Lead Me Home: A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel

by A. L. Jackson

  His words were delivered quietly, though his voice somehow boomed in the dense, thickened air.

  “Texted you earlier. Never heard a thing. Then when I came up to talk to you, you never showed. Went as far as calling Lillith to find out if she’d talked to you after your meeting tonight.”

  He inhaled a deep breath. “Your meeting ended two hours ago, Nikki. No one’s heard from you since, some asshole broke into your apartment during last week’s meeting, and you want me not to worry about you? Think you know me better than that. I was about five seconds from starting a door-to-door search.”

  There was a confession to his words. The depth of his worry and the lengths he would go.

  I lifted my face to the mild breeze that blew through.

  Cars accelerated below with small bleeps of their horns, and cicadas buzzed in the towering trees that reached to our level.

  I wanted to dip my fingertips into it. To find the peace it seemed to offer.

  But I felt as if I’d completely lost ground. Everything I’d been fighting for somehow felt like a sham.

  Warily, I peeked back at him. The man sat in the chair, looking like the king of his own city sprawled out below him.

  A conqueror.

  A warrior.

  Chest bare and abdomen rippling.

  Eyes keen.

  The longer pieces of his hair whipped around him like a flaming crown, the sides cropped, making the man look every bit the beast that he was.

  Yet, there was something about him that remained so unbearably lost.

  Sapphire eyes so soft I could fall right inside.

  It took about everything I had not to drop at his feet.

  I wanted to remain strong. Push him away. Remember how being this close to him only hurt me time and again.

  But right then, the only thing I felt was weak.

  A tremor rolled through my being.

  Or maybe it wasn’t weakness.

  Maybe I really just needed the one person who could fully understand.

  My hands cinched tighter around the metal. “Do you ever wonder where our lives went wrong? Where we changed course or if we were just heading this direction all along?” I hedged, trying to find the best way to invite him into my heart.

  Into my grief.

  He huffed out a strained breath. “Every day, Nikki. I think about this shit every day. I think we both know exactly where it went wrong.”

  I glimpsed him from the corner of my eye. He lifted a tumbler to his mouth, a half-empty bottle of amber fluid sitting on the table next to him. He took a long drink.

  “It only gets worse when the date gets nearer,” he reluctantly added.

  Yet, to me, it felt like a gift. His words, his heart, something he had refused to offer me over all these years.

  “Fourteen years,” I agreed. “I can’t believe that much time has passed. I can’t believe it’s been so long since our foundation was ripped out from under us. It shaped us into different people,” I offered, praying he’d get it.

  That I needed him to listen.

  That I needed him to be there.

  For me.

  His grating words filled the distance that separated us. “It doesn't matter how many years go by, it feels like it was yesterday. Feels like I’m stuck there, and I'm never gonna get out.”

  His confession was hardened with regret.

  Muted in sorrow.

  “I was there with you. But you wouldn’t let me be there for you. You wouldn’t let me stay.” My voice was a whisper that got swept up in the wind. It felt as if Sydney was caught in it, a ghost howling as she blew through.

  I felt him flinch. The man hit by the weight of the reality, even when I knew he never wanted to face it.

  “Couldn’t let you stay there because you didn't need to be in the middle of my mess.”

  I looked at him from over my shoulder. My breath hitched.

  My beautiful beast, who was so angry at the world, angry at himself, sitting there with his chin lifted and his nostrils flaring.

  I knew he would charge into the distance and change it all if he was given the chance.

  I knew he would be willing to sacrifice everything.

  “If it was your fault, then it was my fault, too.”

  “Don’t ever say that,” he spat, jumping to his feet.

  Fire and rage.

  They lit like a fury inside him.

  My head slowly shook. “You know it’s true, Ollie. You can’t erase the fact that I was there with you. That we were together. That I’m every bit as responsible as you.”

  “No. I was responsible for her. Just the same as I am for you.”

  Those eyes blazed as he took a step forward, and he fisted his hand over his heart. “I was the one who fucked it up. I was the one who pushed things between us when I knew I was crossing lines I wasn’t allowed to cross. I was the one who sent her away.”

  Grief lined his voice.

  Emotion tingled my throat, and my eyes stung.

  Part of me wanted to stop it.

  Walk away and pretend all of this wasn’t crashing over me, threatening to bury me alive. The other part wanted to hang on to every second.

  It was the first time in years Ollie had opened up to me. A door opened when it’d forever been closed.

  “She would have understood,” I told him, knowing with all of me that she would have.

  He turned his head, looking to the far corner of the balcony. “We had a pact.”

  The memory it shivered around us. A reel playing in sync in our minds. The vow we’d made before we’d understood that one day we would grow and change and things would no longer look the same.

  If I focused hard enough, I could still feel the cut Ollie had made on my palm.

  “We were eight years old, Ollie. You were nine. Kids,” I told him. “We grew up. All of us changed.”

  Slowly, he swiveled his attention back. Every muscle in his body was held in restraint. “And you know exactly what happened when we did.”

