Chapter 5

Five

Grace

I sleep late the next morning.

Normally on a Saturday, I would be up and out of bed by nine a.m., working on college applications or volunteering at our local animal rescue. But my body is boneless. So relaxed that I don’t even shift to find comfortable spots. I’m just plopped face down in the center, arms curled under my favorite pillow, a dreamy smile tilting my lips.

North.

Thinking his name makes me sensitive. Everywhere.

My thighs rub sinuously on the sheets, my nipples tender from his mouth.

Last night was the first time I’ve ever hooked up with a member of the opposite sex. I don’t know much about physical intimacy. But I know instinctively that none of the boys of my acquaintance could have done this to me. None of them could have talked to me like that, touched me with such precision and care…or been so animalistic afterward.

Can I lick it up?

I exhale roughly into my pillow remembering his face pressed between my thighs, his wet mouth reflecting the moonlight. Who knew I could be turned on by things like that?

No. No, it’s only with North.

It’s as though my body was waiting for him to arrive and turn the key in my ignition.

What am I going to do about this guy?

I would like to think I live in an open-minded world with non-judgmental people. But I don’t. I’ve been born and raised in upper-crust Boston. Tradition is carved into every inch of my identity, along with everyone I know. Dating an underground fighter from Southie will not merely be frowned upon. People will try and stop it. My circle doesn’t like change. They like the status quo and reject anything that threatens it.

There is no doubt in my mind that I’m the main topic of conversation among my friends right now. Word that I went home with North has probably already spread beyond my inner circle to the rest of the school. Collier will need to save face somehow—and I’m sure that means I’m going to be the victim.

In other words, school on Monday is going to be a real delight.

Stretching my arms above my head, I grab my phone on my bedside table to check the time—and see dozens of texts from my friends, including Collier. I ignore all of the ugly opinions about my behavior, focusing on their grudging concern and fire back quick messages to let them know I made it home fine. Then I leave my phone face down on the bed and pad downstairs for breakfast.

Halfway down the staircase, the sound of low, hushed male voices brings me up short.

One of those voices belongs to my father, but I don’t recognize the other.

Brow pinched, I continue down the stairs and peek around the door into the dining room—and I have to slap a hand over my mouth to contain my gasp. Sitting at one end of our eighteen-seat banquet table is my father. And Boston’s most notorious criminal.

Curtis Tennison.

My heart pumps in a wild rhythm in my chest. What is he doing in our house?

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve read about Curtis Tennison in the news. He’s been in prison once—for a long stretch—and he didn’t clean up his act upon release. The consensus among the public is he only got smarter. Better at hiding his crimes in plain sight. What in the world is he doing meeting with my father?

Staying as quiet as possible, I remain out of sight and listen to their conversation.

“There are going to be a lot of eyes on this development, Foster. But only until you’ve awarded the contract. Then everyone goes home. Nothing to see here, right?” Curtis shifts some papers. “You pick one of the obvious firms for the job and once no one is looking, right before the contract is signed, you quietly switch to our company.”

Is he talking about one of my father’s developments?

Simmons Foster, my father, works in finance, but for the last five years has started getting into developing. Investing at first, then leading projects himself. Mainly, he likes the idea of having our family name on buildings and shopping centers around Boston and is willing to spend a lot of money to make it happen.

“So this construction company of yours…Ludlow Builders,” my father says, consideringly. “Is there any way to connect you to it on paper?”

“No,” responds Curtis. “There’s no trail leading to me. You can rest assured of that.”

My father drums his fingers on the table, a sign he’s thinking something over.

“I’ll remind you again of the reason you’re awarding the contract to Ludlow. We have a lot of friends in this city who can cut through red tape. You’re not going to get tied up with constant inspections and delayed permits.” A long pause. “Although if you go with someone else, I can’t guarantee those delays won’t happen. Could be even more than you expect.”

“Is that a threat?” Simmons blusters.

