14. Nolan
Chapter Fourteen
NOLAN
Monday morning starts with rain rolling across Back Bay in soft gray sheets while the marina wakes beneath heavy clouds. Water taps steadily against dock pilings and metal roofs while workers shuffle toward covered work areas carrying coffee and rain jackets.
Normally, I like weather like this. Today, I check the office window every thirty seconds.
“You look miserable.”
I glance up from the office desk.
Miguel stands in the doorway, dripping rainwater onto the floor while holding electrical permits and entirely too much amusement. He tosses the permits onto my desk before leaning casually against the frame.
“So where’s your girl?”
I narrow my eyes. “You people are getting way too comfortable.”
“You’re in love with a Wright. The town’s emotionally involved now.”
Miguel studies my expression for one dangerous second.
“Oh wow. That’s real real.”
I hate everyone here.
Ignoring Miguel, who whistles a chippy tune on his way out, I pull the construction budget back onto the screen after Miguel leaves.
Another email waits at the top of my inbox.
Updated financing terms attached.
I don’t need to open it to know what’s changed. The numbers have been moving in the wrong direction for weeks.
I open it anyway.
Higher contribution from me. Less room for overruns. Another contingency requirement tied to the west docks.
None of it is unreasonable.
That’s almost worse.
I’ve spent enough years running a business to know the difference between someone being difficult and someone looking at the same risk I am. And I’ve already watched one business I’d built become leverage in someone else’s hands. I’m not interested in repeating the experience.
The marina needs more work than anyone expected when I bought it. The pilings don’t care how much I’ve already put into this place, and hurricane season isn’t going to wait for the restaurant to start turning a profit.
I close the email and pull the construction budget back onto the screen. There has to be somewhere else I can move the numbers.
Before I can evaluate, the marina office door swings open again. Every sensible idea in my head completely vanishes.
Hadley walks inside carrying coffee and a pastry box while rainwater glistens faintly along the shoulders of her oversized sweatshirt. She sets the pastry box on my desk. Rainwater drips off one sleeve onto the floor. My brain stops processing anything Miguel said.
Her hair’s damp from the rain. Cheeks pink from the cold. Leggings clinging to long bare legs that derail every functioning thought I possess.
And then she smiles at me. Like seeing me is the best part of her morning.
“You’re staring,” she says lightly.
I lean back in the chair. “You came in here looking like that. What did you expect?”
Desire flickers across her face.
Good.
At least I’m not suffering alone.
She sets the coffee tray onto my desk before brushing damp hair back from her face.
“I brought breakfast.”
“I noticed.”
The attraction hums visibly between our bodies now as our gazes lock
“You okay?” she asks after a moment.
The question catches me off guard.
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
I exhale and glance toward the rain-streaked marina windows.
“No.”
“What’s wrong?” she asks gently.
I look back at her, standing there in soft gray morning light, holding coffee, like she already belongs in my office.
“Nothing bad,” I admit. “Just…”
My eyes catch on the second coffee. She hadn’t asked if I’d eaten. She’d assumed I’d forget.
Hadley steps closer, and her perfume wraps through the air between us anyway.
“Nolan.”
I’m almost overcome by the tenderness of her voice.
I scrub one hand down my jaw before finally admitting, “I’m getting used to you being here.”
Rain taps softly against the windows behind her while tension thickens low between our bodies. Hadley’s breath catches almost imperceptibly.
“Is that a problem?”
A laugh escapes me despite myself.
“I’m starting to think it’d be a bigger problem if you weren’t.”
My legs felt like lead weights as I push myself up from the chair, a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead.
Her eyes flick briefly toward my mouth, and my entire body reacts.
“You know what the problem is?” I ask.
Her pulse jumps visibly in her throat.
“What?”
“You keep showing up looking like you belong here…with me.”
The words leave my mouth rougher than intended. Before either of us can recover, thunder rolls outside the marina.
Then Hadley says the most dangerous possible thing, “I think maybe I do.”
Neither of us smiles. This suddenly feels far too important for smiling.
I reach for her before I can think better of it. My hand slides carefully along her waist, pulling her closer while rain beats steadily against the windows around us.
And the moment her body fits naturally against mine again—I’m done for. The second Hadley settles against me, every rational thought in my body dissolves.
Rain crashes against the marina office windows while the rest of the outside world feels like it’s vanishing somewhere outside the warmth of her body.
My hand stays firm at her waist while her fingers curl lightly against the front of my shirt, stare lifting to mine with that same open, vulnerable warmth that keeps wrecking me one layer at a time.
“You can still stop looking at me like that,” she whispers.
I stare down at her.
“How am I looking at you?”
Hadley swallows.
“Like you’re thinking dangerous things.”
My body tenses, and Hadley notices, too. I’ve spent most of my life feeling like relationships belonged to people better at permanence than me. Meanwhile, Hadley looks at this thing between us like it scares her a little too.
I glance toward the hooks beside the office door. My jacket is still hanging there from Friday. I never took it upstairs. Never even thought about it. This office has started feeling like the first place I expect to come back to every morning.
My eyes find Hadley again. Maybe that’s why.
“Nolan.”
The softness in her voice nearly destroys me.
“Since you came back.”
I laugh once under my breath.
“Yeah. I know.”
“But it feels bigger than that?”
Everything with her feels bigger than it should this fast.
I brush my thumb against her waist before answering.
