Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)

by A. L. Jackson

  Anthony, Sunder’s manager, owned the place, and he had come out from L.A. this weekend to check in with the band. He’d invited everyone over to his place for a BBQ and bonfire on the private beach before he went home to his family tomorrow.

  I hugged Lyrik closer and breathed him in.

  Four weeks left.

  That hollow place inside me moaned like haunted gallows.

  I didn’t know how to sustain the loss.

  The inevitability of losing the first real thing I’d felt in years.

  It terrified me how desperately I didn’t want it to end. But I refused to count this time as a mistake. Not when this man was slowly breathing true life back into me.

  Awakening a soul I’d believed condemned.

  No longer did I feel so…angry. Funny how I had to give this infuriating man credit for that.

  Wind whipped his hair into chaos, and the ground was eaten up beneath us as we traveled the short twenty-minute trip to the beach house. He pulled his bike around the large, circular drive and stopped at the front. Lyrik helped me off, and I quickly removed the helmet and grabbed my camera as he killed the bike and flipped down the kickstand.

  I pulled in a deep breath. The scent of sea and salt and summer heat filled my senses.

  “Wow, that is some house.” I eyed Lyrik from the side before I looked back at the extravagance before us.

  This was a part of Lyrik’s life I didn’t see. The money, the fame, and the limelight he barely acknowledged. He was strangely modest when it came to those things. But I had an inkling Savannah had become his own haven. Reprieve from the fans, stardom, and the endless roads and tours and cities that ruled his life.

  While here, for a few brief moments, he could settle into some kind of normalcy.

  I’d started to count it an honor to share that time with him.

  Lyrik pecked me on the mouth. “What…you gonna go and get greedy on me?” It was pure tease. “And here I was thinking you were one of the good ones and not easily impressed.”

  “Not easily impressed.” I looked over at him. Seriously. “But I am impressed.”

  He frowned.

  “By you,” I added, brushing my fingers over his tight T-shirt, across that confusing, conflicting heart pounding underneath.

  “You’re so different than anything I expected.” My words came out soft.

  He turned toward me, and for a second, he just stared. Then he set a big hand on my cheek. “You are everything I never expected. Never anticipated. Everything I never knew I’d need.”

  Sadness flashed across his face. He was giving me a glimpse into something intensely private. Something real. I knew it. I also saw in his expression he didn’t want to need me. And I knew deep in my spirit he would refuse it.

  I gave him a shaky smile, before I forced it into something sexy and coy. “Come on before your crew sends out a search party. I do believe Ash is a little needy when it comes to you.”

  “Poor guy wouldn’t know his hand from his ass if I wasn’t there to look after him.”

  I knocked my shoulder into him, and he hooked his arm around my neck and started to walk.

  “And here I thought it was Big Bad Baz that looked over all of you,” I said as I threaded my fingers through his where they hung over my left shoulder. I brought the back of his hand to my lips.

  So simple.

  So easy.

  “Pshh…” He smiled down at me. Affection played around his mouth. “I think we all know better than that. Baz is as soft as they come. Boy has his balls zipped up in the front pocket of Shea’s purse.”

  “Is that where you were afraid they’d leave yours, too?”

  He laughed, one of those ones that came from his belly, and I burrowed deeper into the warmth of his side.

  He led me around the side of the house and toward the beach. Voices drifted along the breeze. Rounding the corner, the ocean spread out in front of us, with sandy dunes piled up in front of it before they gave way to the shore. Tall wisps of wild grasses grew from mounds of sand and the tufts waved in a gentle sway.

  Twilight threatened on the horizon. A twist of pink and purple hung low in the sky, a reflection of the sun as it set behind us in the west. Ripples of the easy waves sparkled in the waning day.

  My pulse quickened at the sight of the storm brewing in the distance. A toil of building clouds. Heat continued to cling to the humid Georgia air, but it was no longer unbearable as it mixed with the cooling breeze lifted from the ocean.

  Raising my face to it, I inhaled. “It’s so beautiful out here.”

