Chapter 3

Three

Grace

Oh my God.

Holy moly.

What am I doing? I don’t know! I don’t know who I am anymore. This spontaneity is completely unlike me. Asking for rides home from strangers is not something I do. I know it’s completely reckless to go somewhere with this young man I just met, but the idea of getting into a car with Collier after the way he behaved made my skin crawl.

My only defense is that North feels like the furthest thing from a stranger. There was a click inside of me when I first saw him in the Hellmouth. As the minutes passed, it was almost like being awakened. Being around North makes me feel tight and achy and winded, the sensation so overwhelming, it’s a wonder I manage to remain upright in the face of the rush.

We’re walking to his car now, sneaking looks at each other in the darkness. Both of us have expressions on our faces that suggest we don’t know what hit us. Does he really feel the way I do? Like he’s been struck by lightning?

Our footsteps echo beneath the underpass. We sort of gravitate toward each other, North lifting a still-wrapped hand and letting it hover just above the small of my back. As if he wants to protect me without sullying my dress. In truth, this is the first time in my life that I wouldn’t mind my dress getting dirty. If it meant North touching me, I’d ruin a whole army of dresses. What is it about him that makes me ticklish and hot from the neck down?

Everywhere.

I’ve given up trying to hide my hard nipples and the cool night air makes them pucker all the more. North traces them with a hungry glance, then cuts his eyes to the side, letting out a shuddering breath. He’s attracted to me. We’re attracted to each other. He’s still shirtless, since he literally stepped out of the ring and left, me at his side. But a moment later, we reach a vehicle that looks straight out of the past. It’s black and chrome, low and sleek. A Chevy that looks lovingly cared for, right down to the white racing stripe down the center of the roof.

“I love this,” I whisper, as he opens the passenger side door for me.

He searches my face. “Yeah?”

I nod, noting his relief. Was he worried I wouldn’t like his car? Realizing I’m staring at his chiseled mouth like an eager beaver, I shake myself. In order to slip into the car, I have to brush past North and as I do so, the tips of my breasts drag across his bare chest, making his eyelids grow heavy. I’m trembling by the time I sit down, my knees pressed tightly together. There is a continuous tug at the juncture of my thighs, a slickness I’ve never experienced before. All because of this fighter. And my body’s reaction to him excites me as much as it scares me. Sex is an unknown, as much as he is. But the throb in my nerve endings, the hunger for closeness to him has me racing there. Toward this mysterious land of intimacy I know nothing about. Maybe I should have listened more closely to my friends, instead of zoning out when they talked endlessly about hooking up.

North watches me cross my legs, our gazes connecting as he closes the door and skirts around back of the Chevy. He throws open the trunk and in the rearview, I watch as he tugs on a shirt, drags a hasty hand through his hair, unwraps his hands and tosses the used tape into the opening. Once he closes the trunk again, he braces his hands on the edge of it, taking a long breath and expelling it, leaving white, curling patterns in the night air. I’m not the only one who is nervous. Or trying to get a hold of themselves.

A moment later, he gets into the driver’s side, his head brushing the roof of the car, his big fighter’s body taking up all the air—or all of my air, for that matter. With a twist of his wrist, the engine rumbles to life and we pull away from the curb. It’s happening. It’s really happening. This fighter from the Hellmouth is driving me home. It’s risky. It would be a punishable offense in my father’s book. And yet, I feel as safe as houses.

“Where are we going, Gracie?”

Where ahh we goin’, Gracie.

His Southie accent tickles my erogenous zones like the tip of a feather and I curl my fingers into the edge of the leather seat, holding on for dear life against what this guy makes me feel. Like I’m on the highest point of a roller coaster about to drop straight down. “Beacon Hill. Chestnut Street. Do you…know it?”

Slowly, he shakes his head. “Nah, beauty. I don’t know a thing about Beacon Hill.”

