Chapter Thirty-Seven
Noah
Warm, rhythmic breaths against my bare chest startled me out of sleep. A soft, naked, and warm body was pressed up against my side intimately with a leg thrown over mine. Supple breasts were pushed up against my side, brushing against me every time I exhaled.
This was something I would have to get used to. Years ago, I never let a woman crawl into bed with me after sex. It was too personal, and I liked having my space to sleep without someone there.
That had been different, though. I never cared for them enough to be comfortable with them sleeping next to me in the middle of the night. Now, with Iris snuggled up to my side, I couldn’t imagine sleeping without her.
I opened my eyes to take in Iris’ face buried in my chest, still asleep, and her hair spread out across the both of us. She looked entirely at peace as she slept, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her, despite my left arm starting to tingle. Trying to move little as possible, I attempted to free my arm out from beneath her body to relieve the tingling sensation. The movement only succeeded in stirring her awake as she lifted her head to look at me with a sleepy frown.
“Am I too heavy for you?” she asked, voice still husky from sleep.
Her eyes squinted at me in an adorable attempt to wake up. I leaned down to kiss her before I let her roll away from me slightly. I let out a relieved sigh and flexed my arm to work the tingling sensation out of it.
“My arm went numb,” I told her, rolling onto my side to prop myself up on an elbow. “How did you sleep?”
“Hmm,” Iris hummed out, stretching her arms above her head. I felt myself harden slightly as her breast jiggled with the stretching. “I slept well. You should’ve shoved me off if your arm was going to sleep. I know you aren’t used to someone sleeping with you.”
“How can you tell?” I asked, curiously.
She looked up at me with an amused smile. “Because you’re normally cocky in situations that you are used to. You look unsure about what to do with me in your bed right now.”
I hooked an arm around her waist. “Oh, I know what to do with you in my bed,” I said, staring down at her with hooded eyes. “Should I give you another taste of last night? Long and slow?”
“Sounds delightful,” she said, leaning up to kiss me on the lips. “However, I do have somewhere to be within the next hour.”
I pulled back to look down at her with a frown. “What do you have to do this morning?”
“I have to register for online classes at the University of Utah if I want to get my degree before the end of the summer,” Iris said. “Jen called in a favor for me, so not all hope is lost.”
“That’s great,” I said, grinning. “Things are working out for us both, I would say.”
“They seem to be.”
I nuzzled against the side of her neck sensually and ground my hips into her thigh when she rolled away from me with a giggle.
“How about we celebrate?” I breathed into her ear, nipping at the earlobe there. “You can afford to be late to register for classes.”
“Not really. I hate to say this, but we can celebrate later tonight.”
“Tonight?” I repeated with a scoff. “Where are you going to be all day?”
“I have to move the rest of my things out of the apartment. I don’t trust Bailey with any of my things.”
“And, I have to ask, where are you going to move all those things?”
Iris rolled back over to look at me for a moment. “Do you want me to bring my things here? It doesn’t have to be permanent if it’s too weird for you. You’ve been on your own for a very long time without some chick’s things cluttering up your house.”
“It’ll be weird for me,” I admitted. “However, I don’t want you moving somewhere else when you are always welcome here with me.”
“You’re wonderful,” she said, and she leant in to kiss me quickly. “Everything will work out for us, right?”
“I like to think that it will in time,” I replied. I reached out to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “I have hope that it will. Things are already looking up.”
“They are. You’re right.”
Much to my disappointment, Iris rolled away from my grasp when I attempted to roll her onto her back to ease the desire rushing through me again. She grinned teasingly at me before disappearing into the bathroom to hop into the shower.
I shook my head when I thought of Hunter’s reaction to Iris moving in here with me. He'd shit himself thinking about a woman living with me day in and day out, but I couldn’t imagine it any differently now. We were both interwoven into each other’s lives so that it was impossible to look beyond each other.
While Iris spent the rest of the afternoon at her old apartment and getting registered for online classes, I cleaned up space for her in the closet and dresser. I showered in the late afternoon, and when I walked out with steam curling around me, I found Iris sitting on the edge of my bed already dressed up in a mini black dress that showed off her trim figure perfectly.
That dress, I decided inwardly, would not stay on long after our date tonight.
“How was moving?” I asked, wiping away the trails of water on my arms. “You didn’t land in jail for assaulting your roommate, so I imagine it went well.”
“She wasn’t there,” Iris said, shrugging. “And, Jen helped me with everything, too.”
“That’s good. I’ll get dressed so we can go since you’re already fixed up.”
She grinned at me as she stood from the edge of the bed. Her fingers hooked teasingly on the waistline of the towel, and tugged there affectionately. “You look happy to see me.”
“Very,” I growled, and tugged her in for a long kiss. “I’m not so hungry for food anymore.”
“Too bad,” Iris laughed, slipping out of my grasp with a laugh. “I’m starving, so get dressed.”
“Tease,” I threw at her back as she disappeared out of the room.
