She cocks her head and studies me with curiosity. She’s thinking hard about something and looks so damn cute doing it.

“Why are you drinking?” she questions. I start to wonder how drunk I actually am if she can tell even though I’m no longer holding a cup.

I smirk at her query and reply, “I thought I’d try something new tonight.” She catches my double entendre and I love watching her surprised mouth open and shut. I know another way I would love to see those lips move like that. She starts to grimace, but before I can ask what’s bothering her, I feel warm hands come up from behind and glide across my abs. Shit, the blonde.

“Come on, sweetheart. Trust me, you don’t want in the middle of that crazy,” Lane says, while grabbing Blondie’s hand. When she gets a good look at him, her eyes light up and she follows after him like a damn cat in heat. Fuck, I don’t know whether to fist bump him for being the best damn wingman ever, or slug him for being the shittiest boyfriend known to mankind.

I stalk forward, causing Audrey to reverse slowly. After fifteen steps or so, she backs into a large tree trunk. My hands hit the tree on either side of her face.

“It’s not fair that every time I see you, you look even more delicious than the last,” I whisper into her neck.

“I don’t think you realize what you’re doing right now.” She shivers under my lips.

“Why did things have to get so screwed up?” I ask, dragging my lips across hers. “Do you think we would be together if you hadn’t run into Jax?” I know I’ll regret this tomorrow, but I really don’t care right now.

“I can’t let myself think about things like that, Jace.” Her words are said like a prayer.

“Do you still think about me?” I whisper, while running a finger up the inside of her bare leg.

I feel her tremble before she admits, “Every single day.”

“Well, at least I’m not alone.”

My lips graze across her soft, plump ones. Her eyelashes flutter and she relaxes into me with closed eyes. I run my tongue across her bottom lip lazily before giving the same treatment to the top one. Her breath hitches when I lean back a fraction, and then ever so slowly I move in. I want to drag this out. I never got my moment with her so tonight I want to take my time.

Our lips finally touch and she moans with pleasure. My fingers drag upwards from the back of her neck into her loose curls and I pull her in tighter. Her hands brace themselves on my chest. Gradually, the slow, lazy kiss becomes heated and needy.

When her hands glide down and skim across my waist, I pull back instantly. Grabbing her hand, I quickly start dragging her off toward the driveway. We both need to get out of here before any other thoughts enter my head. When we finally reach Jax’s black ‘67 Camaro, I realize she’s tugging on my hand.

“Jace, where are we going?”

“I need you without an audience.” I try to unlock the passenger door for her, but I can’t seem to get this tiny ass key into an even smaller lock. “Fuck! I can’t work this thing.”

She reaches out and wraps her little hand around mine, taking the key from me. “You’re drunk.”

With what I hope is a smug grin, I reply, “Yup, and you are beautiful.” I emphasize this statement with a tap on the tip of her fucking adorable nose, while catching a whiff of something that smells like coconut.

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like that you’re beautiful? Well guess what babe? I don’t like it either.”

“No, I don’t like you when you’re drunk.”

“I’ll never do it again.” I lean down to kiss her perfect lips. Emotions that I can’t comprehend are buzzing through me, so I reach out and squeeze her upper arm three short times.

She pulls back, but I stay there with my lips puckered out, hoping she’ll return. “Promise?”

“I cross my heart, baby. I just wanted to forget about seeing you with your boyfriend. Shit… I didn’t mean to say that part out loud.” I try to lean back down to kiss her again, but she swiftly unlocks the door and pushes me inside. When she comes around to the driver’s seat and hops in, I realize she’s about to fucking try and drive this car. “Whoa… whoa… Audrey, only three people have ever driven this before. My dad, me, and Jax.”

“Guess there’s about to be four.” She smiles confidently and lifts her hand to show me four fingers, although I’m seeing about twelve at the moment. I hear her push in the clutch to start the engine. Damn, every time I hear this baby start up, I’m turned on. Add Audrey and I’m seconds away from coming in my pants. I have to have her and it needs to be soon.

She backs out of the drive, and when she shifts into first gear, I can tell that she feels the power under the hood. She may not understand what it means, but that little smirk tells me she likes controlling it.

At this point, I’m completely turned toward her, staring as she shifts into second. “Stop making that face,” I say to her, while groaning and readjusting myself.

Her adorable nose scrunches up in confusion. “What face?”

Third gear and I’m having a hard time staying in my seat. I can’t distract her from driving, but I’m dying to touch her. In the moonlight and soft glow of the dashboard lights, her skin looks like porcelain.

“The face with that little smile that says you’re enjoying my car way too fucking much.” Technically it’s not my car, but I’ve put enough sweat and blood into this beast to call her mine. Just then, she turns down a familiar drive. “You’re taking me home?”

“Yeah, you’re drunk, remember? You need to go sleep it off.” There’s no way in hell I’m going to sleep right now. I direct her to pull over behind some trees. “No, Jace, I remember there being huge bushes over there.” She does it anyway, and just then I hear a loud, scratching sound. She instantly stops, pushes in the e-brake, and turns off the ignition. “Damn it, Jace! See!?”

I should be angry but I’m not. Hearing that little dirty word come out of her pretty little mouth makes me want to pull her into the backseat. So after I unclick her seatbelt, that’s exactly what I do.

“You’ll be pissed about that in the morning,” she says. I position her underneath me on the black leather seat, and the way she’s lying over the hump caused by the driveshaft makes her arch up into me. She’s gorgeous, so damn gorgeous.

