Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)

by A. L. Jackson

  A frenzy hit me.

  Need. Need. Need.

  I yanked at his shirt. He lifted his arms so I could tear it over his head, our kiss broken for the flash of a second before I was back on him. Our chests mashed together. Desperate for the connection.

  I rocked my body against his, every big, beautiful inch of him hard and begging.

  “Slow,” he murmured at my mouth, and I smiled against him. It was a wistful smile that sent emotion billowing through my insides.

  In that moment, I fell for him a little more.

  This cruel, dangerous boy with the softest heart.

  I urged him to lie back on the thick, plush rug that took up most of his living room floor.

  It was my turn to see what he had hidden on his side.

  Kneeling over him, I slowly peeled back the bandage. Through the double French doors, light filtered down in a dusky haze, illuminating his body.

  But what I couldn’t seem to look away from was his face. It was screwed up as if he were in physical pain, his eyes pinched closed and his back arched from the floor.

  As if he were bracing for war.

  Ready to defend himself.

  Agony.

  It was written there, in the rigid set of his muscles, in the shield that I knew all too well.

  I stifled my gasp when I saw what he had imprinted on his side. It was in an area that was already heavily tattooed. It seemed impossible another would fit or stand out.

  But it did.

  Come winter she’ll be gone.

  The intense flare of jealousy that slammed into me was something I most definitely could not afford.

  Because I knew this confession was not intended for me.

  And I was nothing but a fool for even contemplating the fact.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  This was bad.

  What if it hurts when you’re gone?

  Baby, I’m not worth the pain.

  Those words came crashing down.

  Because it already hurt.

  I made to crawl back. To get away. To find a wall or a shield or more importantly a door.

  I could already feel myself ripping apart.

  Lyrik’s arm flew out and he gripped me by the back of the neck, stopping my escape.

  “Don’t.” A plea was wrapped up in the hard demand. Lines pulled between his brow, and he struggled for words. “Two months, Blue…we’ve got two months…and two months can’t take you as deep as that goes.”

  And I ached and I hurt and I wanted to make it better. To offer him what he was offering me.

  Refuge. Asylum. A sanctuary until I was strong enough to find a new path. To find myself. Whoever she was supposed to be.

  Even though I knew doing so was just setting myself up to be broken more.

  With my spirit pulled in every direction, I gave in and placed frantic kisses all over his chest, across the swirls of ink, and down the sharp cut of his abdomen. A canvas of beauty with so much hidden pain.

  I jerked through the buttons of his fly.

  “Shit,” Lyrik hissed, both shocked but still completely turned on. His cock jumped free when I pulled his jeans down to his thighs.

  I shuddered a little at the sight of it. It was just as big, bold, and threatening as the rest of him.

  My stomach knotted and my mouth went dry.

  “Red,” he whispered on a moan when I wrapped both hands around him at the base, stroking up his length and gliding back down.

  Everything shook. My heart and my hands and the room. Because I wanted this even though I was afraid.

  Desire twisted through the fear as I watched the glistening bead appear at the tiny slit.

  Maybe I was a fool, but I loved I had the ability to affect him this way.

  I moaned as I leaned forward so I could taste. So I could experience this man. Of my own free will.

  My. Choice.

  That moan became a rumble in the back of my throat as I drew him deeply into my mouth. As far as I could take him. Both my hands began to work him in sync with my mouth.

  I felt powerful and beautiful.

  Real.

  He bucked and arched and groaned, his hands tangled in my hair.

  Exhilaration simmered in the air.

  The thrill.

  “Blue.”

  A rush of energy captured me, and I kept on driving him higher and higher and higher. Until I knew he would break.

  “Fuck,” he mumbled.

  He clutched me tightly when he came. “Blue…Blue…Blue.”

  I swallowed, riding with him through every last wave. Because I knew without a doubt, with him was where I wanted to be.

  We both jerked and trembled with the aftershocks.

