Forbidden Pleasure

_{Chapter 3}

He wasn't sure if it was the smell of the coffee or the cinnamon rolls baking that had awakened him first. He had been lying on his belly. Turning lazily over onto his back, he sniffed appreciatively. The big tall clock in the upstairs hall began to chime. Nine o'clock. He looked across the room toward the window, and saw the day was fair. And for some reason he found that, unlike most Saturdays, he wasn't the least bit sleepy. He had slept like a damned log the entire night through. Michael Devlin climbed out of bed, peed, brushed his teeth, shaved, and got dressed. Then he headed directly downstairs toward the delicious smells coming from Emily Shanski's kitchen.

"Damnation!" Emily dropped the pan she was taking from the oven quickly onto the counter, and flung the towel in her hand into the sink.

He was at her side before she even realized he was there, taking her hand and sticking it under cold running water. "It's not bad. What happened?"

"I almost forgot the rolls, and instead of taking an oven mitt I grabbed a towel," Emily replied. She turned her head to say thank you, and found herself nose-to-nose with him. Her blue eyes widened with surprise, and then he kissed her.

Her lips were incredibly soft, and she smelled of sweet rolls and lilacs. He slid an arm about her waist, and his kiss deepened as he felt her yielding against him. What was happening? He groaned and let her go. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that," he said, stepping back a pace.

"Why not?" she asked him, suddenly knowing she had to take the initiative. For all his reputation Devlin was a gentleman. His kiss had been wonderful! She had never before been kissed quite like that. It was fierce and tender all rolled into one.

"I think we both know the answer to that, Emily," he replied stiffly.

"Sit down, Devlin," she told him, already pouring him a mug of coffee, and gestured toward the kitchen table. "Have a sweet roll, and let's discuss the fact that we seem to be attracted to each other." God in His heaven! Had she really said that? The look of surprise on his face told her she had.

"I'm your editor," he replied.

"And Savannah Banning tells me you're a very good one," Emily answered him. "Why should the fact that we're being drawn to each other change that?"

"You know Lady Palmer?" he asked her.

"We go way back," Emily said. "I was her witness when she and Sir Reginald went to the registry office seven years ago. I'm the Honorable William's godmother."

He nodded, surprised. It had never occurred to him that Emily Shanski would know the beautiful and flamboyant Savannah Banning. And God knew what the gossipy Lady Palmer had said about him. "More than a business relationship between us would be inappropriate," he tried to explain, but he sensed she knew that.

"Oh, piffle!" Emily responded. She plunked a roll on his plate and pushed it and the butter toward him. "Do you want to sleep with me?" In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided. She didn't have a whole lot of time, after all, and a sexy, hot Defiant Duchess was due to Stratford at the end of December.

He choked on the bit of roll in his mouth, his face growing red, coughing. "Water!" he gasped, jumping up. She got it for him. Swallowing it, he managed to regain what he hoped would pass for composure. "You're joking, of course," he said.

"Are you amused?" she countered dryly. Her blue eyes were actually dancing with merriment, and her lips twitched, as if she wanted to burst into laughter at him.

The little witch was enjoying his discomfiture quite thoroughly, he thought. What would happen if he called her bluff? he wondered. Would she fall into his arms, or run shrieking from her sunny kitchen? Michael Devlin didn't liked being played for a fool, and he always made it a point to be the one who initiated any sexual encounter. But this was just too good to resist. If he was ever going to have any credibility with his writer, he had to make damned certain from the start that Emily knew who was the boss.

"As a matter of fact," he told her, looking down into those big cornflower-blue eyes, "I don't want to sleep with you, Emily Shanski. Let's tell it like it really is. I want to fuck you. I've wanted to since I first saw you. It is totally inappropriate for us to get involved, but I've never been a man to play entirely by the rules. If you're game, so am I," Devlin said wickedly. He almost laughed aloud at the look of surprise on her face. He had shocked the adorable Miss Shanski with his rather blunt and crude language.

Emily swallowed hard, and worked to feign an imperturbability she was far from feeling. "All right," she finally said. "Then we'll do it tonight." Her pulse pounded.

