Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)

by A. L. Jackson

  I slithered across the floor, winding through the high-top tables, making sure my hips and ass were doing the talking as I stalked toward the booth. The most saccharine of smiles twisted my face as I slid the cosmos to the girls who were only out for a little fun, but somehow had managed to stumble into my path of fury.

  They didn’t even seem to notice the force in which I slammed them down.

  Oh, but Lyrik did, eyes taking in his special drink. The bright red liquid sloshed over the rim and ran onto the table when I set it in front of him.

  With that cocky smirk, he glanced up at me. “What’s this?”

  I pressed my palms flat on the table, leaning in close to his face, voice as bitter as I felt. “It’s a red-headed slut. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  This time the girls took note, glaring at me as if I was suddenly a competitor, my flaming red hair making it all too clear I was referring to myself. One had the decency to look offended when Lyrik shot me a wry smile and opened that offensive mouth. “Actually, I was thinking I wanted a taste of a blue-eyed angel, but I’ll take you however I can get you.”

  My blue eyes narrowed as I struggled to contain the hurt and rage and all these convoluted emotions I didn’t want to feel, while his smile widened in satisfaction.

  He lifted the glass toward me then threw back his shot.

  Just as fast, he spit it out. Red liquid spewed across the table and dribbled down his perfect chin. Furious, he swiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What the fuck was that?”

  “That was a warning not to touch me again.”

  So maybe my secret red-headed slut recipe included a little cayenne and Tabasco. Nothing a real man couldn’t handle.

  In disbelief, he shook his head. “You really are a bitch, aren’t you?” He pushed the girls off him, squeezed out to stand, gestured for them to follow. “Come on, we’re out of here.”

  He dug in his pocket and pulled out two hundreds and flung them out in front of him, the bills fluttering down to land on the table. “Thanks for the drink,” he seethed.

  He stalked away like a howling, blackened storm, the two little bitches stumbling on their heels as they clamored after him.

  Thickness crawled up my throat, supplied by the regret pressing hard against my chest.

  You really are a bitch.

  Why did I care? This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? To chase him away. To throw out daggers and toss up shields, where I could seclude and conceal and isolate myself behind this barricade.

  Where it was safe.

  Ash shot me a knowing grin. “Oh, Tam Tam, remind me not to fuck with you, darlin’. Because you scare the shit outta me.”

  I swallowed hard.

  Yeah. Sometimes I scared myself, too.

  At 3:40 a.m., I pulled into my parking spot at the back of the building Charlie owned.

  On a sigh, I cut the engine and stepped from my car.

  My attention barely drifted over the bike parked in the spot reserved for Apartment Two, and I hardly registered the car parked awkwardly behind it.

  The mental exhaustion clinging to my bones didn’t allow me much thought other than the need to strip myself of these clothes and this mask of makeup so I could climb into the refuge of my bed.

  I suppressed a groan when I heard the music pumping from Apartment Two as I drew closer, the lift of giggles and annoying female voices.

  Awesome.

  I had new obnoxious neighbors. Tonight just got better and better.

  At least they never stayed since that apartment was used for short-term, weekly rentals.

  No doubt, Charlie made a small fortune on those rentals, but he refused to rent my place out the same way. The day I’d come crawling into his bar desperate for a job without an address to put on my application, he’d sat me down and asked me the last time I’d eaten. When I couldn’t answer, he’d fed me then put me in his truck and brought me here.

  This stranger had set me up and given me a home.

  It was the day the man had rescued a small piece of my shattered heart. Restored a little bit of my faith in humanity.

  I climbed the stairs, pulling at the railing to aid my ascent, my feet sore and my body weary.

  I was letting all this shit get to me, and I couldn’t afford it.

  I let myself into my dark apartment, kicked off my shoes at the door, and went directly to the bathroom to wash my face, then proceeded into my cozy room where I changed into a pair of sleep shorts and a tee before I flopped onto my plush, queen-sized bed with the pretty ornate metal headboard.

  It was intended to exude comfort.

  Instead I felt lost.

  Hollow.

  Alone.

  With a glance to my earbuds on my nightstand, I hesitated. Why in the world after the night I’d had would I even consider torturing myself this way?

  Apparently I was a masochist.

  Sitting up against my headboard, I grabbed them, plugged them into my phone, and flipped into my music player. I went directly to my favorite Sunder album, the one that had the song I couldn’t help but listen to again and again. Typically, Lyrik was the one in the background, there only to accompany Sebastian.

  But no.

  This song was all Lyrik.

  His voice was so different than the screaming, growling lyrics Sebastian was known for. Lyrik’s voice was deep and gravelly.

  Yet somehow smooth.

  Haunting and hypnotic.

  It always made me feel as if I was being sucked into the song, mellower than their standard thrashing style, like a dark lullaby rocking me to sleep night after night.

  I pressed the buds into my ears and let that voice wash over me, let it seep beneath my skin until it seemed as if the chords were played from somewhere within.

  The first time I’d heard this song two years ago? I’d wondered what the man behind it was really like. If he actually was in the kind of pain the song bled. If the sorrow behind his voice was real. I wondered if he might feel the same way I did inside.

