Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(95)

Ash and Zee were just coming through the front door as we hit the landing.

Shit.

But I wasn’t letting this go.

I refused to let go of this rigid, impenetrable man who was so obviously broken.

Because God, maybe he needed me just as badly as I needed him.

Maybe he needed a little saving, too.

It didn’t matter who was there to witness it.

I didn’t care.

Because what I cared about was him.

What I cared about was what he said and what it meant and where it would lead us.

“Lyrik, please,” I begged as I grasped at the tail of his shirt.

Lyrik spun around. The words he spat from his tongue were low and vicious and vile. “Please, what, Red?”

He was looking at me like I was garbage.

Dirty.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what this was,” he continued. “Two months and you got what you wanted. You f*ck like a pro. Congrats.”

A strangled gasp wheezed into my lungs and I recoiled. Mortified. Slammed with a misery so great it nearly dropped me to my knees. After everything I’d revealed to him. After what I’d trusted him with. And this was his response?

My hand cocked back before I could stop it, and I barely registered the force of it as it flew through the air toward that too-f*cking-pretty face.

Guess I was right all along.

Lyrik West was nothing but a bastard.





THERE ARE TIMES IN your life you know without a doubt you’re doing everything wrong.

When you know you’re nothing but a liar and a bastard and a cheat.

Hands down, this was one of them.

It was like watching everything go down in slow motion while your mind’s still set to real time.

Taking everything in while there’s not a f*cking thing in the world you can do to stop it.

Especially when you were the piece of shit who’d set it all into motion in the first place.

I could see it coming, and I braced myself for the bitter bite of her hand.

Welcomed it, really.

Hate me, Blue. Hate me.

It was the only option we had left. Not after I’d f*cked it all up.

The crack echoed off the walls.

Vibrating with the magnitude of the wound I’d just inflicted.

Hate me, Blue. Hate me.

I knew those words would cut her deep. But they were the only ones that could maybe undo the words that had left me without permission upstairs. The only ones that’d maybe keep this gorgeous girl from looking at me as if I were her savior and her light and her life.

Because God knew that’s the way I’d come to look at her.

My cheek stung like a bitch when she drew her trembling hand away. Holding her wrist, she cradled her hand against her chest, her expression altogether horrified and hurt and maybe a little bit shocked that she’d actually hit me.

I deserved it.

I f*cking deserved every repercussion that would come my way for letting loose those words from my mouth.

Both the ones that left me without permission upstairs and the ones spurred by this blinding panic still beating at my heart.

Who didn’t deserve it was Blue.

Brave, beautiful Blue.

I wanted to shout a thousand apologies. To drop to my knees like a goddamned beggar and pray for forgiveness. But like she’d told me before, it was a good thing my apologies were rare because they didn’t mean all that much anyway. And me opening my mouth now would only hurt her more.

Should have turned around and walked away the first time she made me feel different. The first time she filled me with regret and remorse. The first time she made me feel those flickers of joy.

Knew where they would lead.

And like a bastard, I’d chased her all the same. Again and again. Unable to let her go.

Selfish.

That’s what I did. I took those bits of good I’d been given and crushed them.

And right now? There was no question that’s exactly what I’d done.

Crushed up an innocent girl because I was too f*cking weak to stay away.

My red-headed siren who was trying with all her might to stand tall, to pretend I hadn’t just slayed her straight.

But it was those warm wells of blue that told no lies.

I felt it in my gut and it trembled around my blackened heart. That feeling I couldn’t afford to feel.

You sing my soul.

God, this girl made me want more.

I looked away, to the ground.

Loyalty.

That was the one good thing I had, and it didn’t matter how much this was killing me. How badly I was hurting her. This had to end. I had to stop this madness before it was too late. Before I obliterated the lines that I kept pushing and pushing further out. A fool to pretend like I wouldn’t eventually cross them.

Slowly, Tamar stepped back, her head shaking as if she were trying to orient herself to the disaster that’d just gone down.

We’d been a bomb waitin’ to go off.

That bundle of fireworks just waiting for a match.

And I just loved playing with fire.

“Fuck you,” she finally said, her mouth trembling, soaked with the same tears that hadn’t stopped falling since that kid had recognized her back at the club.

Yeah.

Fuck me.

Because all I wanted to do was reach out. Hold her. Beg her to stay when without a doubt it was past time for her to go. I’d already let this drag on for far too long.