"Oh, no, angel face," he responded, surprised, but not about to let her get the upper hand. "I don't play that way. No appointments for you and me. I like spontaneity. I think now is as good a time as any to begin our little adventure, don't you?" Standing away from the table, he moved toward her, his mouth twitching with his amusement.

"It's morning!" Emily protested, taking a step back.

"Haven't you ever done it in the daylight, angel face? It's just as much fun. Sometimes even better, because there is always the chance someone will come in and discover you getting your ears fucked off on your well-scrubbed oak kitchen table." His green eyes glittered as he moved closer and closer to where she now stood.

Emily backed away again, eyes wide. People made love on kitchen tables? She didn't know whether she should be shocked or intrigued. She swallowed hard once more and said coolly, "I far prefer the comfort of a bed, Devlin, and I'm not interested in voyeurism. It's vulgar, and speaks badly of the couple involved." There! That should set him back on his heels-she hoped. What was she getting herself into? she suddenly wondered. Was this a good idea? Maybe she should just rent some X-rated videos.

"Very well," he drawled. "Your room or mine? And yes, now!"

"Now is not the best time," Emily said, gasping as he suddenly reached out and pulled her into his arms. God, he smelled so good!

"Are you a cock tease, Emily?" he asked her softly, taking her hand and pressing it against his groin. "That's not nice, you know."

Her fingers moved involuntarily against the hard ridge pressing against his jeans. "Oh," she half whispered. His penis was very hard beneath her hand.

"If you want to stop, Emily, this is the time. Keep touching me like that and there will be no going back for either of us," he warned her. He nuzzled her hair. It was soft.

She didn't know what to say. Had she come too far to cut and run? Coward, the voice in her head said. You want knowledge, and you have the chance to obtain it.

Okay! Okay! I'll do it, damn it, she said to that irritating voice. She looked up at Devlin, her lips half parted, wondering what was going to come next.

His hand caressed then cupped her face. The green eyes searched her face. "Emily?" he asked, his voice rough. Devlin was shocked by the incredible reaction he was having to her. He wanted to bury himself deep inside her, make her scream and beg him for everything he could give her. And then he would give her more and more until they were both so weak and exhausted they couldn't move for another day. What was it about this woman that was making him feel this way? He barely knew her, but then, that had never been a hindrance to his lusts. And she seemed to feel the same way, yet there was a shyness, an innocence about her that made him want to be gentle. "Emily?" he repeated. "Yes or no?"

"Yes." She half whispered the word. This wasn't at all what she had expected, she thought as he led her upstairs and into his bedroom. Where were the candles flickering in the soft evening breezes? The roses to perfume the air? This wasn't romantic at all. It was raw and primal, but to her own surprise she knew it was what she wanted from him. They weren't in love. She needed a man to take her virginity, and then show her everything she needed to know if she was going to write that explicitly sexy novel Stratford wanted out of her. This was research. Research to ensure authenticity. Research so she could save her career. Hell! An editor was supposed to help a writer. The sound of the bedroom door closing snapped her back to reality.

"You aren't afraid of me, are you?" he asked her gently. "We both want this, don't we, Emily?" He was giving her an opportunity to stop this madness.

She nodded. She knew what was to come, because she had read enough in this past week about the sexual situation, but she was shaking inside, and afraid that if she spoke her voice would give her away. Then he might not do it. She had been wearing a yellow cotton tee. He pulled it up over her head and arms, laying it aside on the chair.

"I like your taste in scanties," he said with a small smile, fingering the top of the lacy little bra she was wearing. "Now let's see how this opens. Ah, the front." He unhooked the garment and slid it off over her shoulders, tossing it to where the tee lay. "Oh, Emily," he said softly, staring at her breasts. "How lovely these are." Reaching out he cupped a single breast in his palm. She had small, pointed pink nipples.

What was she supposed to do? Emily wondered frantically. Well, she was certainly beginning to understand the necessity of practical experience. Her books did not cover anything like this. It would seem she should begin undressing him. Her fingers fumbled with the small buttons on his sports shirt. Getting them all open, she pushed the shirt from his broad shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. Her fingers splayed out over his broad chest. His skin was soft, but he was hard beneath. In one of her books she had seen the woman kiss the man's nipples. Bending her head, she did so now.