  Grief pulsed through the silence that raged between us. So many things left unsaid for so many years. It tickled our ears and hammered our hearts as we finally brought our truths out into the light.

  Tears stung my eyes, and I swallowed Ollie’s intensity and forced myself to speak. “Fourteen years ago, did I leave everyone else behind, too?” I whispered, the words a tremor.

  A plea.

  A confession.

  “Was I so consumed by that grief, by that loss, that I let everything and everyone else fade into the background?”

  Ollie’s face pinched, and he was moving closer. “What are you talking about?”

  “I missed it. I failed to see what was right in front of my eyes, Ollie.”

  He was at my side. The magnitude of his presence nearly knocked me from my feet.

  “What are you saying?”

  “My sister.” The words broke on my tongue.

  In that moment, I felt something crack.

  Chip away.

  Secrets slayed.

  And all I wanted was this man to hold all of them.

  17

  Ollie

  “My sister.” Her confession carried on the wind.

  Like a never-ending echo of horror that would ride on the soundwaves forever.

  Regret.

  The kind I knew all too well.

  Grief clustered in my chest as I looked down at her.

  Tears streaking down her defined cheeks.

  Nikki. Fucking. Walters.

  The bane of my existence.

  The one who drove me right out of my mind. Left me clinging to the edge of sanity. Made me weak in the damned knees and hard everywhere else.

  She was a carrot dangled in front of me like a tease. Always right there, always just out of reach. A connection I couldn’t keep but wanted more than my next breath.

  Because that was what she was.

  Breath.

  Life.

  The goodness and lig
ht in the middle of my dark, dark world.

  I wanted to lean in, press my nose to her delicate neck, and suck her down like a sweet, satisfying drink.

  Sunshine and lemonade.

  In the breeze, locks of that honeyed hair whipped around her head. A few errant pieces stuck to her face, those eyes so wide and innocent, and that mouth so goddamned deliciously pink.

  It made her look like the girl I’d fallen so hard for.

  She’d driven me crazy then, just like she was driving me crazy now.

  Swore to God, the burn of that kiss from the other day was still flames on my lips.

  “What do you mean, your sister?” My words were guarded. Careful.

  Fuck. Maybe I didn’t want to know.

  Because a sob tore from Nikki’s throat.

  “I think someone hurt her.”

  Rage. It was instant. The fury that banged through my being. It struck in the air.

  As deadly as a thunderbolt.

  I grabbed her and pulled her all the way around so I could fully see her. “Who?”

  She stared up at me. Indigo eyes flashing in the night. Agony wheezed out on her words when she reached up and pressed both her hands to my chest. “I don’t know. She . . . she came into the meeting tonight. Neither of us were expecting the other. She saw me . . .”

  She choked.

  In a flash, I had both my arms around her waist, pulling her up tight against me as I tried to process what that meant. “What was she there for?”

  “She ran off before I could get any answers. I . . . I chased after her. Called her name. And she ran, Ollie. She ran from me as if she was scared of me. Like . . . like she didn’t trust me.”

  That description all wrong.

  That role was one reserved for me.

  My mind spun with a shit-ton of horrible possibilities. There was nothing I could do but gather this girl closer, rocking her slowly, knowing I’d give absolutely anything to take this away. “She didn’t know you would be there?”

  Burying her face against my chest, she shook her head. “No. I don’t think she realized that my internship meant I would be working in the field.”

  I kissed her crown and ran my fingers through her hair, praying it would soothe her. “You know it wasn’t because she was scared of you or didn’t trust you, Nik. You know better than that. She just didn’t know what to do with exposing her own secret. You took her by surprise.”

  Hot tears landed on my bare chest, and the girl’s lips moved across the flesh. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  I was such a twisted fuck.

  Depraved.

  Because just that touch had my mind going where it couldn’t go.

  Laying this girl out.

  Taking her.

  At the same time, I wanted to wrap her up.

  Protect her and take every drop of her despair away. Shield her from all the bad shit that ran rampant in this vile world.

  I tried to rein in the stampeding need.

  “You’ll figure it out, sweet girl. Sammie knows you. She’s just got to deal with whatever she’s going through before she’s ready to confide in you.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of someone hurting her. Of her being in pain.”

  A shudder raked down my spine, spreading out beneath the surface of my skin.

  Rage and grief.

  I hugged her closer at the same time as she pressed tighter against me, those sweet arms bent and pinned between us as I wrapped her whole. “I know. I’m so fucking sorry. So fucking sorry.”

  There’d never been truer words.

  She pulled back. Just a fraction. Enough that those mesmerizing eyes were gazing up at me.

  Casting their spell.

  Sucking me under.

  “I need you,” she whispered, ducking down and placing gentle kisses all over my chest as her fingertips ran down my abdomen.

  My muscles tensed beneath the assault.

  Her perfect, perfect assault.

  I grabbed her by the wrists, voice a warning. “Nikki.”

  “Please,” she whimpered. “I need you. I need you. Take it away.”

  My mind flashed to a year ago. I could almost hear my own words echo through my spirit. My pleas when I’d needed her in a way no one else could offer.

