Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(26)

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 ready to get tossed from.

This was stupid.

So stupid.