Brick by Brick Read online

“If you’d called, we could have picked it up for you.”

  “Yeah, rub it in, Natalie,” Gage said. “So, did I tell you I brought two bottles?”

  An hour later we were pleasantly lit from within, the way champagne does. Except for the part where Gage beat himself up for not calling, we had a great evening. Gage may have been a professional performer, but he made a wonderful audience, listening attentively, laughing at the right times, getting our little jokes, asking the right questions. The three of us clicked on every level, the way James and I had on that first date.

  “You know,” James said, “Natalie and I had plans for tonight.”

  “Man, you should have said something. I’m sorry. Listen, it’s not that late. I’ll just take off, and you can—”

  “We’d planned a romantic evening at home.”

  “Don’t let me spoil it. I’ll let myself out.”

  “I think being watched might enhance it,” I said. “Don’t you, Jamie?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “You don’t have to do this,” Gage said.

  “You’re right,” James said. “And it’s getting late anyway.”

  I found Gage’s confusion adorable. “It’s not even nine o’clock.”

  “My workday starts at six, so my crews can be off by two or three, beat at least some of the heat.”

  “Oh. That makes sense. My car was like an oven yesterday afternoon.”

  “You can burn yourself on an Arizona car. Literally.”

  “The guy at Euroworks thought it was pretty funny watching me try to open the door.”

  “Great sense of humor. So anyway, I should be in bed.”

  “Okay. I’ll say good night, then.”

  James caught my eye. At my small nod he turned to Gage. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Gage’s answering smile was huge, the one that lit up movie screens, making women want him and men want to be him. “I’d like to. But I have conditions.”

  “Why aren’t I surprised?” James said. “What?”

  “If I’m, you know, included in what you do, which I’m not assuming I am, it isn’t about me. I had my turn. It’s about you. Both of you. I do what pleases you.”

  “Okay,” I said immediately. “You said conditions, with an ‘s.’ What’s the other one?”

  “All that tea, and then champagne? I really need to use your bathroom.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Dibs on the powder room,” James said.

  “One of you better hurry,” I said, leading Gage toward the main bathroom.

  * * * *

  Like anyone in construction, James knew guys in every line. Buying this Arizona bungalow as a fixer-upper before we met made perfect sense. He’d been miffed when I refused to move in with him because he hadn’t fixed enough.

  Our luxurious bath, originally two cramped full baths in mint green and pastel pink, had been designed to please me. Ten years later, I still loved the Italian tile and oiled teak. It was probably the nicest room in the house. Maybe that was why Gage stayed in there so long.

  James finished in the powder room, and I went next, but Gage was still splashing in the bathroom. “What do you think he’s doing?”

  “Some secret beauty ritual,” James said. “Let’s get in bed. He’ll find us.”

  I wasn’t ready to be found naked. We undressed quickly and got under the top sheet. James kissed me, reached past me to turn off the bedside lamp, then kissed me again with more vigor.

  Southern Arizona’s summer days are brutal, even for the natives. Summer nights, however, are silken jewels. A light breeze, just a few miles an hour, moves air that matches body temperature with a trace of coolness at its edges.

  James and I had fallen into its embrace by sheer luck.

  At my insistence, he’d replaced the rusting swamp cooler that smelled like mold with a whole-house air-conditioning unit he got incredibly cheap because it couldn’t cool even a small house. After consulting with HVAC guys, he replaced the bedroom window and added another one, creating nice cross ventilation, supplemented with a built-in fan drawing air from the shaded patio.

  Once the sun set and the desert quickly cooled, so did the room. By James’s early bedtime, the air in there was made for naked.

  Every summer we put away the bedspread and draped the top sheet rather than tucking it in, but most nights we rarely pulled it over our skin until three or four in the morning.

  Most nights we weren’t waiting for Gage Strickland to emerge from our fancy bathroom.

  “Mmm,” I said, snuggling against my husband’s chest and its golden fluff.

  He didn’t quite whisper, but almost. “This is okay, isn’t it? Letting him watch?”

  “It’s fine. Better than fine.”

