Thresholds

by Kate Canterbary

  "I am," I mumbled to myself, tossing my device to the bed and sprinting into the bathroom. "I'm totally fucking ridiculous. And it's all her fault."

  I stripped off my clothes as I went, unconcerned with the sloppy trail behind me. I pried open the shower door, careful to keep the water and warm air contained, and stepped in behind her.

  "Mind if I join you?" I asked.

  "Um, I don't," she said, a laugh ringing in her words. "But you know I don't do shower sex on weekdays. This is a purely utilitarian shower. Leg shaving, exfoliation, all that stuff. You don't get to soap up my boobs and pretend you're being helpful. Okay?"

  "That's fine," I replied, pressing my chest against her back. I kept my hands to myself to prove I was on board with her terms. "I'll just watch."

  She whirled around to face me and—I couldn't help it—my hands flew to her hips. Didn't she know that the floor was slippery? If she wasn't careful, she was going to take a tumble and break her neck. If there was one thing Lauren did with consistency, it was trip over nothing.

  Goddamn honed granite. What the fuck was I thinking when I installed that death trap?

  "Did you get in here with me because—because you don't trust me to bathe alone?" she asked, her voice pitching higher with each word.

  "Of course not," I said. "I trust you completely, and you're more than competent when it comes to bathing."

  "I meant," she started, narrowing her eyes, "are you in here because you want to supervise me? And not the fun kind of sexy supervising where you tell me I've been a dirty, dirty girl, but the anxious kind where you're afraid I'm going to fall and break my neck?"

  "Sexy," I said with a convincing nod. "Definitely sexy. Fun, too. But also practical because this is one of your utilitarian showers. In other words, I'll just stand here, thinking about how you've been a dirty, dirty girl, and you do your exfoliating."

  She pointed at my face. "You're still nodding. I don't believe you." Her gaze dropped to my crotch and the erection pointed in her direction. "And this looks like an ulterior motive to me."

  "No ulterior motives," I replied. I was aiming for relaxed. It came out like a drill sergeant's order. I blew out a breath as she rolled her eyes at me. Rolled her eyes but also palmed my dick. "I meant—it's just—fuck. I can't think when you do that."

  "Try," she said, stroking me with long, slow pulls that made it difficult to stand, let alone form coherent words. "Harder."

  "Sweetness, please. I just want to make sure you'll be okay, and I get to run my hands over your naked body. It's all good, right?"

  She abandoned me and my cock, and reached for the shampoo. "I'm going to wash my hair now," she announced, squirting a dollop into her palm, "and I'm not going to talk to you. I'm going to wash my hair and enjoy my shower, and I'm not going to entertain caveman behavior this morning."

  "You don't have to say anything," I replied. I turned my head while she lathered her hair but I wasn't letting go. "But turn around so I can wash your tits."

  "And by wash you mean play with my tits while you rub your cock all over my ass," she said, ducking under the spray to rinse her hair.

  Yes, that's exactly what I mean.

  "I thought you weren't saying anything." I watched the soap sluicing over her skin, salivating at her body's sweet roundness. My hands found her hips, and I tugged her against me, fitting her soft against my hard.

  "And I thought you understood this wasn't a sexytimes shower," she replied with a laugh.

  "It's not," I said, sliding my cock between the globes of her ass as I cupped her breasts. They were fuller and heavier than they used to be, and stroked my thumbs over her nipples as I pushed inside her. "I'm being helpful."

  Her hands slapped against the tiled wall. "If you think this is helpful, you've lost your damn mind, Matthew."

  I slipped my hand between us and guided my cock into her wet heat. "Trust me. You'll be thanking me for this later," I said through a groan.

  Chapter Three

  Riley

  "Thanks for breakfast, babe," Alex said as she shrugged into her winter coat.

  Her cheeks were rosy and her lips were turned up in an easy smile, and a patch of beard rash colored her neck. There was nothing better in the world than slow, bleary, half-asleep morning sex with the woman I loved.

