“You don’t understand. My father…he…” She has to stop for breath, visibly trying to calm herself down and I can’t help it, I slow my stride and kiss her forehead, cheeks, the crown of her head, holding her tighter in my arms to comfort her. “North, my father isn’t a good person,” she whispers. “He’s in league with a really dangerous man. And h-he threatened to have you killed if I didn’t break things off.” Her chest starts to heave. “Oh God, I could be putting you in danger right now.”
I’m too overcome with fear that she’s been gravely hurt to fully process this news. But I hear it all the same. I hear the most important part and my heart starts to beat again for the first time in five days. “You didn’t…want to leave me?”
“No!” she cries out. “I’m dying without you.”
Her words wind me, knock my breath right out of my lungs. “This is real. This is real? I know I’m not having a fantasy, because I’d never daydream of you getting hit.”
“It’s real. I’m here.” We reach my car then and I sit her on the hood while I unlock the door, then pick her back up and gently place her in the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt. Before I can close the door, she snags my wrist. “I don’t know what to do, North. I’m scared. I can’t stay away from you, but I could get you killed.”
“Listen to me, Gracie, we’re going to figure this out. Together. Knowing you want me? That’s all I need. No one is keeping me from you again. I fucking bleed with love for you,” I say thickly, hands shaking violently. “Let them come for me.”
“I love you,” she whispers, laying her head back against the seat, the affection on her face slaying me where I stand. “I’d bleed for you, too.”
“You are bleeding for me,” I rasp, throat on fire. “Please let me make sure you’re all right, beauty.”
She nods and I exhale jaggedly, closing the door and running for the driver’s side.
Grace is okay.
She’s okay.
She’s okay.
I repeat those words to myself on a loop while leaning against the hallway wall outside of her hospital room, still shirtless, eyes bloodshot. The nurses made me leave Grace’s room in the ER so they could ask her some questions. I know they’re asking my girlfriend if I’m the one who gave her that knot on her head—and I’m glad. I’m glad there are people in place to protect her, even if the very suggestion that I’d hit her makes me sick to my stomach.
They want to keep Grace overnight as a precaution only and I’m not going to leave her side for a goddamn second. I’ve already called Tulip, who is safe at home, letting her know where I’ll be. She cried and apologized when I told her Grace got in the middle of my fight, blaming herself, but I wouldn’t allow it. There’s no one to blame here. Grace and I were born on the opposite side of the tracks. Money and status and public perception are the culprit. They’re what kept us apart.
But I’m not allowing that to happen anymore.
Grace could never look anything less than beautiful, but one look at her face and I can see the toll it took. To be separated from me. We share one heart, one soul. Being away from each other isn’t an option. Five days without us has stolen her healthy glow, surrounded her eyes with purplish shadows. I can’t stand to imagine what she’s gone through. If she experienced half of my pain, I don’t know how she’s even breathing right now.
The nurse comes out of the room holding a clipboard and nods at me. “Well,” she laughs. “Someone certainly loves you.” Her eyes skate down my chest, in a practical, motherly way. “I’m going to check and see if we have scrubs in your size. I doubt you’re going to leave your girlfriend—”
“You’ve got that right.”
Again, she laughs. “And you can’t sit here half-dressed all night.”
I nod once. “Thanks, that would be great.”
“Stay here.”
Pacing, eager to get back into the room with Grace, I watch the nurse disappear into a supply closet and step out a moment later with a blue garment. It’s a little tight, but I manage to get it over my head and down my chest, arms and torso. With one more nod of gratitude for the nurse, I reenter the dark room, my heart pounding out of control at the way Grace smiles at me, reaching out her hand.
I cross the floor and take it, holding her palm to my cheek.
Can’t believe I’m touching her. Can’t believe she came back.
“They’re not going to call my parents. I’m eighteen, so I have the option,” she murmurs. “But when I don’t come home tonight…I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“You just rest, beauty,” I say, kissing the small of her wrist, keeping my lips there until her pulse stops rollicking. “Nothing is happening tonight. I’m right here. I’m standing guard while you get the sleep you need.”
Her brow wrinkles with concern. “What about the sleep you need?”
“Gracie, you came back to me,” I manage, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “I can run at least another few years on that alone.”
I’m about to pull back when she turns her head, bringing her mouth flush with mine. “We could both get some sleep. Together.” Her tongue skates along the seam of my mouth, sending every ounce of blood in my body rushing south. “There’s enough room in this bed for both of us. If we cram in really tight.”
A hoarse sound scrapes out of me. “No. No, baby. You got hit in the head tonight. I’m not making love to you. I can’t. What if I hurt you or made it worse?”
“I’m fine. They’re only keeping me as a formality.” She drags a knuckle down the front of my chest, stopping just above my bulging erection, then slowly tracing the thick line of it, rubbing side to side when she reaches the head, saying in a whisper, “I can tell you missed me.”
“Missed you?” My laugh is broken, humorless, pained. “My world went black.”
“Mine too,” she says haltingly.
She peels back the covers and my eyes trail down the hospital gown to where it has bunched up around her hips, exposing her sheer white panties. Her eyes are innocent and imploring and I’m fucking toast. “Let’s not miss each other anymore.”
There’s a permanent notch in my throat as I slide into the bed with her, her cherry cola scent dragging me closer until we’re face to face on our sides. She wiggles the remaining distance, pressing the fronts of our thighs together, her tits chafing my pecs. Immediately we’re breathing hard, our mouths seeking the home they’ve been deprived of for five days. I catch her hip in my hand and tug her lap tight to mine, desperate to lose myself in her soft femininity, desperate to be healed. Panting for it. And finally, finally, our lips reunite.
We’ve barely started and we’re already overcome. One swipe of my tongue into her sweet mouth and she whimpers, trembling, the weight of what we’ve been through obviously catching up with her. So I wrap my arm around her as tight as I can, drawing her hard and tight to my body, urging her upper thigh around my hip, and I kiss her in the name of comfort and relief and our undefeatable love.