Locked in Silence_Pelican Bay [Book 1]

by Sloane Kennedy

  “Narn!”

  I stopped in my tracks at his garbled yell. Nothing about the word had been distinguishable, but I knew what he’d been trying to say.

  My name.

  I slowly turned around. He was standing a good ten feet behind me, still in the doorway leading to his room. His hand was at his throat and I wondered if the effort to call out to me had caused him pain.

  “Dgnt!” he shouted, then slammed his fist into the wall next to the door. His frustration was coming off him in waves as he tried to repeat the word. But it just came out sounding like a mix between a hiss and a grunt. He kept hitting the wall and then he disappeared into the room. I jumped when I heard something crash onto the floor. Loki came rushing out of the room and dropped to the floor outside the door. A low whine emanated from his throat.

  I was moving before I could even consider what I was doing.

  Dallas was in a rage as he tore at the stuff on top of his dresser. Pictures went flying. The crash I’d heard earlier had been the TV hitting the floor.

  “Dallas,” I said softly. I knew his rage wasn’t directed at me, so I wasn’t scared. But the sight of him tore something open inside of me because it was finally hitting me.

  What his life had become.

  And it had happened long before he’d gotten locked in a world of silence.

  No one had ever really loved the real Dallas Kent.

  Yes, he’d been valued for many things – his good looks, his athletic talent, his charm. But he hadn’t been loved.

  If he had, there would have been someone left when he’d lost all those things. There would have been someone who knew how big his heart was and how badly he needed to protect others. There would have been someone who recognized how much Dallas still had to say, even when he couldn’t speak the words. They would have seen that beautiful smile and twinkling eyes and done anything and everything in their power to make sure he never lost those things.

  Dallas stilled when he realized I was still there. His eyes were wild as he snatched a big fat magic marker that was about to roll off the edge of the dresser. He gently grabbed my wrist and then pulled me farther into the room until we were standing in front of a large expanse of his bedroom wall. He used his teeth to rip the cap off the marker and then he began writing on the wall.

  Don’t go.

  Please don’t go, Nolan.

  Love you so much.

  Sorry.

  Please don’t go.

  Love you so much.

  Sorry.

  He kept writing the same phrases over and over again, his hand moving frantically as he did so. I reached out to cover his hand with mine and he let out a soft keening sound in his throat.

  I eased the marker from his tight grasp, then wrote on the wall next to his words.

  I love you, Dallas, always and forever.

  I love you, Dallas, always and forever.

  I love you, Dallas, always and forever.

  He let out a choked little sob every time I wrote the words. I didn’t stop until there were more of my lines than his. When I lowered my hand, he turned into me and wrapped his arms around me.

  As I placed kisses against his shoulder, his neck, his temple, my world righted itself again and I smiled to myself as it finally hit me.

  I, Nolan Grainger, had finally come home.

  “Give it back,” I said with a laugh as I tried to grab my Kindle. Dallas rolled away from me and kept reading, then turned back to me and pointed at the screen. I flushed when I saw what he’d been looking at.

  It was one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite gay romance novels.

  A particularly steamy scene.

  “What?” I asked as I took the Kindle back. “I mostly skim the sex scenes anyway,” I murmured.

  He pointed to the small bookmark icon on the top of the page. I knew I was blushing when I pushed his hand away and said, “You probably did that when you grabbed it from me.”

  Dallas grinned and then he was pushing me flat onto the bed. He kissed one cheek, then the other, then motioned to the Kindle. Then he motioned between us.

  If I’d been blushing before, I knew I was flaming now. “You…you think we should try that?” I asked, my voice sounding like I’d swallowed a frog or something.

  Dallas nodded and kissed me, then pointed at me first, then himself.

  When I didn’t respond, he did it again. I knew very well what he was saying to me – that he thought I should do the thing in the book to him.

  The very raunchy thing in the book.

  My ears burned as I nodded. “Um, yeah, we can definitely talk about that.”

  He laughed. Whereas in the past he’d always tried to hide his expression from me when he would laugh without sound, he did no such thing this time. It was a testament to how far we’d come. Nothing was off-limits with him anymore. Any question I asked, whether it was about the scars on his body that had been a result of the accident or if I was just checking in to see how he was feeling that day, he answered without hesitation. He also hadn’t hesitated to say yes when I’d asked him if I could go to his doctor’s appointment the following week.

  In the past week as things had settled into a quiet sort of normal for us, we hadn’t really talked about the future much, but it wasn’t something I needed to discuss.

  I’d made my decision already.

  Dallas belonged here with his beloved animals and I belonged with Dallas.

  Even if it was in Pelican Bay.

  And if I was being honest with myself, I had other reasons for not absolutely hating the idea of not leaving once I got my parents back on their feet. Never in a million years would I have even considered that those reasons were the same ones that had brought me back in the first place.

  My parents.

  Namely my mother, though things hadn’t gotten any worse with my father, which I considered progress. But my mother was the one who was keeping me guessing.

  It wasn’t that she’d suddenly done a one-eighty and started to claim her undying love for me or anything. No, it was subtler than that. Mainly in the little things she did.

