Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(59)

Then Ollie . . . he kissed her again.

And he knew he didn’t ever want to stop.





19





Nikki





I snuggled deeper into the massive arms locked around me, and contentment left me on a sigh as I relished in the steady thrum of his heart at my back.

I couldn’t believe I was lying there with Ollie wrapped around me like a blanket.

A big, gorgeous, burly blanket.

Heaven.

That’s what it was. Even when so much felt unstable and wrong, this felt . . . right.

In the dark recesses of the night, I let my eyes drift back closed, only for them to fly open again when I heard what must have pulled me from sleep in the first place.

Ringing.

Ringing from down the hall.

Shit.

I’d left my phone in my purse where I’d dumped it when I’d come through the door.

Trying not to disturb Ollie, I carefully peeled his arm from me and slid out from his hold, keeping my footsteps quieted as I tiptoed across the floor and out the door.

Once I clicked the door shut behind me, I quickened my pace, rushing for my phone that was ringing again. Both praying and terrified that it would be my sister.

Dropping to my knees, I fumbled through my purse, hands shaking when I grabbed it and spun it around to find the number on the screen.

Not Sammie.

Brenna.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, quick to accept the call and press it to my ear. “Brenna, what’s happening?”

My attention darted to the kitchen so I could look at the time on the microwave.

Three twenty-seven a.m.

Not good.

Panicked cries echoed from the other end of the line, and she rambled something I couldn’t make out.

“Brenna, calm down. Tell me what’s happening.”

Staggered breaths ripped from her. She tried to suck them down. Keep them contained. “Caleb . . . he keeps texting me. Telling me he’s going to take Kyle from me if I don’t go back to his place.”

That little asshole.

“I think he might be outside,” she all but whispered, as if he could hear her.

I pushed down the anger that surged and gave it my all to remain professional, searching inside myself for the right advice. “You need to hang up and call 9-1-1. Right now. I’ll be over as fast as I can. Don’t go outside.”

There I was. Crossing more lines that weren’t supposed to be crossed. But what was I supposed to do?

“Okay,” she agreed, and the line went dead.

I started to push back to my feet when I felt the surge of energy blast me from behind.

Potent.

Intense.

That power alone was enough to shift me around to face him.

A magnet.

“Ollie.”

“Who was that?” he grated.

I’d realized earlier I wanted this man to hold all of me. Have all of me. My body and my secrets and my heart.

Even if it was foolish. Filled with risk and danger and peril.

But I refused to be the girl who was too scared to live her life.

I needed him.

Wanted him.

And I was taking this chance.

“That was Brenna. The girl you saw me with at the ice-cream shop the other day. Her ex-boyfriend keeps texting her and threatening to take their little boy if she doesn’t cave to him.”

Ollie’s hands clenched. “Piece of shit.”

Ollie had it spot on.

For a moment, I wavered before I lowered my voice. “I think he might be the one who broke into my apartment. I was with her the first time she called the cops on him. He was angry. Called me a bitch. There were two notes left on the windshield of my car over the last week that basically said the same thing.”

Rage blistered across his handsome face. “What? Someone’s been following you? Fuck, Nikki. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t have proof, and I didn’t know what you would do.”

His jaw clenched, and those sapphire eyes flashed. “I think you knew exactly what I would do.”

It was true.

It was exactly why I was afraid to tell him.

I nodded, then started toward him so I could move down the hall. “You’re right. I was afraid of what you might do and what that might mean. We can talk about that later. But right now, Brenna needs me, and I need to get over there.”

I let my fingertips brush across his bare abdomen as I passed.

He shuddered.

Fire rippled and danced.

I’d almost made it to the guest bedroom when his voice boomed in the enclosed hall, and I froze in the doorway. “I’m coming with you.”

Of course, he was. I wasn’t even going to argue it. I glanced at him from over my shoulder and gave him a nod before I rushed inside and pulled on some jeans and a tee and slipped my feet into some shoes.

Five minutes later, we were flying down the road in Ollie’s Mustang, taking the corners fast.

Intensity bound the air. Worry and fear and fury.

I felt it radiating from Ollie’s flesh. Dripping from his pores.

His protection of me. Maybe the protection of a girl he didn’t even know.

“Take a right here,” I told him.

The tires squealed as he took a sharp turn.