  I collapsed forward onto his chest. Panting. Reeling.

  Lyrik flung his forearm over his eyes, the other still rustling through my hair. Faint sounds of the traffic made it feel as if we were elevated above it all, our breaths and the pounding of our hearts and all the questions still roaring through my head the only sounds in the room.

  His voice broke through the sudden quiet. “That was…unexpected.”

  I chewed at my bottom lip while I let my fingertips play across the bristling muscle of his chest. “Yeah,” I whispered softly.

  My need for him had hit with the force of a desert storm.

  Because there was a piece of me already tethered to him. This piece that screamed we were the same. That we belonged.

  Like Charlie had said, lonely recognized lonely.

  And my heart recognized him.

  Almost shyly, I peeked up at him. He grinned a sloppy grin.

  Sated and satisfied.

  “You, beautiful Blue, just completely blew my mind.”

  “I think it’s you who continues to blow mine.”

  He shifted me a fraction so he could readjust his pants, and I moved, turned my back on him.

  Hit with a rush of awkwardness, I dug through my jeans and found my panties, then pulled them back on.

  What are you doing, Tamar? He’s going to wreck you.

  Destroy and plunder and invade.

  My hands were shaking when I fumbled with my jeans. I froze when I felt his hot mouth moving slowly across my shoulder blade and kissing down my spine. From behind, he unwound my fingers from my jeans and dropped them back to the floor.

  “Don’t get dressed,” he whispered against my skin. “Don’t hide from me. I want to feel you.”

  Oh God. This man.

  He saw right through it all.

  How did he get me?

  Lying back down, Lyrik took my hand and pulled me with him until I was completely sprawled across him. Chest to chest. He tucked my head under his chin. He let his fingers draw lazy circles down my back, and I shivered as I curled more deeply into his hold. His gentle touches explored, until he was moving across the skin of my lower back just above my underwear.

  I flinched as he ran them purposefully across the old scars. As if he already knew they were there.

  “He did this?” His voice was hoarse as he brought me back to my admission from earlier, and I could feel the tremor of violence that came with the question. I could feel his hatred for the man who had stolen my innocence and belief.

  “That was my first tattoo,” I admitted into the stillness, clutching his side as he continued to caress across the scars.

  Sometimes I wondered how the long-healed wounds that now were barely palpable could remain so profound.

  “When I came here…to Savannah…I was so scared. I had no idea who I was or who I wanted to be. I only knew I didn’t want to be that stupid, naive girl anymore. I dyed my hair, changed the way I dressed, did my makeup differently. Anything so when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see simple, unsuspecting Tamar.”

  I drew in a breath. “And as soon as those wounds were healed enough, I went and got them covered. There was something about it that made me feel brave. Stronger. As if I’d put some kind of separation between him and me. A barr
ier. As if I’d blocked some of it out.”

  A tremor rolled through Lyrik, and his hold tightened in time with the hard breath he released. “Who was he? Tell me, baby. I need to know.”

  Somehow his question sounded like both encouragement and a threat.

  A part of me wanted to tell him two months couldn’t take him as deep as those scars went. To throw his defense back in his face. Part of me wanted to hide behind the same kind of walls he hid behind.

  There was no question now.

  I heard it in his voice at night. In the words he sang and the sorrow it imbued. In the words etched on his skin. Most of all, I felt it in his touch.

  But the stronger part of me? I just needed to tell someone something. But it wasn’t just someone. It was him. This beautiful, terrifying man who filled me with such trepidation and fear and need. The one who felt like peril and air and belief. The one who broke me down and exposed what was underneath.

  That girl?

  She wanted to lie here in the security of Lyrik’s arms and whisper her secrets into his darkness. Somehow I knew he would keep her safe.

  No, I couldn’t take him all the way. That name had been a secret on my tongue for far too long. But I couldn’t stop myself from speaking. From giving him the pieces I wanted him to hold. “When I first met him, I thought he was everything I wanted.”

