He sucked at my clit, dragging back, his big fingers finding me.
Pressing deep.
It felt like a claiming.
Like something had changed.
Like Ollie was dropping another brick from the walls he’d built around his hardened heart.
He kissed my bottom, teeth raking the skin.
Chills scattered while his fingers drove me higher.
Right up to the edge.
“Ollie,” I pled.
“What is it, sweet girl”
“I’m so close.” My fingers curled into the cushion. “I need you.”
“You have me.”
You have me. You have me.
His words tumbled through my spirit.
He was suddenly right there, plastered to my back, his cock nudging at my folds.
“And I want all of you,” he said.
I cried out when he took me in a possessive stroke.
He gave me no warning.
No time to adjust.
One hand was wound up in a knot in my hair and his other hand was pressed flat to my lower belly as he began to fuck me.
Fuck me hard and fast and deep.
Our pants filled the dense air.
Needy rasps.
“You . . . you feel so good . . . nothing is better than this . . . you are mine. Mine, Nikki. I’m not ever letting you go.”
Ollie’s words spun and lifted, floating out as our bodies slapped, the sound matching his grunts.
He filled me.
Again and again.
Touching me everywhere.
Heart. Spirit. Soul.
I met his fierce gaze through the reflection of the window. The man behind me. Taking me. Owning me.
While I offered him everything.
All of me.
Nothing left to hide.
He tugged at my hair, pulling my head against his shoulder, his cheek on mine.
“Look at you,” he demanded.
My body was stretched out against his, bowed back, my breasts pointed, tingling with the flickers of pleasure that grew more intense.
Every nerve ending alive. Zaps and pulses and zings.
It gathered fast as Ollie took me deeper and harder and higher.
He spread me with his fingers, stroking my clit.
A match tossed on kindling and gasoline.
Incinerated.
I’d never felt anything like it.
The fire that engulfed me.
Burning and singeing and scarring.
My body arched with the orgasm, and Ollie held me tighter, an arm around my waist as he drove deep.
So full I couldn’t see.
His hips snapped.
Frenzied.
His groan guttural.
Teeth sank into my shoulder when he came, his body going rigid as he grunted through his release.
My beast.
My mind tilted, the floor going missing from under me as we both struggled to come back down.
“Fuck,” he muttered as we both gasped for the nonexistent air.
“Fuck,” he whispered again, almost frantically.
Fuck.
Another shiver rolled, and he held me up. Keeping me from falling.
His mouth was at my ear. “I just want to be the one to give you everything.”
I wanted to believe that he was ready to take that leap. But there was no missing the desperation that bled through his words.
Fueled by an urgent desire to tighten the tether he feared might break.
I stood right there, at that edge, ready to jump.
I just prayed Ollie wouldn’t let me fall alone.
29
Ollie
I pressed my cell to my ear. “Sage, man, what’s up. How’s it coming?”
I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks, which wasn’t uncommon for restorations. It took a shit-ton of time to get anything accomplished. The search for replacement parts could take months, not to mention the actual work that needed to be done.
He hesitated on the other end of the line.
“What’s going on?”
He blew out a sigh. “Not sure, man. There’s just some weird shit with this car.”
Only thing I heard was Sage shouting dollar signs.
“That car’s special to me. Doesn’t matter what it costs.”
He inhaled, stalled, and an odd sensation gathered in my chest while I waited for him to fill me in.
“No. This isn’t about money. There’s some . . . shit in the trunk that doesn’t sit right.”
“What’s that mean?”
I could hear him pacing on the concrete floors. “There’s some rope. A torn shirt that looks like it’s splattered with blood.”
Unease moved through me, silence falling over us as Sage let me catch up to what he was implying.
I sucked for a breath, teeth gritting as I spoke through the anger that lit inside me. “That kid Caleb . . . he . . . who knows what the fuck he was mixed up in. Knew he was trouble the second I saw him.”
“That’s what I was worried about. And it might not be anything. Someone could have just as easily cut themselves and tossed the shirt in there. Just have to verify it before we gut this thing and start on the actual work.”
I was always quick to jump to conclusions.
Sage was just taking the steps needed to get things done.
I shoved down the swelling rage.
“Of course.”
“Honestly, the more I think about it, I’m sure it’s nothing, but it’s gonna nag if I don’t call it in.”
“Do what you’ve got to do, man. Can’t blame you for that. Just let me know when you get started.”
He was right. It was probably nothing, and if that punk had been up to something shadier than we’d thought, at least he was in rehab. If he did try to leave, he’d land his scrawny ass in a jail cell.
I couldn’t worry about it right then.
Because my girl was peeling off her panties and grinning at me as she climbed into my bed.
And no matter how awesome that old car turned out, it wouldn’t ever come as close to looking as good as that.