“Take it how you want,” Curtis responds with a smile in his voice. “Look, you’ve already got me in your house. You know you’re going to agree to this. Let’s not waste time.”

My father sighs. “All right. We have a deal.”

Is what I’m hearing for real?

My father is working with a criminal? The notorious patriarch of the Boston mob?

I’m in such shock that I don’t realize I’m slipping off the step until it’s too late. One second I’m hidden behind the wall, the next I’m stumbling into view. And staring straight into the shrewd eyes of Curtis Tennison. The man who has his fingers in every illegal activity in this city from gambling to real estate—apparently.

“Who is this?” Curtis drawls, his gray eyebrows lifting, looking me over in my nightshirt with blatant interest. “Your kid?”

My father has gone pale as a ghost.

“Sure hope she didn’t hear anything,” Curtis continues, though there is a dangerous glint in his eyes now. “Loose lips sink ships, little girl. You know that, right?”

Skin clammy, pulse racing, I have no choice but to nod. “Yes.”

“Good.” The gangster stands abruptly, buttoning his suit jacket. “You’ll make sure she stays quiet, won’t you, Foster? I’d hate to have to do it myself.”

My throat closes up as the man swaggers past me, leering at my breasts when he draws close, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. A moment later, he goes out the back door which exits onto a more private end of the street and I’m left gaping at my father.

I expect him to make sense of everything I’ve just heard. Instead he pounds a fist on the table and shouts, “What the hell are you doing home?”

“I…slept in,” I sputter. “Is that really what we should be talking about?”

His jaw ticks. “You think I need to explain myself to you?”

Simmons and I don’t have a close relationship. At all. He’s more like a mentor. But that has never struck me as odd. My father is a person I have to make proud in return for this easy life he’s provided. That’s the unspoken understanding. My mother lives her own life, “finding herself” with a new method every year. Far too busy for me. It’s the same for all of my friends. They don’t have popcorn movie nights with their parents or matching Christmas pajamas. It’s all very formal. Strict. We lead very separate lives and as long as I’m doing what’s expected of me, there’s no cause for conversation.

“No, you don’t have to explain,” I say quietly. “But…I wish you would.”

For long moments, he sits there glaring past me. “Maybe this is a good lesson. You take shortcuts, people find out and use them against you. My last development ran into some snags and I bought a way out. Now I have no choice but to use Tennison’s shell company, Grace. Or I could be brought up on charges.” His upper lip curls. “Then who would pay for Harvard, hmm?”

A sharp object digs into my chest. I’ve caught my father in a weak moment and now he’s lashing out. It’s not unusual. He’s never been a kind person. He expects perfection. Demands it. Anything less turns him mean. “I haven’t gotten into Harvard yet.”

“Oh no?” He pounces all over that. “Well what are you doing to guarantee you do? At this very moment, daughter, what are you doing? Are you volunteering? Doing extra credit for your AP classes? Or are you just fucking standing there questioning me, the one who put this ten-million-dollar roof over your head?”

“I’m not questioning you,” I murmur, trying to hold my ground. “I just want you to be careful.”

“Me? You just made yourself a witness, you brainless child.” He laughs bitterly, then starts gathering the paperwork with hasty movements. “Goddammit, Grace. Why didn’t you just stay upstairs?”

Is he right? Did I put myself in danger by accidentally revealing my presence?

Is the information I have now so important that telling anyone could get me…killed?

“Well I see you’ve realized the severity of the situation,” my father snaps. “You’ll spend the day upstairs working on applications. Writing essays. I want to see copies of everything you’ve done by tonight. Then we’re going to dinner at the club. I’m meeting with some associates and you’ll be on your best behavior. Make me look good, since you appear to be incapable of anything else. Don’t even think about leaving your room until then.”