  I swung my messenger bag over my chest, smiling at my handiwork. "Anytime, Honeybee," I said. But then I remembered woman could not survive on cock alone. "Do you want me to grab some tacos or a burrito for you? I don't mind swinging by the hospital before my meeting."

  "No worries," she replied. She checked her bag for her keys, phone, pager, and wallet, murmuring check as she located each one. "Hartshorn always has a stockpile of protein shakes. I'll be fine."

  "I've said it before and I'll say it again: I wouldn't want to be near you and your scalpel when you've skipped a meal."

  "Yeah, yeah," Alex muttered as we headed out. "I wouldn't want to be near you and your sledgehammer when you haven't consumed the right ratio of burritos, hot sauce, and coffee on a given day."

  I held the door open, and then followed her into the hall. It was dark and narrow, but that was the way of brownstone buildings. If you wanted to believe in ghosts, this was the place for it. Steep, slice-of-pie stair steps, high ceilings, shadowy corners. And thin as fuck walls that told me Alex's upstairs neighbor just happened to be leaving his apartment at the same time.

  "Come here." I pressed my palms against her cheeks and kissed her forehead. She offered me a quick peck on the corner of my lips—anything longer and she'd never make it to surgery on time—and leaned in while I swallowed her up in a tight embrace.

  The sound of footfalls on the staircase had me sighing into Alex's hair.

  "Oh. Hello."

  "Stremmel," I called in reply.

  I glared at him over Alex's head. I didn't like the guy. I couldn't put my finger on a decent reason other than he seemed like a miserable son of a bitch. He was new to the hospital and the city, and made a point of telling everyone how much he loathed both.

  Good times.

  "Hey, Sebastian," Alex said. "How's it going?"

  "Well," he said, sighing, "I'm still here. That's gotta be worth something."

  Alex tipped her head to the side, nodding slowly. "If that's the best we can do today," she started, "then that's the best we can do. Small victories, right?"

  "Yeah," Stremmel murmured, almost to himself.

  It was as though the guy didn't know how to appreciate being alive. I didn't know where he was from or why he had such a massive hair across his ass, but he needed a major attitude adjustment. More than any of that, I didn't know why Alex was being so damn nice to him. My girl subscribed to the sink or swim school of thought, and she had no patience for boo-hooing bitches. Why she wasn't demanding that Stremmel get the fuck over himself and straighten out his priorities was a mystery to me.

  And that mystery meant my patience for this bastard could fit in a shot glass.

  "Are you scheduled next week?" Alex asked. "Or are you leaving town for the holidays?"

  "Yeah," he repeated. "I mean, I'm here. I'm covering a few different services. Running the ER for a couple of days. That's the prize for being the new guy, apparently."

  Alex glanced over her shoulder at me, and I smiled in spite of myself. I knew what she was thinking, and I wasn't happy about it.

  "There's a small get-together on Christmas Eve," she started, gesturing between us, "and a bunch of us are going. Acevedo will be there with his wife, and Hartshorn, too. You should come."

  He shook his head, and for once, I was on the same page with this guy. "You don't need a third wheel."

  "Not a third wheel," Alex replied with a laugh. Seriously, where the fuck was my salty girl when I needed her? "It's really casual. Oh, and the food is amazing."

  Stremmel glanced around as if he could find an exit hatch in the hallway. When he didn't find one, he scowled at the rug beneath his feet. "I'll get back to
you on that," he said.

  "I'll put you down for yes, but you can let me know if anything comes up," Alex said.

  "Fantastic. It's so good that we bumped into each other like this," I said, my words drier than the Mojave. "So, so good."

  "Are you on your way in for the day?" Alex asked him, waving toward the stairs.

  Stremmel nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "Rounds."

  "I'll walk with you," Alex said.

  Before she could take a step, I closed my fingers around her arm and yanked her back. "Actually, Alexandra," I said, not bothering to finish that sentence. I wasn't surrendering my last moments of the morning with Alex to this guy.

  Stremmel held up a hand as he crossed the landing and started down the stairs. "I'll catch up with you some other time," he called.

  Alex whirled around to face me. "What?"