30
Nikki
My phone buzzed in my hand, and I was already grinning when I slid my finger across the plate.
Then my heart . . . it pattered when I saw the text that had come through. Was that normal? I was thirty, for God’s sake.
But it did.
My eyes traced across the screen.
Ollie: Pretty please.
It probably wasn’t the words that got me so much as the picture that he had sent along with it that had my pulse skipping a beat. My teeth tucked my bottom lip between them as I was hit with a rush of giddiness.
Because there was an up-close selfie of Ollie.
He was leaning against the bar downstairs at Olive’s. An arm was crossed over his chest, and one of those tatted hands held onto his opposite shoulder.
The man was grinning at the camera, at me. And his eyes? They glinted. Glinted with happiness, and there was no description for how happy that made me.
Walking down the busy sidewalk, I tapped out a response.
Me: Not a chance, playboy.
I hadn’t made it two steps before my phone buzzed again.
Ollie: Come on, gorgeous. Show me that face and just a little bit of that body. I’ll make it worth your while ;)
There was that patter again.
Six weeks had passed since that fateful night on the dance floor when everything had changed. When the anniversary of Sydney’s disappearance had changed us again. Although this time, it had pushed us together.
Closer and closer each day.
Our lives knitting together, so tightly we’d become one.
Easy.
The way it was always supposed to be.
Things had settled.
Caleb was still in the long-term rehab center, hopefully making a real effort to piece his life back together and becom
e the type of man Brenna and Kyle deserved.
I tried not to be skeptical.
Sometimes that was hard because it turned out I was protective, too.
Sammie still hadn’t confided in me, but she’d been calling more, asking me over, and I got the feeling she was working herself up to the place where she felt comfortable enough to do it.
I would never push her, even though sometimes I had the itch to beg her to tell me, that part of myself that wanted to make everything better screaming out to do something.
I had to accept I didn’t have that kind of control.
All I could do was love and support and be there for her when she was ready.
Two weeks ago, Hope and Kale had announced that they were expecting, which filled me up with an intense joy for them and also lit a few sparks of jealousy.
I’d pushed those feelings down.
Of course, I ignored all of Lily’s ribbing when Ollie and I stepped out as a couple. We’d had a heart to heart, and I’d finally confessed to her that I’d loved him all along.
That it’d always been so much more than a crush.
That it was everything.
That Ollie was everything.
Which was exactly why I was grinning like a fool as I hurried the last few steps down the sidewalk and swung open the door to the old building.
Instead of going right for the basement stairs to set up like I typically would have done, I slipped into a deserted hallway to the left and tucked myself into an alcove where I’d be out of view.
I lifted my phone and snapped a picture, giving the barest hint of the pretty much nonexistent cleavage revealed by my pretty blouse.
Ollie definitely didn’t seem to mind.
Me: That’s going to have to tide you over until later.
Ollie: Dying.
Ollie: So gorgeous.
Ollie: You’re ruining me, baby.
Redness flushed across my skin as I read the words that kept blipping through.
Me: I think you have it all backward. It’s you who’s ruining me.
Ollie: Hurry up and get that sexy ass home. I’ll see you at ten.
Ollie: I miss you.
Me: I miss you, too.
I felt as if I was riding on a cloud, floating down the stairs that led to the basement. I was halfway through setting up the circle of chairs when Ms. Kathy came in, started a pot of coffee, and arranged the donuts she’d picked up on a tray.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
I beamed. I couldn’t help it. “I can’t believe I’m really finished.”
Yesterday, I’d gotten my certificate in the mail from the online college.
I officially had my bachelor’s degree. All I needed to do was take the state test and I would be certified.
“This is when the fun part begins.” She winked at me.
“Uh-oh. Tell me that wasn’t a warnin’,” I said, laughing a little.
She made a humming sound. “Some days will make you feel like a champion and others will drop you right to your knees. But what you can count on is it will never be dull.”
I hesitated for a second, peeking over at her. “Is it worth it?”
She reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Always.”
Fifteen minutes later, the secluded basement was a rumble of voices and screeching chairs as we all gathered around the circle.
I opened the session with our mantra. “I am strong. I have control of my life. I have control of my body. I have the right.”
I looked around the group of faces. Even though so many were full of sorrow, it filled me with extreme hope. I did my normal introduction, telling them this was their safe place and completely confidential.
“Tonight, I would like us to talk through how you might look at situations differently since you’ve been attending this group. How has this changed the way you’ve reacted? How has it changed the way you handle the hurdles you face? Would anyone like to start?”
I was surprised when Brenna raised her hand. “I’d like to start, Miss Nikki. There’s something that’s been bothering me, and I want to make sure I’m handling it right.”
Over the last few weeks, she’d really come out of her shell, exuding a confidence that had been lacking before.
