True Colors

by Amy Knupp

  “There’s chemistry,” Lexie said, tilting her head at Mackenzie. “You can’t deny that.”

  “Maybe the North brothers just radiate that vibe,” Mackenzie said, her eyes on Lexie, “because when Mason first said you’re engaged, I thought it was to Gabe for some reason.”

  “I got the same impression the first night I met Lexie,” Sierra said. “Remember when the family celebrated Cole’s job with North Brothers Sports?” she asked Lexie.

  “How could I forget? Gabe is still so happy he’s finally working for the family business,” Lexie said and then took a bite of her sandwich.

  “I asked Cole more than once if you and Gabe were a couple that night,” Sierra said.

  “You two seem…in tune,” Mackenzie said as Lexie shook her head and finished chewing her food.

  “Exactly,” Sierra said. “And Gabe makes sure you have whatever you need.”

  “He’s just a genuinely good guy,” Lexie said with a shrug. “The type who’s in tune with everyone, you know? Wants to make sure everyone has what they need.”

  “I can see that,” Sierra said thoughtfully. “But you’re engaged to someone else, so I guess that says it all. But this one here…” She pointed to Mackenzie with a wicked gleam in her eyes. “That was a nice dodge from you to Lex, but I want to get back to you. You’re not engaged and there was chemistry that was nearly tangible between you and Drake.”

  Mackenzie shoved her glass to her lips and took a good swig of her Moscow mule as she thought about that. Chemistry, yes. She blew out a breath as she set the glass down and felt flushed.

  “Cole swore there was nothing going on because of your brother and some nonsense about a man code,” Sierra said, “but I agree with Lex. There’s no hiding that attraction.”

  Mackenzie glanced around, as if someone might be able to overhear. No one was paying any attention to them. And probably no one would care, but it wasn’t her usual way to admit something so personal to someone so soon after meeting them. She was better at getting people to open up to her than she was at baring all herself. It was part of doing her job well, and she’d been heavily focused on doing exactly that for the past few years, in addition to navigating a variety of roommates she didn’t know and didn’t have a lot in common with. It’d been a long time since she’d allowed herself to consider building friendships that went deeper than the surface. These two, though… It felt right and she instinctively trusted them and, bottom line, she was dying to tell someone about Drake and get their input.

  “It’s…hard to deny,” she said, grinning shyly. “We’re not together—”

  “But you want to be?” Sierra said.

  “I knew it,” Lexie let out with quiet exuberance when Mackenzie nodded.

  “I’m pretty sure Cole was right that Drake doesn’t want anything to happen between us,” Mackenzie said, “because of Ezra.” She knew her big brother, knew how protective he was. Nobody messed with his sister, even one of his best friends. Probably especially this one, because Drake was such a player. He had been in high school, she’d bet big money he was in college, and it was obvious he still was today, judging by his social media and the frequent texts that came in from numerous female names—and yes, she’d peeked a few times.

  “But you’re interested,” Lexie said. “Your cheeks are pink.”

  Mackenzie let out a guilty laugh. “Have you seen him?”

  “He’s got that North allure for sure.” Sierra’s brows went up and she used her hand to fan herself, grinning.

  “There’s something about Drake though,” Mackenzie said as she scooped up a glob of cheese sauce on a pretzel bite. “I’ve always had a thing for him. He’s the guy who talked to me whenever my brother had friends over. He’s the one who made time to say hi, who teased me good-naturedly, who had a nickname for me.”

  “What was it?” Sierra asked.

  Mackenzie shook her head and rolled her eyes. “It’s stupid now, but when I was thirteen…”

  “You can tell us,” Lexie said.

  “Shawlet. Because Ezra was Shaw, and I was the little Shaw.”

  “The stuff that raging teenage crushes are made of,” Sierra said, her eyes sparkling. “Am I right?”

  “Oh, completely,” Mackenzie admitted.

  “Nothing ever happened between you two though?” Lexie asked.

