The Walsh Brothers

by Kate Canterbary

  I pumped my hand over him, squeezing the base and twisting my wrist at the crown while my other hand loosely cradled his balls, and Patrick's hips lifted in response.

  "Fuck, Andy, get up here and let me fuck you."

  "No," I replied, my tongue sweeping over my lips in preparation. "Not yet."

  If there were words to describe the taste of Patrick's cock, I didn't have them—he just tasted good. That first swipe over the flared head was always the best, followed closely by Patrick's shuddering moan when I sealed my lips over him and sucked. His hips shot up when I took him deeper, and his fists were balling in my hair when my lips closed around the base. My gag reflex warned, and my eyes watered as he pumped against the back of my throat, but I maintained the pressure and Patrick starting spewing curses.

  "Andy, your mouth is…fucking amazing. I want to fuck your mouth and come all over you. Fuck, I've wanted that for so long."

  It felt very wrong and very dirty to admit, but I liked the sound of that.

  A firm shove to his sternum sent him falling back against the pillows, but his sighs and moans continued. My tongue swirled around his head, teasing at the underside ridge and tentatively squeezing his balls.

  "Fucking Christ, Andy," he yelled. "Get on my cock right now."

  My mouth stroked over his length with soft, easy suction that pulled him off the frantic edge of release. With a condom in place, I backed Patrick up against the headboard and settled on his hips, his erection throbbing over me as I slid against him.

  "God, you are so beautiful," he murmured, his lips fusing with mine.

  "Slow," I insisted, my hands cupping his strong jaw as I shifted, taking Patrick inside. He filled me, stretched my tissues, pushed deeper, made me arch and cry out. My hips canted back, dragging my wet flesh over him until only the head remained inside, and I gradually pushed over him again, feeling every ridge and sensitive spot come alive around the weight of him. "I just want to feel you, okay?"

  Gone was the secretive fucking. In its place was a soul-deep desire that multiplied by the minute. In that bed, he wasn't my boss, and he wasn't an orphan, either. Patrick was the one the universe made for me, and in that bed, I was going to be his everything—the one the universe made for him.

  "You say that as if there is anything I can deny you," Patrick growled.

  His hands were on my backside, pulling me closer as he moved in me. He set the measured rhythm, and powers far greater than mine commanded me to follow. My arms twined over Patrick's shoulders, and I started moving my hips, feeling him invade me in the most magnificent ways and leaving tiny, pinprick sensations exploding over my skin.

  We clung to each other's bodies, holding and pressing and grabbing for more contact, kissing necks and shoulders and lips. Breathless and covered in a light sheen of sweat, quiet words passed between us, begging for more and deeper and now.

  "Andy, kitten, I'm close," Patrick stuttered, his hips lifting up to match my downward stroke. "I need you with me."

  He waited for me, always. I saw the muscles pulled tight across his shoulders, felt it in the way his fingers dug into my ass. He denied himself—refusing to let go until I was coming apart—and that realization left me disorientated, suddenly seeing my relationship with Patrick from a new vantage point.

  I nodded, and flattened Patrick against the pillows with my hands on his chest and my knees squeezing his hips. The angle was new, rasping against my clit in the most incredible ways and hitting right where I needed him, and it unleashed a flood of arousal as my hips fell into a rolling motion. He let me set the pace for several minutes, moaning and cursing and sucking my nipples until I swore they could conduct electricity, but an impatient snarl ripped through his chest, and I knew there was a limit to how long he could hold back.

  Patrick's hands landed on my hips with a growl, grinding me against his cock. Suddenly he was harder and deeper than ever before, and I almost felt him throbbing inside me. His hands held me in place, his fingertips claiming me and marking my skin with small welts while forcing my clit over his pelvic bone as we moved together. The slight edge of pain cut through the waves of pleasure crashing over my system.

  My eyes were half-closed, mouth hanging open while unintelligible babble leaked out, and I probably looked ridiculous, but slow and hard was quickly shutting down the majority of my brain—and I didn't want it any other way. Would it always be this way, this intense, with Patrick? Could it?

