Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(13)

Or maybe it’d just been impossible to fall because I already belonged to him.

My heart too tangled and wrapped up in him to recognize anyone or anything else.

“If that’s a guy, then I need a name.” His voice came hard, as sharp as a wielded knife. No question, a threat to cut without hesitation.

My laugh was one of disbelief. I gave a short shake of my head. “No, Ollie, you don’t.”

For the last fourteen years, I’d had to watch him with an endless string of girls.

Painfully pretending as if it didn’t matter. I’d done it after he’d broken me when I was sixteen because I’d wanted to give him the space and the time to heal. But when he’d done it again, as if he didn’t think it wouldn’t destroy me? I was done.

I would no longer allow Oliver Preston to trample all over me. I was moving on, the best I could, the only way I knew how.

“Told you earlier you need someone looking after you. Should be clear enough after that shit went down at your apartment.” His voice was gruff like he was scolding a child.

“Um, no, I don’t. I’m a grown woman. And yeah, I appreciate you being there for me tonight. That’s what friends do, but I don’t need someone else to approve who I see or who I am with. I’ve never tried to do it with you, and it’s high time I stopped allowing you to do it to me.”

Veins bulged in his arms from the pressure he was exerting on the steering wheel, and that energy flared.

Friction and gravity.

Barbed spikes penetrated my skin.

I shuddered around it.

“Just didn’t think you were the boyfriend type.” It was basically a grunt from his sexy mouth.

Was he for real?

“Since when?” I challenged.

Ollie’s jaw clenched in discomfort. Good. Maybe for once he would understand what it felt like.

He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care.

I had to keep telling myself that.

What made it worse was the thought of inflicting even an ounce of pain on him made me sick.

He’d always thought he was the one who needed to stand up and protect me, but it was me who ached to protect him. Shield him and hold him, wishing he’d find that solace in me.

“Just tell me who you’re texting,” he demanded instead of answering my question.

For a flash, he turned that potent gaze on me.

Black sapphire.

Angry and hard.

“There are parts of my life you don’t get, Ollie. Some things are private, like the relationships I have with the women who come to sessions. They’re trusting in me, and there is no way I can allow you to get in the middle of that. And you know what? If I am dating someone . . . you don’t get that, either. It’s none of your business. You gave up that right a long time ago. You either need to respect that or accept that I can no longer be in your life.”

A breath left him on a hard exhale, and his entire being flinched.

He looked as if he’d taken a swift kick to the gut.

Shocked.

Maybe I should have laid it out between us long ago.

Boundaries and rules.

God knew, I’d been following his for too long.

“Is that what you want . . . me out of your life?” He kneaded the wheel as he said it, agitation coming off him in powerful waves.

I stared across at him.

At his face.

His cheeks and his lips and the profile of his beard.

My beast.

“No,” I said quietly. It was the honesty that came out behind it that made it ring in the air.

Slowly, he nodded. “Don’t mean to be an asshole every day of my life.”

“Are you sure about that?” I said, my voice cracking with the strain as I let myself tease.

A gruff laugh left his sexy mouth. I tried to still the tremor the sound evoked in the depths of me.

There was nothing I loved more than the sound of Ollie happy.

Pathetic, wasn’t it? He’d hurt me over and over again, and the only thing in the world I wanted was for him to be happy.

The thing was that I knew the real man. The man hidden by layers of hatred and anger and sorrow. I knew the real heart. The heart concealed by the most devastating kind of grief.

He eased his fingers through his hair and blew out a sigh. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that.”

“So, you just can’t help it?” I ribbed. It was so much easier than being mad at him.

He cracked a wry grin and peeked over at me. “Just comes naturally, I guess.”

“Bear,” I taunted.

“Brat,” he returned.

“Beast.”

My heart fisted as we sparred, affection pulling free and spilling into the air.

“Sunshine.”

The second he called me that, tears pricked in my eyes.

I beat them back, swallowed the lump that bobbed in my throat, and smiled over at him as if he were my oldest friend.

Because he was.

“Thank you for rescuing me tonight,” I told him honestly. “I would have been terrified if I had walked up on that by myself.”

“No worries . . . rescuing damsels is kind of my thing.” The smirk he gave me was only half forced.

“Well, aren’t you just the savage savior?”

He smiled over at me, and I smiled back.