  Like the breakfasts she kept making me.

  And the bagged lunches for me to take to work.

  Then she’d started making lunch for Dallas too because, as she’d put it, “you boys need to eat to keep the cold out.”

  On the nights I stayed with Dallas, there was no recrimination when I went home for a change of clothes the next day or to give my mother a break while I looked after my father.

  But the biggest change had been when it came to money.

  Not only had my mother asked me to show her the finances so she could start to manage the paying of the bills, she’d asked me to show her how to open her own Etsy shop so she could sell her knitting online.

  I’d been so floored that she’d told me to “close your mouth, dear, or the bugs will get in,” and then she’d started throwing out potential names for her new Etsy store. I’d gently explained that she might not sell much, but she’d waved me off and reminded me that every little bit helped.

  I’d wisely kept my mouth shut after that.

  When I’d told Dallas, he’d said that sometimes it took longer for some people to see what was right in front of them. I’d had the feeling he wasn’t just talking about my mother, but I hadn’t asked him about it.

  It didn’t matter what had or hadn’t happened when we’d been kids. We were figuring it out now.

  Dallas settled his weight on me and I automatically opened my legs for him. We were both wearing pajama bottoms, which he easily pushed down so he could rub his cock over mine. My Kindle and the sexy scene forgotten, I clutched him to me and lifted my hips to meet his. We’d already made love twice and my ass was pleasantly sore from the rough ride he’d given me in the shower, but I didn’t care.

  “Want you,” I breathed against his mouth. I went to reach for the condoms and lube he kept in the nightstand drawer, but he grabbed my wrist and pinn
ed it to the bed. He did the same with the other. Then he began slowly grinding against me. The velvety soft skin of his rock-hard dick wreaked havoc on my flesh and I struggled to get my hands free so I could grab his ass and force him to give me more.

  But I had no hope of freeing myself and he knew it. He gave me little tiny kisses that were both too much and not enough and he never once let up on sliding our dicks together.

  He was fucking me without actually fucking me and it was driving me crazy.

  In the best way.

  Heat and electricity fired throughout my body as he drove me higher and higher. I could tell he was in the same boat, because his breathing had become more labored. We’d had to be a little more careful since the night we’d made love on the couch and his breathing had become an issue, but Dallas had managed to turn the whole thing into a running joke – or tease, rather. He’d reminded me over and over again what I was in for after his surgery. He’d promised that if either of us was going to pass out, it wasn’t going to be for any other reason than because he’d fucked me so well.

  “God, Dallas, please, need to come.”

  Dallas slid his hands up so they intertwined with mine, then he picked up the pace. Within minutes, I was crying out his name as I came and he followed right behind me. He dropped his head to my chest and I automatically smiled. It was one of my favorite things to do after we made love. To have his entire body on top of mine, his arms wrapped around me and his cheek pressed against my chest. I always used the opportunity to play with his hair and the back of his neck.

  I let Dallas pull me to my feet a few minutes later and lead me to the shower. After a particularly long time under the spray of hot water, we slowly jerked each other off, then rinsed one last time before getting back into bed. My interest in reading gone, I dozed on his chest while he watched TV. I was out before he turned the lights off.

  I didn’t wake again until early the next morning when my phone rang about half an hour before the alarm was set to go off. I fumbled for the phone, hoping I could silence it before it woke Dallas, but he shifted behind me and flipped on the lights right before my hand closed around it.

  “Sorry,” I said to him over my shoulder.

  He flopped down behind me and wrapped an arm around my waist. I smiled at the possessive gesture and glanced at the phone, expecting it to be a wrong number.

  It wasn’t.

  “Mom?” I said softly.

  “Nolan, honey, is that you?” she asked.

  I went on immediate alert because I could hear the tears in her voice. I sat up and was dimly aware of Dallas sitting up behind me.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  There was a beat of silence before she said, “Nolan, can you come home, please? Your father…your father, he’s not waking up.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dallas

  I glanced at my watch for the umpteenth time as I straightened my tie. I hated how it felt around my neck, especially since my throat felt like a constant raw, exposed nerve and my breathing had gotten even worse over the past week. Fortunately, I wasn’t in any danger yet, but I suspected I’d be under the surgeon’s knife within a matter of weeks. Nolan had forced me to keep the consultation that was scheduled for a couple of days from now and continued to insist he’d be coming with me, despite my repeated attempts to tell him that his mother needed him.

  The past week had been extremely hard on Nolan.

  By the time we’d arrived at Nolan’s house the morning his mother had called, the paramedics that Nolan had phoned right after he’d hung up with his mother had already arrived. They’d been waiting outside the house, and when Nolan had asked them why they weren’t inside, they’d gently explained to him that they’d already examined his father and that he’d been gone for a while. They’d gone on to tell him that his mother had asked them to leave when they’d tried to cover Nolan’s father with a sheet and remove him from the home.

  We’d found Nolan’s mother in her bedroom sitting on the bed next to her husband. She’d somehow managed to get him dressed in a nice pair of slacks and dress shirt and she’d been lovingly brushing his hair.

