Nolan looked at me for one second and then two. In those two seconds, it seemed like an eternity went by, and I wished I could be in his mind and know what he was thinking. I didn’t have to wait long. He stood up, knocking the barstool to the side and wasted no time making his way over to me. He picked me up, sat me on the counter and kissed me like I was his world.
I kissed him back with everything I had and everything I was. “I’m so sorry,” I said when we finally pulled back.
Nolan shook his head and kissed me again, silencing me. The next time he pulled back he said, “You’ve never been one to apologize. I don’t want my girl picking up all sorts of bad habits now just because she’s in a relationship. Besides, my girl doesn’t apologize.”
“No? And you like this girl?” I asked, my heart racing.
Nolan dipped his head down and brushed his lips against mine. “No, I don’t like her,” he said, searching my eyes and flashing me one of his big ridiculous smiles. “I love her.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
We said our good-byes to my parents, but only after promising we’d come back over for dinner soon. My mother handed me a recipe for potato leak soup after Nolan had told her he was moving me in with him. I think she assumed I’d go all Julia Child and become some domestic or something. I smiled and took the card politely, watching out of the corner of my eye as Nolan tried not to laugh.
“Oh and here. I got the blood out,” my mother said, coming out from the laundry room with Nolan’s cut in her hands.
“Thank you, Mrs. Michaels,” Nolan said with polite Southern charm, shrugging it back on. “You did amazing. I can never seem to get blood of out this thing.” My mother clasped her hands together and pulled Nolan in for a hug. “Anytime, you just bring our girl back to see us soon.”
“I will,” Nolan said, pulling me into his side. “You can count on it.”
I looked between my parents and Nolan and decided that I didn’t care if I was living in the twilight zone.
I liked it there.
Back at the cottage, Nolan and I spent a lot time loving up on Murray as we watched the sun set from the deck. I promised the flea monster I’d take good care of him and I wouldn’t leave him alone anymore. It felt good to be back in the house I’d grown to love with the stupid dog I’d learned to love, with the sexy biker I was over the moon in love with.
After dark, Nolan took my hand and led me down to the beach. He wasted no time pushing me down into the sand. Then his lips were on mine, his weight on top of me. Crushing me. The pain in my chest was no longer from thinking I didn’t feel enough to be with him, but from knowing how much I loved him.
Nolan snaked an arm around my waist and roughly pushed me farther back into the sand. His lips didn’t leave mine as he made quick work of our clothes. His fingers grazed my wet and ready entrance, dipping into the lining of my bathing suit bottom and shorts. He pushed the fabric to the side, and I moaned at the lack of contact.
I was in real pain. Body. Soul. Heart.
I never wanted it to stop.
Nolan’s lips punished mine. His cock was hot and hard against my opening as he pushed inside of me. Moaning into my mouth, be began to pound into me. Hard. Fast. Frantic. It was then I realized what he was doing. Every thrust was him taking out his anger on me.
Punishing me.
Saying the things with his body that he hadn’t yet said with his words.
Nolan spoke with his lips against my neck as he grunted, each thrust harder than the last. With every pull out, I squeezed around his cock until I thought I was going to pass out from both pleasure and anger…and fear. “You don’t get to fucking kill me. You don’t get to fucking leave me. Never again. You got that? No matter what happens. You don’t get to assume we’re ever over, because we will never, EVER, be over.” He punctuated the last remark with a hard thrust that made my head crash backward into the sand.
“Say yes,” he demanded. “I want to hear you say the fucking words.”
“Yes,” I breathed. He pulled out of me, dragging against every nerve ending he’d just ignited before stretching me back open with each deep push inward.
“Things got fucked up, but we’ll find a way. You’re still mine. Ain’t shit gonna ever change that,” Nolan groaned out. Slamming into me harder and harder.
We looked into each other’s eyes and something passed between us. A look of relief, like he was finally satisfied that I was done running, washed over his beautiful face along with a heavily lidded look of desire as he began to punish my body all over again in a way that had me seeing stars and crying out his name, as his cock set off sparks of pleasure inside me. He picked up my thigh, angling me so his thrusts were deeper, harder. It was painful, but it was exactly what I needed.
This punishment.
This night.
This boy.
This love I never thought I was capable of.
“Tell me you love me,” he demanded, thrusting faster and faster.