We arrived at the Italian restaurant I had found when I first moved to Provo. I never got tired of the delicious food, and my waistline had started to show that type of love, too. I ordered us a bottle of wine with our food order and watched as Iris sipped at her wine with a contented smile. It was the first time I’d ever seen her look relaxed. I liked the sight of that smile because it put every part of me at ease, too.
“I have to know something,” she said, eventually.
I swirled the wine around in my own glass before taking a long sip. I closed my eyes in bliss at the sweet taste. “What is it that you have to know?”
“Why did you give it up?”
I opened my eyes to find her staring at me intently. “Give what up?”
“Your job at PHU…all you had to do was coach the rugby team,” Iris said. “There has to be more to it than it being a sore subject for you. I know you were injured, but I get this feeling there is something more to it than that. You loved that sport more than writing. I can tell from the way you talk about your rugby days.”
Tracing the rim of my wine glass, I tried to keep my emotions under control as I tried to do every time I thought of what happened. I owed Iris the entire truth about why I didn’t accept Miles’ offer, despite the money. I took a deep breath before looking up at her.
“There is,” I said, quietly, “but, it’s not what you think it is. Everyone always seems to forget the part that actually drove me to retirement because they’re loyal to me, and I don’t deserve it.”
I ran a hand through my hair with an agitated sigh. After all this time, I still couldn’t shake any of the tormented feelings off.
“It was the last game before the championships, and frustrations were getting out of hand. Rugby is a personal sport, and that’s what I love about it. A player from the opposing team hit me hard on the knee.
“I didn’t realize it at the time until I looked back at the footage that the hit was intentionally done to end my season. I got better physically, but I was so angry at this guy that I planned to take him out hard the next time I saw him in a matchup.
“When the chance came up in a rematch game, I went after him, and we both ended up seriously hurt. I tore my ACL again and he-” My eyes slipped closed at the flood of unwanted memories.
“He ended up in an ambulance. I didn’t find out until later after my surgery on my knee that my hit had severed a part of his spine. He was supposedly paralyzed from the waist down, but I’ve heard rumors that he’s playing again.”
Iris’ mouth parted open in shock. “Oh my God. I’m sorry, Noah. I had no idea.”
“You wouldn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “The press hated this guy. He was a cocky ass and rude to people. They replayed him ruining my season with two knee injuries, but no one mentioned that his life was over because of me.”
“People get what they ask for,” she said, sadly. “It wasn’t your fault. You were angry and threatened. I would’ve done the same thing if someone took me out of a sport I loved.”
I shook my head. “You wouldn’t. It’s not the greatest feeling in the world to know you ruined a person’s life out of spite.”
“I’m sure it’s not a good feeling. That’s why I can’t be furious with Bailey over what happened. It’s not a nice feeling to have about yourself.” Her lips thinned. “I can see why you turned it down now. It must’ve been hard for you to walk away when you were at the top of your game.”
“It was,” I said, taking another sip of wine, “but, it wasn’t right for me to return to playing after that. Everything just felt different, and I went back to writing to cope with it all. The press was horrible. I just got tired of everyone prying into my personal life all the time. The pressure from my father about killed me.”
“Your dad has some high expectations of you,” Iris commented, taking a sip of her wine. “Athletes usually have tons of pressure on them from parents. I’ve seen it quite a bit at PHU.”
I nodded gravely. “He pushed me right to where I was at the top. I haven’t heard the end of it since I retired.”
“You aren’t a failure, though,” she said firmly. “You know how much it takes to walk away from something because you’re the bigger person. I think that makes you stronger than you know.”
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging my shoulders absently. “I just want that part of my life to end. I try to tell everyone around me to let it go, but everyone’s stuck in the past, it seems like.”
“To a new chapter, then.” Iris lifted her wine glass with a small smile. I raised mine with a smile to clink our glasses together.
Her hand slid across the table to where one of mine rested. I blinked in surprise to feel her warm fingers gripping mine strongly.
“I’m proud of you for letting me in,” she said, quietly. “Thank you for telling me the truth about what happened, despite it being painful and hard.”
I took another unsteady drink to calm my nerves instead of replying. I didn’t know what to say to that, but Iris was mindful to change the subject to something cheerful. We spent the next hour laughing over our pasta dishes before driving back to my house in high spirits. We both collapsed on the couch with food-stuffed bellies and contented sighs.
She rested her head in my lap and looked up at me as she trailed her fingers softly down my arm. A smile tugged at her lips.
“Thank you for everything,” she whispered, eyes growing heavy with sleep from the wine and food.
I felt sleep tugging at me, as well, while my fingers combed through Iris’ soft hair. The desire to take her back to my bedroom – our bedroom - faded away into something warm and hazy. I watched Iris’ eyes close as sleep took over.
I had fallen in love with this woman curled up on the couch with her head in my lap. I had fallen in love with Iris, despite vowing to myself that I never would be the type of man to love someone. She accepted me for who I was – the good and the bad – and not once judged me for it, even after I admitted to ruining someone’s life out of pure rage and spite.
I scooped up Iris’ sleeping form easily in my arms to carry her into bed a moment later. Having her fall asleep in my arms was something that I could get used to every single day for the rest of my life.