  Like she needed me now.

  The two of us knew each other better than anyone else.

  Trusted in a way we shouldn’t.

  “Nikki,” I said again, another warning that only sounded like giving in.

  “Please.” She pressed the word right against my heart that thundered and roared and sent an earthquake through me.

  Protection and greed.

  “You are so much better than what I’ve got to offer. I’m messed up.”

  “What if I want to be messed up with you?”

  A low chuckle rumbled out, and my fingertips were tracing across her lips.

  Everything coming closer.

  Closer and closer.

  “It’s my job to protect you, remember? Even if that means protecting you from me.”

  The smallest smile pulled across her sexy mouth, a tease barely winding into the words. “I guess I like your brand of pain, don’t I?”

  Lust flickered low. Right where it’d always burned for her.

  Embers and ash.

  An aching, smoldering glow. “Don’t want to hurt you, Nikki, and I’m pretty damned sure you don’t want me to hurt you, either.”

  She blinked up at me. No reservations when she should be running for her life. “Then don’t.”

  “Not sure I know anything else.”

  Need flickered through those bewitching features, and I brushed my fingers through the wild pieces of her hair, holding her by the side of the head.

  “If I could, I’d do anything for you. Give you anything.”

  Her nails scratched over the cross etched right at the center of my chest.

  Right over the boom of my heart. It pulsed my blood harder and harder, every thrum winding me higher.

  Lust bottled in the air. Wobbling. Teetering as everything threatened to spill.

  Stark vulnerability seeped into her words, a line pulling into a scowl across her brow. “Please, Ollie. Touch me.”

  Need tied my guts into a thousand knots, and I gripped her as we swayed. To the beat of the music that filtered up from below.

  The bar alive.

  Nikki and I elevated above it.

  Removed.

  Two strangers who knew each other better than anyone else who’d landed in a realm where they shouldn’t be.

  My thumb traced along her cheek. Right over those freckles that made her appear so sweet and a little untamed.

  She was.

  But she was more. So much more.

  She was beauty and belief and the sun.

  Made up of her own mistakes and her own regrets.

  She was fear and challenge and perseverance.

  She was the girl I’d thought I would spend my life with until I’d lost it the day I’d lost Sydney. “I will ruin you, Nik. We both know it.”

  Nails scratched across my skin, searching for a place to sink in. “You ruined me a long time ago.”

  My nose brushed across hers. “Nikki.” Her name was a moan. A plea. It was giving in. “What do you need?”

  “You.”

  A groan rumbled deep in my chest, and I swept her off her feet, one arm under her back and the other under her knees. That was right as my mouth was slanting over hers.

  Possessively.

  Protectively.

  My tongue plundered that smart, delicious mouth.

  Deprived of the taste of her for far too long. For too many fucking years. After the tease I’d gotten the other day, I was desperate for more.

  Damn the consequences.

  A whimper pulled from her, and she murmured, “Ollie,” on a needy breath of surrender.

  For a moment, both of us were giving in.

  Her arms w
ound around my neck as I moved across the balcony. I owned that mouth the whole way, Nikki clinging to me the entire time.

  Kissing me back.

  Just as hungry.

  Desperate and needy.

  Needy for me.

  Heaviness stretched my chest taut, everything I’d ever held for this girl swelling.

  Getting bigger.

  Consuming in a way that I knew would never let me go.

  Angling to the side, I slid open the door with my elbow.

  Shadows played across the floor and walls of my loft, and I carried her across the dusky, dimly-lit room. When I laid her on the couch, a surprised breath gushed from between her lips.

  I swallowed it.

  Made it my own.

  Wanting more. So much more. Wanting it all.

  Fuck.

  I had to focus. Focus on this girl, who was squirming on the dark leather, wearing this ridiculous short floral dress and boots.

  Those legs bent as her hips bucked from the couch, begging for me. That dress slinked up to reveal the silky skin of her thighs. It gave me a peek of the black lace covering her underneath.

  Desire clutched every cell.

  Heart and mind and body.

  There was nothing I could do. All I wanted was to take her away from there. To a reality where it was us and nothing else.

  I stood, staring down at her through the darkness.

  Eyes tracing every slender curve of her mouthwatering body.

  “You are so fucking gorgeous.”

  She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and her chin lifted as her back arched. She pressed her hands to her belly and squirmed.

  Unable to sit still.

  So needy.

  Hot.

  Her flames licked out. A spark against my body.

  My cock twitched and strained against my jeans. I was blasted by thoughts of how easy it would be to rip all of our clothing away and sink inside.

  Get lost in her heat and her sighs and her support.

  Forever.

  Use her up the way I’d done before and didn’t even have the decency to remember.

  Motherfucker.

  I wasn’t about to go there.

  This was about her.

  Nikki.

  I reached out and trailed a single finger down her arm, running from her shoulder to her wrist. “Just have to look at you and another piece of me falls. Breaks away. You were every fantasy I ever had. Teenaged kid dying to get inside you. Knew it’d be heaven.”