His hands were now undoing her jeans, and he lifted her from the pile of denim. "For a proper miss you wear very sensuous panties," he told her, eyeing the silk bikini bottom, amused.

"They match the bra," she said low. "Pretty undergarments are my one vice," Emily told him. Her hands imitated his, and she undid his jeans, thrusting them down over his lean hips. "Oh!" she gasped, surprised. "You don't wear…" Her voice died.

"No, I don't," he said. "And from now on I don't want you to either. No bra. No panties when you are with me. I want you ready whenever I want you, Emily. And you will be a very good girl and do what I tell you, won't you?" He tipped her face up to his even as he ripped the lace-and-silk bikini from her body. Then his hand slipped quickly between her legs to cup her mons.

Emily caught her breath, surprised. "No underwear?" she managed to say.

"When I want to fuck you, angel face, I don't want to have to waste the time pulling off your clothes that I could spend making us both happy," he told her.

"Do you treat all your women this way, Devlin?" She could not lose control of this situation. Oh, God, his hand was so warm. He fingered the curls of her pubic area and she couldn't contain the shiver that ran up her spine.

"Are you a good girl or a bad girl?" he asked her. His tongue began to harry her small ear. "I think you might be a bad girl under all that propriety."

"I don't know what I am, but I'm sure you're going to tell me afterward," she said spiritedly. "I already know you're a bad boy, Devlin." She was naked in the arms of a naked man. And she still had the ability to carry on a conversation? What in the name of heaven would her grandmothers think of her? Well, at least she wasn't Katy.

"Like all writers, you talk too much," he said, and then he kissed her mouth hard. His tongue ran suggestively along her lips, and instinctively she opened them, allowing him entry. Their tongues curled about each other.

He had pulled her against him. Their naked bodies were touching, and the sensation was very exciting. Was this what was called a French kiss? she asked herself as their tongues began to caress each other. Not bad, and his breath tasted of mint and coffee. She let her tongue stroke his.

He pushed her back onto the bed. Her butt was on the mattress, but her legs were dangling over. Then he knelt and, lifting her legs up, rested them over his shoulders. What was he doing? He pulled her legs apart, and his dark head dove between them.

Emily squealed with surprise, almost fainting with shock when she felt him open her labia and begin to lick a part of her flesh she had never anticipated would be touched by another's tongue. Vaguely she recalled seeing pictures of a man between a woman's legs in her books, but she never knew exactly what was happening. Well, she did now! "Oh, God!" His tongue had touched her clitoris, and it was incredibly sensitive. The tongue flicked relentlessly back and forth over that rosebud of flesh. She was almost unconscious with the pleasure his tongue was giving her. She shivered once, twice. "Please," she said. "Please!" She wasn't quite sure what she wanted, but she wanted something.

He stopped, disentangling himself from her slender limbs.

"No!" she said, shocked by her own reaction. "No!"

Laughing, he pulled her up, giving her a kiss. "That's how you taste, Emily, and you are delicious." Then he sat quickly down on the bed, yanking her over his knee, and gave her bottom three quick, hard spanks. "I figured you for a bad girl, angel face. Let's be bad together now." He stood for a moment again, and then pushed her back onto the bed. "Those darling little tits of yours need some loving attention," he told her. Flinging himself next to her, he lowered his dark head and closed his mouth over one of her nipples. "Ummm," he said. "Almost, but not quite as tasty as your sweet cunny."

Oh, Lord, Emily thought. Her books had certainly not prepared her for all of this. What else didn't they show her? She had to do something herself to prove to him that she was enjoying their encounter. "Hey, give me a turn!" she said and, pulling away from him, began to kiss his nipples. Boldly she licked them and then let her tongue move down his torso as far as his belly button. His pubic hair was thickly curled, and the color of midnight. And his penis… For a moment she was frightened. The men in the picture books she had didn't have penises like that. He seemed far bigger. Thicker. Longer.

"Don't take me in your mouth." Devlin groaned. "I want to come inside you this first time, angel face. Do you have any condoms? I didn't quite expect this."

