The Space Between (16 page)

“That’s right, kitten,” I said. I twisted my wrist, my fingers thrusting deeper, harder while I sucked her clit. I wanted to see her unravel. It wasn’t enough for the aloof veneer to dissolve; I wanted her flushed, panting, and begging me to let her come.

Tightening her grip on my hair, her hips undulated against my face and I was drowning in her. Pleas and whispers slipped from her lips between breathy moans. She begged and swore and sighed my name while she tried to find the rhythm that would bring her to release. She faltered, and I increased the tempo of my fingers as they shuttled through her slippery center. I drew her folds between my teeth, biting gently before returning pressure to her clit.

I wanted her remembering every last moment of this tomorrow, and thinking about me. Hopefully she wouldn’t also be thinking about resigning or filing a restraining order. Or both.

“Come on, kitten. Get it,” I growled, renewing my assault on her clit. I licked and lapped, feeling new rushes of arousal dripping down my wrist as my fingers pushed her higher.

“Oh fuck, Patrick,” she moaned. I was thankful the music coming from Shannon’s speakers would muffle Andy’s sounds. But I also wanted her screams. “Please. Please. Please, Patrick, please.”

I thought about dropping my pants and sliding into her right then, knowing I could get us both there within minutes. But this wasn’t about me. This was about seeing Andy raw and primal, and begging for my attention as much as I begged for hers. It was about proving to her that she wanted me, and I could give her what she wanted.

“What do you need?”

I pulled her clit between my lips and sucked hard while my fingers continued rocking into her center. Releasing her tender nub, I glanced up and regretted not stripping her before starting this wicked game. I wanted to see her flushed with heat, her breasts swaying in time with her hips. I wanted more of her. I wanted everything I could get, even if it changed nothing. Even if I hated that.

Her head lolled against the wall with a low moan. “How…how did you know…?”

“How did I know you wanted this?” Andy bit down on her lip while her eyes closed and she nodded. She was beautiful, and completely at my mercy. “The sweater, for one. You wanted me staring at your tits, thinking about tasting them.”

My tongue teased over her and I felt her walls spasm around my fingers.

“The flirting, for two. You let me watch you with all those guys, knowing you’d torture me until you got me alone. You’re evil like that, kitten.”

Gently biting at her folds, I twisted my wrist and increased the rhythm.

“The drink, for three. You knew I’d want to know what and why. And finally—”

My tongue circled her clit, and I felt her pulsing against me.

“You wanted me staring. You like keeping this dirty little secret from them.” I smiled against her wet center. My tongue swirled over her clit again and I was rewarded with a shuddering moan. “But what you really want is me taking you back to my place and tying you to the bed. You really want me fucking you all night.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she groaned, her hand pulling at my hair. I was on board with a bald spot if it meant feeling Andy come on my fingers. “Don’t stop, Patrick.”

I wanted to respond to her demand, and insist a flaming asteroid slamming through the building wasn’t stopping me, but her hand held me in place as the tremors rippled in her core. Latching onto her clit, I sucked greedily when the spasms rolled through her body and she chanted unintelligibly, mumbled pleas and curses mingling with my name. Andy’s fingers twisted in my hair when her release finally arrived, her inner walls surging and contracting for minutes while my tongue traced her clit and she panted my name.

I wanted to hear my name, just like that, for the rest of my life.

Andy’s knees threatened to give out, and I reluctantly pulled my fingers away. I stood, anchoring her to the wall. After half an hour of worshipping Andy, my belt was strangling my cock, and the rush of blood to my brain dulled my senses. A wide, lazy grin spread across her face when our eyes met, hers slightly unfocused and soft. Exactly as I wanted her.

Andy’s plump lips brushed against my neck and jaw, finally reaching my mouth for a slow kiss. I always knew she had a filthy side. I just needed to invite it out to play.

“That was…incredibly thorough,” she sighed against my mouth, and I was ready to respond with an offer to spend the night at my place but she shook her head, pressing a finger against my lips. “But we shouldn’t. This is such a bad idea. No more of this. We
have
to stop.”

Her voice trailed off and I released her from my hold. It hit me while she was righting her jeans and fluffing her hair into place: she was politely dismissing me.