“I…” I couldn’t get the words out. The way Nolan was looking at me, the way his abs were contracting while he fucked me, it was all my body needed to tip over the edge in an orgasm that had me digging my heels into Nolan’s back. I reared up and bit down on his shoulder as it washed over me in waves that knocked the wind out of me. I felt it from my toes to my core, which was convulsing so rough I screamed out in sheer terror of its force.
Nolan roared into the night, following me over the edge, the cords of his neck tightening, his teeth bared as he came. Long hot spurts flooded inside of me, dripping out as he rode out the pleasure of his own torturous release.
“I love you,” I whispered.
I thought freedom was how I felt after I left home. I thought being alone was freedom. It wasn’t. It was just being alone. I now knew what true freedom was.
True freedom was giving myself permission to love.
True freedom was Nolan.
It was only through Cody, Smoke, and especially Nolan that I learned that just because I can kill, doesn’t mean I don’t have a heart.
I could have both the night and the day, the passion and the poison.
The Hope and the Rage.
Nolan
“That was by far the hottest fuck of my life,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. I rolled off of her to the side, keeping Rage tucked in close. We still had a lot of talking to do but we needed to be close, to feel connected. I needed to let her know that the shit in the park didn’t affect how I felt about her or make me want her any less.
“Really?” she asked. Then she surprised me when I saw pink creeping up into her cheeks. Rage was actually blushing.
Which made my cock twitch.
Which had me leaning over and prying her knees apart so I could climb on top of her and settle between her thighs. With my cum still dripping from her freshly fucked pussy, I pushed back inside her, every time better than the last. I was hell bent on another sexual exorcism by way of mind-blowing orgasm.
What had I ever complained about last summer? Hockey? School? My uncle? My leg? The club?
As it turned out, last summer was the best one of my life after all.
That summer was the best of my life. You could even say it was all the Rage.
The End
EPILOGUE
Rage
I never heard from Smoke again. When I tried to call his phone, it was disconnected. When I went over to his house, it was vacant with no trace that anyone had been living there.
I don’t know where he’d taken off to, but wherever it was, I’d hoped he knew I didn’t blame him for anything that happened. After Nolan got over the initial shock, he admitted he didn’t either, although he said it with fury in his eyes.
Nolan tested out his leg several times on the ice, and with Joker’s blessing, was putting in some serious workouts. The coach and the doctors agreed that he would be coming back on full scholarship when the season started back up.
Which was why I was standing
in the Dean of Admissions office.
Walking around the dark room, dressed in green and golds, I realized I’d never been in such a fancy office. “Mallards? Seriously?” I asked, lifting one of the plastic duck things off its display perch and tossing it to the dean who caught it, cradling it in his arms like it was a child and not an ugly fake plastic duck.
“What do you want from me?” the dean asked, his voice as shaky as his hands. I couldn’t blame him. If I were him, I’d be wary of me too.
“I need you to write a letter for me,” I said in my sweetest voice as I took a turn around the room, looking over the thick paintings with ornate gold frames.
“A letter? What kind of letter?”
I ran my hands over his enviable bookcase, my fingertips brushing first editions that should be in a museum and not in the office of the Dean of Admissions. I turned back around in time to see Rollo press down on the dean’s shoulder, forcing him back into the big chair behind his desk. “Why, an admissions letter of course,” I said with a smile, twirling my knife in my hands.
“For…for who?” the dean asked, raising his eyebrows, and I laughed because I didn’t have so much as a high school diploma, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me.
I shook my head and leaned forward on the desk, moving all his pens, which were organized by color into one big pile in the center. “Me,” I said, slapping my fake file down on the desk.
I opened it to where a small picture was paper-clipped to the inside flap, and although it wasn’t my best picture, it was the best I could do on short notice. I contemplated making one of those videos like Elle did in Legally Blonde, but since I was getting in on threats and not credentials, it was probably unnecessary.
“Yeah…yes…sure,” the dean stammered.
I clapped my hands together and bounced up and down. I leaned over and gave the dean a high-five to the head. “All right, I’m outta here.” I was about to leave when I realized I’d forgotten something. “I think it goes without saying that if you so much as mention this to anyone, that I’ll put your insides on your outside and string you up in the fucking quad like a Cinco de Mayo piñata.” I nodded to Bubba and Rollo, two of Nolan’s fellow Warriors, who were keeping guard, standing on either side of the dean, watching over his shoulder to make sure he did what he was told.