  “Yeah,” Lyrik agreed with a short nod. “More peace out here than I’ve felt in a long, long time. So different than L.A.”

  I slanted my gaze toward him. “Better or worse?”

  Maybe I was digging. Looking for that connection. But it was already there, pulling taut between us. Tugging and stirring this yearning within me I’d never before known.

  He hiked a shoulder. “Different. L.A. is what I know. The beat of the city. The rush. The road. Bein’ here just feels like an extended vacation. You know when you get to some awesome getaway, a country you’ve always wanted to visit or an island you’d only ever dreamed of, and the second you get there, you’re thinking just how nice it’d be to stay? To say fuck it and forget all the rest. But you know at the end of the week, you’re going to be packing your bags, boarding a plane, and heading home. It’s unsustainable. The dream sounds real nice. But that’s just what it is. A dream.”

  “But you dreamed hard enough that you do what you love. Every day.”

  “But that dream comes at the greatest cost.”

  My brow pinched. “Sebastian has both. Is living both.”

  Lyrik shook his head. “Baz is in limbo. He’ll be at a crossroads soon. You get one or the other. Life doesn’t give you both, and he’s going to have to pick.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  He started to speak, but trailed off when Shea shouted my name.

  I looked to where she stood down on the beach, holding Kallie’s hand.

  Little Kallie’s voice mixed with hers. Higher and more excited the closer we came. She jumped around at her mother’s side. “Uncle Wyrik…Uncle Wyrik! Are you gonna go swimmin’? It’s way, way, way warm. My daddy already took me and I’m gonna go again. But my mommy said we have to eat first because dinner is almost all done!”

  A rush of something sweet rolled through him. Something tender. It didn’t matter how hard this boy was. There was no question in my mind that another part of him was alive beneath the impervious layers he wore on the outside. A place soft, shielded below the calluses. A place reserved for something great waiting to break through.

  “Heck, yeah, I’m going swimming, as long as it’s with you. You have me all to yourself as soon as we eat. How’s that sound, Kallie Love?”

  The skin felt tight across my ribs. “What about me?” I said with a tease, though my throat was tight, too.

  Lyrik shot me my favorite smile. The deadly kind. “Oh, you’ll have plenty of me later.”

  Sure hoped so.

  He guided me up the side steps and onto the large wooden deck attached to the back of the house. Red umbrellas were open wide to guard from the waning sun, the deck a pattern of shadows and comfort. Anthony piled a heap of fat steaks on a platter Sebastian held as he pulled them off the grill.

  Ash came out the French doors carrying a stack of plates just as we made it to the top.

  He grinned. “Oh hell, yeah, Tam Tam is here. Day. Made.” He shot a feigned glare Lyrik’s way. “Of course, you had to go and show with this asshole.”

  He looked directly at Lyrik. “Why do you always have my girl on your arm like she belongs there when we both know she belongs to me?”

  Lyrik’s nostrils flared. “Watch yourself, man.”

  Ash just laughed.

  After the fight they’d had two weeks ago at Ash’s house, I wasn’t sure how things were going to look between them th
e following day. But they’d come into the bar the next night, thick as thieves, acting as if nothing had happened.

  Soiled water swept under an unwavering bridge. Washed away.

  But I was no fool. I knew whatever had passed between them had been overwhelmingly significant. Something beyond my boundaries, where I sat on the outskirts and looked in like a stranger.

  Whatever had incited Lyrik was why he’d go dark and shut me down when I dipped my toes too deep. When I got too close. When I asked too many questions. Why he’d stiffen when I trailed my fingers over his left arm covered by the bars and notes of that unspoken song and the hidden meaning woven within.

  “Ready,” Anthony called as he shut down the flames on the grill.

  A huge spread of food was laid out on the outdoor kitchen. Everyone made their plates and took a seat at the round tables beneath the umbrellas, conversations light and laughter easy as we ate and watched as the day slowly faded away.

  “All done!” Kallie called with a flap of her hands.

  I nudged Lyrik. “I think that’s your cue.”