  Close. We were close. It was new for me—unfamiliar—yet for the first time, neither uncomfortable nor unwelcome.

  Patrick surged up, driving deeper inside me, and I screamed—actually screamed, surprising myself to no end—doubling over while my orgasm ripped me apart like a fucking tornado tearing through my body. Patrick's arms folded me against his chest while he thrust, and I heard the growl—that primitive, predatory sound announcing his release and commanding my inner muscles to clench around him just a few more times—rumble up through his diaphragm before it filled the room. Patrick's body tensed for a long beat before collapsing against the pillows.

  "Fuuuuuck, Andy," he groaned into my hair. He rolled us to the middle of the bed and drew the blankets around us. "Fuck."

  Patrick's arms twined around my waist and he settled his head between my breasts. My fingers tugged at his hair, his smiling eyes drifting shut. I wanted to remember him this way forever—my Sex God.

  All of a sudden, he stopped being the larger than life visionary who steered my architectural philosophy and taught me to how preserve history one cobblestone at a time, and he turned into a flawed, precious man who preferred speaking in bulleted lists and leaving love notes on my skin in the form of teeth marks. It wasn't the sad story that made him mine—the sad story made him real.

  As I stared at him, I started to understand what he meant when he said it wasn't just sex. That's how it seemed to be with us: he was one step ahead, figuring it out, taking it to the next level, asking for what he wanted. He might be waiting for me to come, but he wasn't waiting for me to move this—us—forward.

  17

  Patrick

  I brought a shaking hand to my mouth, passing it over my lips to catch any drool that slipped free.

  Wrecked. I was totally fucking wrecked.

  Andy twisted out of my arms with a promise to return soon, and I tested the strength of my limbs while she was in the bathroom. Even my toes felt languid, and the effort required to discard the condom was equivalent to lifting a Volkswagen.

  I didn't know much about slow sex. My skill set ran to quick, hard fucking, and I assumed everything else was reserved for the sad fools who still couldn't find the clit.

  But this, with Andy? This proved I knew exactly jack shit, and while I definitely wasn't the fool who couldn't find the clit, I was fast becoming the guy who wanted to talk about feelings after sex. That's the special treat built into asking for more than 'just sex.'

  Andy returned wearing black panties and a thin gray camisole, and reddened patches scratched over her breasts. Logically I knew it was weird to want to see my mark on her, but fuck—it looked so good.

  Dishes of pistachios and blueberries teetered in one hand when she nestled beside me, her long legs crossing in front of her. "Are you going to kick me out for eating snacks in bed?"

  I tore my eyes away from the stubble rash on her chest to tuck a wayward curl over her ear. "The only reason I'll ever kick you out of bed is to fuck you on the floor."

  "Good, good," she smirked. "Glad we had that talk."

  Andy balanced the dishes on either knee, alternately sampling from each while my fingers traced the smooth expanse of her shin. I wanted to ask about the troubled look in her eyes when she appeared at my door, to understand what transpired between us just now, to know she was staying the night in my arms, but my eyes landed on twin markings on Andy's inner ankle bones.

  "You have been hiding something under those socks," I murmured, sitting up and dragging an ankle to my lap.

&nbs
p; It blended flawlessly, and without the close study that I intended to give her body, would go by undetected. Craning my head to follow the tiny words circling the bulge of her anklebone, I read them several times before meeting Andy's eyes in question.

  She smiled, nothing revealed in her expression.

  The other ankle was less straightforward, and I felt Andy forcing back a smile while my finger traced the bisected circle enclosed by an equilateral triangle centered on her bone. It didn't resemble a geometric principle I used with much regularity, and I would be far from surprised to hear Andy rattle off an ancient theorem. There was no way it was an ordinary inscription of shapes. It meant something to her.

  "Tell me about this one," I requested, my finger following the words. "'The ones that love us never really leave us.' I like that."

  There were moments when Andy beguiled me, and then there were moments when I was stunned by our similarities and similar yet separate experiences. Those moments opened my eyes to the reality I knew her soul.

