Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)

by A. L. Jackson

  Shivers rolled through her body and lust curled in my gut.

  I wanted to fuck her more than I wanted air.

  To experience all she had to give.

  To taste her courage.

  To swallow her insecurities.

  “Lyrik.” It was a breath. A question.

  “You’re so damned pretty.” Part of me wished she wasn’t. Truth was, it was getting harder to look at her. Because I just kept wanting more and more. Asking for trouble. For heartache and pain.

  I knew better.

  I’d learned a long time ago to shuck the worry and the bullshit chains. Life was so much easier to glide through with nothing weighing you down.

  I already carried more than I could bear.

  Still, my heart picked up a beat when I leaned over and flicked the button of her jeans. The ripping sound of her zipper echoed against the walls. She whimpered and lifted her ass from the bed, making it easy for me to drag her jeans and underwear down her legs.

  I didn’t even try to hide my moan. The girl was so insanely hot. A promise of heaven and a temptation sent directly from hell.

  Right where I belonged.

  Setting a knee on the bed, I leaned over to the side so I could trace that serpent tat on the outside of her thigh. My tongue ran along the lines while I slipped my hands beneath her shirt and dragged it up. My tongue followed the path as I lifted it over her head.

  My entire body shook with quickly unraveling need. Control disintegrating.

  Red was in nothing but a lacy black bra, which had to be illegal in all fifty states. Cruel and unjust punishment, because I just might die if I didn’t get to touch.

  Those tits spilled out over the top while the distorted heart tattoo wept in the middle.

  Ante omnia cor tuum custodi.

  Urges hit me. Ones to kiss it until it was perfect and whole.

  Shit.

  I was losing my head. My foundation.

  Consuming need twisted through me when I licked over the aching red, and I stole one hand under her back to undo the clasp. I moved back far enough to pull it free.

  Her pulse ran wild and her chest heaved.

  Quick to dive back in, I took a pink, pert nipple in my mouth. I sucked it deep, flicked at it with my tongue.

  She wound her hands in my hair. “Shit…Lyrik…that feels so good.” She released a confused groan. “Why do you feel so good?”

  I grinned against her skin. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. That she felt good, that I was the only one making her feel that way.

  My mouth trailed down the side of her breast. I lingered at one spot, drawing the silky flesh deep into my mouth. Maybe a little harder than necessary, but I was making sure to leave a mark. Because that’s what I promised her I would do.

  Both my hands cupped the fullness of her tits, squeezing and lifting so I could tease and torture and make her squirm as I turned to the opposite nipple.

  “I need you,” she said as she clawed at my shirt. Cool air hit my back as she tore it off, and those fingers sank right back into my skin. Begging as they burned and scraped and pleaded for more.

  This was the more I could give her.

  She deserved more, but I’d give all I could. For her.

  I wanted her to trust me in a way she hadn’t trusted anyone since that bastard had broken her. For her to know she was beautiful, and what he’d done didn’t have the power to define her.

  Didn’t have the power to destroy her.

  I wanted her to know I saw something beautiful.

  Something good.

  A precious gift given to this world.

  My head spun and my heart hammered a warning in my ribs. It caught time with the beat of hers, wild and erratic and violent, her breaths just as harsh.

  Frantic, she dragged my mouth back to hers.

  Tingles rolled across my flesh, and this achy feeling compelled me I was doing something wrong. Violating a promise. But I did nothing but kiss her back.

  Because I couldn’t fucking stop.

  Her tongue slipped past my lips in a delicious tease, tangling around mine. Eager and demanding.

  Every inch of me lit.

  A hazardous frenzy thundered through my veins, and I pressed up onto my palms. My head dipped down as I kissed her wild. My jean-covered cock pressed into her bare pussy. Underserved need squeezed every cell, filling my breaths and my lungs and my head.

  No.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and she kissed me more. Fevered hands searched my skin like she might find a weak spot. A way in. Access to what was buried inside.

  “Lyrik,” she breathed as her hands trailed down over my shoulders. Her touch sent shock waves burning across my skin. Fingernails scraped down my chest before they were working at my fly.

  And I felt fear slipping over me. Something haunting and dark. While everything else came alive.

  A tortured contradiction.

  But that’s what I craved.

  The push and the pull.

  I wanted. I wanted it all. Wanted to know every inch.

  Her body. Her heart. Her mind.

  Easing back an inch, I glanced up at her face, then I looked right back down, gaze intent on where I palmed her sex, watching as I pushed two fingers inside.

  So fucking wet and warm and perfect.

  Her walls clamped down and she arched off the bed. Her mouth parted on a silent moan.

  Gorgeous.

  Ripples of anxiety surged. I wasn’t ever going to get enough.

  I rushed back to take more of that mouth.

  That sweet, sweet mouth.

  I kissed her and kissed her while I struggled to pump her slowly. To keep control when all I wanted was to let go. I wanted everything. Everywhere. All at once.

  To consume and devour and lay all her fears and reservations to waste.

  To take and take and take.

  To give and give and give.

  Delirium.

  I let my hand go trailing back.

  Fingers slick.

  I pushed two into her tight, perfect ass.