I walked out the door and skipped down the hallway.
As it turns out, I liked being an old lady after all.
BONUS SCENE
Rage
“Can we talk?” I asked, peeking my head into a very messy office. Bear was standing in the middle of a pile of paperwork, but looked up when he heard me.
A scowl already on his face.
Shit.
“Depends,” he said, standing up and crossing his arms defensively over his chest. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t trust me either.
“On what?” I asked, entering the room and leaning against the wall with my arms behind my back.
“On what the fuck you want,” he snapped.
I shrugged and clasped my hands together, squeezing tight to avoid fidgeting. “Stuff. A job?” I managed to squeak out. I wasn’t used to asking anyone for anything. It was unfamiliar and made me highly uncomfortable. That and I’d royally fucked up when it came to Bear. The only job I’d EVER fucked up on, yet he was the only person who could help me.
“Sit,” Bear commanded, pointing to the couch in the corner. I crossed the room and Bear didn’t take his eyes off of me the entire time. I pushed some papers aside and plopped down on the hard cushion. A plume of dust billowed into the air. I coughed and waved it away, but remained seated.
“Is that blood?” I asked.
“Yep,” Bear answered without looking to where I was pointing, which was at a dark stain on the hardwood floors that took up most of the room.
“Head injury,” I stated.
“How do you know that?” Bear asked, finally looking up at me. I sat cross-legged on the gross couch.
“Lots of blood, but it’s puckered like there was a lot of matter in it. Nothing makes more of a mess than someone getting their brains blown out. Plus, there is that,” I said, nodding to the wall where a huge splatter formed a halo and then ran toward the floor. It was dry, of course, but there was no mistaking the markings. “It’s too high for a chest injury.”
“What the fuck was it that you wanted? Because if you want to kill me, you should do it before I go through these fucking papers. Lord the fuck knows I don’t know how I’m going to straighten out this mess,” Bear said, running his hand down his face and staring hatred at the files and strewn about papers that took up all the space on the floor the dried blood didn’t.
“I heard what happened. With your dad. I’m sorry,” I offered.
“No need to apologize. I’d kill the fucker again if I had the chance,” Bear said, suddenly raising his eyebrows at me. “Wait, did you just fucking apologize?”
“Yes,” I said, without making any excuses. “I did.”
“And you’re sitting on the most disgusting couch known to man,” he stated.
“I am,” I said, smiling to myself. Proud in a way. It was still fucking gross but I was thrilled that it wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I entered the room, and that it didn’t send me running out of it.
“Why the fuck are you here, Rage?” Bear asked again.
I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Okay, so here it is. I was wrong. I’m sorry about leaving Thia, but I had to, and trust me someday I’ll tell you the story, but it was for a guy, not just any guy but THE guy.” I started to ramble.
“I heard. Goon. Warrior,” Bear said, rolling his hand around for me to keep going. “Your point?”
“My point is that I have a proposition for you.”
“Go on.”
“I want to pledge my loyalty to the new MC,” I blurted out. “Well, to you and to the Warriors, but that’s it.”
“And why would you do that? You’ve always said you’d never do that. It wasn’t your thing.” Bear stood up and leapt over a stack of files. “What’s got you changing your mind?”
I flashed him a small embarrassed smile.
“The guy,” Bear said, and it wasn’t a question.
I nodded. “Yes. The guy. But not just the guy. I used to do this…thing I do—”
“Murder and mayhem,” Bear interjected.
“Yes, whatever. Well, I used to do it as a release, and I wanted people to fear me because I didn’t want to get close to anyone because bad shit happens when you get close to people.”
“Now you don’t care if people fear you or not?” Bear asked, crossing his arms over his chest like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
I cleared my throat. “No, but I’ve learned recently that I’m even more frightening when I have something to fight for. Someone. So if you’ll have me, I’d like to be on your team. Team Lawless.”
“What’s the catch?”
I sighed. “I may not be available every time you call. I’m doing something else that may take up a bit of time. And I want your loyalty back. For me. And for…him. MY him. Goon. Nolan,” I said. “Just like you’d give to the family of any of your brothers.”
Bear nodded. “I’m still pissed at you for leaving Thia like