True North

by Amy Knupp

  “What are you doing here?” he said, tilting his head and seeming to fight a full-out smile.

  “I just—”

  “How’d you know where I live?”

  “I have my ways—”

  “Never mind,” he said with a little shake of his head. “Get in here.” Peering down at her with a lingering half grin, he took her hand and pulled her in, and Sierra didn’t fight it one bit. He closed the door and locked it, two locks, and then turned to face her again.

  Sierra’s attention was drawn to the apartment, and she took in her surroundings, trying to be subtle at first, but then it was no use. “This is not what I expected.”

  The living room, where they stood, was connected to a compact kitchen with a charcoal-and-white-swirled granite-topped breakfast bar in between that appeared to serve as his dining area. The kitchen was stunningly updated and masculine, with stainless appliances, dark gray cabinets, and a simple white tile backsplash.

  She pivoted back toward the living room to take in the details—a slate-gray couch along the wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves on either side of the TV filled with scores of books, and the element that took a comfortable room and made it cozy, a lived-in saddle-brown leather chair with a matching ottoman angled in front of the only window in the room. On the end table next to it was a pile of three books, a beer bottle, and a remote for the TV. A solid cream-colored rug nearly filled the area, covering what looked to be old but well-maintained wide-planked wood floors.

  “What did you expect?” Cole asked, crossing his arms as he leaned his back against the door.

  “It’s not in a new part of town,” she said with only a slight hesitation. “On the outside, it looks a little sketchy. That bar downstairs…”

  He laughed. “Not your kind of place.”

  “I’m not sure I’d go there alone,” she acknowledged. “But this…” She gestured around them. “Your home is really nice.”

  It was an understatement. His apartment was like a view into the side of him he didn’t let anyone see. Maybe a glimpse of the true Cole. It felt familiar, comfortable in a way she couldn’t really explain to herself. It felt right. Which made no sense.

  “How did you get your landlord to let you do this?” she asked. Because it was unquestionably his work, his taste. She’d worked with him long enough to recognize that.

  “I’ve lived here for so long she’ll let me do just about whatever I want.”

  “Why? Why do you live here?” Sierra asked, catching a glimpse of his bedroom through the doorway on the left side of the kitchen. “Why not buy a house if you were going to do all this work making it the way you want it?”

  Cole pushed away from the door and shrugged. “Didn’t want the hassle, I guess. This is comfortable. Winona—my landlady—doesn’t want to find a new renter, so she lets me fix the place up. I don’t want to hunt for a house and start over. Plus she makes me dinner whenever I want it.”

  “Your landlady cooks for you?”

  “Cooks is a stretch. She serves sandwiches at Sunshine’s.”

  “You read a lot,” Sierra said, somehow surprised and yet not surprised at the same time. She took two steps to the nearest shelf and ran her finger down the spines of some of the books at shoulder level. “Smarty-pants.”

  “Why are you here, Sierra?”

  Oops. The smarty-pants thing might’ve hit a raw nerve again, because an edge sounded in his voice.

  She angled away from the custom-made bookshelf to face him fully, a smile bubbling out as she remembered the news she’d come to share. “We,” she said dramatically, stepping closer to him, “did it. We made it to the next round of the Eldridge contest. One of ten companies.”

  “Yeah?” A smile inched up the corners of his mouth and sincerity shone in his eyes. “That’s great news. You deserve it.”

  “We. I know you’re behind the scenes, but you’re part of it. A big part of it, as I’m pretty sure it was your excellent writing that did it.”

  He blew out a lighthearted scoff as if to disagree. “Come here.”

  Before the words were all the way out of his mouth, he’d pulled her into his arms, and this…this was exactly where she ached to be, enveloped by his strong biceps, pressed up against his hard chest, breathing in his masculine scent.

  It took about half an instant for the tone of the hug to switch from celebratory to charged, the awareness between them jumping straight to sexual. Because…three eternal days…

  As one, they pulled their heads apart enough to look at each other, and Cole nudged her chin up with his finger. At once, they met in a kiss, with him leaning down, her stretching up, and the sensual sound that came from Cole’s throat was earthy and raw and affected the most female parts of her.

  Cole had her against the door in no time, and there was no mistaking his hardness pressing into her lower abdomen. On the one hand, she wanted to get him the rest of the way naked before she took in her next breath. On the other, the way he was suddenly kissing her, as if he’d thrown the brakes on to slow down and milk the goodness out of every second, with a thoroughness, a gentleness that made her feel cherished… She could stand here and kiss him for days.

  She was lost in the way he was making love to her mouth when something brushed up against her calf, startling her, causing her to pull away with a loud gasp as she looked down.

  The cat, she realized.

  When Cole saw what she was looking at, he let out a low laugh and shook his head. “Such a jealous bastard. Can’t be bothered to come out of his nest in the dirty clothes basket until he figures out someone else is getting the attention he thinks he’s entitled to.”

  Still holding on to Cole, she watched the black-and-white-speckled cat, almost like a feline version of a Dalmatian, saunter into the center of the living room and hop up on the ottoman. “Tito?” she asked, drawing the name from her memory of the other night.