  I wanted there, too.

  She jerked and I did the same, jumping back just in time to catch the fear in her expression. Those blue eyes had gone dark, the girl getting sucked back into that depraved place.

  Shit.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  What the fuck had I been thinking? Getting reckless with this girl? I should have known. And that tiny spec that was my conscious screamed I was making mistake after mistake. It screamed I was a sinner and selfish. That I was twisted and sick. And I knew right then I didn’t have the guts to let her go. Not yet. Not when she was this close. This close to being free.

  Tears slipped free from the corners of her eyes, wet streams streaking down and disappearing into her hair, while my heart went frantic with regret and hate and the need to slaughter whoever had hurt her this way.

  I wrapped her in my arms.

  “Don’t leave me,” I murmured harshly, clutching her tighter. “I’m right here. It’s me, Blue. It’s me. Baby, you just have to tell me no. I’m not ever going to hurt you.”

  But the way her eyes flicked all over my face? I already knew. I already fucking knew I was hurting her because I wanted to take everything and I couldn’t offer her the same in return.

  She bucked up. The head of my dick poking out from the waist of my unclasped jeans rubbed against her. Still crying, she burrowed her fingers into my shoulders, as if she were transferring some of her pain over to me.

  “Please…just…fuck me,” she begged.

  That sick part of me? He wanted to. The part that wanted her so fucking bad I’d take everything and anything I could get. But instead I was kissing her again, murmuring “slow” at those red lips. Thanking God she was with me. That I hadn’t messed up so bad she was a curled up ball in the middle of the bed.

  But this was what I did.

  I found the little bits of good hidden behind a mask, sought them out, and br
ought them into the light.

  Then I destroyed them with one crushing blow.

  “I trust you,” she said, holding me tighter and rubbing her bare center against me.

  Trust.

  Motherfucker. I wanted to weep. I felt it. Emotion gripping my chest like I was being strangled. A noose around my neck.

  Frantic, I pushed my jeans down to around my thighs, because I was just greedy enough to take a little more.

  “Slow,” I struggled to say.

  Slow. Slow. Slow.

  I kept chanting it in my head. Even though she was begging for it, I knew Blue wasn’t ready for sex.

  I was starting to wonder if I was. If I could handle her. Even though I was dying to sink into her.

  I slid my bare cock against her, gathering all the slick desire coating her center, and clutched her shoulders while I rocked against her.

  A small gasp escaped her. Confusion and desire.

  I did it again, getting her closer because I couldn’t seem to get her close enough.

  No. I never moved enough to fuck her, even though with one slip, I’d be home.

  I just moved against her like some twisted fuck who needed to get off.

  I made sure to drag back far enough so the ridge of my throbbing head flicked across her clit.

  Our faces were a breath apart, our lips just touching, eyes wild and open and vulnerable.

  And I rocked and rocked and rocked. Using up this girl who was supposed to be using me.

  I was beginning to wonder who of us needed who.

  “Lyrik.” She gripped me harder, pressing her tits to my chest as she tried to get closer.

  “Let it go,” I whispered at her ear.

  She shuddered below me when she did, nails breaking skin, the little pricks of pain the perfect conflict up against the pleasure that had my body wound up tight. Tighter and tighter.

  So warm.

  So wet.

  Too much.

  Fuck. Me.

  Burning, agonizing bliss.

  I came all over her belly with a groan.

  My head dropped and I buried my face in her neck, sucking in any air I could find.

  All of it was her.

  Every breath Blue.

  Reluctantly, I shifted and gazed down at her. I brushed the back of my fingers down her cheek. Those blue eyes swam as they stared up at me, tears still streaming over her temples and into her hair.

  Blue.

  Sweet, soft, trusting Blue.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.

  She blinked and swallowed hard, voice sincere. “I’m not.”

  I DRUMMED MY FINGERTIPS across my top lip.

  Paced.

  Then paced again.

  The blinds were drawn in my bedroom, the dwindling sunlight beyond breaking through at the edges. I glanced back at my desk where my old Canon sat like a beacon to my past. Like a bridge to everything that once had been and everything that felt just out of reach.

  It was as if I simply dragged my fingertips across the divots and grooves, I’d be transported back there. With a twist of the rings, I’d be focused on their faces, dialed into all the things that had once been important to me.

  My goals and hopes and dreams.

  I’d thought they’d been obliterated. Wiped out.

  But there they were…waiting just below the surface. Where Lyrik kept scratching and scratching and scratching. Exposing more of who I once had been.

  My spirit throbbed with possibility.

  Scariest part? All those possibilities had begun to revolve around him. Coming to life under his touch and his words and those dark, mesmerizing eyes.

  But I never claimed to be sane when it came to him.

  Three sharp knocks at the door and my heart rate spiked. The few threads of reservation snapped, jarring me forward.

  Before I lost my nerve, I scooped up my camera. For a moment, my eyes squeezed closed as I cradled it like a lost child. As if I was holding a missing part of myself.

  A loss regained.

  A casualty resurrected.

  Another knock rang against the wood, and I spun on my heel and headed toward the door.

  Eager.

  Hopeful.

  Different.

