Lead Me Home: A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel

by A. L. Jackson

  Sammie turned back to Nikki. “I’ve been good.”

  Swore, a thousand unsaid words were offered between the two of them.

  Nikki suddenly reached out. “Gimme that baby.”

  Light laughter filtered from Sammie. “Bossy.”

  “I’m your big sister. It’s your job to listen to me.”

  “You wish,” Sammie tossed back at her, but she was passing a sleeping bundle off to Nikki.

  Nikki took the baby, a soft sound leaving her mouth as she shifted the tiny thing and set her against her chest. The little girl’s head turned to the side, still sleeping, face scrunched up as she snuggled against Nikki’s warmth.

  Nikki bounced her.

  Sometimes it was a little too much when your connection to someone was so intense.

  Because I could feel her spirit doing some crazy thing. Making the air seem too thin.

  She looked up at me with those indigo eyes.

  Adoring.

  Hugging the baby to her chest, she whispered up at me. “Ollie . . . this is my niece, Penelope. Isn’t she incredible?”

  Her smile was so soft I felt it cut right through the center of me.

  Tentatively, I reached out and ran my knuckle down the baby’s soft, plump cheek. “She’s beautiful.”

  Nikki looked back down, her voice not intended for me. “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I stepped back, watching her as she rocked and cooed and pressed kisses to the crown of Penelope’s head before she reluctantly passed her back to Sammie.

  The sisters embraced with the baby between them, the two of them whispering words, ones I knew were of encouragement.

  Because that was Nikki.

  Spreading her light.

  Giving.

  Doing her best to pour a little good into this wicked world.

  28

  Nikki

  I stood at the wall of windows that looked out on the city spread out below me. It was nothing but a maze of twinkling lights—streets and neighborhoods and cars.

  Behind me, the door creaked open.

  At the sound, my spirit jumped into a frenzy, instant and eager as it stretched out for him.

  Slowly, I shifted to look at Ollie, who had frozen in the doorway.

  My breath hitched.

  Caught up in his potency.

  He stood stock still. I thought maybe he couldn’t believe I was standing there any more than I could, unable to fathom he was coming home.

  And he was coming home to me.

  “Are you already finished?” I asked, flashing him a smile as I turned the rest of the way around and moved into the kitchen. “I thought you decided you needed to stay a little longer tonight?”

  He stepped into the loft and clicked the door shut behind him. “Think I was missin’ someone.”

  “Is that so?” I went to the stove where I was making a lemon garlic chicken and roasted potatoes. I peeked over at him, lifting a shoulder as I did. “And just who was it you were missin’?”

  So what if I put a little flirt into it? This was my man we were talking about.

  He stalked across the space, coming right up behind me.

  Towering.

  Eclipsing.

  He was all too quick to tug me against that wall of muscle. The man was so big, I could wear him like a blanket.

  He gathered up my hair in one hand so he could run his mouth along the sensitive flesh of my neck. “You,” he murmured.

  Chills flashed. Streaking across my skin. That feeling took a dive directly in that pool of desire that had taken up permanent residence low in my belly.

  “Mmm, that’s good,” I whispered, bringing the wooden spoon to my mouth to test the sauce. “Because I was thinking about you.”

  “You’d better be.” I could feel his smile at the side of my neck.

  “Like I ever stop. How was it downstairs?” I asked.

  “Busy.”

  “And you’re here?”

  “It’s where you are, isn’t it?”

  Butterflies.

  They should have been impossible after all this time. After everything we’d been through. Yet, there I stood, feeling like that fifteen-year-old girl who’d been kissed for the first time under a waterfall.

  “Besides, I was pretty sure I could smell you making dinner all the way down there. Stomach was growling.”

  He kissed up and down my neck. “Among other things.”

  “Insatiable.”

  “I thought you told me earlier that you wanted all the orgasms?”

  It plucked a laugh free. “You have me there.”

  “See, we’re completely on the same page. Think we totally have what it takes to make this work.”

  I could feel the tease tinting every single one of his words.

  Today had been bliss.

  It just kept getting better and better.

  “Want a taste?” I asked, spooning some sauce onto a spoon and lifting it to his mouth.

  He groaned when it touched those full, full lips, framed by that beard that turned me on more than should be possible.

  Everything about him was sexy.

  That monstrous body and those knowing eyes and those demanding hands.

  And God . . . that sound he was making at the back of his throat when he tasted the sauce.

  “That’s it, you’re tryin’ to ruin me, aren’t you? Knowing my girl is up here, waiting on me while I’m downstairs working. Then I show up, and you’re wearing this.”

  He flattened his palms on the short slip of a nightgown I was wearing. Silky and trimmed in lace, slits up the sides that were entirely unnecessary considering it barely covered my bottom in the first place.

  I knew Ollie would love it.

  His teeth nipped at my earlobe. Catching and releasing.

  Didn’t mean I wasn’t completely ensnared.