  “One and only.”

  Before she could say more, Cole’s lips were back on hers and she forgot about the animal in the room. She ran her hands over his bare chest, around to his strong back, down over his ass outside his jeans, thrilling in the feel of it even through the thick denim. She gave his butt a playful squeeze and pulled him more firmly against her body. In a heartbeat, he lifted her off the floor, his hands on the backs of her thighs, lining up their bodies perfectly, eliciting a breathy sound from her. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he trailed his lips and tongue over her jawline to a spot beneath her ear that sent shivers through her.

  “Question,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, his breath wisping over her ear. “Did you really come all the way over here just to tell me about the contest?”

  A smile broke out over her lips, and she tried to hold it in even though he couldn’t see it as he was focusing his attention on her neck. “Of course,” she lied. “Why else would I?” She nearly laughed as she said it, because with the things he was doing with his tongue, she could barely remember there was a contest.

  He pulled his head away from her, met her gaze directly. “I should stop then?” There was a spark in his eyes and a hint of a grin that said he was teasing.

  “I mean, if you really want to,” she bluffed back, knowing if he so much as tried to pull away, she would hold on for all she was worth, with both arms and legs.

  He peered down at her, brows raised. “All you gotta do is admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “You came over for more than conversation.”

  With a low laugh that sounded nothing like her, she said, “Not at all. I thought, after all your work on the application, you deserved an in-person message.”

  “Then you’re probably ready to get going now, huh?” He put his hands up as if in surrender, and the only things keeping her from falling were her grip on him and the way he had her pressed between him and the door.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing again. “Maybe a part of me wanted to see you half-naked.”

 
; “Just half-naked?”

  She reached between them and unsnapped his jeans. “I’m up for full-on naked anytime you want to stop the games.” To show she was serious, she dipped her fingers under the waist of his jeans in back, skimming them over the skin of his ass.

  His arms came back around her. “Thank God,” he said on an exhale, now fully letting a smile out. Then he went serious in an instant. “It’s been killing me not to see you outside of work. Not to touch you at work.”

  “Thank God,” she mimicked, completely serious as well. As he had a hold of her again, she was able to ease away just enough to lower his zipper.

  With a grunt, he stopped her and carried her to the bedroom, then lowered her to the floor. “Get naked,” he said, his voice a sexy rumble.

  “Bossy,” she said, not minding at all as she took off her slip-on sneakers and let her oversized cardigan fall off her shoulders. The lamp by the side of the bed was on a low setting, casting a warmth over the room, which wasn’t big enough to hold more than the queen-sized bed, a nightstand, and another wall full of shelves and books.

  Cole disappeared into the bathroom on the far side of the room and she heard a drawer opening and him rustling around as if searching inside of it as she whipped off her long-sleeved tee and slid her leggings down and off her legs. She was down to her bra and underwear, a matched set in coral, when he emerged from the bathroom carrying a box of condoms.

  “Not naked yet,” he said as he tossed the box near the pillows on the bed, which was neatly made. “But I like those.” He indicated her lingerie.

  “You’re not naked yet either.”

  In a single quick move, he shoved his jeans and underwear down his legs and stepped out of them, and God’s truth, his body was even more spectacular than she’d imagined the other night and a thousand times since. She stepped back enough to look him up and down, appreciating every inch of taut skin over muscle on his chest, abs, thighs…

  She moved forward again and reached for his erection, barely sliding her fingers over it before he backed up.

  “Naked,” he repeated. “Need help?”

  So that was how he wanted to play it. With a smug grin, Sierra walked a few steps to the end of the bed and faced him, out of his reach. Cole cocked his head sideways, no doubt wondering what she was up to, and then she unhooked her bra, pulled the straps down her arms, and let it fall to the floor. An appreciative growl came from Cole.

  “Is this what you were after?” she said as she playfully grasped her breasts.

  He took a step toward her and she held out a hand. “Nope. Stay there till I say.”

  She was a little surprised when he stopped as she’d ordered. Her body was on fire from the way he gazed at her, lust and approval burning in his eyes. Her eyes on his angled face, she hooked her fingers in the sides of her bikinis and pushed them slowly down her thighs, calves, ankles, then stood. Before Cole could move, she went to the opposite side of the bed from him, pulled the bedding down, and positioned herself on her back in the center, propped up on pillows, one leg straight, one knee bent up in invitation. It wasn’t a move she would normally make, so bold and confident, but the look in his eyes drove her.

  “Is this what you wanted?” she asked coyly.

  Without answering, he was on her in a millisecond, kissing her lips, his hands all over her body as if making up for the few seconds she’d made him stand back and watch from a distance. She responded in kind, running her hands over that magnificent ass as she’d been dying to, pulling him into her body, beyond ready for him to be inside of her.