  The meaning was obvious, and I didn't need to know anything about the quote's origin to understand the importance. I turned the words over in my head a few times, testing them out.

  "It's from The Prisoner of Azkaban," she said, and I blinked, wondering if I was supposed to know what that meant. "Sirius Black? Harry Potter?"

  "Okay," I said, grasping for a link between Andy and a movie about…was that the one with sexy vampires? "And…you like that movie?"

  "It's a good story. I'm partial to the books, but I usually am, and I was hooked when they came out."

  Erin liked those books too. I was home before my last year of undergrad, and she conned me into standing in line with her for a short eternity to get the newest release. Some quick calculations confirmed my suspicions: I went with Erin because she was twelve at the time, and needed a ride to the bookstore, and Andy was approximately the same age as Erin. My baby sister. The one who was nine years younger.

  Talk about pervy cradle robber. Surely, someone would be happy to tie my ass to a weighted lobster trap and send me to a burial at sea for thinking about young Miss Asani the wrong way.

  "How old are you?"

  Andy frowned and swatted my hand away from her ankle. "They aren't kids' books. They're great stories about the triumph of good over evil—"

  "No," I interrupted, stilling her gesticulating hand. "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-four," she breathed, and a hysterical giggle slipped past my lips.

  "My sister's twenty-four," I said, my hand tangling in her hair and sweeping it off her shoulder.

  "Is that a problem?"

  I shrugged. "You don't look twenty-four. You look…exotic. Mysterious. Brilliant."

  "Age is what you make it, Patrick." She offered a blueberry, and I sucked her fingers into my mouth to eat it. I wasn't ready to give up the pervy. "I'll be twenty-five in May if that helps, but seriously, why bother worrying about that when it isn't about to change?"

  She was right. Not uncommon. "And this one?" I tapped the triangle.

  "You have to ask? Really, Patrick? Oh honey, you don't get out enough," she laughed. "It's the Sign of the Deathly Hallows."

  I glanced between Andy and her ankle while I itched to Google yet another one of her references. It wasn't enough that her primary mode of communication was eyebrow arching; she needed to add some riddles and obscure references, too. More breadcrumbs.

  Fucking fantastic.

  "You're going to have to unpack that one for me, kitten."

  "Have you been living in a cave?" When I shrugged, she shook her head and pointed to the tattoo. "It's also from Harry Potter. This is the Elder Wand, that's the Resurrection Stone, and this is the Cloak of Invisibility. When combined, they form the Deathly Hallows. If one person gets them all, that person is the Master of Death."

  "Does that have something to do with those kids who try to kill each other for sport?"

  "That's The Hunger Games!" she exploded, her hands waving furiously. "You honestly don't know anything about Harry Potter?"

  I shook my head, and Andy looked up at the ceiling. Over the past few weeks, I determined being with Andy meant getting a few boxes checked off. It was unclear whether she kept a list of these requirements, or even thought about them as requirements, but they were the things most salient to her, and I wanted to be on the right side of them. I knew she was obsessed with food and sustainably preserved architecture, preferred natural solutions to everything but happily allowed vodka to solve a fair amount of problems, too, and she used dry humor with such frequency it was difficult to parse her real opinions from the ironic. Apparently, a mild fixation on Harry Potter was part of the deal, too.

  "Is that because you've been busy getting the firm off the ground, or because you object to the idea of Harry Potter?"

  "No objections to Harry, and busy is something of an understatement. If he earned two permanent positions on your body, I want to know a lot more about this guy. I should be so lucky. That's why I keep biting you."

  "Three." I frowned, and Andy pointed to her flank, drawing up her camisole to point at the Farsi inscription. "Three," she repeated. "And please don't stop biting me."

  "Yeah, this kid's gotten enough of your skin," I said, pulling Andy down to the mattress. "Where's my spot?"

  Andy's hand brushed over her chest. "How about 'Patrick' here?"

  Fuck me running, that dry humor was going to be the death of me. I snorted, and trailed kisses over her chest. "That might be a bit much, and I'm really not into possessive assholery. But you know I can't say no to you."

