heaved with every breath she took.

“Don’t stop,” she pled at my mouth. She slipped her hands under my shirt, her palms flat on my stomach as she pushed it up and dragged it over my head.

Tremors rippled at her touch.

Mother. Fuck.

A torrent of emotion swam across her features. “Don’t stop. Please, Lyrik, make me feel. Let me feel everything. I never thought I would again. Not until you.”

Blue. This was Blue.

Innocent.

Vulnerable.

No trace of the mask.

And I needed to keep my cool. To take it slow when I was overwhelmed by the urge to tear into all her snowy flesh. To devour and consume. To conquer this girl—heart and mind and body and soul.

Because maybe it’d been me who hadn’t felt anything in far too long. Instead I’d just been living out this never-ending hell of hollowed-out regret and overwhelming blame. All the bodies that’d been under me and over me? I couldn’t remember a face.

Meaningless.

Not a name. Not one.

Not until her.

Red.

Unforgettable.

Blue.

“Tell me what you need.”

She bit her plush bottom lip and her brow pinched with the magnitude of her confession.

“I need you.”

Fuck.

I picked her up and she wound her legs around my waist. Nose to nose, I quickly carried her into the bedroom and laid her sideways across my bed, keeping her legs wrapped around me where I stood at the edge.