Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(98)

Yanking the sliding door open wide, I didn’t slow, not even when Ash’s voice pelted me from behind, “Tell me, Lyrik! What f*cking good is that promise? Who’s it helping? You here with us because you care about us? About the band? Or are you doin’ it because you think you owe us?”

As soon as I was outside, I gripped my head while the sounds of the night shouted around me, the rustle of the cool breeze rolling with the remnants of a party happening below, the dull hum of bugs held fast to the trees. All of it hit me like an echo of the loneliness I felt crawling over me like a disease. That gaping hole just getting larger and larger.

In the distance, thunder rolled.

My chest felt so damned tight. So tight I was sure I couldn’t breathe.

I could almost see their faces, flickers of memories sent to test and taunt.

I could almost hear her name on my tongue.

But when I screamed, the name on my tongue was Blue.





Six Years Earlier

IT WAS 11:47 ON a Saturday night. Didn’t know when life had become one endless party. Maybe it’d been gradual. Maybe overnight. Really, the last year was nothin’ but a blur of highs and lows, moving into the small house with the guys, writing music, begging venues to take us, and feeling like we were living the all-American dream at the same damned time.

Music blared from the speakers, and I sat on the dingy, worn-down couch with my baby cradled on my lap, stroking her strings and caressing her body. Feeling that stir inside me, something powerful, like it was my soul bleeding the song.

Ash was all hyped up, the guy spouting off about how big Sunder was going to be as soon as we got our break to a handful of strays who’d made their way in. Kinda the way everyone did. No home. Lost. Feeling abandoned and looking for a purpose to claim.

Apparently, this was the place to find it.

Mark was in the corner, eyes mere slits, getting lost in his own isolated world. In the old recliner inclined to the right of the couch, Sebastian was already nodding out from the poison he’d pumped in his veins, and his kid brother Austin was sitting on the floor, nose pressed to the TV so he could hear above the disorder while he played a video game.

No doubt this wasn’t the best atmosphere for him, witnessing shit no thirteen-year-old kid should see. Wasn’t the worst, either. Had to be better than him getting knocked around by the * who was supposed to be his father, anyway.

Right in front of me was the coffee table. Lined up on top of it in a perfect row were five shots the color of licorice.

Beside them were three fat lines of coke.

I was just getting started.

I barely looked up with the knock at the door and the turn of the knob, the lift of voices as a new group of people piled in. Ash was all welcome and hospitality as he shook a couple hands and patted a few backs.

But it was a tingly awareness that had me lifting my head.

Brown eyes peered back at me.

Wide and curious.

Both shameless and shy.

They wandered my face, over my guitar, down to the shit littered on the coffee table, back up to me.

Whole time, I just stared.

Maybe it was the high getting the best of me.

That rush of adrenaline beating my heart like the roll of a drum, just waiting to propel me on to something great.

But there was no question I had to have this girl.

Her friend touched her arm to get her attention, and reluctantly, she dropped her gaze and followed her into the kitchen. Ash slung his arm around her friend’s shoulders, no doubt whispering something saccharine obscene.

Clearly, Ash had done the inviting.

But I was all too happy to participate in the taking.

She accepted a drink Ash poured. They filed back into the living room and grabbed a seat. And I could feel her edging in closer, just like I felt compelled to move her direction.

The night moved on, a blur of shots and lines and shouted voices, the music nonstop.

Still the girl remained my focus. My eyes drawn. Dick hard.

Wanting her more and more with every glimpse of brown eyes below those dark, dark lashes. Her tight little body begging to be devoured, skinny jeans and a ripped-up black T-shirt tied at the back where she constantly teased me with flashes of her milky-white skin.

Ash kept plying her with drinks, and I smiled when she was suddenly sitting next to me, sidling closer with each shot we took. I shared one with her. Wiped the droplet of liquor that clung to the edge of her upper lip. I licked it from my thumb. Then my mouth was on hers, and she was straddling my lap.

Kissing me and kissing me, my hands in her hair, her nails in my skin.

I climbed to my feet, taking her with me, never breaking that kiss.

Swore to God, I’d never tasted anything so sweet.

It was a high unlike anything I’d known.

I carried her to my room, set her on her feet, kicked the door shut behind us. Darkness swam through the room. But this girl was all I could see. A shadowy angel striking like the best kind of sin in the hazy light filtering in from the window.

For a beat, we both just stared, panting, before I edged forward. She gazed up at me with those big brown eyes as she lifted my shirt. Fingers explored across the skin of my stomach, almost cautious, and damn if that wasn’t the hottest damn thing I’d ever seen. Then she went to work on the fly of my jeans, and I was kicking off my shoes while ridding her of that top and her plain white bra.

I picked her up and tossed her on my bed.