  Taking one hand away momentarily, she felt around the mattress for the box of protection, pulled out a foil packet, opened it, and sheathed him. In the next second, she welcomed him into her body, closing her eyes as that feeling of rightness once again washed through her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sierra lay next to Cole in his bed, face-to-face, her body still tingling from the aftereffects of off-the-charts amazing sex and her mind only beginning to come back online. His arm was around her, and he nuzzled his nose along her forehead and then trailed lazy, sated kisses over her cheek, down to her lips.

  That was the thing about him, she was learning. He wasn’t just considerate and attentive working up to the main event. He was just as focused on her afterward, showering tenderness on her like no other guy she’d been with. He didn’t seem to be the type to roll over and fall asleep as soon as he got his needs taken care of.

  The more she learned about Cole, the more he surprised her, in delicious, heart-melting ways. He was unselfish and certainly skilled at the sex part, but it was the moments afterward and in between that had the potential to make her fall for him. Minus the whole escape-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing.

  “Don’t think for a second you’re going to kick me out,” she said lightly, her voice husky and lower than usual.

  She felt the low rumble of a laugh in his chest more than heard it. “Who said anything about kicking you out?”

  “Not now and not after round two or round three or however many times you ravish me.”

  “Ravish? It’s a good word but maybe not the right one.”

  She laughed quietly at the thought of debating vocabulary post-sex. That was a new one for her, and she sort of loved it. “You just ravished the hell out of me.”

  “Maybe, but only after you showed up and seduced the hell out of me,” he echoed. “And then the semi-striptease and the way you threw yourself on my bed in invitation—”

  “Did you not like it?” she said, fully confident he had.

  “The image of you in my sheets will be with me till the day I die. But ravish conveys that I was the only aggressive one. You came over here with a mission, and while I wholeheartedly approve, we shouldn’t mislabel anything.”

  “I’ve never slept with a word nerd before. It’s kind of sexy. But”—she ran a finger along his jawline—“you’re still not making me creep out of here in the middle of the night.”

  “I have no intention of that,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. At least at this moment.

  “What happens when you get that panicked feeling like you did the other night?”

  Bull’s-eye.

  Cole pulled away and rolled onto his back with a heavy exhale. “I won’t,” he said after some time had ticked by. “But we should probably get some things straight.”

  Her gut tightened, but she’d never been the type to shy away from the tough things. “Such as?”

  “I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. About us. I’m not the relationship type.”

  Though his words didn’t entirely shock her, she still felt a sinking in her gut. She rallied quickly, not allowing the sting to sink in. “Staying all night doesn’t have to mean relationship. I mean, if you want to get technical, we’ve had a relationship since the day I hired you.”

  “Yeah. I’m not good at them. The man-woman kind or anything else. I screw them up.”

  He’d never, for as long as she’d known him, spoken of a girlfriend before, but then he didn’t tend to talk about anything personal at work. She hadn’t known he had brothers until the night of his mom’s heart attack. “When’s the last time you were in a serious relationship?” she asked.

  He reached over to the lamp on the nightstand and flipped it off, plummeting the room into darkness. If that made it easier for him to talk, she was okay with it. For now. As long as he talked.

  “I’ve never had a serious relationship,” he said quietly into the dark.

  “Never?” She was surprised and yet not surprised at the same time.

  She felt him shake his head.

  “How about sorta serious?” she asked.

  He shook his head again. “I’m not good with people, Sierra. I like facts and logical, practical things. Those are easy to get right.”

  Easy for a literal genius, she thought with a private grin. She sobered up instantly, glad he couldn’t see her, because he was revealing parts
of himself that she suspected he didn’t show to most. “You could be good with people. If you wanted to.”

  “I want to. I mean, now I want to. I used to not want to, and I ruined nearly every relationship I had—with my dad and every one of my brothers, coaches, teachers, bosses, coworkers.”

  “What about your mom?” Sierra had yet to meet her, and she longed to because, just like seeing where he lived had done, she suspected meeting his mom would help her understand more about Cole.

  “She’s always understood me better than most.” He scoffed. “Better than I realized she did. I wouldn’t say we’ve been close over the years, but we’ve never been on bad terms, in spite of me being a jackass in general.”

  She rolled toward him, so that she was perched over his chest. Though the darkness was close to one hundred percent in the windowless room and she couldn’t see him, she hoped to get her point across to him. “You’re not a jackass, Cole. I don’t like when you talk like that about yourself.”

  “You don’t know me that well,” he said in a challenge.

  “I might not know your history or your family, but I’ve worked with you for more than three years. I know the kind of man you are. You’re hardworking, dedicated, smart as hell, a good leader, respected by the rest of the crew—”

  “I get in fights, I’ve been a shit to my family for years, I push people away before they can try to get close, I’ve never in my life had a close friend—” He cut himself off, blowing out another hard breath. She could feel him shaking his head, but even more telling were his words.

  He’d never had friends because he’d felt out of place from the time he was a little boy. He was different. He was amazing, in her eyes, but he’d always been different from everyone else. She had a little experience with that herself, having been absorbed by her passion for renovating houses even as a kid. That wasn’t normal, and she’d taken shit for it, but thankfully she’d still had some really good friends along the way. Hayden from almost the beginning, and others here and there, some of whom she still kept in touch with.