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Ciara stuck out her hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I’m assuming you’re Mack? Nathan has told me all about you.”
Ignoring Ciara’s hand, Mack went in for the hug. Ciara immediately embraced her back, taking me by surprise. There was no hesitation, almost as if Ciara felt at home, somehow. My chest burned with jealousy.I had to ask her if she wanted a hug the first time,I thought petulantly.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Mack said, giving her a small squeeze. “Nathan never brings anyone around the family, so he must really like you.”
“Mack,” I warned. “Behave.”
“Fuck outta here,” she shot back, disentangling herself from the hug. “‘Behave.’ You ain’t my daddy.”
I rolled my eyes, throwing up my hands. “Fine. Whatever.”
Mack wrapped an arm around Ciara’s shoulders, steering her into the hall. I followed behind the two, only catching snippets of their conversation—or, more accurately, Mack’s monologue.
“...Always need more allies,” she was saying. “In a family full of men, it’s just me and Alex. Do you know her? Alex Taylor?”
“Yes,” came Ciara’s quiet reply. “We both work—worked—at Hemingway College. I’ve met and seen her a couple of times, but we’re in different departments.”
“Good,” Mack said. “Then you can hang out with us.”
We stopped in the middle of the room, like rocks in a fast-moving stream of people setting up for the party. Mack eyed me.
“You’ve had enough time with her, so I’m taking her,” she declared. “We’ll see you later.” With her eyes, she added,And you’d better tell me everything.
I sighed; I knew I was in for it once Mack got even a second to lay into me about not telling her about Ciara.
“Go find our brothers and make sure they’re presentable,” she instructed. She flipped her locs over her shoulder. She turned to Ciara, smiling brightly.
“We havesomuch to talk about,” she said.
And as they walked off, chatting like they’d known each other for years, I was less worried about Mack discovering our secret and more concerned that Ciara would be caught in the crosshairs of my crazy family.
ChapterTwelve
CIARA
The moment Mack hugged me and then tucked me under her arm, I felt at home with her.
She was calm and stern, entirely self-possessed and centered. She had hints of Brooklyn’s obstinacy, and a heap of wit, and I instantly liked her. She also brought out the older brother in Nathan, which made me like him more, and did nothing to temper my insatiable lust for him.
When I walked down the stairs at my house and saw him waiting there, I experienced an onslaught of feelings at an intensity I had never felt before. My skin had grown hot when I saw the suit that fit him so intimately, that molded to the curve of his thighs and his broad shoulders, and the tie that seemed to be an arrow pointing to his groin.
And that was nothing to say of his face.
His jaw was tight as he watched me come down the stairs, his pupils making the irises almost black instead of the dark brown they usually were. His whole body clenched, was coiled and ready to…well, I had no idea what Nathan was ready to do. Especially since my dad was right behind him.
Especially since he wasn’t really that interested inme.
I mean, sure, he appreciated my ability to do my makeup and put on a pretty dress. And he was enthusiastic about my love of rock music and animation. But what about the other things? Did he value me for me, or for the things I did?
This thought cooled my lustful ones, though I couldn’t resist touching him when my dad left the house. Still, throughout our drive to the party, I kept all of this in mind, temporarily succeeding in rising above my attraction to him.
But Mack did not help matters any. Instead, her chastisement of Nathan for not telling her about me, along with her dismissal when he told her to behave, gave him a dimension I hadn’t seen before—the older brother. And I adored it.
I pushed down those thoughts with a stern reminder of what my relationship with Nathan really was, as I listened to Mack and Alex talk. I had passed Mack’s unspoken fashion assessment, but she refused to let Alex leave the dressing room without fixing her makeup and, as she put it, “a more fitting pair of heels.”
“You’re almost done,” Mack was saying, frowning as she bent over Alex’s face. She gently swiped a makeup brush on Alex’s skin, tiny particles of dry foundation floating in the air. “I can’t believe you thought I was gonna let you go out to the party without your face properly beat.”
I choked on air and stared at the other two women. “Beat?” I croaked.
