“Because I’m a fucking masochist.” His gaze followed the path his thumb took on the inside of my lower lip.
“Walker.”
“Hmm?”
“Why are you taking it slow with me? Because last night—”
That blue-eyed gaze bounced back to me. “I didn’t show up expecting to get laid.”
“But if it’s a happy result of you stopping by? That’s not okay?”
“Not last night. I brought you dinner because I wanted to see you.”
“Well, you saw a lot more of me than I’ve seen of you.”
He kept up that slow, seductive stroking on the corner of my mouth. “Why do you seem mad?”
“I’m not. But I’m also not a horse that needs to be gentled.”
“A horse? Seriously?”
“No. Well, maybe. That’s what it feels like sometimes. But other times . . . you look at me like you’re seconds away from pushing me down to the closest horizontal surface and having your wicked way with me.”
He smirked. “A vertical surface would work just as well.”
“True. But you strike me as an instant gratification kind of guy. Not a guy with miles of patience to spare.”
“I’m greedy as hell. I want you naked beneath me, coming so hard that you forget your own damn name.”
In that moment, the heat from his words scorched a few of my brain cells.
“But I won’t add the stress of us becoming lovers to your life—you have enough pressure as it is.”
“I don’t usually associate the words ‘stress’ and ‘pressure’ with sex, Walker.”
“You think once I’ve had you I’ll be satisfied?” He shook his head. “I’ll want more. I’ll want all of you, all the time. And whatever plans I had not to put pressure on you will go right out the fucking window.”
I bit my lip to keep myself from blurting out that we ought to test his theory.
Walker’s focus shifted from my eyes to my lips. A low-pitched noise rumbled in his chest. Then he gave in to his need for a kiss, hauling me to my feet, taking my mouth in a breath-stealing show of urgency and possession.
When he finally proved his point, my head was muzzy; my pulse pounded in my neck, my lips and my nipples and between my legs.
“This heat between us isn’t going away if we don’t act on it. So I can wait.” He nuzzled my neck. “At least another day or two.”
I could get behind that time frame. If all went well, hopefully in another day or two I’d be coasting on the project. Then my hands could be coasting all over him.
“I recognize that sound.”
“What sound? The sound of lust?” I made a rowr in the back of my throat.
“The needy sound you made when my mouth was on you last night.”
“Have I mentioned that I loved that? So, so much.”
“Talking about me going down on you . . . you’re not helping the ‘I can wait’ claim that my little head doesn’t understand,” he grumbled.
Do not look at the crotch of his jeans.
I looked. The frayed edges of his pockets turned my mind back to my pieces of fabric that were cut out and waiting on my workbench.
“I recognize that look,” Walker said. “It’s your ‘I’m here but my mind is back in the studio’ look.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He picked up the picnic basket. “That’s my cue to send you back to work.”
He unlocked a door at the end of the hallway that led to the back of the building.
I squinted at the eight-foot-tall fence topped with razor wire at the end of the lot. “You get many trespassers?”
“Not anymore.”
Walker stowed the picnic basket in the back of my car. Then he backed me against the door and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Thanks for the lunch surprise.”
“Your coworkers are going to grill you about me, aren’t they?”
“I can handle them.” He brushed his lips across mine. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Thirteen
WALKER
I’d just finished putting the table saw in the back of the trailer when I saw a familiar blonde headed toward me.
She offered a finger wave.
I almost responded by waving one finger in particular but refrained when she bounded up and crushed me in an enthusiastic hug.
“Surprise!”
“Annika, what are you doing here?”
“Dropping off program samples. Lund PR does pro bono work for Seventh Street Theater Productions. I thought you knew that.”
“I’m the set guy. That’s it.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Since when do you have enough spare time to design a PR campaign for a community theater production?”
“I don’t. But my intern does.”
“Since when do you have an intern?”
“Since Dallas spearheaded the program in May. I thought you knew that.”
“It’s news to me.”