  Nolan had stood frozen in the doorway for a good minute, his hand clutching mine. He’d forced himself to move into the room and go to his mother. I’d been able to tell that the sight of his father’s lifeless body had been doing a number on him, but he’d managed to keep it together so he could focus on his mother. When he’d asked her what she was doing, she’d calmly explained that his father would want to look his best. Nolan had tried to get her to leave the room with him so the paramedics could attend to the body, but Nolan’s mother had been insistent that his father needed his jacket. Nolan had been too immobilized with shock to help his mother work the jacket onto his father, so I’d taken over the task. I hadn’t been sure if Nolan’s mother had recognized me or not, but if she had, she hadn’t said anything. She’d simply thanked me and then told Nolan she was ready to go.

  We’d gone to the hospital so that Nolan and his mother could deal with everything that came with losing a loved one, including providing instructions on what to do with his body. The doctors had suggested that it had likely been a massive stroke that had killed Nolan’s father. There’d been a small measure of comfort in knowing the man had passed quickly in his sleep.

  By the time we’d gotten back to the house, Nolan and his mother had both been exhausted. Nolan’s mother had tried to start cooking dinner, but Nolan had managed to get her to lie down in the guest room. I’d ushered Nolan into his bedroom to get some rest, but as soon as I’d laid down next to him and pulled him into my arms, the doorbell had started ringing.

  It had gone on for hours.

  The people stopping by to offer their condolences.

  The food had started piling up, too.

  As had the curious looks when people had seen my truck out front or when I’d answered the door myself. If the situation hadn’t been so heartbreaking, I would have been amused by the looks I’d gotten. Everything from shock to disapproval.

  And none of it had mattered because my sole focus had been Nolan.

  To anyone who didn’t really know him, it would have looked like he was handling things with a certain measure of acceptance.

  The problem was, he was too accepting.

  From the moment he’d seen his father’s body, he hadn’t shed a single tear or remarked on the fact that his father was gone. He’d thrown himself into handling all the details so his mother wouldn’t have to, and when he hadn’t been dealing with funeral arrangements or greeting people who’d stopped by to offer their condolences, he’d been watching over his mother who’d spent the better part of the week in the guest room. Like Nolan, she’d barely eaten or slept, and if she’d cried, I hadn’t seen it.

  I’d been worried enough about both of them that I’d been reluctant to leave them, but my animals were relying on me, so while Nolan and his mother had been at the hospital that first morning, I’d hurried back to the center to rush through feeding everyone. Then I’d done something I hadn’t done in a really long time.

  I’d asked for help.

  I’d known there was no way I could manage both the center and being there for Nolan and his mother, so I’d reached out to the only person I’d known could handle the task of managing the center in my absence.

  Sawyer Brower.

  The vet had been back several times to check on Gentry since the attack, and my respect had grown for him with each visit. During one, I’d ended up asking him to take a look at all the other residents of the center, since it was often difficult to get a vet out there in situations when it wasn’t an emergency. He’d readily agreed, and as he’d carefully examined each animal, he’d told me a little more about himself.

  I’d gleaned enough about the man to know that he wasn’t working a full-time job yet, since he’d only recently moved to the area. He hadn’t said what his plans were, but his only obligation was as the backup on-call vet for t
he state.

  When I’d texted him to ask if he would be able to help out at the center so I could give all my time to Nolan and his mother, he’d readily agreed and had met me that very afternoon for a quick orientation. I’d offered to pay him, but he’d waved me off. The only thing he’d taken me up on was making use of the small apartment above the detached garage next to my house so he wouldn’t have to drive back and forth to his own place, which was located closer to Greenville than Pelican Bay.

  The feeling of being indebted to someone was a strange thing for me, but I had no regrets. Nolan needed me. That was all that mattered.

  I double-checked my appearance in the mirror. I was lucky that the suit still fit because I hadn’t worn it in years. I loosened the tie enough so that it wouldn’t put too much pressure on my neck. I’d fix it before the funeral started.

  I checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed a text from Nolan.

  It had been a hard thing not to hear Nolan’s voice this past week. Yes, he’d spoken, but he hadn’t really said anything. He’d been polite to the well-wishers who’d stopped by and he’d been thorough when he’d arranged the funeral, but he hadn’t actually talked.

  Not to me, anyway.

  I’d tried a few times to get him to tell me how he was feeling, but it was like he’d closed himself off from all the emotions that made him him. He also hadn’t let me comfort him in any kind of meaningful way. The only time he’d let me hold him was at night when he slept.

  I hadn’t taken it personally, but it had left me feeling helpless.

  Since there were no texts, I tucked my phone into my pocket and hurried from the bathroom. Loki was waiting for me outside the door and I gave him a quick pat. I’d been tempted to take him to Nolan’s house since I knew he was missing us, but the animal wouldn’t do well cooped up all day. Sawyer had sent me pictures of Loki making himself at home in the apartment Sawyer was using, so I knew the wolf hybrid was okay.

  Since I’d left my truck parked by the office so I could grab the center’s bills to take with me, I had to walk along the path leading from the house to the center. It gave me a chance to see some of the enclosures. Despite the cold weather, all the animals were going about their normal routine.