Partly because I love learning how things work, and partly out of camaraderie, I joined the renovation effort. From the start, I knew we were constructing an implausibly swanky gym. The cherry-wood panelling put me in mind of an exclusive gentlemen's club, as did the acid-etched art nouveau lighting fixtures. Once Sean cleaned and rewired them, their quality shocked me. I asked if he was certain his uncle knew what he'd given away.
Sean set the wire cutters aside. 'If you're worried, send his wife a basket of books. She loves that Maeve Binchy woman.' He scratched his rock-hard belly through his T-shirt. "Course, my uncle will thank you if you include some goodies from the back room. Aunt Maire can roll when she's in the mood.'
I frowned. 'A basket of books isn't worth all this.'
'It is if Aunt Maire decides to treat my uncle to a hot weekend away from the kids.'
Well, I could see where Sean got his priorities.
He proved a finicky task master over the next few months. I believe Joe and I pleased him, however. We did as we were told and only argued over important things, like meal breaks and sleep. Sean had a tendency to obsess over finishing a task. Then Joe and I would join forces to seduce him. We christened our gym many times before it held a single weight.
After a while, I developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of hammer hitting nail. One clanging blow and my * was awash.
But the project changed us in deeper ways. As we worked, we talked - about our childhoods, about our loves and hates, even our ambitions. I didn't want to think too hard about my future because I suspected they wouldn't be in it, but I liked hearing them dream. Sean wanted to start his own accountancy firm so he could work six months and play six months. Joe wanted to be the next Andrew Lloyd Webber.
'Only better,' he qualified. 'No one should roll their eyes at my musicals.'
The confession, and our failure to laugh at it, helped him overcome his inhibitions. He began to sing more around the house. The traditional shower-time warble was joined by cookery medleys and ironing arias. Some nights he even sang us to sleep. Fortunately, he had a beautiful tenor, just husky enough to remind me of sexy things like whisky and velvet or, better yet, post-coital hoarseness.
One day, I caught him singing in his room. He still studied and kept his clothes there, though by this time his cologne scented my room more strongly than his own. I watched him from the door. He sat with his broad shoulders bent over the second-hand desk, holding his hair off his face with one hand. He hummed each phrase a few times before scribbling it in a stave-ruled notebook. The pen didn't falter once.
I imagined real artists worked this way, with this furious concentration, I knew I held no part of his thoughts. I knew he inhabited a world entirely of his own making. Nothing but sex or a great book had ever caught me up so completely. I envied him even as a soft pulse of interest wanned my loins.
I wanted him, this private Joe, this independent Joe. But I held back and let the feeling simmer.
Finally, he pushed the notebook aside, ran both hands through his hair, and stretched the kinks from his spine. Unable to resist, I padded up behind him and buried my fingers in his gleaming locks. He jumped, then sagged back to enjoy the scalp massage. 'How long were you standing there?'
'A few minutes. I didn't want to interrupt.' I blew lightly in his reddened ear. He rewarded me with a shiver.
'I was just messing around,' he said.
I counted the stack of notebooks that sat on the metal shelving above his desk. There were six altogether, and every one was as dog-eared as the one he'd shoved aside. If they all held musical scores, he'd been 'messing around' a long time.
Smiling, I slid my hands down the front of his crisp blue Oxford shirt. 'You smell of starch,' I said into the smooth cord of his neck. His pulse thudded under my
lips. 'Just a little.' His voice was thready. 'I like to use it
when I iron.'
'I know.' I let my hands venture farther, down over his hipbones and on to the hard, slim muscle of his thighs. A knife-crease pleat bisected the front of his tan slacks. 'I like the way you iron. It makes me want to dishevel you.'
His laugh escaped on a choked exhalation. A hill was forming between his legs, lifting the neatly pressed cotton. As it rose, I measured it with my thumbs, testing its resilience and size. His legs fell open.
'Close the door,’ he said, and I knew he meant for this to be one of 'our' times.
We hadn't had one in more than a week and I needed it, too. As exciting as our threesomes were, my nature craved the one-on-one intimacy Joe and I shared.
I had my sweater halfway off before the door swung shut.
Joe turned his chair sideways. He stared at my pink satin camisole, at the beaded tips of my breasts, then attacked his collar button. 'We don't have long,’ he said. He watched me push my narrow, knee-length skirt down my legs. He moistened his lips. 'Sean's due home in half an hour.'
'Half an hour will do it for me,’ I kicked my tights away and gestured to my camisole. On or off? asked my silent mime. We had our own shorthand now.
'On,’ he said. His chest muscles flexed as he wrenched out of his shirt. 'But take the bra off, and the panties.'