  I backed her up against the wall, my knee moving between her legs and my hands landing on her waist. My lips met hers as I leaned into her, crowding every inch of her space and swallowing her surprised gasp.

  "How much time," I breathed between kisses, "do you have?"

  Her fingers were in my hair, fisting and pulling in every direction. I'd look like a wreck when I got to the office, but I didn't care. I was Alex's wreck.

  "Not enough," she murmured against my mouth. "And we're in the hallway."

  Despite the layers of winter clothing between us, I gripped her hips harder. "So what?"

  "So, we're not dry humping in the hallway," she said.

  "Who said anything about dry?"

  I felt her laugh on my lips, and it defused some of the irrational tension brought on by Stremmel. Some. She pressed a hand to my chest, pushing me away, but brought her other hand to my crotch. She cupped me through my jeans, stroking just enough to make me contemplate dragging her back into the apartment and telling the world to fuck off for the day.

  "I have to go," Alex said, and there was real remorse in her voice.

  Nodding, I pulled her hand away from my jeans and tugged her into my arms again. It served two purposes: I liked the way she fit me, and I couldn't handle another second of dick petting if it wasn't going anywhere. "I know," I said. "Sorry about starting that."

  "No apologies," she said, her head nestled on my chest. "But you don't have to paw me every time Sebastian is around."

  "I just don't like the guy," I cried. "And you're so fucking nice to him. What's that about?"

  Alex glanced up at me, her eyebrow arched. "He just got here, Riley. Like, five minutes ago. He doesn't know anyone, and he told me that he left behind a fucked-up situation in California." She gave me a pointed look, the kind she'd taken out back to whittle into a goddamn dagger for situations when she needed to puncture all of my internal organs in one shot. "And I was new in town not too long ago and if it hadn't been for people like Acevedo and Hartshorn, I would've been miserable, too."

  Chastened, I tucked some stray wisps of hair over her ears and kissed her forehead. "Understood," I replied. "It just takes me by surprise when you're nice to people who aren't serving you food."

  "Oh, would you shut up?" she snapped. "I'm nice to people all the time. I'm delightful."

  I leaned forward, my forehead touching hers, and smiled. "That's my salty girl."

  * * *

  Groaning, I stood in the doorway to Shannon's office, coffee in one hand, bag of breakfast burritos in the other.

  Sam came up beside me, offering his own groan at the cramped space before us. "You know," he started, speaking to no one in particular, "we have conference rooms."

  "Three of them," Matt said from his seat against the wall. He must've arrived early to claim one of the two available chairs. That fucker. "I counted this morning. Just to be sure I hadn't imagined them."

  "It's funny that you bring it up," I replied, snagging one of the milk crates stacked near the door. "Since your ass won't be branded with a diamond pattern and 'Hood Milk' tonight."

  This was the last meeting before our holiday hiatus, and everyone was ready for vacation. Everyone except Shannon. She was insistent on doing all the work today, and wasn't setting us free until she'd accomplished everything on her mile-long agenda for this meeting.

  Shannon tapped her pen against the desk in a furious rhythm. "Shall we relocate? That's only going to take ten minutes and—"

  "No," wailed Tom. "We'll power through. Branded asses and all."

  "Says the guy with a flight to Vancouver waiting for him," Andy murmured. She was tucked into the far corner, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  "You're damn right," he replied. "I'm getting out of town even if I have to snowshoe there."

  Aside from my oldest sister, the entire crew was counting down the seconds. My brothers and I had an afternoon of shopping planned, and we were preparing for that the way any fool who left it all until the last minute should: with alcoholic fortification. The premise was beer, bourbon, and burgers, and once we'd consumed all of that, we'd set forth in search of gifts for the women who owned us.

  There was only one problem with that premise as it pertained to me. Alex and I had agreed upon an impossible pact. A homemade holiday gift pact. Not only would shopping violate the terms of this pact, but I didn't know what to select for her even if I could buy something.

  So, here I was, fucking up our first Christmas together. Just another day in the shambles.

