The girl’s mouth tipped in a small smile. “Okay.”
Sydney struggled to look around Ollie as they climbed up the bus steps and moved down the narrow aisle between the rows of seats, his little sister trying to get a good peek at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Nikki.”
“Hi, Nikki! My name’s Sydney. This is my Ollie. You wanna be our best friend?”
“I don’t have a best friend,” Nikki said.
Nikki looked a little bit scared. Like the way Ollie’s dad said Sydney might be because she didn’t know her way around.
Ollie puffed out his chest. “Well, you got two now.”
6
Nikki
The powerful engine of Ollie’s car roared as we sped down the road. Night passed us by in a blur of city lights that poured in from above, and the silence had its own distinct vibe as it filled the cab of his car.
Hot and heavy and confused with a dash of anger thrown in for good measure.
Seemed fitting considering that was the way this boy always made me feel.
Angry and hot and on edge.
What the hell had I agreed to? I knew so much better than to bend to his will. So much better than giving in.
But how could I not? The truth was, I was scared.
Terrified, really.
I could feel the note I’d stuffed into my bag burning a hole in the bottom of it, flames of fear and worry and dread. They’d ignited the second we’d mounted the steps at my apartment, sure it had to be Brenna’s boyfriend Caleb who was responsible for it all.
Should I just say it? Put my theory out there without an ounce of proof?
The hardest part was I didn’t know if that would be betraying Brenna’s trust. Disrespecting everything she’d offered me in her fragile state.
God . . . I just, couldn’t do it. Not with the way Ollie was vibrating beside me like a lunatic.
I’d seen it in his eyes. Felt it radiating from his body.
He wanted to hunt and destroy.
I blew out a relieved breath when my phone finally buzzed with a return text.
Brenna: I’m fine. Is something wrong?
Me: No. I just wanted to check on you to make sure he was leaving you alone. Please text me if you need anything. I’ll be there.
I wondered if my demeanor came across as some kind of dirty confession as I tapped out the reply.
Or maybe it was just the way Ollie was looking at me as if he wanted all my secrets. Because the daggers he was shooting were so intense, I could feel them penetrating the side of my face.
Fiery darts.
I thought he might have the power to flay me wide open with the pass of one. See everything hidden inside.
Brenna: Thank you so much for being here for me.
I hugged my phone to my chest as if it might send her a hedge of protection. Send her my hope and belief in her. For her.
Maybe I really had gotten in too deep.
“Who is that?” Ollie finally demanded, shaking me from my thoughts.
I turned to him, taking him in. He barely fit in the space of the seat, his long legs bent and tucked up under the wheel, seat pushed so far back he might as well have been sitting in the back seat.
Bigger than life.
Always, always filling my sight, eyes unable to look anywhere but at him.
He was squeezing the wheel with those massive hands, the muscles in his arms bulging and flexing with uncontainable strength.
I squirmed, and my tongue suddenly felt thick where it stuck to the roof of my mouth.
I didn’t know if it was from looking at him or from the fact my gut told me not to let him in on the note. Not to tell him about the day Brenna had called me right after she’d called the police, and I’d run there to support her.
Caleb had called me the very thing that was painted on my door as he was being hauled away.
Bitch.
“No one,” I told him.
His eyes darted to my phone. “No one? It’s after midnight, Nikki. Don’t tell me that’s no one. And you refused to call any of our friends. That a guy?”
I almost laughed.
Was he serious? He was jealous I might be texting a man?
That was exactly what I should have been doing.
Texting a guy.
Someone who was totally Ollie’s opposite.
Sweet and stable and harmless.
Not a man who could rip me to shreds with nothing but a glance. Not a man who would use me up and toss me aside then turn around and act as if I owed him something.
“What if it is?” I defended, not even trying to keep the outrage out of my words. He deserved it. “Why do you think it’s any concern of yours?”
“Everything you do is my concern. I thought we already established that earlier.”
“Right.” It dripped with sarcasm, and I jerked my attention forward, my jaw working hard, propelled by a surge of fury.
I stared out the windshield. “You’ve sidelined every single one of my relationships. Convinced me they weren’t good enough, or you decided it for me and took it upon yourself to scare them away. I told you, you don’t get to do that anymore.”
Not after last year.
Over the years, I’d dated.
Never seriously. I’d never fully allowed myself to fall because I’d been waiting on him to come to his senses. To see me. To feel me the way I felt him.
Or maybe it’d just been impossible to fall because I already belonged to him.
My heart too tangled and wrapped up in him to recognize anyone or anything else.
“If that’s a guy, then I need a name.” His voice came hard, as sharp as a wielded knife. No question, a threat to cut without hesitation.
My laugh was one of disbelief. I gave a short shake of my head. “No, Ollie, you don’t.”
For the last fourteen years, I’d had to watch him with an endless string of girls.