  I peeked back at him, unable to stop the grin that pulled to one side of my mouth. “Someone once told me the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Well . . . that and rough, sweaty, amazing sex.”

  I bumped back into him and had to stifle a groan.

  He was already hard and needy for me.

  Was it wrong that I loved it?

  That I reveled in the fact that one brush of a hand, one look, and we were both laid bare?

  A rumble rolled from his chest and slid through me like a caress. “I like this someone. Tell them I approve.”

  I giggled. “You can thank my grandma.”

  Easy laughter rippled from his lips. “Oh God . . . your grandma is really gonna want to kick my ass now, isn’t she? God knows she always wanted to back in the day. She’d see me coming down the road, and the first thing I would hear was her shouting from the porch that she was watching me.”

  “That’s because you were nothin’ but trouble.”

  Those massive arms tightened around my waist, and he nuzzled his face under my jaw. “Gave her plenty of ammunition to hate me.”

  I tsked quietly, loving the feel of his mouth where he was kissing on the cap of my shoulder. “She loved you.”

  Obviously, she still did.

  “Hardly.”

  I stilled a little, hoping he’d hear the truth of my words. “You have it all wrong again, Ollie. You’re impossible not to love.”

  His hands slipped down to the fronts of my thighs, riding up. “Could use a little of that lovin’ right now.”

  I shivered and tried not to moan. “Think we better start on the stomach part before we get too distracted.”

  He ran his nose through my hair.

  Chills scattered.

  “This kind of distraction is worth it, don’t you think, Sunshine?”

  My knees went weak when he spread his hands out across my belly, the feel of him and the silky fabric gliding through the center of me.

  “I think you’re gonna need your strength,” I breathed.

  Another growl.

  “You’re in so much trouble,
Nikki Walters. So much trouble.”

  “I can’t wait,” I told him.

  Peeling himself away, he pulled two plates from the cabinet and poured a glass of wine for me and a scotch for himself. We plated our food and moved to the long high-top table that took up most of his kitchen space.

  The view breathtaking.

  The city and the night and the man sitting angled right next to me.

  We ate and laughed.

  We drank and reminisced.

  Old bonds strengthening and new ones forming.

  We tiptoed around the mention of Sydney, ignoring how it seemed as if she was right there in the middle of us. I couldn’t help but feel she kept coming closer and closer. Filling up the space between us and forcing us to look at the things that might be a true threat.

  The things that would rip us apart.

  I’d never been so sure of it than when Ollie suddenly palmed my knee under the table.

  Though this time, it was different than the flirty, playful touches. A current of severity moved through it, and his voice went hoarse. “I missed you, Nikki.”

  “You said that,” I teased, going back to what he’d said when he’d come upstairs.

  He shook his head, refusing the lightness, and I knew he was stepping into the rough terrain we’d avoided.

  Both of us knowing it was there.

  Underfoot.

  Unsure if we could navigate it.

  “No, Nikki. I missed you. All these years, I missed you. So bad that I could physically feel another piece of myself missing.”

  His words shivered through me like the warmest breeze, and he reached over and cupped the side of my face in one of his big, protective hands.

  “I think that’s what missing someone means. They’re missing from you, not just from your life, but from your heart. And nothing, no matter how hard you try, really works or fully functions because you’re missing that piece.”

  Moisture gathered in my eyes, and emotion rushed to thicken at the base of my throat. I covered his hand with mine and pressed him closer.

  Wanting to erase everything between us.

  Space and time and questions.

  “I know, Ollie. I know exactly what you’re saying. Because I was missing that piece, too.”

  He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing beneath his beard. I could feel the switch. The way every muscle in his body tightened.

  Edged in grief and radiating with hope. “And Sydney . . .”

  Her name struck the air like a sword. A whirring slice right down the middle, cutting us in two.

  “She’s always gonna be missing from me, Nikki. There’s always gonna be that piece that isn’t entirely whole. I’ve got to accept that I’m never going to know what happened to her. Accept that part and try to let it go the best that I can. Because I want to be whole for you.”

  Trembling, I set my hand on his face. “I would never ask you to let her go. All I can ask you to do is love me in the middle of it. Forgive yourself. Forgive me. Forgive us. Because I know Sydney would have forgiven us for falling in love. All she wanted was to experience life. All of us. She would never ask you to give that up.”

  His entire body flinched, and his eyes slammed closed. “I’m trying, Nikki. I’m trying to believe that.”

  “I don’t want to be your sin.”

  Draining the rest of his third scotch, he looked away from me and out over the city.

  Turmoil rolled through him.

  A blackout.

  He turned that sapphire gaze back on me. “I saw the look on your face today.”

  I blinked, unsure of what he was getting at.

  His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “When you were holding Penelope.”

  My spirit thrashed in its confines.

  “You still want that? A family? Three kids and a husband and a little house?” His voice cracked when he said it.

  Pain breaking free.

  My eyes could no longer hold back. A tear slipped down my cheek. “I do. Someday, if I get lucky enough, I want that.”

  I wouldn’t lie.