“Okay, tell us what’s happening.”
Almost nervously, her attention darted around the group before she began, “Well, Caleb has been in rehab for six weeks now. He’s now allowed to make calls. He’s called a couple of times and is promising me he is changing. That he’s making a real effort. I don’t want to walk through life with a chip on my shoulder, but I also don’t want to be naïve.”
Pride welled inside me, and I started to speak, but I stilled when tentative footsteps echoed down the stairs.
I paused to look over my shoulder, and like all those weeks ago, my sister appeared in the doorway.
Her eyes met mine.
There was something so broken there that my heart froze in the middle of my chest.
I tried to swallow around the apprehension that climbed to my throat as my little sister moved around the circle and tentatively took an empty seat.
I should have been relieved.
I should have taken solace in the fact she was there.
But I swore, I felt the air go cold.
31
Ollie
“You want another?”
“You know I do,” the old guy said as he drained his fourth beer of the evening.
I filled a chilled glass, foam overflowing down the sides as I cocked him a look. “You better watch yourself, or I’m gonna have to cut you off.”
He laughed and waved a flippant hand over his head. “You think this old-timer can’t handle his liquor? Couple of cold ones sure aren’t gonna hurt me. Why do you think I’m still alive and kickin’?”
Laughing, I slid him the pint glass. I’d been chatting with him all afternoon. He was either telling some tall, tall tales or the old bastard had lived quite the life.
Olive’s had been quiet during the dead hours between the lunch rush and the after-work crowd. Evening was setting in, and the place was beginning to fill up.
For so long, my bar had basically been my entire life. Now, I couldn’t wait for the night to pass so I could get back upstairs.
Fact I kept looking at my phone was proof enough.
“Who ya got on that phone? You got yourself one of them sassy modern girls? Bet you do.”
I chuckled under my breath, setting my phone aside. I had to have looked at Nikki’s picture at least a thousand times since she’d sent it an hour ago.
“That I do.”
Still blew my mind that I did. That Nikki was mine.
My body rumbled with possession.
Every inch.
“She pretty? Let me see.”
Old pervert.
Amusement swimming through me, I started wiping down the bar. “Hell no. Do I look like the kind of guy who shares my girl?”
His laughter was some kind of ridiculous guffaw and he smacked his hand on the wood. “Don’t reckon you do. Look like you’d tear a poor sucker limb from limb.”
“Sounds about right,” I said, grinning when I felt the presence standing across the bar from me.
I looked up.
Seth.
My smile started to widen until I caught the expression on his face.
I straightened. “Seth, man, what are you doing here?”
His voice was quiet, lined with a tremor. “Need to talk to you. In private.”
I tossed the rag onto the bar and hollered at Cece, who was manning the opposite end. “Watch things for a bit. I’ve got to step outside.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
I wound around the end of the bar and followed Seth. He headed straight down the back hall, passing by the sign that read: Employees Only.
Could feel the disturbance radiating from him, riding on the air that suddenly felt too fucking thick.
My bre
aths grew hard, and my heart fisted in an unknown sort of pain when he blew out the big metal door and into the vacant back lot.
Only thing back there were the employees’ cars and the dumpster the kitchen used.
Humidity slapped me in the face, but it was Rex standing with his back pressed to the brick exterior wall, his head rocking up and down and his fists shoved deep in his pockets, that felt like a punch to the gut.
My attention swung back to Seth. “What’s going on?”
His eyes squeezed shut. “I’m breaking a thousand rules by doing this, but I needed to tell you before you heard it somewhere else.”
Tension stretched across my chest.
Pulling and pulling.
Any harder and it would rip me right in half.
“What?” I had to force out the word.
Seth hesitated, looking to the ground, inhaling deep. Sympathy shaded his eyes when he looked back up at me. “You know they started excavation down on Row.”
I glanced over at Rex, confusion so thick I was having a hard time seeing through it, before I swung my gaze back to Seth. “Yeah, of course, I know. Rex said everything was given the go and the permits had been approved.”
Seth blew out a strained breath, a bluster of hesitation coming off him.
Overwhelming waves.
“Ollie.” There was nothing but pity in the word.
Could feel Rex flinch from the side.
Foreboding ridged like ice skating down my spine.
“What the fuck is goin’ on, man?
Seth blinked, and the words came from his mouth like a slow purge. “A body was unearthed at the work site.”
My knees gave with the blow, and my hand shot out, catching on the wall. I shoved it down and gritted my teeth. “What’s that got to do with me?”
The words might as well have been darts.
Sharp as arrows.
Denial and defense.
Seth’s brow twisted, lines distorting his face, and his words were a choked breath. “They’re speculating they’re Sydney’s remains.”
Lead Me Home: A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel Page 28