“It shouldn’t be news since we discussed it at the board meeting.” She paused for effect. “In March.”
Board meetings bored me. Half the time I tuned out.
“Anyway, there’s a new intern every two weeks.”
“So you’re constantly training them?”
“No. LCCO has a permanent liaison in my department. She vets the intern candidates and coordinates everything. It’s a neat concept that utilizes diverse feeder programs, from high schools to colleges to technical schools to social services—”
I held up my hand. “Say no more.”
“You’re not interested,” she said flatly. “You’re never interested in what I do at LI.”
“And you’re always begging me for details on what I do during my days at F&L?”
Annika rolled her eyes. “You tear stuff down and build it back up.”
“It’s more complex than that. We need to have all the city, county and state permits in order before we can break out the sledgehammers and—”
She held up her hand. “Say no more. Seriously. You know the other reason I’m here, Walker.”
“No, honestly I don’t. Didn’t Mom already buy tickets to the performance?”
“Oh, don’t play cute. I can’t believe that Betsy got to meet your new girlfriend before I did. Where’s the love, bro?”
My eyes narrowed. “When did you talk to my office manager?”
“Last night at Cabooze. Betsy was sort of tipsy. She went on and on about how cool it is your new girl Trinity is a hot-shit artist. And she secretly caught you two making out in the conference room, which she squealed about for like five minutes because it was so freakin’ cute and then you locked the door in your office while you had lunch. I had to pretend I knew that you’d been seeing this Trinity chick for a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks!” she repeated as if I hadn’t heard her. Hell, they’d probably heard her in the auditorium.
“Maybe you oughta show me the love once in a while, baby sis. Because not once have you asked if I was seeing someone. Not once in the times you’ve called to ask for my help or to vent about hockey players or anything else in the last year have you asked me what’s new in my life.”
Her face fell. For once she didn’t pull her usual argumentative crap; she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tightly. “I’m sorry. I always swear I’m nothing like Dallas and then you remind me that I am self-centered. You deserve better from me since you are such an awesome brother. I’m so freakin’ sorry, Walker.”
“Apology accepted. You can make it up to me next week by taking me to Ike’s for lunch.”
“Deal. And I won’t even put it on my expense account.”
I laughed.
“So this Trinity . . . she makes you happy?”
I almost said, When she’s not making me crazy, but given my past dating history? Annika would jump all over that as an opening to recite the crazies from my past—chapter and verse. “Yeah, she does.”
“Good. Take me to her.”
> “She might be busy.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Annika hooked her arm through mine. “Lead on, Dubbya.”
“You promise to behave?”
“You did not just ask me that! I have an MBA and I’m junior VP of an entire division at LI. Polite corporate behavior is my life.”
She managed to pull off an affronted look. Color me impressed. “So why didn’t you use that same corporate mind-set when dealing with the hockey players?”
“I tried—believe me. But from the very start, Santa was begging for me to rack him with his own hockey stick.”
“Wait.” I stopped and faced her. “Did you just say Santa?”
“The Swede’s name is Klaus. So I started calling him Santa. Santa Klaus—get it?”
“But I thought his name was Axl.”
“Axl is a nickname. Since his last name is Hammerquist, it’d make more sense if his nickname was Thor—not only because he makes my head . . . thor.” She laughed. “Thor, sore, get it?”
I groaned.
“Maybe I oughta change my name to Rocky since I clearly had rocks in my head when I agreed to revamp his image.”
“Whoa. You’re working for him?”
“No, I’m working for his agent,” Annika corrected.
“How’d that happen?”
“Mom butted in. She knows this agent; they’re from the same fjord or something. Then Jensen signed with this agent, so I took on this PR project as a tiny ‘flavor’ to her.”
The side door opened and people flooded in, including Brady and Lennox.
“Hey, bro.”
“What are you two doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Why?”
Brady gave me a level look. “You know why.”
