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 wound 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 s
ilky 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.”
“Ollie,” she whispered, spreading her hands across her dress that had ridden all the way up to her waist, her hands running the length of her thighs of her bent legs. “You were always more than a fantasy to me. You were everything that was real.”
God damn it.
She was going to wreck me.
Destroy every ounce of self-control I had. I’d done it once. Lost it. Let her wreck me. Didn’t think she could afford for me to lose it again.
So, I kept myself in check, careful as I let my index finger explore, running over the fabric of that dress and riding up her thigh. I palmed the inside of it and dipped down to kiss across her knee.
Shivers rolled through her, running her spine and crashing into me.
Those hypnotic eyes watched me through the pale, muted light, knowing me too well. Seeing too much.
Each movement measured, I slowly crawled over her, bracing, keeping some distance between us while she fought to get closer.
God only knew what would happen if I plastered myself against the shape of her.
A sigh filtered from between her pink lips that were swollen and plump and damp from the force of my kiss.
So damned sexy.
I planted my hands on either side of her head, gaze moving over that unforgettable face. “You are real, Nikki. Don’t ever mistake that. You were the most real thing I ever had.”
Her fingertips brushed down my chest. “I’m still yours,” she whispered.
I slammed my eyes shut and jerked my head to the side like it might protect me from the impact of her confession.
Inhaling deeply, I let my forehead drop to hers, our breaths mingling and our noses grazing.
Both of us hanging at a precipice.
A breath. A pant. A heated second.
Bated, suspended.
Then the band holding me back snapped.
Our lips met in a collision of greed.
Taking and giving.
My lips closed over hers.
Top.
Bottom.
Sucking.
Releasing.
Tugging.
Again and again.
A perfected dance that wasn’t close to being slow.
I pressed up higher on my hands, and my head dipped down as I swept my tongue into the wet welcome of her mouth.
Thought I might die right there.
It was met with a whimper at the back of her throat and a tangle of her tongue with mine.
Her fingers scruffed through my beard, and then her hands were fisting in my hair.
Begging for more.
Her body lifting to meet mine as our tongues coiled in a desperate play to get closer to the other.
I took her by the inside of her thigh, making myself room, rocking my cock against her pussy.
Her cry was quiet and needy. A plea lighting in the combustible air. “Ollie. I need you. I need you.”
A groan rambled through my spirit, and I tore my mouth from hers. This was not about me.
I’d taken enough.
I plucked at her bottom lip with both of mine before I was kissing a path down her chin, her jaw.
Fingernails scraped my shoulders.
I sucked and licked along the delicate column of her slender throat and to those fucking collarbones that drove me straight out of my mind.
Delirium.
My head spun, and I was kissing across her chest, down over her heart that drummed violently.
Pound, pound, pound.
I felt it beating.
Desperate in its bid to meet with mine.
As if it could catch up to the bolting thunder that raged within the confines of my ribs. Thrashing at my insides.
Seeking a way out.
I sucked in a breath and fought back that feeling. That feeling that she was mine and she was always gonna be.
I kissed across the neckline of her dress, right over the fabric to the swell of those tiny tits.
Fuck.
Why was that so sexy?
So damned sexy that I was yanking the neckline down, exposing her dark, peaked nipple. My tongued licked across the tip before I sucked it into my mouth. One hand came up, palming the bit of flesh, bringing it deeper into my mouth.
Nikki bucked, rubbing her center against my dick that begged at my jeans. She moaned, and her hands were everywhere.
My hair, my face, my shoulders.
Raking down my back, eliciting the most tortuous, pleasured kind of pain. “Ollie. Oh God. That feels so good. You feel so good. I need you. I need you so much.”
Her panted words lifted into the dense air, and I sat back on my knees. I grabbed her by the waist, cinching my hands around her. “You want me to make you feel good, sweet girl?”
Her head rocked back on the pillow. I swore, the girl was so damned pretty it hurt to look at her. A punch right to the center of my chest.
“Yes,” she drew out, tongue darting out to swipe across her lips. “Please. I need you. I never stopped needing you.”
I beat back the guilt. I had no clue about the way I’d treated her last year. But I knew full well the way I’d left her when she was sixteen.
My hands slid up the top of her thighs.
Shivers raced beneath my palms, the girl quivering and shaking like she was seconds from falling apart, and I hadn’t even touched her.
I let my hands glide around to her back, lifting her a little as I palmed her ass, her knees dropping open wide when I did. “This ass, baby.”
And I was wondering if anyone had been in it. Who’d been in her, taking this sweet body.
Aggression I didn’t have any fucking right to feel curled through my being. A dark, violent sickness.
I wanted to possess her.
Every part.
Every inch.
She was supposed to be mine.
I kneaded her cheeks and let my fingers run down her cleft.
“Ollie. What are you doing to me?” Those indigo eyes met with mine as she sucked frantic breaths into her lungs. “You make me crazy.”
A low chuckle of warning escaped my mouth. “Safe to say it’s the other way around, Sunshine. You make me insane. That mouth, and this body. I want to fuck you wild, Nikki. Mark you. Keep you.”
I was saying things I shouldn’t be saying. But I couldn’t stop the words from scraping from my mouth.
Her dress was bunched all the way up to below her tits, the one I’d been sucking on peeking out the top, nipple still hard and wet from my licks.
Her hands spread out acros
s her flat, naked belly. “Please.”
And I knew she’d let me. Knew that she’d let me use her. Maybe . . . maybe she’d use me, too.
The passion roiling in her eyes was untamed. Fierce and savage.
She wanted to get reckless with me.
I snagged my fingers in the edges of her underwear and began to peel them down.
“Shit,” I hissed. The ground quaked beneath me as I revealed what was waiting underneath.
Totally un-fucking-prepared for seeing her this way.
Spread out for me.
Pussy wet and glistening.
Lifting her legs between us, I unwound the lace from her ankles and dropped her underwear to the floor, setting one of her ankles on my shoulder as I barely dragged just the tips of my fingers through her slit.
I almost went off right then.
I’d been wanting this girl for far, far too long.
Just that little touch had her hips hiking up, pressing from the couch.
“You want me to touch you, sweet girl? Is that what you want?” The words rumbled from me as I shifted, planting a single hand next to her head.
Caging her in.
She nodded, hair swishing across my couch. “Don’t tease me, Ollie. My heart can’t take it tonight.”
My chest tightened, and I had the wayward thought that there’d be plenty of time for that later.
Teasing and playing.
I knew better than to let my thoughts go wandering that direction. I forced myself back to her in this moment.
To the girl who was shaking on my couch. Desperate for relief.
I slicked my fingers through her pussy, watching the way her lips parted, tasting the sigh that slipped from her tongue when I tucked a single finger into the tight clutch of her body.
Her hands flew to my shoulders and held on. “Ollie.”
I drew back, added another. I drove them in slowly.
“Like that?” I murmured at her mouth, teasing her a little.
She swallowed hard, searching for air. “More.”
“That’s what I thought,” I rumbled, nipping at her chin. “I’m gonna take care of you. Sweetness. Sunshine,” I rumbled, lips moving across her cheek.
A little moan jetted from her mouth, and I edged back, pulling my fingers free.
Protest had her loosing a tiny groan, and I gave her a lopsided grin. “I’ve got you. Trust me . . . I’ve got you.”
Those words were out before I could stop them.
Trust.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 85
