Nolan: Return to Signal Bend Read online

  Once he had her naked, though, that frenzy passed. He lay on her and, for a few moments, he simply held her, interlacing their legs, closing her in his arms, covering her body with as much of his as possible. His labored breath moved his chest against hers, and she could feel him settling down.

  She smoothed her hands over the planes of his back. “Nolan?”

  Against her neck, he mumbled, “I love you.”

  She believed him, and she loved him, wholeheartedly, and she thought her father was wrong. She wasn’t loving him to save him. If she was saving him, it was so that she could love him. “I love you, too.”

  He was hard again; the steely rod of his cock pressed into her thigh. She brushed a hand down the length of his back, over his ass, and around his hip, finally pushing it between them so that she could hold him again. He grunted as her hand closed around him, and she moved her hips until he was settled between her legs. She had to scoot downward a little to get the right connection, but when she did, and brushed him back and forth over her clit, they both groaned.

  He leaned on one elbow and caught her face in his other hand. “Look at me, Iris.”

  She saw in his eyes love and need, and still that lingering sadness.

  “Put me in.”

  She did, shifting her hips again and pushing him against her pussy. He took over, flexing his hips to fill her—and God. God. “Oh, God, Nolan! You feel so good!”

  He did. She was full and stretched in all the right ways. She was sure she could feel every contour of his cock, make out every feature. When he was as far as he could go, he went still, and Iris felt that she could still hold him. There was enough of him left that wouldn’t fit inside her that she could get her hand around him. He flexed his hips again, and she left her hand where it was. She could feel him moving, feel the way his pistoning motion moved her body, the way her wetness made him wet and wet her fingers, too. And God, could she feel him inside her.

  It hadn’t been the smartest thing in the world to let him go without a condom right off, but she’d been on birth control for a long time, and she trusted that Nolan had been smart with the club girls. She knew that the club made them get tested, and in the moment, she frankly had not cared one way or the other. He had pushed in without much warning, and he’d felt so completely, outrageously perfect that she hadn’t been able to entertain the thought of interrupting him.

  She was not sorry. Naked sex with Nolan was the best sex she’d ever had, even when the emotional quotient got a little out of whack. Maybe particularly then, actually.

  Hovering over her, he dropped his head and looked between them as he thrust and she held on. “Fuck, babe. Oh…Jesus, that’s good. Tighter. Hold me tighter.”

  She did, and he made a weird sound of some kind of agony.

  “Nope, nope. Stop. Too much. I’m…fuck.” He reached between them and yanked her hand away. “Holy shit. That’s intense.”

  Then, quickly and without warning, he pulled out and flipped her onto her stomach. All she could do was sort of shriek in surprise before he had her ass in the air and he was inside her again. When he was deep, he rested on her, bringing her flat to the mattress.

  Iris didn’t like sex this way. It raised memories of things she never liked to think about, certainly not in a moment like this. But Nolan was…well, vulnerable during sex. The emotional connection between them made darkness rise that she had only waded through the shallow end of so far. When he’d tried to make this position happen before, she’d had a chance to redirect him without turning it into A Thing.

  Now he was already inside her, and she was trying not to think of sitting on the floor in the living room of the house her father still lived in—and that she lived in again—bound with ropes to Rose, while bad men raped their mother on the floor right in front of them. This way.

  Her mother had kept her eyes on her and Rose the whole time it had happened.

  Their sister, Daisy, had been dying in the other room. They’d done the same thing to her, but she hadn’t been big or strong enough to withstand it. Iris hadn’t seen that part, but she’d heard Daisy sobbing and screaming, and she’d heard her go quiet. She remembered her mother screaming, bound with them and helpless, while the men were at Daisy.

  Her mother hadn’t screamed when it was her turn. She’d only lain there and stared at Iris and Rose.

  Iris supposed they would have gone for her and Rose next.

  Lilli, whom Iris hadn’t even known at the time, had saved them. She’d crashed in and killed the men. She’d been too late to help Daisy.

  Iris remembered everything about that day, but it was easier on everybody—herself included—if they all thought she didn’t. She certainly didn’t want to have a freakout now.

  Nolan thrust then, and nope. She couldn’t deal, not like this. There was a window, though, and if they got through it, she’d be okay. Otherwise, she’d be the vulnerable one losing control. That had happened once, in college, and it had been just horrifying.

  Before he could thrust again, she lifted her head. “Not like this. I want to see you.”

  He reached out and laid his hand over hers, lacing their fingers. “Don’t you like it like this?”

  She shook her head and closed her fist, tightening his fingers between hers, praying that he wouldn’t ask why, or try to persuade her to go with it.

