The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  Lauren squared her shoulders and sent me a firm stare. That expression probably brought most people to heel in an instant; I was halfway there myself. She didn't need to be eight inches taller or bench two-twenty to kick my ass. I drank in the set of her jaw and decided I liked seeing her in control. She was intelligent and quick-witted, and bossy as hell, and I wanted to touch her again.

  I also wanted to fuck her until she lost her voice from screaming my name, but I'd start with touching.

  "No, but—"

  "Please. Considering I'm the guy who figures out how to ignore the laws of physics on a daily basis, I'm not in the business of saying no very often, especially not to beautiful women. Drinks and bar food are the least I can do, and my sister would belt me for not taking you somewhere decent like No. 9 Park or XV Beacon."

  "You're a little demanding," she laughed while selecting a slider. "And you just rattled off the only two places in Boston with numbers in their name."

  Grinning, I rubbed the back of my neck. "There's also 75 Chestnut, and Twenty-First Amendment, and 29 Newbury. And a few others."

  Lauren folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. "So you're a freak. This puts things in a new light."

  "Something like that, yeah." I raised my beer to her glass. "Not sure I can compete with hot messery, but I'll sure as hell try."

  We covered the basics—our siblings, our work, our general interests—but didn't delve further. No fucked-up family stories, no exes, no hopes or dreams.

  The history of Walsh Associates was fairly straightforward, mostly because it didn't turn pear-shaped until recently. The firm dated back to the fifties when my grandfather and his brothers started out as architects preserving and restoring historic buildings in the Boston area. My father, uncle, and aunts carried on the work, but Angus wouldn't play nice in the sandbox, and over the past two decades, my uncle and aunts left for greener pastures. I didn't get into Angus's preference for pissing his money away at the dog track or his day-drunkenness, and there was no talk of his screaming matches with Shannon or his tendency to throw things at people.

  I opted for stories of us growing up surrounded by architecture, and getting conscripted into grunt work as children. It felt good talking about my love for building and designing, and creating ways to modernize within the constraints of restoration.

  Dozens of people and loud bar music surrounded us, but her gaze never wavered from mine. She listened, savoring every word, and made me feel like there was nothing she'd rather hear.

  I stared at my beer bottle for a second. Five-point-four percent alcohol by volume. I didn't need to run that equation to know the prickly heat crawling over my skin wasn't from the beer.

  It was from Lauren.

  And the best part? I didn't want it to stop.

  5

  Lauren

  Tipsy. I was definitely tipsy.

  Tequila was to blame for the current state of blissfully inebriated affairs, such as they were. His tie sat crisply folded beside his beer bottle, green with small pink shapes, and the collar of his white shirt gaped open. And I wanted to taste him right there.

  It was late, the bar nearly empty, and far, far past the proper end for a normal business meeting, but this stopped being a business meeting when we walked through the door.

  None of my other first dates—or fourths, for that matter—involved hole-in-the-wall bars or innuendo-laced discussions of architecture. They never involved Matthew Walsh either. This was all rather peculiar, much like that fun, buzzy feeling in my body.

  He smiled at me, a smug, knowing expression that told me he was watching my inhibitions evaporate by the minute.

  "If you hadn't come out with me? What would you be doing tonight?"

  "I'm not winning at work-life balance these days," I said with a grimace. "I'd probably be working on a few overdue projects."

  Matthew held up his palm and I stared at it for an embarrassingly long time before meeting his high five. His fingers laced with mine, and for a moment, I could only gape at the way they layered together. He was touching me and I liked it, and somewhere in my head I knew this was strange. I wasn't into boys right now. I mean, I wasn't into girls, either, but I wasn't doing the whole boys and dates and worry about whether I shaved my legs thing.

  "Balance is overrated."

  I laughed. "Yeah? And what would you be doing? If you didn't maneuver me into drinking with you all night, that is."

  "Maneuver? That's strong."

  He rubbed his thumb against my palm, and I bit down on my lip to prevent the tipsy giggles from leaking out.