Drinking in one last look at Andy, the emptiness blindsided me. Her rejection, my day reliving family bullshit, my agonizing week. It all slammed into my chest, and I couldn’t get out of that bathroom quickly enough.

ANDY

I
f bad was
spilling a piping hot latte over a laptop, subsequently frying thirty new designs without backing them up, and if very bad was ordering fifty grand’s worth of the wrong marble slabs, then very, very bad was letting my boss go down on me in his sister’s bathroom.

As much as I hated to admit it, the facts weren’t lying. Patrick gave me the best orgasm of my life. I’d be willing to argue it was the best orgasm known to womankind. If there was a contest for that sort of thing, I’d happily write up my entry.

His hands scrambled my thoughts, chasing rational decision-making out of town. He turned my body into a needy, achy ball of want, and with each passing hour, I wanted him twice as much as I did the previous. And he was my
boss
—the man I idolized from afar for years, the man in control of my future as an architect in the sustainable preservation field.

Facts. I hated every single one of them.

The only option was to keep it professional. I thought it was the right thing, the smart thing. But after a week, I was ready to make an offering to the gods in exchange for another stolen half hour in a bathroom with that same boss.

Very, very bad was quickly turning into worse.

Those ridiculous words were out of my mouth and Patrick out of the bathroom before I comprehended what I said. I wanted him—more than anything. I wanted to flirt with him over drinks, kiss him in bathrooms, let him tie me to his bed. I also wanted to learn and understand preservation from his perspective and grow under his guidance.

I didn’t see how I could admire the bite marks he left on my skin while being his apprentice, and I wasn’t good at navigating messy relationship waters.

If that didn’t bring me all the way to worse, he was avoiding me.

Initially I accepted his disappearance, and relative to my body’s all-consuming addiction to his tongue, a little breathing room wasn’t a bad thing. But the entire week? It was a giant signal that our flirtation stopped being harmless when I dragged him into the bathroom and my pants came off.

Not that I regretted dragging him into the bathroom, of course, but five days without Patrick left me feeling unsettled and a little lonely.

I was also hungry—my Mason jar salads were dreadfully bland in comparison to the eclectic mix of hidden gems Patrick picked for lunch.

He spent Monday and Tuesday out of the office with Shannon, and aside from a quick discussion of priorities after the partners’ meeting that morning, I didn’t see or hear from him. He spent Wednesday and Thursday with Matt and Riley as they handled issues at jobsites, and though I understood those issues to be serious, I knew Patrick didn’t spend his days micromanaging his siblings. He told them to “figure it out” and they always did.

He was inventing reasons to dodge me. No amount of hot yoga would untie the heavy knots of tension in my body—sexual and otherwise.

Patrick delegated walk-throughs without any overbearing, control-freakish backstory on each site or an insistence I apprise him of the progress. Regardless, I emailed him detailed notes from all of my visits and conversations with contractors, and attached extensive slideshows to keep him updated on our projects.

Even though Patrick wasn’t one for chatty or overly formal emails, his “thanks—patrick” responses smacked of reticence. I didn’t have the words to explain why it hurt so much, but every time I thought about that one-word reply, it was like a rubber band snapping the fleshy part of my wrist—not exactly painful, but surprising and unpleasant.

I reveled in the knowledge Patrick trusted me enough to let me fly solo, but his absence meant I couldn’t think through problems with him, and my lunchtime conversations were radically less instructive. We traded a few curt texts and emails each day, but I missed seeing him, talking to him, being near him. The amount of time I spent each night typing out texts I never sent was shameful.

After spending nearly every working moment of the past month with Patrick, I felt adrift without him—and I promptly hated that emotion just as much as I hated the way my apprenticeship was turning into a slow-motion train wreck asterisked with a life-altering orgasm and a curiosity about being tied up.

I expected to see him Friday morning, but a pre-dawn text informed me that he and Shannon wouldn’t be in until the afternoon. I pouted over that message for a full five minutes and packed my reply of “ok” with loneliness, frustration, lust, and fear that I was losing an incredible mentor and friend.