"No," Emily said, shaking her head.

"It's all right. I've been tested. I'm fine. How 'bout you? You're on the pill?"

"Uh-huh," she lied, suspecting he'd stop if she told him the truth: that she wasn't on the pill because she didn't need it. That she had never before had sex.

He pulled her up and on top of him, rubbing his penis between her thighs. Then suddenly he rolled Emily over, spreading her thighs wide, fitting himself between them. He took her face between his big hands. "I never wanted a woman so quickly before," he told her. "What is this magic about you, Emily Shanski?" Then he kissed her slowly.

It was the most sensual kiss she had ever imagined. His mouth was warm and seductive against hers. She felt as if her bones were melting as his lips worked against hers. Still, Emily was very, very aware he was positioning himself to enter her. She tensed, surprised when he immediately noticed.

"I'll go slow this first time," he told her. "I want to ram myself home, I'm so damned hot for you, angel face. But I want you to always remember the first time Mick Devlin fucked you." The head of his penis pushed gently into her vagina barely an inch. "Do you know how hard it is for me to be patient? You are so tight, angel face, and so ready for me." He kissed her again, moving himself another tiny distance.

Emily's eyes were closed tight. She was barely able to breathe. Her whole consciousness was focused on what was happening to her. His thick penis stretched the walls of her vagina. She could feel her body enclosing him, feel him moving inexorably forward. When did it end? And where was that mysterious thing called orgasm that was supposed to happen to her? Would she know it when it happened?

Michael Devlin struggled in the face of his own overwhelming lust to give his partner every bit of enjoyment that he could. He knew if he did, she would retaliate in kind. The orgasm building up in him was going to be enormous, he sensed. And then suddenly, to his great surprise his slow sweet progress was blocked. At first he thought he was imagining it, but no, he was not. "Jaysus!" he swore. "You're a virgin!" He looked down at Emily with her tightly closed eyes. "Open your eyes, you conniving little witch, and tell me the truth. You're a virgin, right?"

Emily did not open her eyes. "Uh-huh," she whispered.

"Oh, Christ, I can't stop now, angel face," he told her. "I'm sorry." And then without further ado, he pulled his raging penis back and drove through her hymen.

Emily shrieked. "You're hurting me," she sobbed. Why hadn't anyone warned her about pain? Would it always be like that? All her books were useless.

"Lie still," he told her. "The pain will go away in a minute. You damned little fool, you should have warned me." His hand caressed her face tenderly.

"If I had you wouldn't have done it," she whimpered.

"Probably not," he agreed. "Why?"

"Is this the time to be discussing this?" she asked almost ruefully.

"No, angel face, it isn't," he said. Then he was kissing her gently, softly, and moving on her with tender care.

The pain was gone almost as quickly as it had come. Her eyes closed again, and she let herself slide away into a world of sensation. Her body was accepting him far more easily now. He whispered little prompts in her ear, and she followed them easily. Her legs wrapped about his torso, and she gasped with distinct pleasure as he moved deeper into her vagina. "Oh, yes!" she heard her own voice say, and he laughed low. The rhythm between them was like nothing she had ever experienced. This was wonderful!

"I've got to come!" he groaned. "Sorry!"

And she felt his cum flooding her body. Emily sighed deeply with the sheer pleasure of it. "Can I have more, sir?" she asked him.

Michael Devlin rolled off of her and lay breathing heavily for several long minutes. He had just fucked the first virgin he had had since he was fifteen, and he had never been entirely sure that Maureen Duffy was indeed a virgin, although she had sworn she was. But Emily Shanski certainly had been a virgin. Her very tight little hymen had shattered beneath the persistent battering of his penis. He had felt the warm blood. Glancing down he saw it on his dick, on her thighs, on the bedsheet that had been beneath them. "This will not happen again," he told her in a stern voice. But he knew he didn't mean it. He didn't care what had convinced her to give him the gift of her virginity, but he was certainly not unhappy about it. And he wanted more.