  "Can we begin?" Patrick asked. He was perched on the opposite side of Shannon's desk, looking as unhappy as the rest of us. "Shannon is comfortable in here. The next time you're nine months pregnant, Sam, we'll convene wherever you wish. Until then, shut the fuck up."

  "Now that's a fun challenge," Tom said under his breath.

  "Hey, Andy," I called, leaning over to catch her eye. "Alex invited Stremmel, that asshole who lives in Nick's old apartment, to the party tomorrow night. We saw him in the hallway this morning and I think she felt obligated." I jerked a shoulder, doing my best to express that I wasn't part of the decision-making process.

  "Is Magnolia coming?" Patrick asked. "I wanted to talk to her about some projects."

  "How quickly the roof garden tide turns,” Sam muttered.

  "No, she has family events," I said to Patrick. I shifted back to Andy. "If inviting Stremmel is a problem just say it, and I'll tell that party-crashing bastard to find his own holiday soiree somewhere—"

  "Nope," she replied, flipping the pages of her notebook and marking an entry. "Nick invited the other doctor in their building, Hartshorn, so it's fine. I like Hartshorn. I just need a bigger paella pan."

  "Are you ever sleeping in your bed again?" Sam asked, nudging my elbow.

  "There's a new home goods shop in Kendall Square," Tom said to Andy. "Really nice selection. You might want to check that out if you're looking for top-notch authenticity."

  I ignored the food nerd conversation flying between Andy and Tom, and asked Sam, "Why would I do that when I could have sex with my girlfriend instead?"

  "He makes a good point," Matt said under his breath.

  "We haven't seen you in a while," Sam said. "Alex is welcome at the firehouse, you know."

  "Yeah but the firehouse has those obnoxious rules about not walking around naked or having sex on the kitchen table, and we like both of those things."

  "We do not need to discuss this," Shannon said. "I don't want to hear anything about your bare ass on the kitchen table."

  "No, we don't." I glanced over at Tom with an appreciative nod. He was beating the hell out of his keyboard and jostling his knees like the device required the kinetic energy to keep up. "That is one sharp turtleneck sweater, Thomas. Can I borrow it sometime?"

  He didn't even look at me when he replied, "No."

  "You know, now that I think about it, that sweater wouldn't fit me. Too small." I flexed a bicep. "Wouldn't want the guns stretching it out. Where can I get one of my own?"

  His gaze still glued to his laptop screen, he blew out an exasperated breath. "If I miss my flig
ht to Vancouver, I'll suffocate you with this sweater."

  Sam snapped his fingers. "Andy, I forgot to tell you that Tiel's friend Ellie is staying with us for the holidays," he said. "She got in yesterday morning and she's staying for a bit. A couple weeks, I think. Her band isn't touring for the next six months and she hadn't met Dave yet so—"

  "Would you get to the point?" Shannon said. She was tapping her crystal-encrusted letter opener against her palm as though she meant to throw it at Sam. "I'm not going to speak for Andy but I will say a group text went out when Ellie arrived, and we all know she's here although you seem hell-bent on explaining her life to us."

  After a long silence, I sang under my breath, "Have a holly, jolly Christmas. It's the best time of the year."

  "As I was saying," Sam continued with more dramatic flair than necessary at this hour, "Ellie is also joining us tomorrow night."

  "Okay, got it," Andy said, consulting her notes again. "Is there anyone else? Anyone at all? It's fine if you want to invite more people but I want to make sure there's enough food and drink for everyone. This is your last chance."

  "We should check with Erin," Matt said.

  "Erin is on a flight back from the South Pacific," Shannon snapped. "The last thing she needs right now is us bothering her with this madness."

  "Deck the halls with boughs of holly," I sang. "Fa la la la la, la la la la."

  "Can we get to the fucking agenda before I die of old age?" Patrick roared. "I'd like to get through the investment properties and active client projects, and then confirm key dates for January."

  "And I'd like to discuss the issues we've uncovered with the restoration in Bay Village," Sam added.

  Matt snorted. "The foundation is out of level. It needs to be fully rebuilt, and you need all new headers. Those beams aren't supporting shit right now."