Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(25)

For us?

They really were.

She bit her lip. Nikki wasn’t shy. She was just real. “I really am sorry you broke your ankle.”

I didn’t know what I was thinking, but I reached out and let my fingertips trail the defined curve of her cheek.

She trembled, and for a moment, she leaned into my touch before she pulled away.

Like she was just then realizing she needed to stay away from me.

That I was dangerous.

I shook the heaviness off and climbed back into the tease, pretending I wasn’t treading choppy waters.

“Oh, sure you are. Who was it standing over me, laughing her ass off, holding her stomach, saying she wished she had a video camera so she could send it in to America’s Funniest Home Videos . . . thought you were gonna get rich off me.”

She tried to hold back a giggle. “Hey, I would have shared.”

Couldn’t keep my eyes from tracing her face.

Every inch.

I’d managed for so long.

Keeping her at a distance while still keeping her close.

It’s your fault.

I trusted you.

You were supposed to take care of her.

You promised, you’d take care of her.

Voices resonated from the cold valley planed out inside me.

I swallowed around the grief that thickened my throat, welcoming the reminder.

I couldn’t be trusted.

God, I knew I needed to get the fuck out of there, but there was something about being with her this way that made me want to stay.

Just for a little bit.

A few moments of the relief she brought all heaped with a load of torment.

I angled my head toward the television. “You want to catch a show before I head downstairs?”

“Are you sure you have time?”

“Why not? Cece doesn’t mind running things.”

“You know she’s just waiting to oust you from your position, right?” she said as she slipped off the stool, her suggestion a bit of a tease, though I thought maybe there was a true question behind it.

“Nah, Cece might look like a viper, but she’s harmless.”

“Harmless?” She let out a little laugh. “She doesn’t look harmless to me. She basically looks like she could annihilate the bar in one fell swoop.”

I plopped onto the couch. “You jealous?”

Nikki dropped down on the opposite end with an incredulous shake of her head. “Of the fact she’s stunning and scary and basically can command the bar with a single look? Hell, yes.”

Cece oozed sex and radiated intimidation. Men flocked to the bar, salivating and begging for a bone. Her attention the prize, the woman had the power to drop the poor suckers right to their knees.

So maybe she wasn’t entirely harmless. She just didn’t pose any threat to me.

“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.”