Emily propped herself up on an elbow and looked down into his handsome face. "Devlin," she said, "let's get one thing straight right now. Unless you continue to instruct me in the arts of passion I will not be able to write that damned sexually explicit book Stratford wants of me. You see our problem, don't you? And you're my editor, aren't you? You're supposed to help me, right? It's your job, isn't it? I don't intend to let my career go down the toilet because J. P. Woods can't get over the fact that you wouldn't service her seven years ago."

"My God! You seduced me!" He started to laugh. "And here I thought it was the other way around, angel face, but you seduced me."

"Yep," Emily admitted, "and now that we have my virginity out of the way you are going to teach me everything I need to know to write an explicit and sexier novel. Hell, Devlin, your ass is as much on the line in this situation as mine is," she told him.

He grinned up at her. He couldn't help it. Here he had thought she was a prissy little miss, and that he was going to have a difficult time getting the results from her that Stratford wanted. Emily Shanski had sure as hell fooled him, and he had to admit he admired her for it. She was a survivor. "First off, woman, I need my breakfast to restore my strength," he told her. "And then you have to tell me where I can get condoms. Drugstore? Shopping center? And you had better get a prescription for the morning-after pill from Dr. Sam. And some birth control pills. You're not on the pill, are you, you bald-faced little liar."

"Why would I be on the pill? I never had sex before." She grinned back at him.

"I'd spank you except I suspect you like it," he told her.

"So we're going to be lovers, Devlin?" Emily asked softly.

"We are lovers, angel face. But we shouldn't be, and you know it," he said.

"You said you wanted to fuck me the moment you saw me," she reminded him.

"Wanted to didn't mean I would have," he replied. "Oh, I know the reputation I carry around: Devlin, the Irish Casanova, but I've never before banged one of my writers, Emily. You know the old saw about mixing business and pleasure."

"How about, 'All work and no play makes Devlin much too serious'?" she teased.

"I'm sending you to the showers," he responded.

"Only shower in the house is in your bathroom," she said sweetly. "Come with me?"

He shook his head in wonder. "Jaysus! What have I unleashed?"

"Owww," Emily said, getting up from the tangle of sheets on the bed. "Ohh, I hurt. You're the expert. How soon will it go away?"

"See how you feel after your shower," he suggested.

She nodded and went into the bathroom. He heard the water begin to run. What had he done? he asked himself once again. This was pure insanity. What if she fell in love with him? What a mess that would be. What if he fell in love with her? And then he admitted to himself that he was already in love with her. He hadn't known her a week, and yet the first time he had seen her he had known on some deep level that Emily Shanski was the woman he'd been waiting for his whole life.

And he had lusted for her. God, he had lusted for her. Every time this week he had thought of her for more than a minute or two he found himself getting a hard-on. How could something so magical have happened to Michael Devlin, the lady-killer, the love-'em-on-my-terms-and-then-leave-'em guy? He didn't deserve a girl like Emily Shanski, and he had damned well better keep these sixteen-year-old's feelings he had oozing out of his almost forty-year-old body to himself.

They would have a love affair that would be strictly business. Their private business. No one else had to know. He'd teach her enough to write the book the company wanted of her, and that would be that. When was the book due? End of December, he recalled. Well, they would have a wonderful summer and autumn together, Michael Devlin decided. And after that he'd tell Martin Stratford that he wanted to return to London. Random House wanted him back. They were even offering him his own new imprint, and a staff to implement it. Let J. P. Woods become CEO of Stratford. Aaron Fischer would see that Emily got a good new deal wherever she went.

She walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped about her. "Your turn," she told him. And when he had showered again and come out to dress, she was already in her jeans and yellow tee, her panties and bra in her hand. "I'll put these away and meet you down in the kitchen," she said with a smile as she walked out the door of his bedroom.

"Okay," he said, his naked body warming up as her eyes swept admiringly over him. Damn! He was getting another hard-on. Get a grip, Devlin, he told himself. First food, and then he was going to take her to bed for the rest of the day. He pulled his jeans back on, wincing slightly at the tightness in his crotch. He had gone down barefooted earlier, because that was how he behaved in his own house. She hadn't objected, and so he went downstairs without his shoes again.

Emily was already scrambling eggs. "From the look in your eye," she said mischievously, "we're going to need our strength. A little protein can't hurt."

