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“Feels like a good thing.”
He lowered her enough to kiss her lips, and she could feel the clouds opening up, pouring rain on them.
The hair on the back of her neck rose, and her body tingled. The wind kicked up and lifted her damp hair, and suddenly she heard a tremendous crash. Startled, she ended the kiss and looked up to see lightning strike the middle of the street, shooting sparks everywhere.
She gasped as the second lightning strike hit the alleyway behind her. But when she moved to scramble out of Wreck’s arms, he was grinning, so she froze. He wasn’t worried at all.
Another flash of lightning struck the sidewalk behind them, and she watched the sparks dance and skitter across the concrete.
It was stunning, and left her in complete awe as she looked around to see lighting striking the street. It wasn’t the powerful, destructive kind of lightning that left cracks in asphalt and damage to buildings. It wasn’t touching the buildings at all. It was just thin, glowing strikes of electricity that sent little explosions of sparks bouncing all over the place.
“Are you doing this?” she whispered.
“You’re safe,” he assured her.
And she trusted him. Wreck wouldn’t let her be hurt.
She eased down to the ground and watched as lightning struck in the street again. Same place. Lightning wasn’tsupposed to be able to strike the same place, right? Sparks danced toward them. The alleyway lit up with another strike, and another. She laughed and turned to watch for where it would strike next. These lightning strikes were for show. These were for her.
Wreck could pull that power from the sky.
He was doing it now, just for her.
She laughed in shock and held his hand tightly, overwhelmed by little sparks dancing all over the street and sidewalk.
The murmur of people dragged her attention as the strikes died down. People were hovering in the doorways of buildings all down the street, but her attention was captured by the bar that her family and Brandon were crowding out of. The smile slipped from her face.
A wall of lightning strikes blasted from the sky and landed between her and her family, obstructing her view. It was punctuated with a huge roar of thunder, and she could hear the screams from that bar. When she looked up at Wreck, he was watching her. “They won’t be messing with your head any more. You aren’t alone anymore.”
“I really like you,” she whispered.
“You’re scared of the word. Me too.”
She knew what word he spoke of. Love. Love was a terrifying word to someone who had been destroyed by it before. It was a terrifying word to someone who hadn’t allowed himself to feel it before.
The wind rushed around them, lifting her hair and the hem of her clothes upward.
“You can do so much more than anyone knows, can’t you?” she whispered.
His slow smile was answer enough. “Those people don’t deserve you,” he murmured. “You’re caring. You’re independent.You give yourself to others. You’re open. You tell people when they’re messing up, and if they see that as a threat?” He shook his head. “They lost you. You didn’t lose them.”
She leaned up on her tiptoes and placed her lips by his ear, too cowardly to look him in the eyes when she said it. “I love you. I know it’s too soon, but I do. It’s how I feel.”
His hand went to the back of her neck and he tilted her head back, up at the rain clouds and the lightning that cracked across the sky. “It is returned.”
“Don’t be a mystery-boy. Say it like it is. Tell me where I stand. Don’t make me walk into that bar wondering if I’m alone. Don’t let me have questions.”
He leaned down, his thumb pushing her chin upward. He kissed the tripping pulse at her throat. “I haven’t said it before.”
Her eyes went wide. “Never?”
The grim set of his mouth was so serious as he whispered, “Never.”
Sirens sounded in the distance, and she knew her family had called the police. Perhaps the fire department, because of the lightning and all of the sparks spraying around them.
Timber couldn’t find it in herself to care. Bring on the flashing lights. If this was bad, she was bad, and that was that.
“Say it,” she said low.