  It was just a thumb circling a palm, and it shouldn't have been especially delightful, but if confronted with a choice between this and calorie-free cupcakes, I saw no contest. I liked this, and I didn't want it to stop.

  "Some new projects landed on my desk this afternoon. Probably digging into those." He finished his beer and shrugged. "It's what I love, but I don't balance work and life either. Actually, I hate the phrase 'work-life balance.'"

  "Why?" I set my empty glass aside, a clear signal for a refill. Considering the painfully overt manner in which the waitress mentally undressed Matthew and then threw some boob action in his direction each time she dropped off another round, I was surprised we weren't getting more of her attention. A greedy part of me knew it owed something to the heavy, hungry gleam in his eyes, and the methodical way in which he watched my every move, as if he was stalking his prey.

  I liked that, too. Rationally, I knew there was something unusual about liking some late night prey-stalking, but unusual was my operating speed. The Commodore's idea of an exciting family adventure was getting lost in the desert with nothing more than a compass and Swiss Army knife. Bizarre? Yes. Traumatic? Not even close, but it meant some of my thoughts followed slightly unorthodox paths.

  Matthew gesticulated as if trying to reach for something, and sighed. "It's probably semantics, but work-life balance presumes that you're reaching a homeostatic level, where things are in perfect proportion. It never happens, not for anyone I know, but people are constantly beating themselves up and feeling guilty when it's unrealistic in the first place."

  I didn't understand half of what he said, but he looked damn sexy saying it. He gestured when he talked. A lot. It was adorable and I wanted my mouth on him.

  Like, right now.

  "So…you're good with crazy hours?"

  He shrugged. "Like I said, I don't see it as balance. It's about the fulcrum." I shook my head, not following his reference. "A fulcrum is the point where a lever rests, is supported, and pivots. Think about a seesaw. It's just a lever positioned over a fulcrum. Force on either side pivots the lever. On a seesaw, the fulcrum is always in the same place—the midpoint. But in life, and other mechanical applications, the fulcrum moves. Sometimes it's far to one side because force is exerted there. That's been my life for just about a decade now. There are days, sometimes a lot of days, when I hate it. But I mostly love it."

  He motioned with his hands, miming his seesaw example.

  "Some days, I hate it, too," I sighed. "But mostly love. You could probably teach me a few things about enduring the hate days."

  Matthew's eyes seemed to darken, turning a deeper, more brilliant blue, and a slight smile pulled at his lips. "I'd teach you anything you wanted, Lauren."

  Silence fell between us, though Matthew kept his eyes fixed on me. This would have been a great time for tequila to magically appear in my hand. It wasn't cheating; I skipped lunch and my skinny latte breakfast meant there was room for splurging tonight.

  "I met you yesterday. Why does it feel like I've known you, I don't know, longer than that?" Matthew asked.

  "Maybe you knew me in a past life."

  "You believe in reincarnation? All that stuff?"

  I shrugged, thinking a moment. "I have to believe there's something bigger than me, bigger than us. Maybe we're just recycled versions of ourselves, floating around the universe, trying to make s
ense of it all."

  "You believe in soul mates, too? Isn't that why we're all floating around?"

  Matthew sounded both skeptical and hopeful, and I didn't know what he wanted me to say. "It's a possibility."

  "Mathematically speaking, a rather unlikely possibility."

  I studied our joined hands, the bar, the people laughing and talking, and I felt as though I was watching myself from a distance. I wanted to remember the way my foot bumped Matthew's knee and my hair fell across my face and his eyes sparkled every time I laughed.

  This moment, this night—they were proof I was still me, that I hadn't lost myself to the deadlines and deliverables and action plans. Not yet.

  I knew this school required me to give it my all, and I knew I was losing some of myself in the process. I'd wake up some morning, not able to remember anything I once loved about schools and kids and learning, and I'd be trapped in a hollow wasteland of spreadsheets and strategic priorities. I was sliding down that slope, the slippery one no one ever managed to climb. I didn't know what would be left of me if I fell all the way to the bottom, but I didn't have to worry about any of that tonight.

  "You're doing it again."