“I’ll be more pissed if I didn’t take advantage of this situation.”

“What exactly is this situation?” she asks breathlessly.

“Your lips needing mine,” I respond and press my mouth to hers before she can question my words.

I start slow, wanting to test the waters and needing to know if I still feel that spark that I’ve been craving for the past three years. The second her fingers thread through my hair, I feel it. That undeniable charge that only Audrey has been able to cause.

It’s like a trigger has gone off and I can’t slow down. I pull her shirt up over her head and she’s already got her hands on the hem of mine. I try to help her out by pulling it over the back of my head, but I’m so wasted that it gets stuck. Her patience wears out so she jerks it all the way off and tosses it aside.

My hands are everywhere and I still can’t touch enough of her skin. Her hands are like a fire that I can feel through my jeans as she’s unbuttoning them. This is happening. This is finally fucking happening and I can’t get all this damn fabric between us away any faster.

“Jace…” she moans, and my mouth is instantly back on hers. I plunge my tongue inside and can’t hold in my own groan. I hate that she had to do most of the work because of my fumbling fingers, but I love that there is finally nothing between us. I dip my fingers inside of her and against all odds, I’m even more turned on to find that she’s so ready. I can’t wait to feel all of her. As I stroke in and out, I remember to grab a condom from inside of my wallet. Before I can botch it up, she grabs it from me impatiently and…hot damn, her little hands are rolling it on me. This could get embarrassing if I don’t take back control.

“Put your hands above your head, babe,” I say in a raspy voice. She immediately complies without question. “Grab the seatbelt.”

With her big, brown eyes looking up at me, I reach out and loosely wrap the nylon strap twice around each of her petite wrists. “You okay?” I ask, hoping beyond hope that she’s fine with this. Her body language says that she loves it, but I need her confirmation. “You realize that I would never hurt you, right?”

I suddenly recall that I uttered a similar phrase to her the day we first met, and I groan when I see the gleam in her eye, telling me that she remembers too. “Jace, I trust you.”

Without missing a beat, I slide into her and pause, needing this moment to grasp a hold of my sanity. Having her body underneath mine is so overwhelming that I can’t seem to remember to breathe. She whimpers below me and tries to move against me. Ah… my girl needs a release already. I pull her legs up over my shoulders, while trying to keep my knee from slipping off the edge. With one leg bent up on the leather seat and the other foot braced on the floorboard, I finally gain the correct leverage.

Looking down, I’m captivated by the space where we’re connected. Holy Shit. I can’t believe how good she feels and how good we look together.

“Gorgeous… you’re fucking gorgeous, Audrey,” I ground out like a prayer.

“Jace, please…” she begs. Before I start moving, I lean down to kiss her again. I can’t stop kissing her.

“How are your hands, babe?”

“Jace, please… just please…” she says, almost incoherently. I can’t wait any longer either so I begin to quickly thrust in and out. The backseat of the Camaro provides very little room for my six-foot frame to navigate her body, but I learn to work with what I’ve got. Because what I’ve got under me right now is incredible.

I spent four months of my senior year lusting after this body. I watched the way she walked, the way her hips swayed, even the way she lounged on the dock out by our pond with Jax. After she disappeared, I spent the last six months of my senior year recalling this figure in my dreams. The curve of her waist, the length of her silky-white legs, and the way her long, brown hair curled up in the humidity.

My chest squeezes at the idea of getting to know every inch of her body and finding out exactly what she wants. I love that her hands are restrained, allowing me to give her all the pleasure. They’re also not in the way of my mouth as I nip and suck my way across her chest. The farther I push her legs forward, the louder she gets. And the harder I push into her, the tighter she feels.

“Jace… Jace… Jace… yes, like that…” she chants without shame.

I need her to let go because I can’t hold off much longer. Drinking tonight was not my best decision, and if I would have known Audrey was going to be grinding underneath me, I wouldn’t have touched the damn stuff.

I reach up and pull the seatbelt to constrict tighter against her wrists. In the next second, her whole body locks up and I feel her contracting around me as she’s screaming my name. Pleasure shoots through me and I ride out the spasms by kissing her face from ear to ear and down to her neck.

“Damn, I needed that,” I say, blowing out a hard, ragged breath. “Thanks, babe.”

I collapse on top of her and then maneuver her body around so she’s cradled in front of me. I reach up and untangle the belt from her wrists, and she slowly flexes them in a circular motion.

I pull her in close and bury my face in her hair, memorizing her delicious scent. My lips kiss the back of her neck for as long as I can stay awake. Squeezing her tighter against me, I hold on for dear life so she can’t go anywhere. It doesn’t work though. I wake up the next morning in the backseat of my brother’s car… alone, with only the scent of coconut that lingered on her skin.

- Four -

AUDREY - Present day…

“So how did your first day of graduate school feel?” Lane asks, while wrapping his arm around my shoulders and swinging his backpack up onto his own.

“Pretty much the same as undergrad, honestly.” Though my reaction might not indicate it, I really am excited to continue my education. I just wish Lane had tried harder to attend a school in San Diego, where we were already living and where Jace doesn’t live. Being in the same city and on the same campus as him feels weird, especially the way things were left between us. However, I know I shouldn’t be picky about where I get accepted into highly prestigious programs. It’s still overwhelming sometimes to think about all I’ve accomplished in the last couple of years.