Painfully pretending as if it didn’t matter. I’d done it after he’d broken me when I was sixteen because I’d wanted to give him the space and the time to heal. But when he’d done it again, as if he didn’t think it wouldn’t destroy me? I was done.
I would no longer allow Oliver Preston to trample all over me. I was moving on, the best I could, the only way I knew how.
“Told you earlier you need someone looking after you. Should be clear enough after that shit went down at your apartment.” His voice was gruff like he was scolding a child.
“Um, no, I don’t. I’m a grown woman. And yeah, I appreciate you being there for me tonight. That’s what friends do, but I don’t need someone else to approve who I see or who I am with. I’ve never tried to do it with you, and it’s high time I stopped allowing you to do it to me.”
Veins bulged in his arms from the pressure he was exerting on the steering wheel, and that energy flared.
Friction and gravity.
Barbed spikes penetrated my skin.
I shuddered around it.
“Just didn’t think you were the boyfriend type.” It was basically a grunt from his sexy mouth.
Was he for real?
“Since when?” I challenged.
Ollie’s jaw clenched in discomfort. Good. Maybe for once he would understand what it felt like.
He doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care.
I had to keep telling myself that.
What made it worse was the thought of inflicting even an ounce of pain on him made me sick.
He’d always thought he was the one who needed to stand up and protect me, but it was me who ached to protect him. Shield him and hold him, wishing he’d find that solace in me.
“Just tell me who you’re texting,” he demanded instead of answering my question.
For a flash, he turned that potent gaze on me.
Black sapphire.
Angry and hard.
“There are parts of my life you don’t get, Ollie. Some things are private, like the relationships I have with the wo
men who come to sessions. They’re trusting in me, and there is no way I can allow you to get in the middle of that. And you know what? If I am dating someone . . . you don’t get that, either. It’s none of your business. You gave up that right a long time ago. You either need to respect that or accept that I can no longer be in your life.”
A breath left him on a hard exhale, and his entire being flinched.
He looked as if he’d taken a swift kick to the gut.
Shocked.
Maybe I should have laid it out between us long ago.
Boundaries and rules.
God knew, I’d been following his for too long.
“Is that what you want . . . me out of your life?” He kneaded the wheel as he said it, agitation coming off him in powerful waves.
I stared across at him.
At his face.
His cheeks and his lips and the profile of his beard.
My beast.
“No,” I said quietly. It was the honesty that came out behind it that made it ring in the air.
Slowly, he nodded. “Don’t mean to be an asshole every day of my life.”
“Are you sure about that?” I said, my voice cracking with the strain as I let myself tease.
A gruff laugh left his sexy mouth. I tried to still the tremor the sound evoked in the depths of me.
There was nothing I loved more than the sound of Ollie happy.
Pathetic, wasn’t it? He’d hurt me over and over again, and the only thing in the world I wanted was for him to be happy.
The thing was that I knew the real man. The man hidden by layers of hatred and anger and sorrow. I knew the real heart. The heart concealed by the most devastating kind of grief.
He eased his fingers through his hair and blew out a sigh. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that.”
“So, you just can’t help it?” I ribbed. It was so much easier than being mad at him.
He cracked a wry grin and peeked over at me. “Just comes naturally, I guess.”
“Bear,” I taunted.
“Brat,” he returned.
“Beast.”
My heart fisted as we sparred, affection pulling free and spilling into the air.
“Sunshine.”
The second he called me that, tears pricked in my eyes.
I beat them back, swallowed the lump that bobbed in my throat, and smiled over at him as if he were my oldest friend.
Because he was.
“Thank you for rescuing me tonight,” I told him honestly. “I would have been terrified if I had walked up on that by myself.”
“No worries . . . rescuing damsels is kind of my thing.” The smirk he gave me was only half forced.
“Well, aren’t you just the savage savior?”
He smiled over at me, and I smiled back.
“Saving you was always my job.”
My insides shook.
It was so easy to fall back into rhythm with him.
He looked over at me, his expression softening. “Guess I should have known that wasn’t a guy.”
“Why’s that?”
I shouldn’t have let him bait me. Not when the subject was such a thin, shaky line.
He tacked on a dangerous smile. “Because if you were my girl, I’d be right there, protecting you. Not texting you like some pussy who doesn’t want to get his hands messy.”
There was some kind of censure in there.
Possession and a warning.
Yet, here you are, protecting me.
So badly, I wanted to say it, but I bit it back and let a smirk ride to my own mouth. “Um . . . this might be news to you, but being a bossy, overbearing asshole does not make you a man.”
The brute grinned wide, his big body overflowing in the seat, hands squeezing down on that wheel as if he knew exactly what it was doing to me. “You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
Ollie looked over at me.
The easiness was gone.
Obliterated.
In its place was a desperate man. The one who’d shown up at my doorstep for seemingly no purpose at all but to check on me but had been there the exact moment I needed him.