  “Okay, babe.” With no further question, no challenge, he pulled out right away and returned them to their previous position. When he pushed in again, he did it slowly, his eyes on hers, and for the first time in their new relationship, Iris understood that she needed him, too.

  ~oOo~

  Iris woke with a start, the scream trapped in her throat as it always was. She didn’t know where she was, and she panicked, searching the bed for Toby.

  At her side, someone took hold of her, and she shoved him away with a silent shout.

  “Iris! Babe, what’s wrong? God! Iris!”

  Nolan reached for her again, and again she knocked him away. The dream was already gone, and parts of reality were sharpening back into focus, but she couldn’t get hold of enough of it. She needed Toby.

  “I need Toby!” Her voice was finally free. “Where’s Toby?”

  “Who’s Toby? Iris, what? Did you have a bad dream? Are you hurt? Who’s Toby?” This time, he grabbed her hard, wrapping his arms firmly around her. “What’s wrong?”

  She fought him for another second or two before wakefulness finally got purchase on her mind, and then she was able to relax—and become sick with embarrassment. She hadn’t had that dream in a while. More than a year.

  “I’m sorry.” She nestled as snugly as she could against his chest. His heart pounded hard in her ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  Letting out a long, calming sigh, he said, “It’s okay. Waking up like that…scared me a little, but if you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”

  “I am. Just a bad dream.”

  “I’m here.” He pressed his lips to her head. “Who’s Toby, babe?”

  She was glad the dark concealed her blush. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “Is he an ex?” Iris thought she heard the taint of jealousy in the question.

  “No! He’s…he’s my bear. I’ve had him since I was a kid. I still…I have trouble sleeping without him.”

  On the night of the day that Nolan had earlier inadvertently brought forth in her memory, the day that she knew the dream was always about, even though it dissolved before the panic of waking abated, her mom had taken her and Rose from the hospital to a friend’s house. They had slept there that night, and for the scant few nights before they’d left Signal Bend. That friend had given Iris Toby to hold, telling her he was a guardian bear. Toby had kept her safe that night, and most nights since.

  It had been years since she had overtly believed that Toby kept her safe. Now, he was just a familiar comfort. Except on a night when the dream came. Then, for a little while, she was eight again.
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  “Your bear?” Nolan asked, and now Iris heard a smile in his tone. “A teddy bear?”

  “Yeah. Told you it was embarrassing.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s sweet. But you don’t usually have trouble when we sleep together, do you?”

  “No, this is the first time.” And he didn’t need to know why. She tightened her arms around him. “I guess you’re my bear.”

  He chuckled, the breath of it moving her hair. “I’m happy to be your bear. I’ll keep you safe.”

  Iris knew it was true. She needed him, too.

  ~oOo~

  Riding with Nolan was one of Iris’s favorite things. Wrapping her arms around him, feeling his muscles flex as he steered the bike, laying her head on his shoulder while the wind whipped over them, the burst of butterflies in her belly when he took a hard turn or hit the throttle hard—everything about riding was a high-speed approximation of sex. Usually, she was wet when they got where they were going—and usually, he was hard.

  That reaction was only with Nolan. The intimacy between them simply intensified on the bike.

  It wasn’t like that when she rode with anybody else. And thank God for that, since, with a couple of exceptions, her father was the only other person she’d ridden with. Those exceptions were uncles, so that wouldn’t have been much less awkward.

  She’d been older, after her parents were divorced, and after her mother had finally allowed her and Rose to visit Signal Bend again, before she’d ever ridden on a Harley. Her mother hadn’t allowed Iris or her sisters to ride with their dad. She hadn’t allowed a lot of things. She had rigid ideas about what was right and wrong, good and bad. And yet, somehow, her ideas allowed room for a marriage to Ray Carlson.

  Iris didn’t want to be thinking about her mom or her stepfather right now. She wanted to feel the ride. They hadn’t had many opportunities yet to ride together; the winter had been too cold.

  It was Valentine’s Day; they’d been together about six weeks. Iris’s mother was incensed that she’d ‘gotten snared by’ a member of the club, and her father still watched them like he was waiting to have to leap in and rescue her. But Iris couldn’t have been happier. She had found her niche, and she’d found her man. She felt safe and right with him, and she knew he felt the same way.

  The weather had broken. Another snap of cruel cold had been pushed through by a sudden burst of balmy air, and the past few days had been like spring, with bright sun and temperatures in the sixties. On this day, the thermometer bobbed near seventy degrees. On the bike, that still felt chilly, and Iris could feel the teeth of winter lurking underneath, but she had her coat and gloves on, and she was wrapped around her man.

  His body shielded hers, and she was safe and snug.

