Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(63)

“Ollie,” I whispered.

Like praise.

Did he know? Could he possibly understand what I felt for him? What I always had? Part of me hated him for not seeing it. Or maybe it was just that I knew he saw it, felt it, and he’d rejected it anyway.

Most of me understood it fully. The guilt he bore. His own bitter cross. The one marked over his heart that would forever bleed for his sister.

In the dim light, those sapphire eyes captured mine.

Emotion brimming over.

So many questions. All the reservations and walls that were still there.

The hurt laid out between us, and the love that had been the base of it all.

He weaved his fingers through my hair. “Nikki.”

My name was a breath.

I smoothed my hands up his strong thighs.

A ripple of need trembled through him. “Nikki.”

This time it was a warning.

I edged up and pressed a bunch of kisses across his wide, wide chest.

“What are you doing?” It was a low grumble.

“Taking care of you the way you took care of me.”

His fingers sank into my hair, taking fistfuls as he tugged me back. “Don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“And why’s that?” I whispered, letting my kisses glide down his abdomen.

Cut and carved.

Perfection.

His muscles twitched beneath my touch, and I felt him grow hard in his briefs.

Earlier on the couch, I’d wanted him to take me. Desperate to feel him inside me again. That greedy place within lighting up with his touch.

Wanting more.

Wanting it all.

But this?

This was for him.

“Because I don’t get this. I don’t get you,” he said, holding on tighter as if he wanted to push me away but couldn’t let me go.

I edged up on my knees and pressed my mouth under his jaw. His short beard tickled my face, and there was nothing I could do but inhale, fill myself with this man.

His pulse boomed, a thunder against my lips. I kissed down his throat and across his pecs, the massive muscles straining as he arched.

Yearning to get closer, to receive it, while his broken spirit believed the only thing he deserved was to suffer this alone.

“You already have me, Ollie. You always did. Did you feel me all that time?” I murmured across his hot flesh, my tongue licking out to taste. “I was right there. All along.”

He grunted, and his hands fisted tighter in my hair, words grating as they hit the air. “I fucked it all up. I’m fucked up, Nikki. You deserve much more than what I’ve got to offer you.”

“No, Ollie. You’re wrong. You don’t see yourself clearly. You don’t realize how amazing you are. You don’t realize the guy I see when I look at you. The guy I saw tonight.”

The man who would have given it all for any of us.

He was a masterpiece. Sculpted and carved and chiseled. Massive. Bigger than life.

I wanted him to see he belonged in my life. The way he always had.

Desire twisted my insides, and I caressed my mouth lower, over the fabric of his underwear where the head of his dick begged for me.

“Nikki.” This time it was confusion. My name hanging like a precipice.

So close to letting go.

“It’s me, Ollie. Me. Lose yourself in me. I want to take care of you.” I peeked up at him and let a small smirk work to my face. “I think it’s only fair since I let you take care of me, don’t you?”

A dark chuckle resonated in his chest, filled with restraint and lust. He brushed his fingers down the side of my face. “Think the only thing unfair right now is the way you’re looking at me.”

My tongue darted out to wet my lips. “And how am I looking at you?”

“Like I mean something.”

I kissed across the definition of his hip, burying my nose in his skin as I muttered the words, “You mean everything.”

He groaned, and he reached down and took me by the sides of the head, lifting me to look at him.

Gently.

So gently it shouldn’t have been possible for a hulking man like him.

Beast.

Old memories spun, and a wistful smile swam on my mouth when I took one of his hands and urged him to standing.

The power of his need shook the walls. I could feel it radiating and crashing.

I looked up at him, and he cupped my cheek. “Sweet girl,” he murmured, tracing his thumb under my eye. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He kept looping back to that. Didn’t he know the only way he could hurt me was by letting me go?

“I know, Ollie, I know.”

I dipped my fingers in the waistband of his tight black briefs and began to peel them down. My heart raced, and my skin caught fire.

Because his cock jumped free, bouncing in front of me. Every bit as intimidatingly beautiful as the man.

Every previous encounter with Ollie had been a fumble in the dark. Teens sneaking around and the disaster at my apartment last year.

This . . . this was Ollie and me. Both of us here. Present. No one to tell us we were doing anything wrong except for the guilt we both wore like a shroud.

I saw when he flipped. When he stopped trying to resist this. Or maybe he just couldn’t any longer.

Blue eyes blazed down at me with a lusty, harsh sort of desire.