  I twisted the lock, and before I could turn the knob, Lyrik was pushing his way across the threshold.

  I gasped, then giggled like a giddy schoolgirl when he came for me and wound both of those strong arms around my waist. Pulled me up close against his overpowering body. His presence so thick and heavy and bold.

  I’d once taken it as a warning.

  A foreboding omen of the danger that was to come.

  I never would have imagined it would be safety I found in his arms.

  Big hands slid up my sides, traveling all the way to my neck, leaving a trail of chills in their wake. He urged my head back so he could kiss me. Quick and hard. Stealing my breath.

  He pulled back. Ebony eyes flashed their light.

  Mischief and mayhem and the promise of a blinding, blissful ride.

  I was so ready to take it.

  “Hi.” A smirk took hold of that lush mouth, full lips hovering, strands of black hair flopping across his forehead as he bent me back. Clearly, the arrogant, cocky boy had come out to play.

  No one would see me complain.

  I loved when he was this way. Loved when he was playful and free.

  But I loved it just as much when he was intense and vulnerable. Loved when he protected and loved when he pushed.

  Shit.

  I gulped over the disturbance that rumbled in my chest and climbed my throat.

  The energy suddenly manifested in the form of a shiver across my skin.

  The buzz before the strike.

  “Hi,” I whispered back, the word hoarse.

  He’d moved his hands to my ribs to keep me steady, and edged back and let his gaze travel down my bowed body.

  “There’s my girl…always lookin’ like my favorite fantasy. Little red pin-up sent to drive me right outta my mind.”

  My girl.

  God, how I wished.

  The errant thought twisted in my stomach. They’d been coming too often. Thoughts of what could be. Of how good this beautiful man was for me. And there were a few crazy, rash moments when I thought maybe I could be good for him, too. That as I let him discover me, he’d let me discover him.

  How good we’d be together.

  But this boy’s heart was an unstable place. Hard and dark and impenetrable. No question, broken. Fragments patched together in bitterness and shame. But it was all the goodness that kept pouring out from the cracks that swept me away.

  I forced myself to latch on to his tease and nudged him back. “I aim to please.”

  He helped me straighten, then reached out and tugged at my red bikini top where it peeked out from the black tank I wore over it.

  The suit was a fifties throwback. Just his style.

  A single finger trailed down the side of my neck and across my collarbone. He edged in closer, nose brushing mine. “And please you do.”

  His tingling touch traveled all the way down until he wove his tattooed fingers through mine, all that ink dancing over rippling muscle exposed on his arms.

  He gave me a firm tug. I giggled as I stumbled forward, right back into that delicious, lust-inducing body.

  God, he had me so spun up.

  “Need to get you out of here, or we’re never going to leave,” he said.

  I slanted him a flirty smile. “That sounds like a fine enough plan to me.”

  Four weeks of this had passed. Four weeks of us exploring and learning and tempting each other’s bodies. Dipping our toes in heated, boiling waters. Standing at the brink of ecstasy. But Lyrik had started to seem reluctant to take it past that.

  Maybe we both were beginning to worry when we finally dove in, we were going to get burned.

  “Don’t tempt me, woman. The boys will have my balls if we don’t show up.”r />
  A single brow arched. “Fine…we wouldn’t want your balls to go missing, now would we?”

  He growled and buried his face in my hair, nose running along the shell of my ear. He nipped at it. “Red. Do you know who you’re messing with?” he whispered like a threat. Hands cinching tighter at my sides, he yanked me up against all his hard. Voice raw. Dripping with seduction. “What I’m going to do to you? How I’m going to make you beg and scream, and then you’ll be begging me to do it all over again?”

  Ah. There he was. That bad, bad boy. All that darkness and menace and severity. All while he held me in the security of his capable hands.

  Because I knew without a doubt, the only thing in danger was my heart.

  I tipped my chin up. At the look in his eyes, my breath caught in my throat. The thunder of need and lust crackled like a chemical reaction where they battled with flickers of something more.

  “I already am,” I told him.

  Begging.

  Needing.

  Surrendering.

  He wove his fingers through my hair and pressed his lips to mine. Closed-mouthed and hard. He dropped his forehead to mine, before he took a step back and offered me his hand. “Not kidding around…need to get you out of here. Now.”

  Accepting it, I slung the strap of my camera over my shoulder and followed him out the door to his bike waiting downstairs.

  I put on my helmet while he straddled the gleaming metal.

  That was a sight that could never get old. Lyrik’s tattooed hands gripping the handlebars.

  Those words.

  Sing my soul.

  I ached a little every time the statement written across his knuckles passed through my vision. His lithe body so powerful. Frightening and foreboding. Still, an unshakable haven.

  The engine rumbled to life and the ground shook beneath my feet.

  With a glance, my world rocked.

  Tamar King was nowhere to be found.

  Trying to regain my senses, I placed my camera in the saddlebag and climbed on behind him. He tucked me closer, the way he always did, ensuring my hold was tight where I wrapped myself around his back.

  He turned us in the direction of Tybee Island and rode toward the seaside mansion where Lyrik and the rest of the guys had stayed when they’d first come to Savannah a year ago.