Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(74)

A strangled sound lodged in his throat. He spoke around it, ignoring my plea. “So many I can’t count. So many I didn’t even try to keep track. So many I don’t remember.”

Cruel.

Why did he have to be so cruel?

That same jealousy I’d experienced earlier at the bar ignited a path of fire through me. A spike of the venom that had roiled in me during the last two weeks. The sting coursed through my veins.

I never wanted to be one of those girls.

Forgettable.

Used up and tossed aside.

But not even that could stop me from untying the knot at the bottom of my shirt and letting the fabric fall from my shoulders.

Because I was helpless.

My mind was entranced by his words and the despair coating his expression.

Shivers covered me under his intensity, my spirit wrapped up in the energy, that building storm gaining speed.

“And you…it’s you I can’t get off my mind. You I can’t rid from my thoughts. You I can’t wash from my body. It’s you I can’t forget.”

With his words, goosebumps sprang to my flesh.

Covering me whole.

Holding me hostage.

“Shut up,” I told him weakly. Nothing he said now could possibly matter. This was the end and the seconds were ticking by.

This was our last goodbye.

He flicked the top button of his jeans, and those dark eyes grew darker. The gold and grey flecks dimmed to pitch. Setting like the sun where I was sucked into his endless twilight. Where I floated somewhere between light and his dark. Lost somewhere between the malice, spite, and danger, and this soft, soft boy who’d taken the time to see me.

Taken the time to care.

I matched him move for move. We both shrugged out of our pants at the same time.

I went for my bra.

“Don’t,” he said, stalking forward. He approached, taking up my space and my breath and my reason. My head fell back farther and farther until his too-pretty face hovered an inch above mine. He wrapped one of his arms around my back to keep me from falling.

It was then I knew. I already had.

He’d taken me piece by piece until there was nothing recognizable. Until I didn’t know who I was except for his.

Eyes roved, voracious, as if he needed to memorize me the way I’d memorized him.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Those sounds wheezing from his lungs came harder and shorter and faster.

Whatever had been holding him back snapped.

Sheared.

Or maybe Lyrik cracked.

He scooped me up as if I weighed nothing. Arms encircled me. His kiss overpowered. His body prevailed.

“Red,” he muttered against my mouth, twisting a hand in my hair and yanking it back to gain him access to my jaw, to my neck, to the disfigured heart that seemed to have come alive. He pushed me back on the bed, and he twisted out of his underwear at the same moment his mouth latched onto my breast.

He sucked hard and I bucked my hips. A pleasured pain shot through my body, pumping fuel to the desire that became a steady beat between my thighs.

“I’d never hurt you, Blue,” he murmured softly just before he bit down.

You already have.

“Don’t call me that,” I implored, low and wispy. One last-ditch effort to cling to Red, the girl who couldn’t be touched. The one who wasn’t vulnerable and trembling in his arms. I cinched my hands in his hair, yanking and tugging and demanding more.

He growled, his dick heavy and hard and more than ready where it pushed at the inside of my thigh. Inches from where I needed him most.

This was the one thing I knew for sure. Of all the things I was certain about.

I’d found freedom in Lyrik’s touch.

Gained the belief not all hands were vicious.

The assurance not all touches were vile.

The rest was a mess of confusion and disorder and doubt.

He pushed up onto his hands, his hair as wild as his eyes. My chest rose and fell. As if our hearts had caught time. Both quick and jutted. Intense and free.

He ran his fingers through my hair. A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “You were sent to torment me, weren’t you?” he asked.

The words slid out close to a tease though it rode on the current of the madness he’d provoked within the room. “Always lookin’ like my favorite fantasy.”

He almost laughed, but the intonation was sad. “Temptation. That’s what you are. An angel wrapped up in a demon’s body. Heaven and hell. A gift and my greatest demise.”

Confusion narrowed my eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Not much to get, baby. One look and you win.”

Despair clotted, heavy on my chest. “Then why does it feel like I’m going to lose?”

“Fuck…f*ck, Blue.” His shoulders bunched up as he pushed up onto his hands and dipped down to kiss me, our lips just barely brushing, tongue licking against mine. So, so soft. “If I could, baby, I’d give it all to you.”

My spirit ached. It groaned. A muddled turmoil ushered in by the abstract assertion. Questions swirled on the tip of my tongue, silenced by the sudden assault of his.

“Red.”

I yelped when he suddenly hauled me up from under my arms. He guided me onto my knees and turned me facing away.

That big body eclipsed mine from behind, and he leaned over and curled my hands close together around the metal frame of my headboard. One hand held me captive by the wrists.