“Did you hear the good news?” I glanced up at Tom as he sauntered into Patrick’s office and deposited several files on his desk. Setting my phone aside—willing it to produce a message from Patrick wasn’t working—I shook my head. “All four Bunker Hill properties sold this morning. There was a crazy bidding war last night. Ended up with a cash deal and it was far over asking price.”

“Is that where Shannon and Patrick have been all day?”

Tom nodded and started organizing Patrick’s desk. “Yeah, apparently the people buying those properties wanted to discuss some changes, and Shan didn’t like the idea of sending Riley, for obvious reasons, and Matt’s away for the weekend with Lauren, and Sam won’t set foot on those properties, so…they’ve been doing that. She just texted that they’re headed back from the title agency and she wants to go out for drinks.” He chuckled. “Her exact words were ‘It’s time to get rowdy.’”

That sounded exactly like Shannon—the woman was comfortable in Christian Louboutin heels and preferred to drink cheap beer from the bottle.

Tom continued straightening Patrick’s things—he either didn’t know or didn’t care that Patrick preferred some chaos on his desk. Was Patrick’s home like that too? Slightly disorganized yet completely logical to him?

I shook my head. That wasn’t helping the current situation.

Tom’s knowledge of all things Walsh was deep, and it was time to tap into that well despite the fact engaging him in conversation would result in more invitations. I was still unclear on Tom’s sexuality, but it was obvious he wanted a girl—one to dress up or one to date, I couldn’t be sure—and I didn’t want to be her.

It was misguided and terrible and foolish, and even though I fought like hell to avoid it, I wanted Patrick.

“Is that why they were busy earlier in the week?”

“No,” he murmured, flipping through documents on Patrick’s desk and relegating a few to the recycling bin. “They were in Maynard on Monday and they bought a farmhouse that’s going to fall over on the next breezy day, and paid off the loan on this building. Then they were in Boxborough and Acton on Tuesday and bought two more old places. Then they went to the old Walsh homestead, and according to the Widow, they yelled at each other and didn’t talk until the Bunker Hill buyers asked for a consult. They’ve both been hell on wheels this week, if you ask me. I’m thinking of getting a Taser.”

“The Widow?”

“Uh-huh,” he replied, shifting his focus to Patrick’s bookshelves and carefully lining up the spines. “Shannon’s nickname. You know, from
The Avengers
. The hot redhead who kicks a lot of ass? They all have nicknames. Mostly superheroes and comic book stuff. For all the time they spend screaming at each other and slamming doors, they’re really tight in non-sentimental ways.”

“Tom, you’ve let me work here for a month and not mentioned this? I’m hurt,” I said, pressing a hand to my heart. Getting information from Tom required some theatrics on my part—before the Orgasm to Rule Them All, I spent half an hour charming the details on the Wellesley property out of him, only to discover he didn’t know much or wasn’t willing to share.

“That is what a coffee date is for,” he teased with a wink. “It kinda makes sense, the nicknames.” He shrugged and continued organizing the bookshelves. “They’re like a little band of misfit street toughs. Shannon’s the Black Widow. Riley’s RISD because he went there and not Cornell like the rest of them. Sam’s the runt and that’s my favorite thing in the world, but he’s usually Tony Stark—not Iron Man. Appropriate in so many ways. They never agreed on one for Matthew, although I’m still rooting for Jugger. And Patrick is Optimus Prime. Obviously.”

The
Architectural Digest
feature on Walsh Associates neglected those details. “Why were they arguing about the Wellesley property?”

“He wants to get rid of it and she wants to rehab it because she’s a sadist.” Tom adjusted Patrick’s diplomas to right angles and turned to me. “You
have
to come out tonight. You’re the only one who can keep me from carbo-loading,” he said. “I just reserved half of Pomodoro, which isn’t saying much because it’s literally the size of a broom closet, but the food is the best.”

“He’s right, it is,” Patrick said from the doorway. “You should come. And she’s definitely a sadist.”

How Patrick always managed to sneak up on conversations, I will never know, but there he was, delicious as ever with his top button opened and his tie loose. I glanced at his dark trousers and instantly recalled his narrow waist and carved muscles, and salivated at the memory.