Until my father banishes me to my room for the day, I don’t realize how much I was looking forward to seeing North. Whether or not I’d acknowledged it to myself, my plan was to get dressed and hope he calls, so we could make plans. I want to kiss him again so badly, my lips are already tingling. And now…after the conversation I overheard, there is a layer of ice on my skin and only his arms around me is going to make it better. How crazy is that after only knowing him one night? It’s just a fact, though. There is something…magical about North. About me and North together. It can’t be denied or explained.

My father dismisses me with a wave and I quickly retrieve coffee and a muffin from the kitchen, bringing both up to my room. I eat and guzzle coffee while reluctantly firing up my laptop, pulling up an application for one of my fall-back schools. I work on it for a few hours, then decide to take a shower. I’m halfway through undressing when a text message comes through on my phone. It’s probably one of my friends, but I check anyway, my entire body flaming when I see the text is from North.

You free to talk, Gracie?

My nipples turn into tight pebbles over those five digital words. I can hear them in his rough accent. Can hear that adoring way he says my name. With my heart ticking madly, my fingers are unusually clumsy when I reply.

Yes.

The phone rings literally one second later.

I answer out of breath, even though I’m sitting on my bed. “Hi.”

“Hey, beauty.”

His voice wraps around me like the warm hug I’m craving. “Took you long enough.”

He laughs. “I’ve been pacing with my phone in my hand for hours. Been wanting to call you since last night, but I…shit, Grace, I don’t want to come across too eager and scare you.”

“You couldn’t. You won’t.”

North blows out a long, unsteady breath. “What are you doing?”

“Working on an application,” I say, wrinkling my nose at the offending laptop. “It’s not how I wanted to spend my Saturday, but my father didn’t give me a choice.”

“How would you normally spend it?”

“There’s a shelter for animals where I volunteer sometimes.” A smile curves my lips. “I get to play with puppies. Sometimes I read or go swimming at the club or see friends.”

A beat passes. “You’re not seeing any friends today?”

There’s a hard note in his tone and it takes me a second to read between the lines. “I’m not seeing Collier, if that’s what you’re asking, North. I told you, he’s not my boyfriend and he never will be. I can barely stand him.”

North’s breath caresses my ear. “You don’t…God, Gracie, I shouldn’t be demanding explanations from you like that.”

My hand tightens around the phone. “But you can’t help it?”

“No,” he says, hoarsely. “I can’t.”

Slowly, I lie back on my bed, looking up the ceiling but seeing only his face. His golden eyes. “What if you could demand explanations from me? What if you…”

“What if I was your boyfriend?” He half-laughs, half-groans. “You should probably know this whole conversation is making me hard as a motherfucker.”

“Oh,” I breathe, my toes curling into my comforter. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you sound real sorry,” he teases, releasing a long exhale. “You really want to hear this?”

“Yes.”

His exhale bathes my ear. A few seconds tick by in silence. Then, “If I was your boyfriend, you’d walk around looking so dazed and satisfied from being fucked, no other guy would bother trying to run game on you. They’d know I have it locked down tight. They’d smell me all over you. They’d see the suck marks on your neck and your swollen-ass lips—and they’d know it’s no use trying to compete.”

Lord. Tingles cascade from my head down to my toes. I have to roll onto my stomach momentarily to whimper into my comforter, before bringing the phone back to my mouth. “You don’t talk like an eighteen-year-old boy.”

“I had to become a man a lot faster than most.”

“Why, North?”

He clears his throat. “That’s a conversation for another day. I called to talk about you. All these applications you’re filling out for college…you know exactly what you want to be someday?”

My lips twist. “Well, it’s a little complicated. My father already has an internship lined up for me at one of his friends’ funds. I’m expected to go into finance.” Curling up on my side, I lower my voice. “But secretly, I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. For little kids. I was super shy as a kid—and awkward. With these glasses that made my eyes look magnified and a substantial lisp. But I had this great kindergarten teacher named Miss Griffin and she made me love school. She had glasses, too, and she called me her twin.” My smile blooms at the memory. “I want to make the different kids feel less alone. Like Miss Griffin.”