  “I was four years younger. Still a kid, really, though I didn’t think so at the time. And then it was crush interrupted when they went off to college. I didn’t see him again until last week.”

  “I’d say he’s interested now. Do you think?” Sierra asked.

  Mackenzie glanced around again and then circled her finger around the rim of her copper cup as she recounted what had happened at Drake’s earlier this evening. All the details. Because it sort of seemed to Mackenzie like he might be interested, and she wanted to see if she was, in fact, crazy.

  “I mean,” Sierra said when she’d finished the story, “you’re pretty. And you’ve got these long, to-die-for legs—”

  “You’ve never seen my legs,” Mackenzie said, laughing.

  Sierra waved a hand. “Maybe not in a towel, but I don’t need to. They’re long and gorgeous and most men would kill to have legs like yours all to themselves. And there’s an obvious affection between you two. I’m betting he was hurting by the time you walked out the door tonight.”

  “For sure,” Lexie said.

  Mackenzie wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe it badly. “So what do I do?”

  “What do you want to do?” Sierra asked.

  “Tackle him. Have my way with him,” she said as matter-of-factly as she could manage, but she couldn’t help laughing again. Her drink was nearly gone and might have been making her feel giggly, but it was more likely the topic, the idea of tackling Drake North, who was twice her size and four times as strong. Maybe eight.

  “Is that all you want? Sex?” Sierra asked.

  “Definitely,” Mackenzie said. “My whole existence is in upheaval right now. In my experience, relationships are just more chaos and instability. That’s the last thing I want.”

  “That sounds right up Drake’s alley,” Lexie said before taking a drink of her lemon drop martini.

  “Perfect match,” Sierra said.

  “So if it only happened once, would you be okay with it?” Lexie asked.

  “I think you have the question wrong,” Mackenzie said, grinning conspiratorially. “Maybe the question is, would I be okay with it if I don’t have a one-night fling with Drake? Could I pass up that opportunity?”

  “Smart girl,” Sierra said, laughing. “And your answer?”

  Mackenzie sat back on her stool, exhilarated and flushed from the topic, the alcohol, the atmosphere. She didn’t have to think long at all. “It’d be the culmination of a teenage crush. How can I not try?”

  Laughing, Sierra said, “I think you have your answer.”

  “Next question,” Mackenzie said, sobering up. “I’ve had flings before, but I’ve never been the aggressor. So…how do I make it happen?”

  Chapter Nine

  Mackenzie wasn’t drunk, but she wasn’t sober either as she let herself into Drake’s apartment. If she was going to do what she planned to do, she needed to be not quite sober, and she’d managed to achieve that by nursing two mules over the course of the last three hours with Sierra and Lexie as they watched the trivia battle, which turned out as fun as Sierra had promised. Maybe, the more she thought about it, she could really use a couple of double vodka shots right about now. Maybe but no.

  The apartment was mostly dark, with just the light over the kitchen sink on a dim setting. Drake’s bedroom door was open, which meant he wasn’t in bed, and her first thought was that he’d gone out. But then she heard the TV in the living room, and as she went farther down the hall, she could see the flickering light of it.

  Her nerves gripped her and she stopped in the hall before she could see the living room—or Drake.

&
nbsp; Crap, this was crazy. Her shoulders started shaking with laughter at herself, first because she planned to be so bold and second because she was being a total chicken.

  Since Drake apparently hadn’t heard her yet, she took several steps back down the hall to her bedroom to collect herself or, really, re-talk herself into this.

  “Do you want this?” she said to herself as she tossed her clutch wallet to the floor and kicked off her shoes just inside the bedroom door. She ran her fingers through her hair, wondering how bad it looked. “Of course you want this. Who wouldn’t want this? But especially you. You want this so much that you’d be crazy not to—”

  “What exactly do you want?”

  She whipped around at Drake’s voice right freaking behind her, lowering her arm from her hair as she did, and the next thing she knew, her elbow was knocking into his…jaw? He caught her opposite arm to steady her, probably a good thing, and she found herself chest to chest with him as he rubbed the side of his face.