  He rode them down Highway 68, a twisty, winding road that ambled through forest and farmland. When they’d ridden quite a while, Nolan slowed, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and turned off. It wasn’t until they were off the pavement and she felt the rumble of gravel under the tires that she realized he hadn’t just pulled them off into a field. They were on a road, or at least a path, but it was heavily overgrown. This being February, the grasses and weeds were brown and crunchy, but the warm days had already brought a tinge of green to the world. Some plants got excited at the first glimmer of spring.

  Nolan rode slowly down the lane and into a clearing. At the back, Iris saw a tumbled mass of deadwood. But between them and the pile of grey wood, she saw the beginnings of fresh growth on an enormous bed of flowers. They weren’t very tall yet, and most hadn’t bloomed, but many of those that hadn’t showed the long, closed buds of flowers she knew well.

  Irises. Nolan had brought Iris to a field of wild irises.

  He parked and held out his arm, and she dismounted, staring at the bed that stretched many feet in every direction before her. In the spring, and again in the summer, this field would be like something in a fantasy. She could imagine the rich, sultry-sweet scent of the flowers filling the air, catching in her nose and staying there.

  Nolan came up behind her and looped his arms around her middle. “Pretty, huh?”

  “Whose place is this?”

  “I’m not sure. Len calls it The Homestead, but I don’t know whose home that was.”

  His words implied an orientation, and Iris squinted at the mound of deadfall. Not deadfall. A house. An old house that had mostly collapsed under the weight of time and nature.

  “It feels like this should be a sad place, but it’s not. It’s beautiful. I can see what it must look like in summer, and it’s…just amazing. It’s not Len’s?”

  “I don’t think so. He brought me out here a couple of times when I was younger and having a lot of trouble. After Hav. When he thought I needed a good talking to. I don’t know why we came here.”

  “I do. The ride, and then…how can you feel bad out here? It’s peaceful and pretty, and even that house looks like it’s doing what it should be doing.”

  His chest shook against her back as he chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that’s it. I haven’t been out here in years. I’d mostly forgotten about it, but I think the word ‘Iris’ so much now, I guess it reminded me.”

  She turned in his embrace and looked up into his eyes. “You think about flowers a lot?”

  He returned her smirk with one of his own and bent down to kiss the tip of her nose. “I think about one particular flower every second of every day. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” She rested her head on his chest. “I’m happy.”

  “Me too. I have something for you.”

  “Yeah?” She looked up at him again. She hadn’t bought him a gift, but she was making him supper. Hopefully, that counted.

  “Yeah. It’s not much. I hope it’s not stupid. It might be stupid.”

  “It won’t be. What is it?”

  Letting her go, he unzipped his coat and reached in to bring out a flat, square box, about as wide as his palm. It wasn’t wrapped—just a plain, white box. “I didn’t want to go overboard. We’re still new, and I didn’t want to make it weird, but…”

  “Nolan! Shut up and gimme!”

  He laughed and obeyed.

  Inside the box was a bracelet—a simple silver wire with an enameled purple iris. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I was worried it was a cliché. You’ve probably been getting iris stuff your whole life.”

  That was true. Everybody thought giving iris-themed gifts to a girl named Iris was a spectacularly unique idea. But that didn’t matter at all. The bracelet was lovely and understated, but what made it brilliant was the giver.

  “I love it. It’s beautiful.” She knew she might have doomed herself to receiving iris-themed gifts from him forever, but his bright, full, relieved grin was totally worth it.

  She lifted it from the box and handed it to him, and he closed it around her wrist.

  It really did look good there.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, babe.” He lifted her arm and kissed the enameled flower, and Iris knew she would never take that bracelet off.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  What the fuck was going on there?

  Nolan came down the corridor from the bathroom and into the Hall. It was Friday night, as well as St. Patrick’s Day. There weren’t a lot of people in Signal Bend with Irish heritage, but everybody was Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Friday nights were pretty lively in the clubhouse on any week, so lively that Tuck’s didn’t even bother to open on Fridays anymore.

  The Ryans were one of the few Irish-heritage families, and Shannon had some Scot in her. Badger, too. Hence all the redheaded babies they’d made, Nolan supposed. Show wasn’t much of a partier, but Adrienne and Shannon had turned the day into an explosion of green all over town. They’d had a little parade, leading down Main Street to a family-friendly bash at the clubhouse.

  Dark had come, though, and with it a change in the celebration. Tipsy was becoming drunk. Drunk was becoming plastered. The kids had been taken
away, and now the real partying was going to happen.

  While he’d been in the bathroom, getting rid of a couple of gallons of beer, he’d been thinking that he wanted to take Iris home. He was feeling the beer—and whiskey—a little, but not too much to ride, and Iris hadn’t drunk much at all. Show was already gone; he’d left with his family. All the family men were gone, in fact.