  "Mmm," she purred, and as the sound invaded my brain, I stopped dissecting her suggestion of inking my name into her skin as serious or satirical. "Okay. What about a little shamrock, right here?"

  Andy pointed to her inner wrist, alongside her pulse. The sarcastic glint was missing from her eyes, and replacing her lopsided smirk was that tiny smile. Nodding slowly, I stared at her wrist, imagining the tiny flower against her olive skin.

  Shamrock tattoos. Slow sex. Socks. It came down like an avalanche, and I shifted Andy so her back rested against my chest. One look and she'd see the panic in my eyes. I was supposed to be in control while she was the one who backed away. Those roles worked for us, and I wasn't ready to give her the impression that anything was changing.

  I held her for a long time, my heart hammering against her spine while we watched thick drifts of snow accumulating on my balcony.

  "You should stay," I mumbled, sudden exhaustion weighing down my words. "If it keeps snowing like this—"

  She shifted, running her fingers through my hair. There was something new in her affection, something comforting, something dissolving my panic. I arched into her touch.

  I nuzzled her neck, inhaling her lavender scent, and melted against her warm body.

  "I'm staying," Andy said. "I'm not leaving you, Patrick."

  Andy didn't leave that night, or the next.

  She stayed in my bed and by my side through the snowy nights of winter, and memories of life before Andy slipped into the dark recesses of my mind. When April rolled around, some of Andy's clothes shared space in my closet, and her random glass jars of mushrooms and chia seeds and assorted oddities took up residence in my refrigerator.

  She made pancakes. Not normal ones, but healthy applesauce pancakes that were surprisingly tasty, all while standing at my stove in tiny camisoles, panties, and the ever-present knee socks on Sunday mornings. My DVR housed all of the Harry Potter films, and I acknowledged the appeal of the boy wizard and his crew.

  I expected my hunger for Andy to diminish by small degrees each day but it was exactly the opposite. Before the first day of spring, we were intimately acquainted with every flat surface in my apartment. I was hornier than any teenage version of myself, and I turned into a pissy bitch if Andy wasn't within an arm's reach. Her Saturday trips to the farmers' market and yoga with Lauren left me climbing the walls, and I was no better when she met her friend
Charlotte for drinks every couple of weeks.

  She claimed I growled in my sleep whenever she rolled out of my hold, and on more than a few occasions I found all two hundred-odd pounds of me completely sprawled over her sleeping body. Andy didn't mind. She was always cold and I was merely making good on my promise to keep her warm.

  It all felt right, so fucking right.

  With some minor exceptions.

  We worked hard to keep it professional in the office, though the comforts of intimacy whittled away our cover. Anyone paying attention would have seen us holding hands as we walked up Cambridge Street each morning, or leaving the office together in the evening. We seized every unnecessary opportunity to touch, whether it be brushing against each other at the copier or me pressing a hand to Andy's waist while I studied her designs. I chose to believe my siblings were too wrapped up in their projects to notice I brought her an iced green tea with lemon every afternoon, or the fierce, heated way my eyes lingered on her.

  Part of me wanted to get caught. A big fucking part, and my sanity frayed a little more each time I ignored questions about my weekends or omitted the most important details. Nothing would make me happier than Sam walking into my office while Andy talked through designs with my hand conveniently fondling her ass. It was a matter of time until we ran into one of them at the grocery store, and there was no mistaking the meaning behind a Saturday afternoon Whole Foods trip. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, how I'd tell them Andy was mine, and she accepted every dark, dusty part of me, and I belonged to her.

  Sheltering our relationship from my siblings wasn't without its costs, and I paid the highest price with Shannon. It wasn't long ago Shannon and I met for dinner or drinks most weeknights, talking through everything from project problems to her latest disasters in dating. Nothing was off-limits: she knew my morning runs doubled, tripled, and occasionally quadrupled in distance when I needed to get laid, and I knew more than enough about the trials and tribulations of finding a birth control pill that kept her periods regular but didn't make her intermittently crazy.