  So full of regrets you didn’t know who you were anymore.

  Somehow, I’d felt as if I knew that man. Intimately. Wholly. A bond shared between complete strangers.

  That had been nothing more than a wicked dream.

  Because Lyrik wasn’t anything like I’d imagined him to be.

  Of course, at that time, I never believed we’d actually come face to face. Never thought he’d look at me and see something he wanted. Never thought he’d spark those old naïve fantasies.

  Tempt me and tease me and trip me.

  I bet he’d laugh when he watched me fall.

  Cruel.

  Breathing in, I closed my eyes, praying for the exhaustion to drag me into sleep. But instead I found myself feeling antsy. More uncomfortable in my skin than I’d felt in a long, long time.

  When I couldn’t force myself to sit still any longer, I slipped from beneath the covers and dropped to my knees in front of the chest at the base of my bed. Almost reluctantly, I lifted the lid, cautious of what waited inside.

  I pulled out the black, leather-bound case. It felt heavy in my hands as I carried it to my bed and laid it on my crisscrossed legs.

  It seemed like an hour passed while I just stared at it.

  Finally, I conjured up enough courage to unzip the case and pull out the photos inside.

  They were nothing controversial. Nothing obscene or secretive.

  Just bright bursts of lightning slicing across each sheet.

  There were hundreds of the black and white photos. Many had been photo-shopped with the splashes of colors I’d liked to add to them, changing the white strikes to purple and teal and any other color I could imagine, like colorful darts streaking through the sky and striking down against the parched ground.

  These images? They represented me.

  Before.

  When I was so eager to look upon beauty. To chase it. To seek the thrill of being in danger. Putting myself in harm’s way to
capture these absolutely awe-inspiring images.

  That was when I believed the world was out there just waiting for me to capture everything it had to offer.

  I’d taken my first picture of lightning when I was five years old. I’d stood at my grandpa’s side on our back porch while he pointed to the storm building over the mountains behind our house, explaining the stunning phenomenon.

  That first crude image snapped with a cheap old camera soon developed into my passion. A representation of who I wanted to be.

  Creative and bold. Positive and accepting. Sincere and honest and brave. Without skepticism or the deep-rooted chip now firmly embedded in my shoulder.

  I’d captured my last at age twenty.

  I’d thought they’d been an expression of what I found burning from within.

  They were nothing but a lie.

  After I’d come here? I’d convinced myself I wasn’t the crying type. Tears were evidence of weakness. So I’d dried them and put on this bravado I found wasn’t entirely false, tapped into this part of myself that I’d never known was there.

  It was hard and brash and impenetrable.

  Unbreakable.

  Not like the unassuming girl who’d snapped these pictures.

  Those tears I’d long denied pricked at my eyes, and a lump grew in my throat. It was a welling of emotion that my first response was to swallow down. But just for tonight, after the commotion of rioting emotions that had been stirred in me, I needed to set them free.

  Just for a little while, I let myself remember who I once wanted to be.

  I awoke resolved.

  Last night had been a steppingstone instead of a stumbling block. A reminder I had to be careful or everything I’d worked so hard for would all have been in vain.

  It was bad enough they’d tracked me down, asking questions about Cameron. Threatening the asylum I’d found in my new home. I refused to allow them to rip me from it.

  I brushed my teeth and changed into my running clothes.

  I picked the loudest, angriest playlist I could find and began to shimmy the same headphones that had transported me to the dark haven of his voice into my ears as I swung open my front door.

  And I almost fell flat on my face.

  It might have been better if I had. Maybe then it would have concealed the horrified expression that took me over in the two heart-wrenching seconds it took before the shock wore off.

  I composed myself and plastered the sneer I’d mastered back onto my mouth.

  Stumbling out the other apartment door were the two girls who’d been hanging all over Lyrik last night. Clothes wrinkled. Makeup smeared. Hair sexed up as they embarked on a walk of shame they obviously felt nothing of.

  They actually looked rather proud.

  And satisfied.

  Jealousy flared.

  That was the part I didn’t want him to catch as his gaze ensnared mine.

  But it was there, as obvious as the pang I felt in my chest as he stretched his arms above his head and held on to the top of the doorframe, all of his attention suddenly locked on me.

  Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

  It chanted like a plea as my eyes did exactly what I didn’t want them to do. They swept down his bare chest. Like they were drawn and starving and without an ounce of the willpower I’d bolstered myself with just before I’d stepped out the door.

  For a fleeting second, I gave in. Surrendered. Allowed myself the bittersweet treat of ogling the flesh covered in ink, the designs so intricate and intertwined I couldn’t tell where one image ended and another began, although the really foolish part of me was dying to take the time to decipher them.

  The jeans he wore hung so low I was certain there was no chance he had anything on underneath.

  But it was more. More than that beautiful body. More than that face. It was as if he compelled me to look closer. Deeper. My self-preservation warned I wasn’t going to like what I would see.

  I ended my stare with a disoriented jerk of my eyes. Of course they had zero control and jumped right back to his too-perfect face, this guy so unbearably gorgeous I felt the magnitude of it shake me like an earthquake.