  Like he’d been struck, Lyrik flinched. “You knew him? You were with him?”

  I shuddered with the onslaught of memories, and I realized Lyrik had absolutely no clue about my past other than the fact I’d freaked out when he’d touched me. I wondered how many different scenarios had played out in his head. “Yeah.”

  Old pain wove through me like a rusted needle.

  Tamar King wanted to stand up and crush it. She wanted to lift her chin in defiance and sneer and shout to the world that no man had the power to hurt her.

  Instead, I turned my head so I was speaking against Lyrik’s thundering heart, my voice barely above a whisper. “On the outside, he was a lot like you. Dark. Dangerous. Beautiful.”

  Warily, I glanced up at him. “That’s why I hated that you made me feel the way you did. I hated the fact that the first man I was attracted to in four years physically reminded me so much of him. That you made me feel excited and alive. So I fought back the only way I knew how.”

  Squeezing me, he pressed a fierce but tender kiss to the top of my head. “I would never hurt you.”

  My insides quaked. I was sure that wasn’t true. This man was quickly gaining the power to destroy me in so many ways. But I knew that wasn’t what he meant.

  I nodded against his chest. “I know.”

  His silence urged me to continue. “He was older than me by more than ten years. At first, I wanted to be with him so badly…wanted to experience the intense way he made me feel…that I ignored the warning signs. I was such a fool. I look back now, and they all were there. I ignored my parents when they begged me to stop seeing him. I isolated myself from them so I wouldn’t have to hear the worry in their pleas for me to see reason.”

  I stared unseeing into the shadows that played along the wall. “I think my mom knew it the first time she met him. We were always so close, and I couldn’t wait for her to meet my new boyfriend. Because all the boys I’d dated before had been exactly that. Boys. But he was a man.”

  The words turned shaky and regretful as I thought back to that day. The memory so clear. Vivid. “I’d been so excited…proud to introduce him. My mother…she’d paled the second she’d touched his skin when she shook his hand. I can still almost feel it…the cold dread that had filled our tiny kitchen. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes…the fear. After he left, she’d grabbed me by the arm, pleading, warning me he was dangerous. If only I would have listened.”

  He swallowed hard. “Blue.”

  I just kept on, my voice a whisper as I told Lyrik things I’d never told anyone. “He was a monster. Twisted in the worst way. At the beginning, he’d taunted me that I was too young…too inexperienced…that I couldn’t handle his lifestyle and I’d just turned right around and promised I could.”

  A lump grew so thick at the base of my throat I could barely speak. “I had no idea what I was promising. And I couldn’t handle it, Lyrik. No one should. It started out as rough play. Things I wasn’t really comfortable with, but didn’t really hurt me. But before I knew what was happening, before I could stop it, it was torture.”

  Rage. It was tangible. The way it expanded and surged, rolls and rolls coming from Lyrik’s body.

  “I hope he’s burning in hell right now,” he said as he tightened his hold. Like he would never let me go.

  “I wish that were the truth.”

  I wished he were dead or rotting behind bars, right where the sadist belonged. But no. He was free.

  Because of me.

  Because I’d thought I was brave and it’d turned out I was nothing but a coward.

  Lyrik lifted my wrist and pressed the underside to his mouth, over the scars that remained there from where I’d struggled and fought to break the ties, where ink disguised the evidence of my bonds.

  “The scars are my enemy,” I whispered hard. “I covered my wrists next, and again, it felt good. It became this sick pattern. Every time I got scared or felt small, I would get another tattoo. Even after the exterior wounds were covered. Until I’d built up this guise that warned everyone off. I never wanted anyone to see.”

  He tucked his chin and at the same time he lifted mine toward him. Intense, knowing eyes darted all over my face. Searching. Seeking. Defining. “But you let me.”

  A roll of soggy laughter rolled from somewhere within. “Maybe that’s because you’re the first person who refused to let me hide.”

