Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(84)

Rex laughed, loud and with a grin. “Had a feeling you might say that.”





27





Ollie





The low grumble of my bike filled my ears as I eased into one of the parking spaces in front of Pepper’s Pies. The damned grin plastered on my face was so big that there was no chance I could wipe it off.

Inside, heads turned at the sound of my rumbling bike, but the only one that mattered was the girl who stood in front of one of the booths right by the window, her head jerking up and those eyes meeting with mine through the glass.

My chest tightened.

That feeling hitting me hard.

So intense that I could feel it riding through my veins. Itching through me. Same way as I was itching to get my girl on the back of my bike and those long legs wrapped around my waist.

Kicking the stand and killing the engine, I swung my leg over the side just as Nikki was peeking her head outside.

A smile danced on her pretty face. “What are you doing here?”

I glanced at my watch. “You get off at two.”

“And?” It was a playful challenge.

“And I missed you. You have a problem with that?” I all but growled, stalking her way, looping an arm around her waist and tugging her against me as she stepped all the way out onto the sidewalk.

Hands clutching my shoulders, she bent back, swaying as she smiled up at me. “No, Beast. I definitely don’t have a problem with that.”

“Good,” I told her. “Go get your stuff.”

“Bossy,” she tossed back as she started toward the door.

I swatted her sweet ass. “You have no idea.”

She yelped and then giggled. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to take all kinds of pleasure in educating me on that fact?”

A smirk caught on one side of my mouth. “Maybe you do have an idea.”

Her laugh was low.

Sexy.

“Oh, Ollie. We’re gonna have so much fun.”

My smile went soft.

Yeah.

We were. And we’d wasted too much time, and I was so over that. “Hurry up and get that sweet body back to me.”

“I need to change,” she said as she was stepping back inside.

“I’ll wait.”

Those pink lips twisted in a teasing pout. “You’d better.”

Like I was going anywhere.

Not without her.

Five minutes later, she was bursting back out the door, pretty much skipping her way over to me where I was waiting by my bike.

She looked so young when she was like this.

Free and excited.

“Come here,” I told her, taking her hand and guiding her to stand between my knees. I situated the helmet I’d brought for her on her head, tucking some of those warm, honeyed locks back away from her face.

The girl’s breaths came shorter just from that simple touch.

And that’s what this felt like.

Simple.

Simple and complicated and perfect.

Like it’d been coming all along.

Or maybe it’d just been set to pause, and we had to pick up where we’d left off, even though I knew it couldn’t be as simple as forgetting all those hurtful years stuck in the middle of us.

Only thing I could do now was make up for them.

“Where are we going?” she asked, eyes glinting with a thrill.

“You’ll see,” I told her, moving to straddle my bike and taking her with me.

“Ah, come on, Ollie. That’s totally not fair. I want to know.” Her voice was filled with laughter.

She slid in behind me, the insides of her thighs pressing to the outsides of mine.

Electricity.

It zinged and shook.

A chuckle rumbled free as she wrapped those arms around me. I patted her hands that locked to my stomach. “Don’t you trust me?”

I could feel the draw of her breath, the way she snuggled as close as she could get, holding on tight.

Her words dropped so low I could barely hear them. “Yes, Ollie. I trust you. I trust you more than anyone else.”

Trust.

It was the first time I wanted her to give me hers.

Swallowing any heaviness down, I kicked over the engine, rolled my bike back, my feet guiding us, before I hit the street.

I kept our speed low.

Controlled.

Careful of my girl who was hugging me from behind. Her heart beating into my back. Hard and wild and drumming with passion.

Washing me in that warmth.

We headed through town, taking a couple of turns, before I hit the road that led out toward the river and lakes. The air shifted as we left the traffic behind, full, lush trees growing up at the sides of the two-lane road and closing us in.

It felt like an embrace.

A welcome back to the place where we always should have been. I passed by the turn-off to the lake.

We’d go there one day. To our sacred place. But this felt too raw and new to dive so deeply into the past.

I’d give us time. Time to adjust.

My bike glided around a swooping curve in the road.

Swore, it felt like we were flying.

Nothing but the feel of the wind and the sound of my bike and the aura of us to fill our senses.

Suspended.

Taken.

Funny because I’d never felt so close to home.