“I can see you doing that. Easy. You know…” He hesitates before continuing. “We talk a big game in the Hellmouth. Especially me. I might not seem intimidated on the surface when a bunch of rich guys show up throwing around more money than I’ve seen in a year, but it stings. And you picked me. Right in front of them. I still can’t believe it. You’re already like Miss Griffin in a way, Gracie. You’d make a great teacher.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, touched. Shaken. North pays attention. He feels a lot. He says what he’s thinking without worrying about being too honest. Too real. And it makes me want to do the same. Makes me need to share that kind of intimacy with him on a constant basis. “I wish you were here. So I could kiss you for saying that. And so I could tell you that I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t care.”

“That’s easy to say when you’re used to having it. When it’s never been an issue.” I hear him swallow hard. “But it would be an issue for us. It just would.”

“If we were together?”

“Yeah. If we were together, beauty.”

“I already feel like we are,” I whisper. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” he rasps. “God. You already feel like mine. Felt like mine the second I saw you.” We’re both panting and my free hand is roaming up and down my hip, playing with the side band of my panties, goosebumps shivering hotly on my skin. If he was here, I would give myself to him, no question. I would surrender everything. Just let him take and take and take his fill. “Gracie…if it means anything to you, I’m trying to go legit. There are ways I can make money fighting. Maybe even a lot more than I am now. There’s a manager that has been sniffing around, trying to sign me for a while. I called him last night when I got home. I don’t know if it could lead to anything. I’ve always just fought because it’s all I know how to do and it puts cash in my pocket, but I do love it. I love it…and now? I’ve got a reason to try and make something happen.”

My chest crowds with pressure. “You called the manager for…me?”

“Would it scare you if I did?”

“No.”

“Then hell yes I did it for you. I’d sell my soul for a real shot at making you mine.” I hear a soft thud and imagine his forehead hitting a wall. “But even if I can make money boxing, beauty…I’m still from the wrong side of town. That’s never going to change.”

“I wouldn’t change a single thing about you.”

“Pretty sure your father will feel differently.”

“I don’t care.”

“You do care,” he says in a burst. “You just got finished telling me you want to be a teacher, but you’re going into finance, instead. Because he wants it. You’re home on a Saturday because he demanded it.”

I recoil like I’ve been slapped.

Not because of North’s words.

No. It’s the realization that he’s right. I’ve known for a long time that I’m behaving like a puppet on a string. When my father says jump, I ask, “how high?” I’m working toward a life I don’t even want because Simmons Foster has decreed that’s the way it will be. I’m eighteen now. An adult. And yet I obey without question. Like a child without a will of her own.

“Fuck, Gracie. I’m sorry. That came out wrong—”

“No. No, you’re right. If he knew you drove me home last night…or that we’re talking on the phone, he’d lose it. He wouldn’t consider how you make me feel. He disregards anything that isn’t part of our glitzy little world. It’s wrong. But you’re right, North…I do care too much what he thinks. What he wants from me.”

“I have some balls telling you you’re wrong in any way. Look at you. Good grades, senior class president…I’m in awe of you. Forget what I said, okay? You’re doing everything right—”

“I’m not doing what I want to do, though.”

He’s quiet for several seconds. “What do you want?”

I sit up in the center of my bed, rubbing at the crushing sensation just below my collarbone. “Right now, I want to see you again.”

“Then come to me, Gracie. Now. I’m waiting.”

My eyes fly to the clock and I wince inwardly. “I’m stuck here all afternoon, by order of my father. After that, there’s a dinner with some of his associates. I have to be here. Maybe after?”

“I’m fighting tonight…” He curses. “I don’t want you in the Hellmouth again. I won’t be able to concentrate for worrying about you.”

Disappointment almost collapses me. My God, how am I already in so deep with this man? It’s like my continued existence is hinging on the next time we see each other. There’s a desperate clawing in my throat, my body on edge, needy. Am I addicted to him already? In such a short time? “What about tomorrow?”