My face heats over asking him such a dumb question. Of course he wouldn’t know my neighborhood. The same way I don’t know South Boston. “It’s okay, I can give you directions.” I scrub my hands up and down my thighs. “Thank you for doing this. Driving me home. My friends…their antics were worse than usual tonight. I wish I could blame a senior year power trip or the alcohol, but that’s pretty much them on a regular basis.”

“That’s not you, though,” he states. “You don’t seem the type to be in Southie after dark stirring up trouble.”

“You’re right. I’m not.” I rub my lips together. “Then again, this…taking a ride home from someone I don’t know isn’t typical behavior for me, either.”

“What is typical behavior for you?”

Our gazes collide across the console and I can see he’s genuinely interested, those golden eyes cutting through the darkness and tracing my features. The way he looks at me is so powerful, it almost feels like his hands are on me, dragging up and down my exposed skin. “Typical behavior for me?” I say unevenly, wracked by a warm shiver. “I’m…well, I’m the senior class president. I’m captain of the flag team. A founding member of the science club. I guess you could say I’m kind of…focused on making my college applications look good. That seems to be the entire focus of my life. And it always has been.”

I expect him to roll his eyes over my goody two-shoes answer, but instead his brow is furrowed, as if he’s focused on every word. “So your typical behavior is being an overachiever.”

“Is that your polite way of calling me a nerd?” We share a chuckle. “Yeah, I guess you could say I’m an overachiever,” I say quietly, as he pulls onto the highway. “But it’s never felt like it’s for…me. A lot of it is trying to please my father.”

North hums in his throat. “What do you do to please yourself?”

Awareness ripples across my senses, the tiny muscles of my femininity pulling taut like a violin string. “I…I…”

“I didn’t mean that like it sounded, Gracie,” North says gruffly, dragging a hand down his open mouth. “I meant, what do you do for fun? Didn’t seem like you were having a good time with your friends.”

No. I wasn’t. In fact, it’s been a long time since I enjoyed myself with them.

But as far as answering his question? What do I do for fun?

I can’t formulate a response. There’s just…nothing.

“I don’t know,” I say, kind of hollowly. “Everything feels like a duty. Going from point A to point B without a thought as to why. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. What’s expected of me. Hanging out with the kids of my parents’ friends. Joining the right committees. Not letting all of the balls drop, when sometimes…I’d just like to drop kick them into the harbor.”

North is silent for a long moment. And then, “Is that what this is?” He gestures between us. “Am I your way of rebelling?”

“What? No!” I turn to him in the seat, my hand automatically going to his thick bicep. He hisses a breath at the contact, his jaw slackening. Unsure if that response is good or bad, I draw my hand back and curl it in my lap. He stares after it, as if he wants to grab it back, but won’t. Or maybe isn’t sure if I’d like it. “I’m not spending time with you on some…some quest to make my father angry or buck the norm. I—”

“Hey. It’s okay if you are, beauty,” he reassures me in a rush, sitting up straighter in the driver’s seat. “I’m not complaining. You can rebel with me as much or as little as you want, all right? Make your father mad over getting a ride home from a Southie kid? That’s fine with me. I’m not stupid. I know when I’ve been given a gift.”

My pulse flutters in my neck, the smalls of my wrists. “You think driving me home is a gift?”

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “Are you kidding? I’m never opening these windows again so I can keep that cherry cola scent in here as long as possible.”

If he wasn’t driving, I swear I might be crawling into his lap, fusing our mouths together. He’s just given me the nicest compliment I’ve ever received in my life, made all the more special because he obviously meant it. There’s no mistaking the sincerity in his tone—at all times. “You mean everything you say, don’t you?” I murmur, giving in to the urge to lay a hand on his forearm, memorizing how it jumps, flexes. “You’re an honest person.”

A line moves in his cheek, his gaze dropping to my hand where it touches him. “I don’t have much, but I’ve got my word, you know?”

“What do you have, besides your word, North?”

