“I’ll be sure to tell her that,” I told her with a lift of my brow.
“Don’t you dare. Women like that eat girls like me for dinner.”
“I think you’re safe. As far as I know, she likes men.”
Disgust made her scowl. “Tell me you don’t know that because you’ve slept with her. She’s your employee. That’s just all kinds of wrong, Oliver Preston.”
She tried to make it come out as nonchalant, like she was giving a friend advice. But I heard the way the idea of it scraped from her throat. Hurting her.
Always, always hurting her.
I looked at her, hooking up a small smile. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Nikki Walters. I don’t sleep with my employees. But you know Kale got a taste of that before he met Hope.”
Her eyes went wide with the scandal.
“No,” she wheezed.
Had no idea if I was breaking bro code by letting her in on that little bit, but somehow, I couldn’t make myself shut the hell up, needing this connection with her, hungry for it. Or maybe I was just trying to shift the attention from myself.
“Yup.”
“Freaking Kale . . . he’s lucky I love him so much.”
“Nah . . . he was just doing his thing . . . biding his time until the right girl came into his life.”
She blinked these wide blinks at that, that feeling pulsing at my chest, thrumming in the space between us. “So you really never slept with her?”
“No. Not even close.”
Her eyes narrowed for a beat, like she was searching me for the truth, before she relaxed against the arm of the couch and pulled her legs up so she could hug her knees. “Good. You’re forgiven. For now.”
This time, it was my brows riding high. “And just what are you forgiving me for?”
“Being a gorgeous, brainless, womanizing man.” She said it with a jut of her chin. Playful even though I could feel the undertone of severity. The two of us broaching a subject we’d never trusted ourselves to touch before.
An incredulous chuckle rolled out. “Womanizing, huh? Now who’s making assumptions about the other?”
Her amusement shifted and fell into something somber. “Oh, come on, Ollie. You don’t need to pretend for me. You think I don’t see those girls?”
Regret clamped down on my chest. I grabbed the remote and aimed it at the television that sat on the console, voice a little lower than it needed to be. “Those girls don’t mean anything.”
Her voice was softer. “Everyone means something, Ollie. Feels something. Whether you want to take it into account or not.”
This girl.
I turned up the volume. Like it might have the power to mute every mistake I’d ever made.
She was right.
Everyone mattered.
Her the most.
And I’d gone and treated her the same goddamned way I treated everyone else.
Needing a diversion, I flipped through some channels.
A grin took over when I found what I was looking for.
Could feel her amusement ripple from her spirit, the way her mouth twisted up as she attempted to keep herself from laughing. She stretched out her leg and gave me a little kick to the thigh.
“AFV? Are you kidding me?”
My eyes glided up her bare leg.
For a beat, my attention locked on the frayed, braided bracelet made of red thread she still wore around her ankle, the worn metal charm in the middle stamped with the words, “Fly.”
I had one to match hidden in my room, unable to bear wearing it.
Seeing it.
The third piece was missing forever.
My guts ached.
I shoved off the thoughts and let feigned innocence lift both my shoulders to my ears. “What? I thought it was your favorite show?”
“Stupid boys,” she muttered for what had to have been for the millionth time since I’d known her.
The thing about it?
It was the first time she’d said it in fourteen years.
I pretended I didn’t feel contentment go sinking all the way to my bones.
She shifted and groaned a little as she tried to get comfortable on my couch.
Totally should have ignored that sound, considering it spoke directly to my dick, but the question was sliding free before I could stop it. “What’s wrong?”
“Legs just get tired from running around the diner for nine hours a day. Feels good to lie down. This couch is Heaven. Seriously, Ollie, when I leave, I’m taking it with me. No need to report a robbery. You know where it’ll be.”
I let loose a fake gasp. “After all my kindness, you’d go and steal from me?”
She peeked over at me with a sweet grin that slid right through me. “For this couch? Absolutely.”
“Here.” Reaching out, I dragged both her feet onto my lap and angled to the side a bit so I was facing her better.
Such a bad, bad idea.
She was right.
Stupid boys.
So damned stupid when I took one of her feet into my hands and kneaded my fingers into her heel.
Nikki’s gasp was real.
Hitting the air like a motherfucking drug.
Just a moan from her tongue a spell.
For a moment, she hesitated. Clearly, the girl knew this was a bad idea, too. Because she stilled before she relented.
The anxiety firing through her body went lax, and she rolled onto her back to grant me better access.
She emitted another one of those groans.
Throatier this time.
“Don’t make me steal this couch and you, too. A girl could get used to this,” she murmured.
I had to suck for air because my lungs squeezed.
Constricted with a rush of lust.
Like a dumbass, I continued to massage her foot, my thumbs pressing deeper into her heel before I moved to the arch.
Wishing I was closer.
Needing more.
A sigh pulled from between those pink lips, and the air shifted.