  "What's that?" he asked.

  My eyebrows arched upward. He had to know what he was doing. No one could stare that hard, look that heated without putting some effort into it. That kind of eye action burned calories. "The way you're looking at me."

  "Lauren, please tell me you want to get out of here."

  The brisk autumn air whipped along Cambridge Street in sharp contrast to the overheated bar. Or maybe I was a little hot and bothered, and the bar was the best excuse. Wind blew through my hair and I struggled to smooth it into place while my new architect friend was trying to melt my undies off with a few smoldering looks.

  I glanced up at Matthew, his tall frame sheltering me from the wind. My gaze lingered on the exposed hollow of his throat where his top button gaped open, then the way his belt rode low on his hips, and then the bulge just below the brushed steel buckle.

  Scrumptious.

  "What would happen if…" I bit my lip, hoping I was interpreting his signals the right way, hoping my tequila-infused courage would see me through. I stretched up on my toes, and Matthew's hands went to my waist. "If I did this?"

  Digging his fingers into my hips, he pulled me against him, and there was no misinterpreting that signal. Our lips brushed together, and I hesitated, wanting more—so much more—but not knowing the right way to play this game.

  "If you do that, I'm doing this," Matthew whispered against my lips. Tugging my hair, he tipped my head back and slipped his tongue past my teeth, and it was exactly as I suspected: he wanted to swallow me whole. A strong gust forced me against him, and I shivered, at once relieved he was taking the lead and wondering if it was the lead I wanted.

  "Let's get you out of this wind tunnel," he said, his hand rubbing in a circular pattern against my back.

  "Mmm, not yet," I murmured. My lips found Matthew's again, and we were rooted to the sidewalk, our arms locked around each other, and I felt fully and completely awake, aware, alive. And I was doing this—kissing a stranger on a street corner, surrendering to my desires, letting my instincts make the decisions—and I wasn't second-guessing myself.

  "Didn't say you had to stop," he laughed. "Definitely didn't say that. Just relocating."

  Matthew signaled for a cab, and shepherded me inside when it jerked to a stop at the curb. "Burroughs Wharf," he called to the driver.

  I didn't know our destination, but being pressed against a hot guy on a Friday night meant I didn't need an itinerary. Right? This was fine. Normal. Totally normal. There was no way this could end in Matthew killing me in the woods and wearing my skin as a scarf.

  Enough with the greatest hits of Commodore Halsted's Tales of Evil.

  Even if Matthew was a serial killer, it would never get that far. I could break his fingers in eleven seconds if needed.

  I pulled him to me again, my hand snaking around his neck, just under his starched collar, and our lips met. With his mouth locked on mine, Matthew was different. He wasn't the Serious Architect with his technical vocabulary and curious, thoughtful expression, and he wasn't the Serious Guy with his intense gaze and endless undercurrents. No, when he kissed me, he was thorough and insistent and affectionate, and this version of him intrigued me the most.

  Matthew dragged his teeth over my bottom lip, and I groaned when the cab stopped. "Of course we found the one cabbie in Boston who knows every shortcut between Beacon Hill and the Waterfront," he said.

  "Burroughs Wharf," the driver yelled.

  Matthew plucked me from the cab and lifted me over the curb as if I were a small sack of potatoes. I looked up after cinching my raincoat's belt, and stared at the building. This was a super swanky condo building, not a cozy tavern or thumping club. This was where he lived. "Where are we going?"

  "My place," he said. "We can have a drink and talk and stare at the ocean and…whatever. Whatever you want."

  I stopped walking, my fingers slipping out of his grip. This wasn't what I anticipated when I turned the decision-making over to my instincts.

  Shameless bar flirting? No big deal. Street corner kissing followed by cab kissing? Slightly bigger deal. Going to a guy's home little more than twenty-four hours after meeting him? Huge deal.

  At least for me.

  When did I give him the impression I was ready to go home with him? Was there a switch I flipped between talk of seesaws and soul mates? And he was evidently a manwhore. Only a manwhore would toss me in a cab and assume I wanted to go to his apartment for sex.