  “Crap. I’m so sorry,” she said, and she reached up and brushed her fingers along his jaw as he lowered his hand.

  “Hurricane Mackenzie.”

  “More like a wrecking ball, honestly,” she said, frowning. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. What do you want so much?”

  Oh. Yikes. He’d heard everything. What exactly had she said?

  She peered up to find him staring down at her, and when their gazes met, she couldn’t pull hers away. He was holding both of her arms now, and there was barely room for a breeze to go between them. Mackenzie’s breath stuttered out of her, and a little voice in her head pointed out that exactly what she wanted was right there. He smelled deliciously masculine, as if he’d showered recently with some kind of manly smelling soap that mixed with plain old super-sexy man.

  Mackenzie leaned in, stretched up on her toes, that same little voice saying what the hell as she dared to press her lips to Drake’s. Their mouths sort of bounced together for a second, and she met his gaze again, expecting him to refuse her, set her away from him, burst out with a hell no, but all he did was peer down at her with heavy-lidded eyes.

  “This,” she said, barely above a whisper. “This is what I want.” She went back in for more, her arms winding around his torso to ensure she didn’t lose him now that she had him.

  Their lips flirted with each other for several seconds, tapping, touching, testing, and then his hands slid from her upper arms to the back of her head, and he held her to him as he turned it into a real kiss, one that she’d been dying for for nearly half her life. Their tongues met and all tentativeness vanished.

  Her insides melted as he swirled his tongue with hers and tilted his head for a better angle, still grasping the back of her head with one hand as the other trailed down her back and his fingers dug into her waist as he pulled her closer. His hardness jabbed at her abdomen, leaving no doubt he was as into this as she was.

  She dipped both hands under the hem of his T-shirt in front, skimmed them upward, and marveled at solid, sculpted abs, so defined she could feel the ridges. As the kiss deepened, her hands continued upward, over an awe-inspiring set of pectoral muscles. When she grazed both hands over his nipples, Drake groaned, deep and slow, and then the next thing she knew, he ended the kiss.

  It was a toss-up what she needed more—oxygen or his lips back on hers. She decided on him, but he pressed his forehead into hers, keeping his lips just out of reach.

  “This is a bad idea,” he said in a gravelly voice that made her knees go weak—until she registered his words.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “We aren’t supposed to let this happen.”

  “You’ve thought about it,” she said brazenly. “You wanted that kiss as much as I did. You can’t tell me otherwise.”

  “It’s not about want.”

  “It is.” She lowered one hand to his erection and grabbed it through his athletic pants, which left little to the imagination. “Drake, I’m not asking for anything besides right now.”

  He groaned again as she rubbed her hand up and down a couple of times. He pushed his body into her. “Your brother would kill me.”

  “He won’t know. It’s one night. And even if he did, he has no say.”

  Before he could come up with more excuses, Mackenzie reached up to the tie of her shirt—a halter style with off-the-shoulder sleeves—at her nape and undid it, then tugged it up her torso and over her head. Drake’s eyes were glued to her as she reached behind her and unhooked her peach strapless bra and let it drop to the floor, baring her from the waist up.

  Drake considered himself a fairly strong person, but faced with Mackenzie’s wisp of peach silk lingerie and then her glorious naked tits, he was a fucking goner. There was no way he could stand there without touching them, palming them, kneading them, tasting them. He managed to hold himself in check just barely.

  “You don’t play fair,” he said, and his words came out shaky, with so much need he couldn’t think straight.

  “I know what I want.”

  Her hands went to the waist of her jeans next, undid the button, rasped the zipper downward, and Drake swallowed, afraid to breathe, dying for her to keep going and knowing on some level he should stop her.

  She stuck her fingers into her jeans at the sides and slid them down her hips, pushed them to her ankles, stepped out of them. Her skimpy panties barely covered anything, just a small triangle where her gorgeous thighs met, and then she pushed them down her legs and tossed them to the side. She stepped to her purse, which was sitting askew on the floor near the door, bent down, unzipped it, and grabbed something. Setting aside the oversized wallet, she held up a square packet so he could see it was a condom and then stood, facing him.