  Maybe it was because he was all the things I had always wanted, but shouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. The darkest light. A disturbed safety. Stony and impenetrable and devastatingly soft.

  I smiled a wistful smile. “And I think I’d been running from you for so long, when I finally stopped, you crashed right into me and ripped everything open wide.”

  And it just kept spilling out.

  “You revealed things I didn’t even know were still there.” Tears gathered in my eyes. I swatted at the one that fell. “I hate being this person. Weak. Fragile. Powerless.”

  He held me tighter, the words a breath at the top of my head. “No…sweet, brave, beautiful Blue. Pretty sure you might be the strongest person I know. You’re here. Alive. Living. Strong enough to open that gorgeous mouth and voice what the sick bastard did to you.”

  The words dropped low. “And now you’re here, lying with me. You were strong enough to leave.”

  I looked up at him and revealed the one thing I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know. “I didn’t leave…I escaped.”

  And I’d been running ever since.

  Darkness clouded around his features, a storm gathering strength. “I want to know who he is. Just a fucking name. That’s all I need.”

  The words trembled. “And I just want to forget. I want you to erase him. Like you promised you would.”

  Not drag him out into the light.

  Because I wasn’t ready. And I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be.

  Pure menace rumbled at the top of my head. “Erase is exactly what I want to do.”

  This man. Menacing and terrifying and intimidating.

  And I’d never felt safer.

  I drew in a breath and let my fingertips play over the bars of the song that wound up his arm. I wondered if I could decipher his song. Flowers and leaves climbed in between, and in the muted light, I squinted, focusing in on the name hidden within.

  Brendon.

  My gut twisted in a slow, sinking dread as I carefully traced the lettering.

  As if I’d touched an apparition, fingers disappearing into the misty vapors.

  I knew the moment it struck him. A pain so brutal I felt it splitting through him and crashing into me. And again Ly
rik was flinching. Deflecting. Shielding and shuttering. Shutting me out.

  Two seconds after I’d let him in.

  Slowly, I withdrew my shaking hand and tried to reassemble some of my well-practiced, hardened exterior. Because my insides felt raw and achy and sore. As if I was bleeding out. Bleeding for this boy when he was only going to cut me deeper.

  God, this got messy and fast. And I knew better. I knew it all along.

  “I should go,” I muttered as I rolled from him.

  He snatched my wrist. “Stay.”

  I gasped, and he loosened his hold. Those dark, penetrating eyes swam with turmoil. “Please,” he said.

  “I have no idea what you want from me. What you’re asking of me.”

  “Two months, Blue. I’m asking you for two months.”

  Could I cope with that? With getting this small piece of him and maybe finding some of the missing pieces of me?

  Tenderly, he ran his fingers through my hair. “Please.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, because with him no didn’t seem to exist.

  IN THE NEAR DARKNESS, I sat at the tiny desk in my bedroom. I stared at the blackened laptop screen. Willing it to stop screaming at me to search for what it had concealed inside.

  I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t focus.

  Since Lyrik had torn me open wide two days ago, it was as if my past was nipping at my heels. Razor-sharp teeth bared, waiting for the perfect moment to sink right into my Achilles heel. It was going to be a hard fall when I finally hit the ground.

  But I could feel it. Advancing and encroaching and invading. Like a dark cloud that ate up the earth and was getting ready to swallow me.

  I knew it was Lyrik who’d brought it to the surface. He’d made me stop and contemplate when all I’d been doing for the past four years was running just as fast as my feet could take me. Across the country. Away from my family. Burying myself in obscurity and unfamiliarity.

  And just like that night two months ago, when I’d signed onto Facebook, the need to brush against something from my past was almost overwhelming. Unavoidable. As if my family was right there. Pleading with me to turn around.

  Unease stirred through me when I thought back to that message.

  We need your help. We understand your hesitation, but we need any information you can give us on Cameron Lucan. Please contact me as soon as possible.