“You ever meet someone and suddenly realize your life was quieter before them?”
Her breath catches. And Christ, the look on her face afterward practically shatters me into tiny shards.
Rain drums harder against the marina roof while the space between us grows impossibly intimate. Not heavy enough that I can’t hear both our breathing now. Then Hadley’s hand slides upward against my chest.
The touch nearly destroys my remaining restraint.
I lower my forehead briefly against hers, trying desperately to hold on to some version of composure. This fails when she exhales against my mouth.
My entire body tightens.
I kiss her before I can think better of it. Slow at first, but the second Hadley melts against me with that soft little sound—I lose every remaining ounce of discipline.
The kiss deepens. Hotter. Needier. Weeks of restraint unraveling all at once inside a rain-soaked marina office.
My hand slides firmly along her waist, pulling her flush against me while her fingers twist into my shirt like she’s trying to hold herself steady.
The feel of her body pressed against mine, after all that pent-up tension, almost overwhelms me.
Hadley kisses me back just as desperately. Every bit as certain. Every bit as impossible to let go of. Hadley kisses me like she’s done pretending this doesn’t matter.
Drizzle pounds steadily against the marina windows while I hold her against me in the middle of the office, every ounce of restraint I’ve been clinging to unraveling faster with every second her mouth moves against mine.
She’s standing in my arms, kissing me like she feels this every bit as deeply as I do. The awareness crashes through my chest hard enough to ache.
My hand slides instinctively higher along her back, pulling her closer until there’s no space left between us at all.
The soft sound of Hadley’s breath against my mouth sends a shiver down my spine. Like my body already knows where she’s supposed to be.
I break the kiss long enough to breathe.
Huge mistake.
Because the second I see her— flushed cheeks, swollen lips, eyes dark and dazed from kissing me—every rational thought I possess evaporates again.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter roughly.
Hadley laughs breathlessly.
“That’s becoming your catchphrase.”
“You make it necessary.”
A flicker of heat reappears on her face.
God.
I love that she still blushes around me.
The shower shrinks the marina office around us while thunder rolls low across Back Bay in the distance.
As her fingers ease their pressure on my chest, a gentle concern registers in her eyes.
“What?” she whispers.
I look down at her standing there in an oversized gray sweatshirt and rain-damp hair and entirely too much honesty in her eyes.
Then I do something deeply dangerous.
I tell her the truth.
“I don’t know how to do this anymore. I’ve spent most of my life convincing myself not to need people. Turns out you ruined that plan.”
I shake my head once, more at myself than her.
“Not because I want to rush you.” My voice comes out quieter than I expect.
“Because every day I spend with you feels like another reason I don’t want to imagine this place without you in it.
” My laugh is small. Almost embarrassed.
“That’s new for me.” I meet her eyes. “Wanting someone to become part of the picture instead of wondering when they’ll leave it. ”
Her breath catches almost imperceptibly.
“Nolan.”
My hand traces the gentle curve of her jaw, a hollow ache echoing in my chest as the world outside fades to a dull hum.
“You leave coffee on my desk, and I stop pretending breakfast isn’t important.”
I laugh.
“My jacket’s been hanging on that hook for three days because I keep assuming I’ll be back here before I go anywhere else.”
My eyes drift toward the rain-covered docks.
“I used to walk into this office thinking about permits.”
I look back at her.
“Now I wonder if you’re already here.”
The realization lands somewhere deep inside me.
I came here to rebuild a marina. Somewhere along the way, I started building a life around the woman standing in front of me.
The honesty leaves me feeling exposed afterward. I’ve handed her every vulnerable part of me without protection.
“You know what’s scary?” she asks.
“What?”
“I don’t think any of that sounds too fast to me.”
Emotion presses painfully against my chest, then Hadley steps even closer. Close enough that her forehead brushes mine again.
“I think I’ve been waiting for you longer than I realized,” she whispers.
The breath leaves my lungs completely, and I kiss her again
Not frantic this time.
More like I’m trying to pour every impossible feeling I have into the space between our mouths.
Hadley melts into me with a soft sound that sends heat straight through my entire body. Suddenly, I’m focused on pulling her closer. I want intimacy with her that has nothing to do with sex.
I want lazy mornings, her clothes in my apartment upstairs, her sitting on the marina counter while I work. I want one of her hair ties around the kitchen faucet.
The domesticity of the thoughts startles me enough that I almost laugh against her mouth.
Instead I kiss her harder.
Hadley’s fingers slide into my hair again, and my pulse stumbles violently. No one touches me like this.
The storm rattles on outside while tension coils tighter between our bodies with every passing second.
Then Hadley whispers against my mouth, “Tell me to go home if this is too much.”
I pull back just enough to look at her.
Her question isn’t really about going home. It’s about whether I’ll take care of what’s in my arms.
My thumb brushes across her cheek.
“You’re never too much,” I say.
Emotion flashes across her face so quickly it nearly steals my breath, then she kisses me again before I can recover.
And this time?
The kiss turns dangerous.
Weeks of wanting finally colliding with emotional vulnerability and trust and affection so overwhelming it borders on unbearable.
My hands slide instinctively down her hips before settling firmly at her waist again, grounding myself before I lose what little composure remains.
The truth is, if I keep kissing her much longer, I’m not going to want to stop at kissing anymore.
And judging by the way Hadley’s breathing against my mouth now, she’s realizing the same thing.