Sizzled and lit.
That’d always been the problem with Nikki.
She was heat and light. A spark and a flame.
Sunshine.
I thought I just might lose my mind because I swore I could see that aura she wore gather between us.
Colors.
Reds and purples and blues.
They thrummed and lapped. It made it impossible to breathe.
I moved to the ball of her foot and then to her toes, which were tiny and somehow delicate, the nails short and painted the same shimmery pink color of her lips.
Did it make me a sick fucker that I wanted to suck one into my mouth? That I wanted to lick up her bare leg? Nibble at the inside of her thigh?
She squirmed, and my breaths came harder.
Harsher.
While hers turned shallow.
She arched from the couch.
Need and pleasure.
I wondered if a girl could go off from a foot massage alone.
Because I thought maybe I could from giving one.
My cock strained painfully as I moved to her other foot.
“Ollie,” she whimpered. “That feels so good.”
Visions slammed me.
Clearly.
The girl bare.
Laid out under me.
An offering.
Nikki. Nikki. Nikki.
I dropped her foot like a rock and launched to my feet.
Erratically, my chest heaved as lust careened through my body. I roughed both my hands through my hair, trying to calm the fuck down.
Get myself together.
You can’t be trusted. You can’t be trusted.
Shocked out of the trace, Nikki shot up to sitting. Her eyes blazed as she stared across at me.
With desire and regret.
With the realization she should be protecting herself from me.
She clutched the couch like it was a life raft she was getting re
ady to get tossed from.
This was stupid.
So stupid.
“Need to get downstairs,” I told her, voice rough.
She nodded.
For the first time since I’d known this girl, no smart reply came from her mouth. I didn’t wait for her to form one.
I flew for the door.
My own life raft.
Because I was right.
This girl was a wave getting ready to take me under.
And I didn’t think she’d ever let me up for air.
11
Nikki
It was close to five p.m. when I bounded down the three flights of stairs and out the big metal door into the back-parking lot.
Humidity smacked me in the face, and I was hit with the overpowering scent of honeysuckle that wafted through the dense air.
I jogged across the lot to where I’d parked my car after Ollie had taken me back to my apartment to pick it up yesterday afternoon.
I knew I shouldn’t find comfort in staying with him. But I wouldn’t lie to myself.
I did.
I wouldn’t have been able to sleep last night had I been staying at my apartment, fearful Caleb might return.
All I wanted was to lay low.
Hide out.
Just for a little while.
Until things between him and Brenna cooled down.
Of course, I had to admit I hadn’t slept all that well knowing Ollie was once again just a room away.
A wall and a million miles separating us.
But after the evening we’d spent together, it’d felt as if part of that chasm was being erased.
Drawn.
That magnet that would live forever pulling us together.
It was a bad idea to get close to him. I knew it. Of course, I knew it. But sometimes life made it hard to pretend he hadn’t once been the most important person in my life.
Anxious to head to my sister’s house, I clicked the fob and started to pull open the driver’s side door.
Then I froze.
My stomach plummeted to the ground.
The hairs at the nape of my neck lifted on end, and the sweat that was already threatening to gather beaded across my forehead and neck, trickling down my back in a slow slide of dread.
Another note.
It was folded neatly and tucked beneath the wiper.
He’d found me.
Oh God, he’d found me.
I gulped around the rush of terror that glided through my body.
Followed me more likely.
From Brenna’s description, he was manipulative in the worst of ways. Yanking her one direction then the other until she thought she was going insane.
Warily, my attention darted around the area, searching beneath the towering trees that lifted to the blue, blue sky, across the line of cars that were parked next to mine since this area was reserved parking for Olive’s employees.
Nothing.
Just the whisper of the leaves and the sound of the busy street echoing from the other side of the building.
“Shit,” I mumbled. All I wanted was to run right back upstairs. Maybe curl up in the bed Ollie had told me to consider mine.
Maybe curl up in his.
Damn it.
I could not let my brain go down that train of thought.
But it seemed almost impossible.
Not with the way he’d always made me feel safe.
Not with the way he’d touched me last night.
I wanted to fall into Ollie’s strong arms and beg him to take it away.
But I wasn’t that girl.
One to be frightened away.
Threatened until I backed down so some jerk could have his way.
Brenna deserved so much better than that.
Taking one last glance around the lot, I snagged the note and hopped into my car, quick to slam the door and press the lock.
Heart a riot in my chest, I carefully unfolded it.
Fear slicked across the surface of my flesh.
A cold, cold dread.
You think you can get away so easily? He can’t keep you from what’s coming.
Thunder.
It rumbled through my being. A warning. A siren that screamed. Pulse a deafening pound, pound, pound as it echoed in my ears.
I squeezed my eyes closed against the shackle of terror that gripped me.
I’d always known working for the program would require sacrifice.
That it might not always be easy.