  “I do believe it is.”

  He pushed back his chair and pulled Kallie right out of hers. “You ready for that swim, Kallie Love?” he asked as he ran the knuckle of his index finger under her chin.

  “Yes yes yes!”

  Ovary explosion.

  I’d kind of forgotten I had them.

  Then Lyrik West burst into my world.

  A frown pulled at Shea’s forehead. “You know what my grandma would have said…no swimming right after you eat or you’re going to get a cramp.”

  Anthony laughed. “Oh come on, Shea. Just how long have you been living in the south? I’m pretty sure that’s about the oldest wives’ tale ever told.”

  She feigned offense. “I’ll have you know, my grandma was brilliant.”

  Sebastian’s smile was soft as he set his hand over hers on the table. Their exchange was silent, like a million words passed between them in the simple glance. “She’ll be fine, baby.”

  Worry flitted through her eyes, before she looked up to her daughter where she was held protectively in Lyrik’s arms.

  “Go on, sweetheart. Have fun and hold on tight.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of letting this one go.”

  He looked down at me. “You want to come?” he asked.

  Did he realize he’d let an edge of hope slip into his tone? Did he have a single clue what he was doing to me?

  The ground trembled beneath my feet.

  God, what was I doing?

  “I’ll be right there,” I promised.

  I needed a moment.

  Space.

  Clarity.

  Sebastian stood. “I’ll come with ya, man.”

  Ash and Zee both hopped up. Ash peeled his shirt over his head. His body was a mess of thick muscles, tattoos covering the entirety of his arms and shoulders, his back and chest bare. He grinned. It had to be the dimples denting his cheeks that were his greatest weapon.

  “Hey now, don’t be taking off without us. We all need some Kallie time, don’t we, Kallie?”

  She giggled and clapped. “Yep…it’s Kallie time!”

  There was no stopping my smile as I looked over at them. The overwhelming comfort in being part of this exclusive crowd.

  Home felt closer than it had in a long, long time. The loneliness seated so deeply within me diminished with each day, with each layer I shed, with every old feeling I allowed myself to feel.

  My gaze stayed locked on them as the whole mass of gorgeous guys ambled down the boardwalk to the beach.

  Anthony began to gather the plates, refusing help, so Shea and I settled into the quiet. A breeze blew through, gentle, churning with the soft gusts from the approaching storm.

  “It’s hardly fair, is it?” Shea mused. She had her attention trained on the guys plodding through the sand.

  In question, I swung my attention toward her.

  She shot me a scandalous grin.

  “All of them…looking that way. The whole lot of them are kind of irresistible.”

  I turned back toward the group. Lyrik took that exact moment to glance at me over his shoulder. In the distance, those dark eyes glinted. My insides quivered. “No. Not fair. Not at all.”

  A soft snort left her. “He might be complicated and a giant pain in the ass, but I know he’s a good man.” She said it as if she knew I needed to hear it.

  Slowly, I nodded, because I didn’t question that. “But only part of him is there.”

  With meaning, her brown eyes drew thin. “You realize I see the same thing when I look at you?”

  I flinched but she continued, “Maybe both of you are the missing piece…what the other has been looking for.”

  I forced the off-handed laughter. “Come on, Shea. Let’s not pretend we all don’t know what’s happening here. That boy’s just looking for a little fun while he’s in town. Who better to pass it with than me?”

  I shot for the blasé, badass girl Shea’d worked with for years behind the bar. The one who took shit from no one. The one who was game to play as long as she won.

  But who the hell was I fooling? Because I had the overwhelming urge to touch my throat. To soothe the way it throbbed when I said it.

  She just rubbed a tender hand down her swollen belly. “Sometimes fear shouts so loudly it drowns out everything else.”

  Well, I sure as hell wasn’t fooling her.

  We both turned our eyes to the beach. There was no mistaking her apprehension as she watched Lyrik with her daughter in the ocean. They’d gotten deep enough the waves lapped at his waist.

  The little girl squealed and clapped and kicked in her excitement.