  But this time there was none of that mischief glinting in his eyes.

  They swam with pure, oppressive heat, a danger and lust that came with an undercurrent of desperation.

  My skin prickled, and I shifted on my bright pink Nike’s. I felt naked. Exposed. It didn’t help I was standing there in nothing but a sports bra, my breasts squeezed and amplified where they swelled over the top, my belly bare and shorts short.

  But it was my face that brought on the wave of insecurity. I didn’t have on a lick of the makeup I usually wore and my red hair was wound in a haphazard pile on the top of my head.

  Slowly, the smirk reemerged on his mouth, but where it normally bordered on aloof, this morning it trembled with an edge of hostility never before present. “Well, look it there, if it isn’t my favorite bartender. Aren’t you a clever, clever girl?”

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  Dark eyes narrowed. “I could ask the same question.”

  “I live here.”

  “So do I,” he shot back.

  “God, are you kidding me?” Shaking my head, I rubbed my temples between my thumb and middle finger as I took a single step out onto the landing.

  A dry chuckle rolled from him. “It seems we run in the same circles. Charlie owns this building, remember? Considering my best friend and his niece went and got hitched, that practically makes us family.”

  I wanted to fume. Charlie was my family.

  “And you just had to pick this apartment?” I accused.

  Shrugging, he leaned against the doorframe, for the briefest flash of a second distracting me from my anger when he crossed those strong arms over that strong chest.

  Damn him.

  “I wasn’t about to intrude on Anthony’s place considering his wife and kids are coming out to stay for a week or so during the wedding. I’m going to be here for a couple of months and I needed a place to crash. Charlie had a place he needed rented. It was a win-win.”

  Not for me, it wasn’t.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I figured I was due some privacy. It feels like I’ve been living with the guys for half my life. Figured I’d come here and lay low.”

  Lay low?

  I scoffed, my chin indignant as I jutted it toward the sound of the car engine just starting up from the parking lot below. “Looks like you’re lying low to me.”

  An incredulous smile ticked at the corner of his mouth, and he cocked his head.

  “What, are you jealous, Red? If I recall, I made it pretty clear I wouldn’t mind it being you slipping out my door this morning. You were the one who said I had millions of girls just begging for the position, aren’t you?” he demanded, rubbing it in like the arrogant bastard he was. “I was only acting on your advice. Two for the price of nothing. Just the way I like it. But I was willing to make the exception and make it a single rather than a double if it meant I got to play with you.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “At least I don’t prance around pretending like I’m not dirty.”

  He might as well have slapped me across the face. My entire being recoiled and a sharp gasp rushed from my lungs as the voice I’d give anything to forget whispered viciously in my ear.

  Dirty.

  The memory hit me in an audible wheeze of shock and humiliation and hatred.

  “Fuck you,” I whispered. The disabling pain stabbing through my body sucked all the animosity from the delivery. I was sure I sounded like a sniveling baby.

  I slammed my door shut behind me and tore my gaze from his, thanking God I was in running gear and this was exactly what I was supposed to do.

  Run.

  Because even if I’d been wearing heels, I was pretty sure I would do the same, and I couldn’t bear to make the vulnerability oozing from me ev
en more glaring. I bounded down the steps, my hand gliding swiftly down the railing as I made my escape.

  Run.

  “Goddamn it!” The roar hit me from behind in the same second I heard the crushing blow, his reaction sending a tremor through me even though I refused to look back. I knew without a doubt it was his fist landing a punch against his door. Wood clattered as the door crashed into the inside wall before he roared again and kicked it shut.

  The air trembled and shook.

  I could feel it. The ripples of danger. The threat enclosing in from above.

  Run.

  A storm was coming.

  Frantic, I pushed the buds into my ears and hit the sidewalk, seeking refuge in the steady thud of my feet.

  IN MY HEAVY BLACK boots, I paced back and forth across the worn hardwood floors then did it again.

  Rays of harsh light found their way in at the edges of the curtains drawn across the windows, like the sun crawled along the exterior walls of the house, seeking a way inside our little pit of darkness.

  The song just wasn’t coming.

  Or maybe I wasn’t in the mood.

  Maybe my hand was still throbbing like a bitch and my mind was still reeling with what had gone down this morning.

  “Dude,” Ash drew out all frustrated like. “Are you intent on wearing a hole in the floor of my brand new house?”

  Brand new? Hardly. It was a century-old mansion not that far from the apartment I was renting, and really close to Shea’s place. The house was absolutely ridiculous, boasting something like eight bedrooms, and considering it would only be Zee and Ash and whatever chick Ash suckered in for the night, no one would argue it wasn’t outrageous.

  But Ash had to be about the damned most impulsive person I’d ever met. Yesterday, we’d been rolling down the street in the Suburban with Baz, heading to Shea’s after we’d taken care of some wedding shit, when Ash had yelled out for him to stop.

  He’d bolted from the truck like he was chasing down a long-lost friend, arms open wide, going right for the steps leading to the wrap-around porch in this over-the-top house. He’d wandered around like some kind of freak before he called the number listed on the For Sale sign staked out front.