“Who did you piss off, Nikki? Need to know . . . don’t care what it is you’ve gotten yourself into . . . won’t be a dick about it. I just . . . need to know.”
My chest squeezed, and I had to force out the response. “You heard Seth. It was probably just some kids.”
He turned back to the road.
His big body was slung back deliciously in the seat. Everything about him was wholly overwhelming.
Utterly overpowering.
“Is that what you want me to believe?” He slid the question from between his lips like a low accusation.
That was the thing. Oliver Preston did know me. In all the ways that mattered most.
But even if I wanted to tell him, it wasn’t my right. I couldn’t break Brenna’s confidence.
God knew what Ollie would do if he even thought someone was trying to hurt me.
I couldn’t risk that.
Contemplating, I stared out the windshield before I murmured, “I haven’t done anything wrong, Ollie.”
I didn’t know if it was an admission or a defense.
“Never said you did, but sometimes doing the right thing puts us in a bad place.”
A huff of air blew through my nose.
Wasn’t that the truth.
“If I’m in trouble, I’ll let you know. I promise, okay?”
His eyes darted across at me, his lips thinning as he pressed them together. “Thing I’m worried about is you’re already there.”
Two minutes later, Ollie made a quick left turn onto Macaber Street.
Strands of lights twinkled where they crisscrossed over the street, strung between the old renovated buildings to create a cozy vibe.
The area was a destination in and of itself.
The renovated buildings boasted restaurants and bars and cafés on the bottom floors, and trendy loft apartments with views of the city and the river took up the upper floors.
Even though it was after midnight on a weeknight, the sidewalks were dotted with couples that strolled along the storefront windows, wrapped up in each other as if they had nowhere to go, and groups of friends hopped from hot spot to hot spot to drink the night away.
I wasn’t surprised to see Olive’s, Ollie’s bar, was still packed. Curtis, the head bouncer, guarded the door, and a row of taxis waited to carry the revelers home after a night of indulging.
Ollie made the next left turn and whipped around to the back of the building.
He pressed a button, and a large garage door rolled up at one end of the building. He eased his car inside where his collection of restored cars sat in the private garage that took up a small section at the back of the first floor. He pulled the car into one of the open spots, killed the engine, and hopped out without a word.
Almost warily, I unbuckled and climbed out of the car as he grabbed my duffle from the back seat.
Raucous voices carried through the walls from the bar.
Sydney’s soft voice floated to me as if she were standing right at my side, whispering it in my ear.
Insightful and real.
My best friend who’d understood the world before any of us could.
I could almost see her with her face tilted toward the summer sky, her legs dangling over the side of the dock, her toes in the cool water.
“I think it’s the things that hurt the worst that mean the most, don’t you?” she mused, her hair flying around her face as if she’d stirred a new concept that’d been waiting to be revealed. “Good or bad. That’s what’s gonna shape us. Make us into who we are. Guide us on the path to what we want the most.”
She glanced over at me. “I think we’ll know it when there’s no other direction we can go. And I’m not going to be afraid of walking it anymore.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I gravitated toward this man.
I knew firsthand it was wrought with peril.
Just spending the night here, being in his space, felt as if he was going to break my heart all over again.
I also somehow understood there was no other place I could go tonight.
He’d found me exactly when I needed him before I’d even realized that need myself.
Maybe Ollie had been following his own path.
All I knew was he’d been there.
For me.
I had to be grateful for that.
He tossed me a look over his shoulder as he strode toward the building.
The man so gorgeous. Big boots eating up the ground with every mind-altering step.
So confident and brash and commanding.
“Comin’, Sunshine?”
That was Ollie’s way.
Reeling me closer, filling me up, and then cutting me free. Leaving me floating with no safe place to land.
I just prayed this time I landed on my own two feet.
7
Ollie
Footsteps pounded on the damp earth.
Desperate.
Frantic.
Trees rose on all sides, sentries and witnesses, and branches tore into my skin as I ran through the oppressive night.
Searching.
My eyes blurred in the darkness. Muddied by despair. I stumbled through the forest. Gnarled roots twisted, like spindly fingers that had clawed out of hell to hold me back.
Tears burned my cheeks as the wind blasted my face.
Cruel like the laughter I swore I heard before it was swallowed by a gust of air.
I screamed in the middle of it. “Sydney!”
Voice hoarse, throat bleeding with the pain. “Sydney!”
Sydney. Sydney. Sydney.
I dropped to my knees.
Sydney.
My eyes flew open, and my breaths jutted from my lungs in a panicked rhythm.
Pain lanced through my body.
Physical.
Rending.
Pain.
I deserved it, but sometimes I wished for one goddamned night of peace. I sat up on the side of my bed. With trembling hands, I raked back my hair that clung to my face, matted and sticky with sweat.
Fight for Me: The Complete Collection Page 73