  I wondered if it was torment for her to watch, for her to feel out of control, knowing how easily she’d lost hold of her little girl in the waves around this time last year. Thank God Sebastian had gotten to her in time.

  “How do you let it go? The fear?” I asked.

  A mix of unease and comfort traveled over her. She lifted a shoulder. “I think it comes to a point where you have to allow hope and belief to outshine the fear. Because I don’t know if the fear ever truly goes away. We all feel it. It’s up to us how we handle it. We can hide or we can live.” She looked over at me, her tone emphatic. “And I want to live.”

  Emotion welled and wound with the discomfort already lodged in my throat. I swallowed over it as I watched the man who shouted all that hope and belief but somehow couldn’t hear it himself.

  Sebastian stood at the edge of the waves. He hollered at Shea, “Get that sweet ass down here and take a swim with me.”

  Life lit in her expression. She leaned forward and yelled back, “Believe me, no one needs to see that. I’m just fine right here.”

  He scoffed. “You lost your mind, baby? You’ve never looked better. Now get down here before I come up there and throw you over my shoulder.”

  Giggles rolled from her. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

  Wow. The guy really had to twist her arm.

  I laughed lightly as she pushed to her feet with a little more difficulty than she used to have. “Come on, I’m not going down there unless you do, too.”

  Shaking my head, I snagged my camera and joined her. No doubt, I wasn’t going to get out of this.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  Our footsteps thudded against the planks of the boardwalk.

  Night had drawn near, clouds deepening to a fiery pink where they hugged the horizon. Waves rolled in, growing stronger than before as the storm encroached, rising from the south.

  I set my camera on the blanket spread out by the fire Anthony was building. Kindles grew hot. Flames jumped and licked as they climbed toward the sky. Coming to life.

  Lyrik had passed Kallie off to Sebastian since neither of them were willing to let her stand on her own feet.

  My heart rate sped when he turned around as if feeling my approach.

  Waiting for me.


  Ink covered his chest and stomach, scrolled all the way down his arms and onto those hands I wanted nothing more than to feel on my body. Droplets of water dripped from his jet-black hair and those eyes were severe. Pinned on me as if they could see nothing else.

  My breath stuttered.

  He looked so dark and wicked.

  Daunting, vicious beauty.

  But I recognized more.

  Energy swirled, stirred up by the sea. Drawn, I peeled off my tank and jeans and edged out into the lapping waves.

  Lyrik didn’t look away.

  Cool water hit my feet and climbed higher and higher up my legs as I slowly made my way to the man who stood waiting for me.

  So ridiculously tall.

  Striking.

  “Come here,” he said when I was within two feet of him.

  I squealed when he shocked me by grabbing me and pulling me deeper into the waves. He wrapped me up in his arms and buried his face in my neck. “There’s my girl.”

  And I fought for reserves. For my shields. For the barriers. Because for so long I’d believed vulnerability was my enemy.

  I felt it greater now than I ever had.

  Not in the way Cameron Lucan had made me feel.

  No.

  I felt it in a way that was profound.

  Life-changing.

  As if an unsure hand was holding my heart precariously.

  A heart that could be nurtured or crushed.

  Lyrik had become so capable of both.

  He broke the intensity by lifting me then tossing me into the air. Water swallowed me, and I sank to the bottom before I propelled myself up. I swiped back the drenched hair sticking to my face.

  “Lyrik!” I sputtered and shouted. I gave a good punch to his stomach. “You’re such a jerk.”

  But there was no anger.

  No venom.

  Because I no longer believed that assertion myself.

  He jumped back, his abdomen flexing, his body rolling with laughter.

  Carefree and light.

  Shivers spread, and that need in the pit of my stomach kept growing stronger.

  He smirked that cocky smirk.

  God, I liked that, too.

  “What’s the matter, Red. You think a little water’s going to hurt you?”

  Anticipating this very thing, I’d only put on gloss before I’d left. My face was void of the makeup I normally wore, not even caring everyone would see me this way.