  Light split the darkened bedroom. Gage had taken off his shirt, and his belly scar looked bloody black in the dimness. “Nice bathroom.” He turned off the bathroom light. “Is watching you in the dark going to be anything like watching submarine races?”

  “Your eyes will adapt,” James said.

  “Even if they don’t, I’m not complaining.” Gage found the bed in the dark. Over the soft hum of the fan, I heard his zipper and the rustle of clothing, then the gentle creak of the bedsprings. “Thank you for inviting me.” A slab of cooler air floated in as Gage got under the sheet next to me.

  James’s reply was to start the “show,” even though Gage surely couldn’t see yet. My husband kissed me again, longer, his tongue exploring my mouth. Already moisture gathered. Moving my legs made my secret folds slither against one another.

  My husband encouraged me to roll onto my back, where he kissed me again, his body half draped on me beneath the sheet. He found my breasts by touch and nuzzled the gap between them with his face, through the percale. My nipples stirred, then stood as he cupped the flesh with both hands, crushing my breasts against his face. Finally, he let his thumbs and forefingers touch the sheet and find nipples tenting it, eager to be pressed and rolled.

  He tugged my nipples with his teeth, through the cloth. I drew in a sharp breath.

  “Too hard?”

  “No, no, I need more.” And lower. My legs had sprawled open without me doing it, inviting him. He hooked the farther ankle with his foot and pulled it back: keep them closed.

  Jamie knew, of course, that being “forced” to maintain such ladylike primness while my excitement rose to drenching levels was itself arousing. The treasure chest is all the more tempting for being locked, its gold and jewels more precious for having seemed unattainable.

  My husband snaked a hand beneath the thin cover to work my nipples one at a time. The skin-on-skin contact seemed physically hot. My knees and ankles chastely joined, I rocked my pelvis, barely able to contain a need grown huge.

  “Oh, yeah. Love you,” Jamie whispered. He turned his head.

  I’d all but forgotten Gage. Eighteen inches away, he lay on his side watching intently, his head propped on one hand, the other arm in front of him, outside the sheets. “Yeah,” he echoed.

  My husband pinched my left nipple, thrusting it upward so he could grasp it with his teeth through the sheet, which tugged until he lost his grip. The gentle bite might have been electric, wired to my sex. My clitoris literally moved. Immediately he repeated the action on my right breast, and my clitoris leaped. My closed legs churned against one another, my soaked labia demanding sensation, any sensation.

  My vision had adapted to the darkness. Jamie pleasured me but performed for Gage, seeking his approval as much as mine. And getting it, if Gage’s parted lips meant arousal.

  Jamie stroked his way down my belly, pausing at the drop-off at my ribs, again at the curve of my waist, yet again at the swell of hip. I felt both desire and desirable as he traced the shape of Woman with his hand. I would not be able to wait for his most intimate touch much longer.

  He let his fingertips creep lower until they rested on the triangle of pubic hair I’d left intact when I shaved.

 
“Tease,” I said. “Touch me.”

  Gage leaned forward, his breath warm and moist on my arm.

  Jamie said, “Touch you where, Natalie?” To Gage he said, “That part of her upbringing stuck. She doesn’t like to say it.”

  “Yeah? I want to hear her to say it.”

  “Me too. Say it, baby. Tell me what you want or you might not get it.”

  In the dark, where no one could see it, my face heated over saying “naughty” words. I’d long ago forgiven my mother for the puritanical upbringing, so why did these words still shame me so?

  I took a breath. I could do this, had done it before, dozens of times. But the words would not come, not even to my mind, much less my lips.

  “Where do you want me to touch, huh?” My husband kissed my cheek. “Say, ‘Jamie, touch my’ whatever.”

  I pushed my pelvis toward the ceiling, carrying his hand, which shifted slightly lower. Almost there. Jamie curled a tendril of damp pubic hair around his finger. “I’ll do it; you know I will. Just ask.”

  “Touch my pussy, Jamie. Please.” There, I said it! He’d better do it before I went crazy with need. Crazier.

  “Touch it how, baby?” Now he was just showing off for Gage. He’d gotten me to say it, but could he make me say more?