  His cock was throbbing for her painfully, insistently as he feasted his eyes on every inch of her naked, luscious body.

  “Say yes, Drake,” she whispered, looking up at him expectantly, and there was a flash of insecurity in those beautiful brown eyes. That would’ve done him in if he wasn’t already done the hell in.

  “Fuck yes. Get over here, Mackenzie.”

  She was in his arms in a heartbeat. He plucked the condom from her fingers and tossed it to the bed until he was ready for it. While his lips ravished her mouth, his hands were all over her, from her hips, over her rounded ass, up her slender torso, to her lush, silky breasts. He broke the kiss to taste her nipple and run his tongue around the hardened nub, swirling, teasing, loving the gasp he pulled from her. His free hand trailed lower again, to the wet heat between her thighs, and he dipped a finger inside of her, nearly losing his mind at the slick, soft, womanly feel of her.

  He moved his mouth to her other breast, laving it, sucking, toying with it, his fingers doing the same to her core, and before he could even think about stopping for long enough to take his shirt off, she was panting, grinding her hips in circles on his fingers, clinging to his biceps as she came apart and her insides contracted around his fingers.

  “God,” she said, breathing hard, leaning her weight on him as her legs seemed to wilt.

  Pressing his lips to her temple as he held her up, he said, “That was the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”

  Her lips found his, a tender, caring, just-had-the-orgasm-of-the-decade kind of kiss, while his blood pounded through him with an urgency he’d never experienced before. He picked her up with his hands at the backs of her thighs. Mackenzie wound her arms around his neck, and when his fingers trailed back to her center, she moaned and then gasped.

  “Drake.”

  He could listen to her say his name all damn night, preferably with him buried deep inside of her. As he carried her over to the bed, he nibbled at her ear and whispered, “You’re so damn hot, Mackenzie. Making me lose my fucking mind.”

  When he felt the mattress at his knees, he carefully set her down on the middle of it, then stood and whipped his clothes off in record time. He grasped for the condom, opened it, and wasted no time sh
eathing himself. Then he crawled over Mackenzie, supporting his weight on his arms, and directed himself to her opening. He sucked in an uneven breath, trying to slow down, reminding himself to make it good for her, but then Mackenzie grasped his ass in both hands and impaled herself as her legs came around his waist.

  He bit his lip in order to not lose it, mentally reeled himself in for a few seconds, and then Mackenzie squirmed beneath him, urging him to move. So he did. He pulled out almost all of the way, slowly, telling himself he had control, but then he felt a nip of her teeth on his shoulder. With her fingers on his jaw, she angled his lips toward hers and pulled him into a tantalizing mating dance of tongues that matched what their bodies were doing, and he was lost. He gave himself over to the rhythm his body demanded, understanding that she was right there with him. Perfectly there with him, as if their bodies were made to be joined like this and everything before Mackenzie had just been passing time.

  As her fingers played over his body, every touch pushing him higher, he burrowed his face in her hair, engulfing himself in the scent of her, all of his senses overwhelmed by her, and every thought slipped out of his head. His body climbed toward release as he registered the sexy, needful sounds coming from Mackenzie. He managed to pull himself back enough to ensure she went over the edge before he did. Barely.

  As Mackenzie shattered around him and called out his name, he drove into her a final few times and climaxed so hard he saw stars. He was still coming back to himself, letting the world fall back into order around him, when the sound of the apartment door opening reached his ears.

  What the—

  He pushed himself up somehow, his muscles still feeling liquid and useless, and got his fingers on his pants as the front door shut. It wasn’t loud—he wouldn’t have heard it if they’d closed the bedroom door, but they hadn’t. Why would they?

  With his heart thundering, he somehow got his legs into the pants and yanked them up just before sticking his head out the bedroom door to the hallway—where he ran head on into Mackenzie’s brother.