“Yes. Tomorrow,” he says thickly, as if he’s having the same withdrawals. “I have to help my sister in the afternoon with her science project. Then we could meet—”

“Wait, whoa. Science club geek right here. Remember?” I tuck some hair behind my ear, worried I’m being too eager. “I could…help? With the project?”

North doesn’t answer right away. “You’d do that?”

Relief sails through me. Of course I wasn’t overstepping. This is North. “Of course I would. Just text me your address and I’ll…see you tomorrow?”

“Fuck, Gracie.” Three soft thuds in the background, as if he’s rapping his forehead off the wall now. “How am I going to survive until then?”

I’m not sure where the wicked idea comes from. Maybe because his voice in my ear has made my entire body feel touchable and delicate. I look down at myself, clad only in panties since I was getting ready for a shower when he called. “Maybe a picture of me would help?”

His exhale is rocky. “God yes. Please.”

I slide off the bed and enter my en suite bathroom, flipping on the light. I’ve never done this before. I’ve always kind of rolled my eyes at friends who send nudes to their boyfriends. But I’ll never eye roll them again, because oh my God, it’s thrilling. I’m almost shaking from the anticipation and the illicitness of the whole act. “Are you going to send me one back?” I ask.

“I’ll do anything you want.”

Staring at my reflection in the giant bathroom mirror, I watch my teeth sink into my bottom lip. Watch the rosy flush appear on my cheeks. And I hardly recognize myself. “I want one of you. Not…I-I’m not asking for everything to come off. Just, um…”

“You want my shirt off, beauty?”

I swallow, but it gets stuck. “Yes.”

There’s a rustle of fabric in the background. “You like my body, Gracie?”

“I love it,” I whisper.

“You want to know why?” His voice is getting thicker. More sensual. So masculine that every one of my stomach muscles coils in response. “You might be a virgin, but your pussy knows what a workhorse looks like. I’ll go round after round on that tight, little thing without busting. You’ll be exhausted and dripping with sweat by the time I come. That’s why you like my body. Your pussy knows what’s up, even if you don’t yet.”

A whimper escapes me. My thighs are shaking by the time he’s finished speaking. I can barely find the wherewithal to say, “Yet?”

His low growl sends a fresh dose of lust through me. “I’m going to go to hell for taking what can never really belong to a poor man like me. But you come to Southie tomorrow, beauty? See if I can fucking stop myself from getting on top of you.”

“I’ll be there,” I manage, hanging up, before I do something pitiful like moan into the receiver. Oh my God. This guy…he makes me feel like someone else. Someone better. With more agency. More excitement. And I don’t want the feeling to end.

I need North Whitlock with every ounce of my being.

Turning around so my backside is reflected in the mirror, I drop my panties. Taking a deep breath for courage, I shake out my hair, arch my spine and snap a picture of me naked from behind, just a hint of side boob peeking out on the left.

A text comes in from North immediately.

Jesus Christ. Can’t believe you sent me this. You’re so fucking hot.Just wait until I get my tongue between those buns.

My mouth drops open.

Is that a thing? I text back.

And then a picture comes in and my jaw drops even lower.

North. No shirt. A white towel wrapped around his waist. Eyes hooded. Muscles on full display. The picture of male prowess and confidence. He’s more than just hot. He’s a man. He’s a…workhorse. Is that why my private flesh and inner thighs are turning wet and pliant?

My gaze tracks lower then and I see the thick protrusion against the front of his towel. His erection. It’s enormous. Did I give him that?

My question is answered a moment later when he texts me again. Look what you do to me.

Pretty sure I’ll be looking until I see you tomorrow, I reply back.

Jesus…same. Please be safe for me until then, Gracie, North says. Until I can protect my beauty myself.

I will, I reply. And then I collapse onto the floor in a fit of squeals, willing time to move faster. More eager for tomorrow to arrive than I’ve ever been for anything in my entire life.

“North Whitlock, I’m yours,” I say in a heartfelt whisper to the empty bathroom.