  Sort of. “Take your finger and slide it down.” With a pause at the top to massage my clitoris, and another at the bottom to enter me a little ways.

  “Take your finger,” Gage said, “and start with her clit, then go right down the middle, real light, and dunk the last joint into her.”

  How could he know? I felt my face heating again.

  “Thanks, but I think I know what she likes.”

  He did, better than I did in the early days of our marriage. That he cared about me as much as himself was one more reason to love him.

  “Good.” Gage averted his eyes. Was he embarrassed?

  I didn’t ponder that for long. Jamie moved his long middle finger exactly as Gage had urged, gliding down my slick center. Any thoughts about Gage dissolved as I spread my thighs, and now Jamie didn’t try to stop them.

  As he dipped the tip of that finger into me, he brought the other fingers together to cup my outer lips, defleeced only hours before, although I’d left some in front. His touch renewed the startling feeling I’d experienced when I’d finally finished shaving and patted myself dry: astonishingly bare and vulnerable, utterly without protection or modesty.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  “A little surprise. Do you like it?” I wasn’t sure I did.

  “Yeah! A lot.” He moved his finger fast enough to tap out Morse code.

  “What?” Gage said.

  “Oh, nothing.” Jamie winked at me, then slipped his finger fully inside me.

  I was ready. More than ready. He knew that, yet he dawdled, stirring me molten.

  “James Bedwell, if you don’t find something bigger than your finger, and fast, for once it’ll be true when I say, ‘You can be replaced.’”

  Chapter Twelve

  Both the men chuckled as Jamie slipped his finger from me. He clambered over me and touched the head of himself to me. I tilted my pelvis upward, trying to get him in. Needing it.

  He backed away an equal number of inches. I grabbed his hips and tried to maneuver him, but he wouldn’t be steered. Did he know I was almost angry at him for making me wait?

  “Do you want it? Huh, Natalie, do you? Do you want it bad? Say what you want.”

  He knew what I wanted. Why didn’t he know when his teasing was not silly fun but frustrating?

  Gage did. “What do you need to hear? Put your cock in her cunt. That it?”

  Jamie turned to Gage and smiled serenely. “Close enough. Here you go, Nat.” He gave an extended, gentle push, perhaps thirty seconds from not in at all to the entire length of him filling me.

  I writhed in pleasure, not caring if I looked sexy to Jamie, and even less concerned about putting on a stirring show for Gage. It was all about me now, about Jamie’s substantial length prodding me deep inside, about the way the base of him moved my labia just so, almost pressing my clitoris.

  He kissed me once more, then propped himself up on straight arms and pumped, slowly, almost languidly, looking from me to Gage and back to me before his eyes closed. I understood that for him, it was all about him now, same as me.

  Jamie held himself aloft with brick-hard arms not because he preferred it but because I did. We’d never found that magic position that bumped or moved my little clit with every stroke. If I was going to have an orgasm while having intercourse, somebody’s hand was going to be involved. I snuck my hand between our bellies, touching the longest finger to my clitoris. Above me, Jamie opened his eyes. He smiled before they drifted closed again.

  Gage had seen us do this that first night. Did he remember? I’d replayed every moment in my mind many times, but that didn’t mean he had.

  Whether from memory or instinct, he settled his hand on top of mine and rode it almost weightlessly for a minute or so. “Can I help?”

  “Yes.” I moved my hand aside.

  His replaced it. “Oh,” he said, finding me hairless except for the front patch. “That’s a good surprise.”

  He worked me, peering at my face. I dared to take his wrist, slowing his frantic pace to one that complemented Jamie’s. Gage was utterly transparent, his expressions revealing the moment of comprehension, then pride when I freed his wrist.

  Jamie opened his eyes, which locked on Gage, but Gage seemed unaware, intent on making me come. He’d mastered only one move, so again I set my hand over his, guiding in silent instruction about other ways to touch and please me.

  He learned. My breath came faster. My nipples tingled, and my toes curled. My pelvis rocked to its own rhythm regardless of what Jamie or Gage did.

  Still watching me with an unnerving raptness, Gage managed to insert his head between our bodies to grasp my nipple with his mouth. He suckled it like a lusty baby, in sync with the way he tugged my clitoris with his fingertips. Jamie pulled himself out.

