Underneath It All (The Walsh Series #1) (5 page)

“This motherfucker is going to be the death of me,” I moaned.

“I hope that’s not my project.”

Blinking at the sound of Lauren’s voice, I shot out of my chair and heard it crash into the wall behind me. If yesterday’s suit was an attempt to disguise her curves, today’s dress was an ode to them. Every step toward her increased my desire to touch her. I didn’t want her falling down stairs again, but if the opportunity presented itself, I was going to be there to catch her.

“Miss Halsted. I’m sorry, no, another project entirely.”

“Didn’t I tell you yesterday? You’re only required to call me Miss Halsted in my classroom.” Her tone teased, offering access to an inside joke and ignoring our narrow knowledge of each other. “Here, Lauren is fine.”

She extended her hand toward me, but I didn’t notice, instead standing there and staring at the golden hair tumbling softly around her shoulders. Before this moment, I hadn’t given women’s hair much thought. It was nice enough, but I never wanted it gliding through my fingers or tickling my chest. Not until I imagined burying my face in Lauren’s hair while I buried myself inside her.

Shit.
That spiraled out of control quickly.

“Mr. Walsh?”

Her eyebrows winged up, and I was betting she knew exactly what I was thinking. Narrating that fantasy out loud was the only way to make it more obvious.

“Matt,” I croaked. “Call me Matt. Or Matthew. Around here, Mr. Walsh is my father.”

And I’d rather you not confuse the two.

I gestured to the seats in front of the desk and tracked her hourglass shape as she sat, watching her movements, studying her hands, admiring today’s Come Fuck Me heels. The red dress accented a narrow waist rising from flared hips that called out to my hands. I saw myself bending her over the desk, hiking up her dress, and taking her right now. And I saw her liking it.

I spent a full minute on that thought before groaning inwardly. I was a dick. An unprofessional, single-minded dick and I didn’t like small, curvy girls who left their mojo all over me.

“Matthew, I really hope you have some good news for me.”

On her lips, my name was a purred commandment, and I wanted to hear it like that, the confluence of gentle and firm, again.

“I ran some scenarios,” I began, spreading site plans on the desk between us.

I expected the linear order of shapes and structures to take over and cool my nerves, but Lauren tucked her hair over her ears and smiled, and there was no unwinding the lust in my belly. I wanted to touch her and taste her, and I wanted it very soon.

“That structure is barely standing. I looked for options, but I cannot see anything salvageable in the structure.”

Lauren’s fingers moved over the plans and she studied them carefully, and it was all I could do not to grab that hand and press it to my crotch. It was absurd and wrong to obsess over her this way, and I knew it, but there was no beating back the hunger surging through my veins, overtaking me. She did something to me, something I didn’t understand, but I definitely wanted to figure it out.

“The architects who looked at it before and the people who told me to check out that property, they didn’t mention any of this.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s because most architects—I love them, but physics isn’t their primary concern. I wear both hats: architect and structural engineer. You could have spent a fortune on rehab only for the foundation to crumble with the first heavy rainstorm. And that roof won’t survive the winter.”

Minutes passed in silence and Lauren continued looking at the plans. The optimism drained from her expression until her full lips pursed in a grim line.

Those lips. Rosy and plump, and I wanted to taste them, feel them between my teeth, on my cock, against my thumb.

“Lauren? Do you have any questions? Anything I can talk through with you?”

She inhaled deeply and shrugged. For a second, all that confidence vanished, and she looked young, vulnerable.

“I was hoping for better news.” A sigh propelled her back into the seat. “I’ve searched everywhere for a workable site and someone to help me. This was my last hope. I was convinced you were the guy to get it done, that you had the goods to make anything possible.”

I hated disappointing her, and I hated that her words made me feel things. I was quite content without regularly experiencing strong feelings. Numbers usually made it easy. Counting, measuring, estimating, solving. It occupied my brain enough to tune out most everything else. When that didn’t work, I went running. The math and the miles, they never let me down.

Sucking a fresh breath of air into my chest, I fought for the calm that usually came so naturally, the calm Miss Halsted destroyed every time I was within five feet of her.

“Well…thank you, Matthew. I wish things could have worked out differently, but it seems like I’ve hit another roadblock.”

She personified pin-up, but as I crossed my arm over my chest and propped my chin on my fist, I sensed something different, distinctive, something I wanted to uncover. She wasn’t just sexy, she was beautiful and smart and her own special version of beastly.

She collected her folders, and I knew I needed to get out of my head and seize control of the situation soon if I wanted to spend another minute with the naughty schoolteacher.

I skirted my desk and sat beside Lauren. Breeching the architect-client desk etiquette veered into creeper territory, and if the warning grimace she fired at me was any indication, I needed to be damn sure I was done with that element of our relationship before I went any further. Her fingers were folded around the smartphone in her lap, and I layered my hand over hers.

Not an architect move.

Not even a Matt move.

“Let me take you out for a drink, Lauren. You can tell me more about your project. It’s the least I can do.”

“Is there a possibility that Saint Cosmas can be rehabbed?”

“I’m good, but not that good. However,” I hedged, “I know every vacant lot and available building in Suffolk County. Most of Middlesex and Norfolk, too.” I gently squeezed her fingers. “Let’s figure something else out. I know there’s a solution. There has to be.”

Her slim, ringless fingers curled around mine, and that connection spread over my skin and around my mind. With that singular touch, I sensed myself losing my grip on the world I knew, the world I understood, and getting lost in Miss Halsted.

“Just a drink. I’d hate to think I didn’t help you in some way.”

*

Lauren quirked a
brow as I held the door to The Red Hat open. “I’ve never heard of this place before,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

“An old Scollay Square gem. Trust me.”

