The buzz before the strike.
He smirked and lifted his chin. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Red standing in my kitchen, lookin’ like my favorite fantasy. Are you trying to wreck me, baby?”
I ripped my gaze from the man standing across the room and let it travel down my attire.
Yeah, I’d dressed for him.
My hair, piled in an intricate twist, was done up in a black bandanna. I wore a tight pair of white jeans that stopped just above my ankles, and a white and black polka-dot blouse tied at the bottom so it exposed a thick strip of skin across my mid-drift, lips painted a vibrant red.
I shrugged like it didn’t matter while Lyrik looked at me as if he were two seconds from gobbling me up.
God, I hoped so.
“Not that I’m complaining…finding you standing there.” He rounded the countertop and came into the kitchen.
My heart sped, and my breaths became shallow when from behind he wound his arms around my waist. Those big, capable hands went straight to the slip of skin I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist, heated palms flat on my flesh.
My stomach dove into a free fall.
He buried his nose in my hair. “You didn’t need to do all of this for me, baby. I would have been happy to take you out for dinner.”
My shoulders hiked, and I went for blasé. As if it were nothing. But the words slipped free, an uncontrolled statement as I turned my head just enough so we were nose to nose. “Make it if you want it to matter.”
For a moment, he stilled, before he wrapped me up tighter. His groan vibrated down my spine. “What am I going to do with you?”
“What aren’t you going to do with me?” That time I actually managed the flirt and tease, because there was nothing feigned about it.
The man gave me multiple personality disorder. Bold and sexy and in control. Soft and kind.
Yet I couldn’t help but feel the mix was absolutely me.
I gasped when he pressed his cock to my backside. Big and hard. “You want to find out just what I intend to do to you? What I’ve been thinking about all week, getting right where I haven’t been?”
He rocked against my ass, his tone sharpening in a seductive edge. “All you have to say is no…but I sure as hell hope you don’t.”
Shivers blazed, a thrill beating a path through my senses and twisting as anticipation swirled in my stomach.
He’d broken down all my barriers. Taken me everywhere and in every way. Except for that. I pressed back. “I’m yours.”
He both stilled and managed to hug me a little tighter.
Protective.
I just wasn’t sure who he was protecting, anymore.
God, it was getting harder and harder to keep it inside. The way I felt. The way it increased every day and amplified every night.
He dropped a kiss to my temple, stepped back, and ran his fingers through the damp, dark hair on his head. “What can I do to help?”
I twisted the cap to the seasoning and began to sprinkle it over the steaks. “Why don’t you go heat up the grill? The potatoes are just starting to boil and I’m getting ready to make a salad.”
“Mmm…you spoil me.”
“I aim to please,” I shot at him, all flirty and filled with innuendo.
He chuckled and touched my nose. “And please you do.”
I giggled as he repeated our words, the mood set back to light. Riding with Lyrik required being ready for all the highs and lows.
He pointed at me as he began to walk backward in the direction of the balcony. “Don’t move,” he said.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised.
He disappeared into the gleaming light.
I turned to washing the vegetables, patted my hands dry before I opened a drawer to dig around for a utility knife.
Junk drawer.
I started to slam it closed, when a picture shoved in the back caught my attention. So maybe it was buried beneath another stack of papers. The pointy edge was the only thing I saw.
With a brush of my fingers, I nudged the papers covering it aside.
A slick of apprehension beaded as a sheen of sweat across my skin.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
What was I thinking?
Maybe I wasn’t at all because I reached inside and pulled it out.
And again I got the sense I was no different than the ditsy girl on a horror flick who was walking right into a trap.
Moments from being gutted.
No, not moments. A flash of a second. Because I didn’t even have time for my breath to catch. Instead, the air in my lungs jutted out in some kind of perverted shock. As if I had any right to feel this way. To look on this picture as if it were an insult to me.
As if I’d been betrayed by some kind of illicit affair.
It was a snapshot. Lyrik’s face shone. Happy. So goddamned happy and free that it tugged at me from all directions. Ripping me apart. He was without an ounce of the burden and chains that now dragged him down. Without that ever-present ominous and dark aura.
He was wrapped around a girl from behind. Her long brown hair blew in the wind, brushing at his face, her smile just as wide as his.
I attempted to swallow around the lump in my throat.