“This car. A two-bedroom apartment right above the train. When it passes underneath my building, everything in the place rattles. I’ve got a little sister—Tulip. She’s thirteen. It’s just me and her now.” His Adam’s apple slides up and down. “I’ve got a fucking angel in my passenger seat and she’s touching me. I’ve got that, and Christ, it ain’t nothing.”

Oh my God.

How am I supposed to breathe when he says things like that? I affect this fighter as much as he affects me. I actually have the power to move this young man who is apparently raising his thirteen-year-old sister alone. This man who I want to know everything—everything—about. And his gruff admission is making me bold for the first time in my life. Making me want to be equally as honest. Wetting my lips, I let my fingers travel up his arm, across his shoulder. Higher until I can slide them into his hair. Tugging lightly on the strands until he groans. “North?”

“Yeah, Gracie.”

“Will you kiss me when you drop me off?”

He starts to pant like he’s out of breath. “Like a motherfucker, baby.”

The engine starts to roar and I realize he’s flooring the gas. I continue to stroke his scalp lightly with my nails while giving soft directions near his ear. I’m liquid fire, throbbing in places I’ve never throbbed before, the scent of his sweat and spicy deodorant breathing life into parts of my femininity that were asleep until now. I’ve never even kissed a boy beyond a simple peck and yet, here I am, wanting to lick North’s contoured shoulder. Wanting to straddle his lap and rub myself anywhere I can get friction. What has he done to me?

Giving in slightly to my body’s urges, I lay my lips on North’s shoulder and his big chest shudders, those scarred knuckles shifting on the wheel. “God help me, I shouldn’t be telling you this. But…you don’t want to know what I’m going to do to that seat once you’re gone.”

Fire crawls in a hundred directions along my skin and I’m riveted, hypnotized by him. Innuendo and sex talk among my friends makes me cringe or grow uncomfortable, but I’m almost panting with the need for North to continue his confession. “I do want to know. What you’re going t-to do to the seat.”

Briefly, he closes his eyes before focusing them back on the road. “After I drop you off safely, after I get that kiss, I’m going to find somewhere dark. Recline it all the way back and pretend you’re still lying there. Maybe the next best thing to your body is the heat from it.”

My heart is jackhammering, the moisture gone from my mouth. “I still don’t understand.”

“Gracie,” he says on a pained laugh. “I’m going to pretend I’m between your thighs. And I’m going to hump the fucking seat. That’s as close as I’m going to get to the real thing.”

Through my suddenly sparking vision, I study his profile. “You’re so sure about that?”

His expression is hard when he glances at me. “You need to be sure about that, beauty. If I had you that way…”

“What?”

A low curse leaves him. “If I had you that way…if we had sex, I’d start having dangerous thoughts, all right? I wouldn’t be content to be your rebellious phase anymore. I’d want this to be permanent. I’d be jealous and protective and fuck…fuck, baby, maybe I already am. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe I knew you were mine from the second you walked into the Hellmouth.” He gives a hard headshake. “Am I scaring you?”

“No,” I whisper, trembling. Already unclicking my seat belt, my hormones totally in control now. I need him, I need him. I want to feel those words he just said out loud in the form of kisses and gropes of his hands. I want the embodiment of his threats to pin me down. “Take a right here, I’m the last house on the block.”

He nods, breathing hard. “Is anyone going to see us?”

I check the clock on his stereo. “No. My mother is on a spiritual retreat in Thailand. And my father has been asleep for hours. My curfew is one in the morning. He sets his alarm for one, then checks my bedroom to make sure I’m there. That means we have…twenty minutes before I have to be inside.”

North’s strong jaw flexes and he nods, throwing the car into park at the end of the street, just outside the glow of a streetlamp. I think he’s going to kiss me inside the car by leaning across the console. But instead, he throws open the driver’s side door and climbs out, rounding the back bumper to my side. Yanking open the door and lifting me out by my waist. My feet haven’t even touched the ground when my back lands against the side of the car and North’s mouth is storming over mine. Changing the landscape of my life forever.