Happy hour crowds from City Hall and the nearby courthouse clogged the bar, and I should have accounted for typical Friday evening bar noise and rerouted this activity sooner, but I’d spent the entire trip from my office convincing myself I could behave.

I paused, scanning for an empty table or quiet corner. I wasn’t interested in competing with anyone else for her attention. Spotting a newly vacated private booth, I settled my hand on the small of her back and directed her through the room.

“What can I get you?” Being a gentleman—not a horny dickhead determined to touch her by any means necessary—I helped her out of her belted raincoat, but the thought of her showing up at my loft wearing that coat and nothing beneath turned my manners to shit.

Wait, no. The raincoat and those leopard-print heels.

“Tequila,” she said. “Tequila. On the rocks. No salt. A lot of it, in a really big glass.”

I couldn’t hide my shocked smile. Pinot grigio or fruity mixed drinks would have made more sense, but there was something to be said for a woman who ordered hard liquor like that.

I returned to the table with the tequila and a bottle of Heineken, and Lauren knocked back half the tumbler before my ass hit the seat. A droplet of liquid lingered on the corner of her mouth and I gazed at her lips while she batted her straw around the glass. I didn’t know what I wanted more: her tongue darting out and wiping it away, or seeing it roll down her chin.

I waited twenty-nine seconds. That seemed like an appropriate amount of time to stare at her mouth before acting. Reaching across the table, my fingers cupped her chin and my thumb passed over her lips. My hold lingered a few moments, and I saw my seed dripping from her pouty lips instead of tequila.

That looked
really
good in my head.

“Mr. Walsh?”

My gaze broke away from her mouth and met the challenge in her eyes. I let my fingers graze her neck and brush her collarbone before retreating. Any further and I’d be diving into the deep end of her cleavage and we didn’t need an audience for that. “We’re not in your classroom and I’m not my father. I asked you to call me Matthew.”

“Matthew. You’re looking at me as though you’re the big bad wolf and you intend to eat me whole.”

I nodded at her red dress. Heat rushed to her cheeks and a tight, new tension ignited between us. “Would that be bad?”

Lauren raised her eyebrows but didn’t respond. She didn’t need to. I smiled around the mouth of my beer bottle and took a long drink when her attention shifted. I was neither gentlemanly nor well-behaved, and I was enjoying the hell out of it.

Since meeting her yesterday, there were only a few instances when her smartphone hadn’t been glued to her palm. As I watched her fidgeting with the device, her fingers flying over the screen and her expression morphing in reaction to each message, I wanted to know what it would take for her to put it down. My thumb on her lips didn’t do it, and neither did my comment on the topic of eating her. What more did she require to tune everything out and turn off the world?

She caught me staring, and placed the phone beside her newly refilled drink.

“I’d really like to hear about all those lots and buildings you have committed to memory now.”

Much to my relief, she sipped at the second tumbler. I didn’t know many small women who handled their liquor—let alone tequila—well. Liking her ass and mouth and her sparkle didn’t mean I liked the idea of watching her vomit all over the sidewalk.

I leaned forward to study the gold in her eyes, those little flares that drew me in and took me prisoner. “Of course. Tell me about this school you want to open.”

She lit up when she talked about creating an innovative school, and her authoritative tone was hypnotic, but there was no shortage of defeats and obstacles in her path. I never knew there was so much behind-the-scenes work associated with running schools, but Lauren’s hands were full with recruiting students, hiring teachers, finding board members, writing grants, and designing the educational philosophy, and that didn’t even include the physical space. Her quest to open this school was grueling, and I had no shortage of respect for her work.

I’d figured Saint Cosmas was the first site she visited—try fourteenth—and she claimed it was the best-looking one she’d seen, by far. If Saint Cosmas was decent, I was afraid to see the other flaming heaps of rubble. I also discovered I actually
was
the only person for this work, save for Sam and Patrick, and I knew I wasn’t leaving Lauren without some feasible options. Regardless of whether she was my naughty schoolteacher and her ass was ruling my fantasies, she needed someone on her side, and I was going to be her someone.

“Have you been doing this long? And how old are you?”

Lauren cringed but tried to hide it behind her drink. Shannon would have beaten me for that question, reminded me never to ask women about age or weight, and then beaten me some more.

“Twenty-eight. I’ve spent the past year in the fellowship I mentioned. That’s where I’ve been learning how to do all of this.”

“And you need a site in Dorchester?” I pulled my phone from my pocket and zoomed in on an area map.

“Around there,” she said, “and parts of Roxbury, and the surrounding neighborhoods. But at this point, Matthew, I’ll take anything you want to give me.”

“I’m thinking of three warehouses, and two vacant mills. The rehab on church complexes is through the roof. Extensive and expensive. Stick with mills.” I jotted notes on a damp cocktail napkin and pretended her last comment didn’t land right between my legs. “We could schedule time next week to walk the sites. Or…tomorrow. If you’re up for it.”

“I’m up for anything. If you are.”

A smirk pulled at her lips and I coughed to disguise my growl. She knew what she was doing, and she was enjoying it, too. “I don’t know what to expect from any of these.” I waved the napkin before tucking it into my pocket. “I won’t know much of anything until I walk the sites, but I can help with the architectural and structural sides of the project. If you want me, that is.”

Because I definitely want you. Anywhere you’ll have me.

And that shocked the shit out of me. She was cute and sensual, and short, and I didn’t like any of that. But I had to wonder: did I even know my type anymore? Did it matter? Weren’t the beasts just fulfilling a post-race adrenaline surge, and wasn’t I doing the same for them?