Maybe I’d known I was getting in too deep.
I’d just never expected it might make me feel like I was going to drown.
* * *
I hoisted myself onto my little sister’s kitchen counter.
Sammie gave me a scowl. “Were you born in a barn?”
Playfully, I rolled my eyes at her and tossed another grape into my mouth. “Um, if I was born in a barn, then I’m pretty sure you were, too. Next thing you know, you’ll be makin’ yo mama jokes. Tryin’ to cut me down to size when you’re really just cutting yourself off at the knees.”
She swatted at me. “Pssh . . . if I wanted to cut you down to size, I wouldn’t need to look to our mother. Think I’ve got plenty to work with just with you sittin’ there. We could start with that face.”
“Ouch,” I said, grinning wide. Funny how neither of us were feeling the love unless we were razzing the other.
Old habits die hard and all that.
“Before you start going down that road, you should probably take a gander in the mirror,” I told her.
She laughed. “Oh, God . . . now don’t you go talking about how much we look alike. A couple of days ago, I was at that little market over by Grandma’s. Remember her neighbor, Margo? I was loading my groceries onto the conveyor belt when I heard someone shoutin’, ‘Nikki, Nikki, is that you?’ I don’t know why she even bothered asking the question when she refused to believe I was your sister and not actually you.”
“You say this as if looking like me is a bad thing.”
She laughed as she flitted around her cozy country kitchen, preparing dinner, the smell of a roast simmering on the stove making my stomach growl.
Her face really was so much like mine that it felt as if I was looking in a mirror.
A few years younger and a tiny bit rounder from the few pounds she was still clinging to after giving birth to my sweet niece two months ago.
“Did you show up at my door diggin’ for compliments?”
“Um, no, I didn’t show up at your door diggin’ for compliments. I showed up at your door diggin’ for dinner.”
That, and I needed a distraction.
I had to tell Seth about the notes I’d found on my car. I knew I did. But I needed to work myself up to it. Figure out exactly what information I could give without betraying confidence, knowing I didn’t have proof.
But my gut?
It was sure.
On top of that? I’d needed to get out of Ollie’s loft. Clear my head. Decide exactly what I was going to say to him.
I couldn’t just stay there and keep him in the dark about what was happening.
But God knew, I was terrified of letting him in on this.
He wasn’t exactly rational when it came to a threat.
Plus, I had to be careful before I lost my heart all over again.
No doubt, that was the most dangerous position I could get myself into.
Sammie pulled out a cutting board and set a head of broccoli on it. “Well, I guess you came to the right place, then, didn’t you? Just expecting your married sister was gonna be slaving away in the kitchen for her husband.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” I teased, eyeing the spread she was preparing.
Chuckling, she shook her head. “I do it because I want to do it, not because I’m obligated.”
I nudged her with my shoe. “You think I don’t know that? And there is not a thing wrong with you wanting to take care of your family.”
She glanced over at me. Something about her expression was wistful and sad. “I never really thought it was what I’d want to do. I always envisioned myself in a big skyscraper in an even bigger city, working my way up the corporate ladder, and now all I want to do is spend the day rockin’ that baby.”
“You always dreamed of getting away from Gingham Lakes, didn’t you?”
Her head shook a bit. “Sometimes you think it’s the place you need to escape when really it’s just your situation.”
I stilled at that, something unsettling about her statement. I searched her face. “What does that mean?”
Her posture stiffened, and she pinned on a smile. “Nothing. Just means I thought there might be better things out there waiting for me in the world.”
“Why’s that?”
She inhaled deeply, biting her bottom lip as she continued chopping. “It’s nothing. Just never quite felt comfortable in my own skin.”
I shifted to the side so I could see her better. “I don’t get that, Sammie. You were always the happiest of us all.”
She puffed a little sound. “Not even. You and Sydney and those boys. You were always running free, leaving your poor baby sister behind.”
A chuckle rippled out, and I reached over and grabbed another handful of grapes from the bowl. “Ha. Every time I tried to take you anywhere, you didn’t want to walk. How many times did Ollie have to carry you home on his back?”
She laughed low and tossed the florets of broccoli she’d just cut into the pot of water boiling on the stove. “Good thing that boy was always the size of a bear, always having to carry all the poor, pathetic girls around.”
She grinned. “Of course, you were probably just faking being tired so you could get yourself one of those rides. Anything to get your arms around that man.”
Nostalgia moved through me. Joy chased by sorrow. I couldn’t stop the sad smile.
She sobered a bit. “You know, I always thought the two of you would end up together.”
My head shook. “No. We have too much in common. Too much history to ever make that work.”
“Isn’t that what makes a good relationship?”
“Not when all that history is filled with pain.”
She nodded slowly, quick to change the subject. “So, how are your classes?”
“Good. I’m so close to being finished. I can’t believe it.”
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 77