  No! I moaned at the emptiness until he filled it fast and hard.

  Almost, almost… I closed my eyes and opened my mouth in an extended moan, chopped off when the orgasm arrived, not terribly intense but a long one.

  “Oh, yeah,” Gage said, removing his hand from my sex.

  Jamie lowered his body, slicked with sweat, onto mine. He rested his full weight on me and kissed me with vigor as he thrust himself in. Was he asserting himself as alpha male, or starting the ascent to my second orgasm?

  He paused and turned his head. “So, Gage, what have you been up to since last time you were here?”

  I wasn’t the only one taken aback at Jamie’s casual tone while he thrust deep inside me.

  Gage said, “What?”

  “Who’d you have sex with since then?”

  “Oh. Nobody.”

  “Nobody? Actresses and fans offer it up, and you never once said yes?” He pumped in me and stopped again.

  “At the end of a ten- or twelve-hour day, I’m wiped out. My hand doesn’t expect me to shower, or buy it dinner at a nice restaurant.”

  Jamie grinned. “Okay, then. You want a turn? You know she can come again.”

  “I remember. I’d love a turn, if Natalie’s ready for more.”

  “Natalie,” I said, “is ready for anything.” Well, almost anything.

  “Condom?” Jamie was awfully practical for a man whose erection hadn’t flagged.

  I missed Jamie when he pulled away and out. Seconds later Gage lay flat on me, glued his mouth to mine, set his hands on my breasts, his condom-wrapped manhood poised at my opening.

  He put it in an inch, then half an inch out. In another little bit and back out almost as much. He made his tongue dance the same steps in our kiss, until it seemed like he’d been teasing me much too long. I gripped his buttocks and pulled lightly. I had no better success than I had with James, who’d pulled back just to tea
se me. Gage simply held still, so my grasp spread his cheeks.

  He looked at Jamie, who stood by the bed, lightly stroking his erection as he watched.

  With a smile, Gage said, “What do you want, Natalie? Say it.”

  “Not you too! Either give it or don’t.” I didn’t try to hide my peevishness.

  “Oh, I’ll give it. Right. Now.”

  He felt so thick, spread me so wide. I began the climb to the second pinnacle immediately. Gage’s pace was slow enough for sloppy, dirty-feeling kisses timed to the unhurried sexual tempo of an all-night man. When we broke for air, he looked to my husband for approval.

  He got it. We both did. Jamie’s mouth hung open just a little, his long pink shaft high and hard. Hot.

  Gage returned to his work while I watched him. Jamie was a very attractive man, but I was used to him. Gage was still new to me, still gorgeous.

  How many women had seen him as I was, the generous mouth gone slack, the eyes immeasurably deep and looking right into mine, pinpricks of perspiration on his upper lip?

  Never mind. I didn’t want to know. What mattered was that he pumped a shaft that felt the size of the closet rod inside me. The sensation of having not merely my legs but my insides spread wide rendered me incapable of rational thought. All I could do was receive and admire Gage Strickland.

  He looked over his shoulder, then turned the other way. Jamie had moved, watching us from more than one vantage point.

  Gage moved deeper in me, his legs at a new frog-like angle. The position came very close to working my little button. I went inside myself, forgetting about Gage and Jamie and the rest of the world. There was nothing but me.

  Gage was all hot moist kisses around my gasps for breath, bellies slapping wetly, a thick brownish penis boring me wider, on and on and on. The chamber perfectly fitted to the piston. I neared a second orgasm. Gage glided hotter, faster.

  Reading him was easy. When Gage was close, his limbs turned loose, flopping as he went at it with more vigor than skill, his mouth not just on mine but all over my face. Odd noises emanated from his throat, sometimes trapped inside my mouth or sounding too loud near my ear.

  His funny kittenish sound forced a bit of air into my mouth. He drove himself into me the deepest yet and pushed hard, crushing my clit and grinding it in place. Although it hurt, and would remain tender the next day, I came. The orgasm was so brief that I was finished, able to watch his beautiful face screw itself into a caricature as he came too.