Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Nolan hadn’t thought he’d be able to sleep. He’d thought he’d be awake staring at the ceiling all night, but he’d drank that hot cocoa, and he’d conked out.
Then when he woke up, the sun was pouring in, and he would have sworn he had been drugged except he didn’t have a headache, and he knew exactly where he was.
He’d just been exhausted.
And he was alone. No one had snuck into his room in the middle of the night and tried to take advantage of him, or hurt him, or get to him, or let someone else get to him. He was safe here.
While he wanted to see Race and talk about everything, he really felt as though his brother had done him a good turn sending him to that bar. One way or the other, he needed to stay right here for a hot minute until Race came back and breathe, he thought.
There was no way he could stay with Ryder long-term. That wasn’t nice to just move into somebody’s house and camp out.
Ryder made him feel things. He didn’t know if he had a place for those feelings in his heart and in his life right now, so he had to be careful.
The room was lovely, all honey-toned wood with a big four-poster bed and a single, heavy bureau. It was all decorated in purple—not like girly purple, but royal purple, deep purple.
It felt cozy and masculine while still being purple.
Ryder didn’t seem like the interior decorating type. Of course, he didn’t know the bear very well, but it was that biker grizzly-meets-purple-guest-bedroom-with-nice-curtains seemed like an odd thing.
Still, Nolan was a mechanic who looked like a kindergarten teacher. So he supposed not judging by appearances worked for grizzlies as well as little black bears.
One way or the other, Ryder had been more than kind to him, and he owed the guy.
So maybe he would see if Ryder was awake.
If he wasn’t, or even if he was, he could maybe make breakfast. He had no idea what time it was.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to turn on his phone, because then it was traceable, and Race knew where he was, so no one needed to get a hold of him. Race could call Ryder, right?
So he glanced at the bedside table for an alarm clock or something. There was a little docking station for a phone charger, which had the time on it. It was seven-thirty in the morning. That was breakfast-y time, right?
He got up and went to the bathroom in his room to wash up and get dressed before he encountered Ryder or anyone else, like the brothers Ryder had mentioned.
Oh, now he did like the idea of that big old tub that waited for him in the huge, light-filled bathroom, and before he left, he intended to take a bath and wallow.
He wanted to try the hot tub, too, and he thought Ryder had been willing to hang last night, but the bed had been calling his name.
He was pretty sure he’d slept like eleven hours, although he wasn’t sure what time it was that he finally fell asleep. He had been too tired to have any concept of time.
He wet his hair and ran his hands through so it wasn’t all sticking straight up. Then he washed his face and then dressed in sweatshirt and jeans before padding downstairs in his bare feet.
The temptation to simply find a sunbeam and crash again was huge.
When he got down to the big combo family room, dining area, and kitchen, he stopped, blinking hard. There was an amazing sunbeam, for sure, and Ryder was in it.
He lay sprawled across the huge sectional couch, legs wide, one foot on the floor. Snoring. Wearing nothing but a pair of clingy boxer briefs with his ripped belly, wide, muscled chest and huge thighs just… hanging out.
Nolan wanted to go snuggle on Ryder’s chest, settle on the gold curls that dusted the skin there, and snore.
He should not be looking.
This was not his to look at.
He had not been invited to look.
He was so looking.
Looking and drooling.
It was time to go make eggs and stop drooling and staring. Nolan backed away, his gaze trapped by Ryder like an ant in honey.
Oh…honey. He wondered if Ryder had any. He could put it on toast. Or in tea. If Ryder had tea…
He backed right into a console table, knocking over a little metal sculpture of a wolf and making a huge clatter.
“Hnnn?” Ryder sat up immediately, blinking at him.
“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to.” Nolan righted the statue, his cheeks on fire. “I came down to make breakfast or tea. Or both. Do you like tea? Do you have tea or honey or toast or eggs? Maybe smoked salmon?” He was babbling, and it probably wasn’t a good optic.
He was about a hundred percent sure he was babbling, but look at that belly—how could anybody not babble? He was fairly sure babble was the only possible response to that particular eight-pack.
Ryder chuckled softly, voice deep as he met Nolan’s panicked gaze. “Shhh. Breathe with me. In.”
They both inhaled.
“And out.”
They exhaled together.
“Let’s do it again. In-out-in-out. Better?”
He was a little lightheaded, but yes, better. “Yeah, sorry.”
Ryder chuckled again and stood, pulling on a robe that had been underneath him. “No worries, not at all. I have tea and eggs and bread for toast and honey. Also, I have some amazing smoked salmon, so we could have toast with salmon. I’ve even got a gorgeous boysenberry jam to go on the toast.”
Nolan was gonna die.
There was no other possible response except death—immediate, explosive, glorious death. This man, this beautiful bear, was not only well more than half naked under that robe, but he was talking about boysenberries.
There had never been a better fantasy ever.
“I know how to make eggs and toast.” That was safe right? He wasn’t drooling?
“Excellent. How are you with a teapot?”
“Point me toward the kettle, and I will become one with the making of the tea. You like it sweet?”
Ryder’s warm gaze petted him, top to bottom, making him shiver. “I so do. I like it, sweet.”
“Okay, then,” he said the word faintly, not sure at all what to do besides maybe run around in circles slapping his head.
So instead of doing that, he was going to make food and tea. But the head-slapping was what he really wanted to do because he was just freaking out.
“Come on, let me show you where everything is.” Ryder took him to the kitchen.
Opening cupboards, he found the toaster inside one of the pantry-like cabinets on a pull-out thingy, which was fantastic.
The kettle, though, was on the counter. It was an electric, and he got it going, and then Ryder showed him where mugs, eggs, and bread lived as well.
Ryder pulled the jam out of the fridge and winked at him. “I’m gonna go put some clothes on, and then I’ll be back, okay?”
“Oh, you don’t have to.” He slapped his hand over his mouth after he blurted that out because he couldn’t believe he had just said that.
“You sure? I kinda got the impression I was making you a little uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable, just stupid and tripping over my own tongue.
You’re very pretty. I probably shouldn’t say that because you might think things I don’t mean the way they come out.
I’m not in a place right now to get busy or anything.
But you are unbelievably pretty. You kind of make this tongue stick to the roof of my mouth. ”
“Okay.” Ryder moved close, putting those big paws on his shoulders and staring into his eyes.
“You’re not stupid, all right? I would never ask you to do anything you’re not ready to do, even though I want to do it with you.
I admit it. I find you incredibly attractive, and you smell perfect, which is a big deal for bears, as you know. ” Ryder waggled his eyebrows.
Nolan had to grin at that, because he did know. He had the same sense of smell, which was like a billion times better than a bloodhound’s. “Yeah, and you smell like all the good things —wood smoke and honey, with spice and mating musk.”
Ryder’s grin stretched even wider, his eyes lighting up. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he said. “That’s a lovely thing to say.”
Nolan’s skin flushed, prickling with heat. “I don’t want to be a tease, though. I’m not trying to be.”
“Honey, you’re not a tease. And I would never try to take advantage. When you’re ready, though? We can revisit this, up to and including the sniffing.” Ryder kissed the top of his head, then went back to helping assemble breakfast.
Nolan took a deep breath, then let it out. The kettle beeped, so he made tea, smiling when his hip bumped Ryder’s.
Honestly, he felt safer in this place right now than he had in a long, long, time.