He walked up behind her, one arm going about her waist, the other hand reaching up to slip underneath her tee and cup a breast. "Eggs will be fine," he told her, nipping at her earlobe. His thumb rubbed against her nipple.

"I've got sausages in the other pan," she said, indicating with her head. Her breasts were getting tight, and she could suddenly feel a sticky wetness between her thighs. "Devlin, if you keep doing that we are going to end up on the kitchen table. Stop it! I'm going to burn everything if you don't. I don't want the whole town to know about us."

He removed the hand, but continued holding her against him. "Why are"-he corrected himself-"were you a virgin at thirty-one?" he asked, curious.

"You know I was raised by my two grandmothers. That my parents grew up next door to each other. This is Gran's house- Gran O'Malley. She was the last of her branch of the Dunhams, who were among the founders of Egret Pointe. She was Katy's mother. This house and the one to its right were built by a Dunham for his twin daughters when they married in 1860. Gran descends from one of the twins, Mary Anne Dunham. Her sister, Elizabeth Maude, had the other house, but her line ended in 1954, when her twin spinster granddaughters died. That was when Grandpa Shanski bought the house. Katy and Joe were born in 1957 and 1956 respectively. Actually, they're just six months apart, which was why they were in the same school grade together. My father was born on St. Joseph's Day in March, and my mother in September on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels," Emily explained, spooning eggs onto a warm plate that had been in the oven, and then adding the sausages. "They grew up best friends. Sit down, Devlin, eat.

"Then in their senior year Joe led our local high school team to its first state football championship. He was that boy quarterback you see in those movies Hollywood made in the 1940s. Katy was the cute blue-eyed head cheerleader. Everyone knew Joe Shanski and Katy O'Malley. And everyone loved them. Even their peers. The whole town got drunk celebrating. Katy and Joe got a little drunker, and continued their celebration in the back of his car. In the morning both admitted it was a mistake. They decided they'd forget about it, and went back to their old best-friends routine. They were both a little embarrassed by the whole thing, Joe has said." She filled her plate with eggs and sausages and sat down at the table with him.

"But then you came along," Devlin said with a small smile.

"Yep," Emily agreed. "That I did. When Katy realized, she told Joe, and then they told the grans. Grandpa Shanski was already gone, leaving Grandma a widow with two sons to raise. By this time it was March. Katy had a scholarship to Wellesley, and Joe had one to Princeton. They couldn't have gone to such wonderful schools without those scholarships, and both had serious careers in mind. So Katy hid her condition in order to avoid getting kicked out of high school, and the grans sneaked them off to another town for a nice civil marriage ceremony so I'd be born on the proper side of the blanket. After their graduation Katy was supposed to go off to Europe on a grand tour before college. Actually she went into a nice church home for naughty girls until she had her baby. I was supposed to be put out for adoption to a good Catholic family, but once the grans saw me they agreed they couldn't let me go, and took me themselves to raise."

"Your parents divorced then?" he said.

"Actually the civil union was annulled on the grounds that Katy was under the age of consent when they had married. The fact that their parents had arranged the marriage in the first place was conveniently overlooked. And this allowed both Katy and Joe to be married in the church when they finally chose mates one day, which of course they did. Katy went to Yale Law after Wellesley, and eventually married Carter Phelps the Fourth. She has two kids, Phoebe and Carter the Fifth. Joe's a doctor, a pediatrician, actually. He married a nice Irish girl named Mary Shannon, and they have three sons, Joe, Frank, and Sean."

"You don't call your parents Mom and Dad," he noted.

"I never thought of them like that," Emily said. "My mother and I never saw each other at all except at Christmas, when she came home because my Grandmother O'Malley insisted she do so. I don't think she ever even thought of me except when she had no other choice. Please don't misunderstand, though. Katy's a nice lady, and a good mother to my half brother and sister, but for her I was a mistake to be forgotten. Of course, when she married Carter the Fourth she had to tell him about her little slip from grace before the engagement was announced. They both knew Carter the Fourth would be going into politics. I was displayed most prominently at their society wedding with Gran O'Malley. Carter the Fourth had wanted me to be a flower girl, but Katy drew the line at that." Emily chuckled. "I was referred to as her child from a brief high school union that had been annulled. I like Carter and his kids. My half sister is actually quite a fan of mine. Katy is quite astounded by my career and by my success. Now and again you'll see a media piece referring to me as Senator Phelps of Virginia's stepdaughter. But not often. I prefer to be my own woman."

