Fight for Me: The Complete Collection

by Jackson, A. L.

  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 couch 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.

  He sucked at my clit, dragging back, his big fingers finding me.

  Pressing deep.

  It felt like a claiming.

  Like something had changed.

  Like Ollie was dropping another brick from the walls he’d built around his hardened heart.

  He kissed my bottom, teeth raking the skin.

  Chills scattered while his fingers drove me higher.

  Right up to the edge.

  “Ollie,” I pled.

  “What is it, sweet girl”

  “I’m so close.” My fingers curled into the cushion. “I need you.”

  “You have me.”

  You have me. You have me.

  His words tumbled through my spirit.

  He was suddenly right there, plastered to my back, his cock nudging at my folds.

  “And I want all of you,” he said.

  I cried out when he took me in a possessive stroke.

  He gave me no warning.

  No time to adjust.

  One hand was wound up in a knot in my hair and his other hand was pressed flat to my lower belly as he began to fuck me.

  Fuck me hard and fast and deep.

  Our pants filled the dense air.

  Needy rasps.

  “You . . . you feel so good . . . nothing is better than this . . . you are mine. Mine, Nikki. I’m not ever letting you go.”

  Ollie’s words spun and lifted, floating out as our bodies slapped, the sound matching his grunts.

  He filled me.

  Again and again.

  Touching me everywhere.

  Heart. Spirit. Soul.

  I met his fierce gaze through the reflection of the window. The man behind me. Taking me. Owning me.

  While I offered him everything.

  All of me.

  Nothing left to hide.

  He tugged at my hair, pulling my head against his shoulder, his cheek on mine.

  “Look at you,” he demanded.

  My body was stretched out against his, bowed back, my breasts pointed, tingling with the flickers of pleasure that grew more intense.

  Every nerve ending alive. Zaps and pulses and zings.

  It gathered fast as Ollie took me deeper and harder and higher.

  He spread me with his fingers, stroking my clit.

  A match tossed on kindling and gasoline.

  Incinerated.

  I’d never felt anything like it.

  The fire that engulfed me.

  Burning and singeing and scarring.

  My body arched with the orgasm, and Ollie held me tighter, an arm around my waist as he drove deep.

  So full I couldn’t see.

  His hips snapped.

  Frenzied.

  His groan guttural.

  Teeth sank into my shoulder when he came, his body going rigid as he grunted through his release.

  My beast.

  My mind tilted, the floor going missing from under me as we both struggled to come back down.

  “Fuck,” he muttered as we both gasped for the nonexistent air.

  “Fuck,” he whispered again, almost frantically.

  Fuck.

  Another shiver rolled, and he held me up. Keeping me from falling.

  His mouth was at my ear. “I just want to be the one to give you everything.”

  I wanted to believe that he was ready to take that leap. But there was no missing the desperation that bled through his words.

  Fueled by an urgent desire to tighten the tether he feared might break.

  I stood right there, at that edge, ready to jump.

  I just prayed Ollie wouldn’t let me fall alone.

  29

  Ollie

  I pressed my cell to my ear. “Sage, man, what’s up. How’s it coming?”

  I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks, which wasn’t uncommon for restorations. It took a shit-ton of time to get anything accomplished. The search for replacement parts could take months, not to mention the actual work that needed to be done.

  He hesitated on the other end of the line.

  “What’s going on?”

  He blew out a sigh. “Not sure, man. There’s just some weird shit with this car.”

  Only thing I heard was Sage shouting dollar signs.

  “That car’s special to me. Doesn’t matter what it costs.”

  He inhaled, stalled, and an odd sensation gathered in my chest while I waited for him to fill me in.

  “No. This isn’t about money. There’s some . . . shit in the trunk that doesn’t sit right.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  I could hear him pacing on the concrete floors. “There’s some rope. A torn shirt that looks like it’s splattered with blood.”

  Unease moved through me, silence falling over us as Sage let me catch up to what he was implying.

  I sucked for a breath, teeth gritting as I spoke through the anger that lit inside me. “That kid Caleb . . . he . . . who knows what the fuck he was mixed up in. Knew he was trouble the second I saw him.”

  “That’s what I was worried about. And it might not be anything. Someone could have just as easily cut themselves and tossed the shirt in there. Just have to verify it before we gut this thing and start on the actual work.”

  I was always quick to jump to conclusions.

  Sage was just taking the steps needed to get things done.

  I shoved down the swelling rage.

  “Of course.”

  “Honestly, the more I think about it, I’m sure it’s nothing, but it’s gonna nag if I don’t call it in.”

  “Do what you’ve got to do, man. Can’t blame you for that. Just let me know when you get started.”

  He was right. It was probably nothing, and if that punk had been up to something shadier than we’d thought, at least he was in rehab. If he did try to leave, he’d land his scrawny ass in a jail cell.

  I couldn’t worry about it right then.

  Because my girl was peeling off her panties and grinning at me as she climbed into my bed.

  And no matter how awesome that old car turned out, it wouldn’t ever come as close to looking as good as that.

  30

  Nikki

  My phone buzzed in my hand, and I was already grinning when I slid my finger across the plate.

  Then my heart . . . it pattered when I saw the text that had come through. Was that normal?
I was thirty, for God’s sake.

  But it did.

  My eyes traced across the screen.

  Ollie: Pretty please.

  It probably wasn’t the words that got me so much as the picture that he had sent along with it that had my pulse skipping a beat. My teeth tucked my bottom lip between them as I was hit with a rush of giddiness.

  Because there was an up-close selfie of Ollie.

  He was leaning against the bar downstairs at Olive’s. An arm was crossed over his chest, and one of those tatted hands held onto his opposite shoulder.

  The man was grinning at the camera, at me. And his eyes? They glinted. Glinted with happiness, and there was no description for how happy that made me.

  Walking down the busy sidewalk, I tapped out a response.

  Me: Not a chance, playboy.

  I hadn’t made it two steps before my phone buzzed again.

  Ollie: Come on, gorgeous. Show me that face and just a little bit of that body. I’ll make it worth your while ;)

  There was that patter again.

  Six weeks had passed since that fateful night on the dance floor when everything had changed. When the anniversary of Sydney’s disappearance had changed us again. Although this time, it had pushed us together.

  Closer and closer each day.

  Our lives knitting together, so tightly we’d become one.

  Easy.

  The way it was always supposed to be.

  Things had settled.

  Caleb was still in the long-term rehab center, hopefully making a real effort to piece his life back together and become the type of man Brenna and Kyle deserved.

  I tried not to be skeptical.

  Sometimes that was hard because it turned out I was protective, too.

  Sammie still hadn’t confided in me, but she’d been calling more, asking me over, and I got the feeling she was working herself up to the place where she felt comfortable enough to do it.

  I would never push her, even though sometimes I had the itch to beg her to tell me, that part of myself that wanted to make everything better screaming out to do something.

  I had to accept I didn’t have that kind of control.

  All I could do was love and support and be there for her when she was ready.

  Two weeks ago, Hope and Kale had announced that they were expecting, which filled me up with an intense joy for them and also lit a few sparks of jealousy.