  Sex. I did not want that at all. Lots of sex. Good sex. Dirty sex. Hot sex.

  Matthew looked like very good sex.

  Gulp. Okay, so that didn't sound terrible.

  "What's wrong, Lauren?"

  "I should go." I nodded to myself and hitched my tote bag higher on my shoulder. Too much, too fast. I was already feeling tomorrow's pangs of regret. Oh, but when Matthew aimed that stare at me, that drop-your-panties-right-now look, I sensed myself drowning in his desire.

  "This thing you're doing," the manwhore smirked, gesturing up and down my body. "It's insanely sexy."

  I looked over his shoulder, avoiding his eyes. I didn't do this sort of thing for a reason. "Mr. Walsh. Thank you for everything. I'm going to go."

  Never make eye contact with the manwhore. He'll turn you into an irrational swoon-puddle concerned only with getting your hands on his rear end.

  As I turned away, my narrow heel wedged between the cobblestones and this sack of potatoes hit the ground.

  I couldn't even walk away from the hottest, manwhoriest body I'd ever touched and stand behind my principles without going splat. Apparently the universe wasn't granting me any graceful exits this evening.

  I heard the manwhore swearing under his breath before his arm circled my waist and he lifted me from the ground. "Easy there," he said.

  He ignored thin rivulets of blood trickling down my bare legs and staining his dark gray trousers while I brushed the pebbles from my palms. "This seems to happen a lot, sweetness. Let's get you upstairs and take care of those scrapes."

  "I'm fine. Just a skinned knee, no big deal. I'm going to get a cab," I insisted, staring at his shirt's buttons.

  He dipped to meet my eyes, his brows furrowed. The pads of his thumbs brushed across my cheeks, my lips, and down my neck. "What is your deal? Are you with someone?"

  "No!" I laughed at the definitive tone in my voice. I didn't mean to sound so emphatic, and any minute Matthew was going to realize I wasn't the kind of girl he wanted to take home. I didn't do this—I didn't know how—and this entire exchange was stepping far beyond my sphere of expertise. He'd feel it or sense it or taste it, and he'd send me on my way with a pat on my naïve little head. "I mean…no, I'm not seeing anyone right now."

  "Good. Good." Matthew framed my face with his hands and brought his lips a bre
ath from mine. "I'm going to kiss you again," he murmured, sliding his fingers along the base of my neck. "And I'd rather you not run away this time."

  I dodged his mouth. "Is this some kind of thorough, manwhorish customer service?"

  "Hell no." He bent his head to my level and found my lips, and it wasn't a kiss—it was an experience. Kissing involved lips and tongues, but this was teeth and growls, fingers carving notches into my ass and impatient hips bumping against mine for more friction. This was my heart crawling all the way up my throat and pounding there, suffocating me in these breathless seconds.

  He groaned when my nails scraped under his collar and over his scalp, and that sound unfurled something tight, something desperate inside me.

  "Do you do this a lot?"

  Matthew's hands moved to my shoulders and he edged us apart. "I never do this. My sisters are the only women who have seen the inside of my place. Okay? This is about you. You're hot as fuck, all sexy and bossy. That strict teacher voice? I've been hard as a fucking stone since yesterday because of it, plus the fact you're so insanely fucking hot. I don't like the implication that this is happening for any reason other than you."

  Lifting my chin, I glimpsed the rise in Matthew's trousers. It was amazing, really, how everything changed in a blink of an eye. Perhaps it wasn't that quickly, but it didn't take long and I was watching from a distance again, willing myself to be brave, be bold.

  My boundaries, my hot mess, my control freak, my crazy thoughts, my good girl, even the blood drying on my leg…all gone. Now it was me, bare without all that noise, and I couldn't stop the brazen smile from pulling at my mouth.

  I heard the words and I sensed them vibrating across my lips, but I didn't believe them as mine. "So that's what you like, Mr. Walsh?"

  He growled and seized my hips, grinding me against his hardening length. His mouth hovered over my ear, and he whispered, "You wouldn't believe the long list of obscene things I want to do to you."