Defensively, Annika lifted her hands. “Hey, it wasn’t me who spilled the girlfriend beans this time.”
“That’s because I knew about her weeks ago,” Brady said. “Did you?”
Annika shoved him. “Shut it, braggart.” She demanded of Lennox, “Did you know about her too?”
“Nope. She was news to me.”
I scanned the crowd. “Is Mom here? Dad? Jensen? Nolan? Ash? How about the damn gardener?”
“Knock it off. The sooner we meet her, the sooner we can report back to everyone,” Brady said.
“Walker?”
I whirled around at the sound of Trinity’s voice.
“What’s going on?” She kept looking between me and my siblings as I strode toward her.
“Reckoning day, sweetheart.”
“Oh god. It’s your family, isn’t it? I’m not ready. I’m covered in paint, my hair is a mess and I’m seriously sleep deprived, so who knows what will come out of my mouth? And did I tell you the homeless woman on the corner gave my clothing a pitying look and offered to give me her shoes? Plus, I—”
I kissed her. It stopped her babbling . . . for a minute anyway. “It’ll be fine. They’ll like you. I promise.” And even if they didn’t? I didn’t care. I liked her. I slipped my arm around her waist and steered her toward my siblings, who’d lined up in firing squad formation. Assholes.
“Everyone, this is Trinity.” To her I said, “First in line is my older brother, Brady. Beside him, his bride, Lennox. Next to her is my little sister, Annika.”
Trinity held up her hand, heavily spattered with green paint. “I won’t offer to shake hands, but it is great to meet you all. If I’d known you were coming, I would’ve practiced a soft-shoe routine since I resemble a hobo.”
Silence.
If her hand hadn’t been covered in paint, she likely would’ve clapped it over her mouth. She did have a disconnect between her mouth and brain when she got flustered. It amused the hell out of me and I laughed.
So did Brady. “Popping by unannounced wasn’t my idea”—he shot Annika a look—“but I’m glad we did. Nate let us wander around the stage. The sets are outstanding.”
“Thank you. It was a team effort.”
“It paid off. People will flip when the show opens. Word of mouth is gonna be killer,” Annika said.
Silence expanded as we stood around and stared at one another.
Awesome.
Trinity mock-whispered to me, “That soft-shoe routine is sounding better and better, isn’t it? On the count of three . . .”
Annika laughed. “Since it sounds as if you like to dance, I can admit our ulterior motive was to convince you guys into going out with all of us tonight.”
“All of us,” I repeated, “is who?”
“The five of us. Nolan. Jensen. Maybe Ash. Dallas is playing Hide the Franken-weenie with Igor, so she’ll be late.”
“Jesus, Annika.”
“What? It’s true. We’re not all paired off, so if you want to invite some of your friends, Trinity, that’d be cool.”
Trinity smirked at me. “I could invite Ramon since it was so fun when you met him.”
“Pass. What about Genevieve? I haven’t met her yet.”
“Gen is riding the hobbyhorse with Connor tonight.” She frowned. “Wait. Do they use horses in rugby?”
“No, that’s polo.”
“See!” Trinity bumped me with her hip. “I told you I’m hopeless about sports stuff. Besides, Gen isn’t really riding a horse—she’s riding Connor.”
“I caught that, sweetheart,” I said.
Trinity looked at Annika. “As you can see, my list of friends is woefully short.”
“No worries. We always pick up a few strays anyway.” Annika high-fived me. “Bring your girl to Flurry. Eight o’clock.”
I hated Flurry. Too loud. Crappy music. Overpriced drinks. Nolan and Brady both had VIP passes, which meant we’d sit upstairs in the VIP section that overlooked—or rather looked down on—the rest of the bar. If I were the type of guy who wanted to impress a date, Flurry would be the place to take her. But I preferred to keep everything on the down low.
Brady slipped his arm around Lennox’s waist. “We’ll let you two get back to work. Nice meeting you—” He paused, as if he couldn’t