  Not to him.

  His forehead dropped to mine, and I reached out and held him by both sides of the face, my voice a quiet whisper, “But I would never push that on you.”

  His breaths came shorter, panted into my mouth. “I . . . don’t know if I can give you that, Nikki. I don’t know what kind of father I would be. If I could be trusted to be the kind of man that a kid would deserve.”

  My heart broke a little more, overflowing from the crack.

  This man.

  I pressed my lips to his.

  Gently.

  “You are the best man I know.”

  His head shook against my forehead. “Not even close, but I’m going to try. I’m going to try to be right. To protect you and take care of you. I want to be enough.”

  “All I want is for you to love me.”

  He didn’t tell me that he did.

  I knew he wasn’t ready for that.

  All of this would take time.

  I wasn’t fool enough to think that gulf that had roiled between us for years would suddenly evaporate.

  He needed to learn to trust himself before he could fully give himself to me.

  He pulled me to straddle his lap.

  Energy flashed.

  A bright light through the swimming darkness.

  My heart raced, a thudding drum, drum, drum, a match to his.

  He watched me in the shadows, as if I might disappear. He pulled the bottle of scotch from the table and chugged from it, that stare never leaving mine.

  His gaze hot.

  Feral.

  Verging on wild.

  So different from when he’d been so carefree earlier today. As if him seeing me with Penelope had unlocked something inside him.

  Slammed him directly into our reality.

  I guess I’d felt a little of that shift, too.

  Holding my niece with him looking at me, my sister there with her secret that had brimmed so fiercely between us I could taste it.

  Riding on her tongue.

  Desperate to be set free and held back by her shame.

  I could only pray she would open up to me so she could heal.

  The way I wanted Ollie to heal.

  Not to forget.

  But to live whole and free in the middle of it.

  Right then, he seemed compelled to live in this moment.

  Those sapphire eyes intense. Staring at me as if he were racing through time to meet with me.

  A shiver rolled through my body.

  He tipped the bottle up to me, and I drank from it.

  The amber fluid lit a path down my throat and landed directly in that pit of desire that lapped in my belly.

  A few droplets trickled out the side of my lips.

  Ollie leaned in and licked them clean.

  “Ollie,” I moaned, the man my seduction.

  “What do you need, Sunshine?”

  “You . . . I always need you.”

  Hot hands landed on my bottom, and he squeezed and tucked me against his hard cock.

  He nipped at my bottom lip, dragging it between his teeth in a pleasured sort of pain. From the look that took over his expression, I knew he was gonna make good on his warning.

  Tonight, I was in so much trouble.

  I knew it the second his tongue stroked into my mouth, deep and demanding and desperate.

  I fell in, consumed by his presence.

  My senses filled with him, the man washing me through, claiming every crevice.

  Toasted almonds.

  Barrels of oak.

  Liquor kisses.

  They were dizzying.

  Drugging.

  Maddening as the intensity increased.

  Our energy flared.

  Licking out to touch me everywhere.

  His fingers sank into my sides as he pushed to his feet, taking me with him. He didn’t go far. He settled me on my feet behind the cou
ch that overlooked the city.

  I gasped when he planted my hands on the back of the couch.

  “Hold on, Sunshine.” It was a whisper of warning in my ear, and my knees went weak when those hands were gliding up my thighs, dragging the silky material up and over my bottom.

  “Little Tease,” he muttered.

  Words grit.

  He squeezed my bottom in both hands.

  “Do you have any idea what you did to me when I came through the door and saw you dressed in this?”

  I pressed back into his hold. “I want you to look at me and never forget it.”

  He groaned a needy sound. “You think that’s even possible? Forgetting you?”

  His hands swept up my sides, taking the material with them, making me shiver as he ripped it over my head.

  He left me bare, save for the scrap of my underwear.

  “One look, and I was yours.” He curved himself over my body, pushing my chest to the couch.

  His mouth was at my ear, heat across my skin. “One touch, and you owned my soul.”

  I gripped at the cushions, trying to stay standing, to maintain sanity.

  But it was far too late.

  I’d already completely lost myself in this man.

  I could feel him taking pieces of me.

  Bit by bit.

  Until he held every part of me in the palm of his hand.

  Magnetic.

  Gravity.

  “Don’t move,” he demanded.

  I shook.

  I could feel him undressing behind me while I stood there chained by his potency.

  A breath ripped from my lungs when he was suddenly on his knees, his nose pressing against the fabric that covered my center.

  “You have the sweetest cunt. Pure fucking honey.”

  My knees knocked, and he held them apart, tongue teasing at the fabric.

  “Ollie.”

  He ripped my underwear free, his hands and fingers spreading my cheeks, his tongue licking up my center.

  I gasped, taken by the sensation that assaulted me before I pressed back.

  Begging for more.

  With Ollie, I wanted it all.

  He licked and stroked with his tongue, his hands moving all over my body.

  My stomach.

  My breasts.

  Running down my thighs.

  As if he needed all of me, too.