Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(75)

Yeah. Don’t go there. And here I’d thought I liked the guy.

But Rex was shaking his head, Kale was chuckling, and the girls were standing and hugging and jumping and laughing as they swayed in this big huddle, and there was nothing I could do but grin right the hell along.

My chest tightened.

Sweet agony.

Because a piece was missing, and I’d give fucking anything for Sydney to be there. My mind flashed with what she might look like now.

Fourteen years gone.

Where she’d be in her life. If she’d be married. Have kids.

Or if she’d be living in some faraway city, chasing down a dream.

“Hey, boss,” Cece called from the other end of the bar, breaking into the thoughts that cut me down at the knees.

I jerked my attention that way.

So maybe Nikki had a few things right about Cece.

My head bartender was nothing short of a tattooed sex goddess.

Long, jet-black hair, the scraps she wore screaming seduction, almost as loud as the red painted on her lips.

Maybe it wasn’t so strange for Nikki to make assumptions about us. People would probably take one look at Cece and think her my perfect match.

Two of us cut from the same cloth.

Or maybe chipped from the same stone.

Truth was, I had never even had the urge.

Didn’t mean it didn’t bug the hell out of me that Nikki had brought it up. I hated the idea that she had ever felt an ounce of what I’d felt when I’d had to stomach looking at her with another man.

Wanted to dig my nails into my mind and claw all those images from my consciousness.

“What’s up?” I hollered, grateful for the distraction.

She cocked a wry grin, and the poor asshole sitting at the bar across from her was nothing but a puddle at her feet.

“Could use backup. Pack of f-boys, eleven o’clock.”

I laughed under my breath.

Only Cece.

Fuckboy.

Fratboy.

As far as she was concerned, that title was as interchangeable as the guy’s that held it were abhorrent. She slapped them with a “douche” label across their pretty-boy foreheads before they even had a chance to make it through rush week.

I rapped my fist on the counter, pointed at my friends. “Be right back.”

I moved to the opposite end of the bar, sliding in beside Cece to help her fill the beers for the rowdy table that was up close to the band.

Did my best not to cringe when I saw the guy who walked through the door.

Talk about a douche.

Matt Walker.

Asshole we’d all known since high school. Something about him festered right below my skin.

Oh, that was right.

Fucker had wanted to get his grimy hands on Nikki for just as long as I had known him.

Didn’t matter that he was all fitted, posh business suits and shiny fucking shoes to match his shiny fucking smile.

Asshole was slimy as fuck.

A weasel.

“You good?” I asked Cece when I’d finished helping her fill the huge order. Could feel the tether pulling me back that way. Toward Nikki who I knew would be the prick’s target.

Time and again.

She’d left with him once, a few years ago, and I’d about damned lost my mind.

Thought of it happening again had panic laying siege to my veins.

“Yep. Think we have it under control now. Let’s just hope they don’t eff up the rest of my night.”

The girl smirked, hip tossed out to the side.

My laugh was wry.

Wouldn’t want to tangle with that one.

I booked it back to my post.

Lillith had already spotted Matt, and she bumped her hip into Nikki’s to get her attention. “Oh, look who just walked in. It’s Make-Out Matt,” she sang like she didn’t know she was basically crushing me beneath her red-soled shoe.

Nikki’s gaze flashed to me.

Remorse and awareness and a lifetime of unanswered questions.

Where do we go from here?

Who are we?

Do I belong to you?

Most importantly, do you belong to me?

I gulped under the force of them, wanting nothing more than to reach out, touch her face. Maybe climb right the hell over this bar, take her in my arms, and kiss her in front of all our friends.

Claim her as mine.

She’d been a secret for so damned long. Problem was, I still didn’t know if I deserved to stand in her light.

Possession tearing through my senses, I watched as the prick made his way through the crowd like he had no real destination, no care in the world.

Still, it was obvious as hell he knew exactly what direction he was heading.

Lillith nudged Nikki with her elbow. “You should totally give him a chance, Nikki. That poor man has been salivating over you since the day he joined the track team your senior year just so he could watch your tits bounce when you ran.”

Nikki visibly pushed back the discomfort that surged between us and pinned one of those faked smiles on her mouth.

“Pssh . . .” Nikki stepped back and gestured at her chest.

I wiped my brow.

Why the fuck wasn’t the air conditioner on? I was dying in there.

“What tits? I’m as flat as Kansas,” she said, laughing and joking the way she’d done for all these years.

Images rushed. The girl on my couch. Her tit in my mouth. My hands on her body.