Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(71)

Hard.

Bitter.

Maybe even disappointed.

He stared me down for a few heartbreaking moments. Jaw clenched, the heavy bob of his throat was evident as he swallowed. Then he turned his back on me and walked out the door. He took all that potent energy with him, leaving the cavernous space hollow and vacant.

I slumped forward. The cutting pain was so intense I gasped around it.

You can’t hurt me.

But I knew the truth.

Lyrik West was the only one who could.





IT WAS JUST AFTER three twenty when I finally made it home that night. I plodded up the exterior stairs toward my apartment. Exhaustion and sorrow weighed me down. As if I were bound by chains, my body drained, and my heart sluggish. Darkness clung to the star-studded sky, the trill of bugs a constant hum where they feasted in the trees. The humid air like a mold to my body.

But I felt cold.

Clammy.

As if I might have gone into shock.

Gripping the railing, I forced myself up the stairs. The click of my heels rang out like an exclamation of my loneliness. Like a stark reminder of the solitude.

My hand was shaking as I fumbled to find the right key. I slid it into the lock and let myself into the stark isolation of my apartment.

A dismal sigh worked its way free? and I tossed my keys to the kitchen counter and wandered down the hall into the bathroom so I could wash the mask from my face.

I was getting so goddamned tired of wearing it.

Tired of pretending I was something I was not.

Tired of hiding from the past that rushed to catch up to me, competing to become a part of my future.

I knew the choice was coming.

I’d either have to face it.

Go home and confront my past head on.

Or I’d have to run.

Leave.

I just didn’t know if I had the strength to tackle either one and I wasn’t quite sure where that left me.

Running a cloth under warm water, I washed my face, erasing the traces of the hard, cold girl.

I dropped it into the sink, and stared at the face devoid of makeup. At the desolation swimming behind the blue eyes that blinked hopelessly back at me.

“You did this,” I said aloud. But it wasn’t Tamar King who was listening. It was the girl who was screaming, begging me to find her.

Pushing it down, I flicked off the light switch and headed toward my empty bed where I knew I’d toil in the vacancy. Toss with the turmoil. Where I’d be pulled in every direction until I was torn to shreds.

Where I’d wake in the morning and try to pick up the pieces without the first clue of how to put myself back together. Not when I no longer knew the pattern of the puzzle.

A soft knock sounded against my front door. My breath shot from me and I froze in the middle of my room, instinctively knowing it was him.

I swallowed hard, unsure of which direction to follow. My heart begged for one more glimpse before he was gone, while my head said to let him go. It was for the best.

All along, I’d known better.

Known better than to let myself get so deep.

Known better than to let him explore and invade. To get in and under my skin where he’d marked and scarred, like this invisible ink stamped across my heart where he’d left his emblem.

Two more knocks. The second came far behind, the sound trailing off.

As if it were done in resignation.

In defeat.

With a final please.

Before I could think better of it, I moved toward the front door, drawn through the darkness.

To the darkness.

To the menacing, malicious man who I knew would be standing on the other side.

Slowly, I turned the lock.

The grinding slide of metal echoed through the quiet.

Even slower, I opened the door.

I guess I liked the pain.

I nearly buckled with the torment just the sight of him summoned, the fiery need and the earth-shattering energy.

That dizzying buzz vibrated in the atmosphere in tiny, explosive shockwaves.

Obsidian eyes stared down at me from where he stood outside my door. Hands shoved in his pockets. Shoulders slack. So different than the bold, untouchable boy. This was someone who’d been touched.

I gulped.

God.

He was beautiful.

Gorgeous in a devastating way.

Because that’s what I felt, standing there, trembling at his feet.

Devastated.

Stupid girl.

“Hey,” he said, his elbows lifting out as he shrugged with his hands still firmly seated in his pockets.

As if maybe this cocky, arrogant boy had no clue what to do with himself.

“Hi.” It scraped up my throat.

Moments floated around us, the two of us prisoners to uncertainty and doubt, before he warily peered over my shoulder into the quiet of my apartment. His gaze had gone hard by the time he dragged it back to me. “You alone?”

Shame hit me square in the chest.

I dipped my chin and nodded.

Relief and frustration filled his exhale, and I noticed him look to the ground as he ran a nervous hand through his hair. He looked up, chewing at that bottom lip, that glimpse of vulnerability disappearing with the wind, ushering in his storm. “One thing I never took you for was a tease.”

Bastard.

Standing there acting as if this was my fault.

I managed a scoff that I was certain came across broken. “What the hell do you care?”