"I've discovered that," he said, reaching for another of her sweet rolls and buttering it lavishly. She was a senator's stepdaughter? Could he be deported for making wild love to a senator's virgin stepdaughter? "What about your father?"

"Oh, Joe's a good guy. I saw more of him as a kid than I did of Katy, but medical school takes up a lot of time. He always remembered my birthday, though. When he married Mary Shannon she wanted me with them, but the grans put their collective feet down. So she went and had three sons of her own. Joey and Frank are in high school now, and Sean's in middle school. I always get invited for the holidays, of course. Mary Shannon is a grand, bighearted Irish girl, and while Gran Shanski was a bit put off by her enthusiasm, she appreciated her loving nature. But you can understand why I never called them Mom and Dad. They gave me life, to be sure, but they weren't my parents at all." She stood up. "Are you through, Devlin? You're going to get sick if you eat another sweet roll," Emily told him, reaching for his plate. "You've had four already."

"We have work to do, Emily Shanski," he told her with a grin. "But first I need to get to a pharmacy for some condoms. Want to tell me where?"

She did, and then added, "Try not to attract too much attention to yourself, Devlin. I mean between the fact that you're a striking man, and that Healy." She sighed. "You don't want anyone at Stratford to know we're having a love affair. And I don't want anyone in Egret Pointe to know. It's a small town, Devlin."

"I grew up in one," he said as he headed out the back door for his car with a wave. He knew just what he wanted: the thinnest rubber on the market, lubricated. He hoped the store she was sending him to would have them. And she had to get on the pill. He didn't want to wear those damned rubbers any longer than he had to. He wanted nothing coming between him and Emily Shanski's wet, hot cunt. He backed slowly out of her driveway and headed down Founder's Way just as Rina Seligmann was turning her Lexus onto the little street. They waved at each other.

Where was he going? Rina wondered as she pulled up in front of Emily's house. She called out as she entered the front door, "Emily, it's Rina."

"I'm upstairs making the bed," Emily called down. "Be right with you."

"No, I'll come up and help you," Rina said, hurrying up the stairs. "Why are you changing the sheets in the guest room? This isn't the Grande Hotel, sweetie, and I'm sure Mr. Gorgeous has slept on the same bedsheets a couple of nights in a row." Then something caught Rina's eye. "Oh, my God," she said dramatically. "You screwed him! Was he wearing a condom? I'll tell Sam to give you a prescription. No, I'll have him give you a couple of months of samples. You don't want everyone in town knowing you're screwing your editor. I never asked before, but it was your first time, wasn't it?"

Emily was almost beet red in the face with Rina's blunt questions. "If it was my first time, Rina," she said, "how would I know if he was good?"

"You'd know," Rina replied. "It's instinct."

"Then he's good."

"Why now? And why him?" Rina wondered. "Oh, the sexy book." She started putting fresh pillow slips on the pillows.

"Hey, he's my editor, and he's supposed to help me," Emily responded with a little grin. "And his career is just as much on the line as mine. He's not married, and he's not involved with anyone else, so why not him?"

"Well," Rina said, "he looks like a great first-timer. Why didn't you use the Channel?"

"It seems their reality and this reality have to be in sync for it to work," Emily explained. She sighed. "And my new hero looks just like Devlin. Go figure."

Rina nodded. "Then you wanted him right from the get-go," she said as they tucked in the sheet and fluffed the down coverlet.

"It was the oddest thing, Rina. The second our eyes met I felt as though someone had hit me in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I knew Michael Devlin even though I had never before set eyes on him. Go figure that one out. Don't put the spread on."

Rina chuckled. "Okay," she said, grinning. "Then I had better get going. I'll go get you some birth control samples from Sam. Pills or the patch?"

"Devlin went to get condoms. It's okay for this weekend," Emily replied.

"Unless he gotcha the first time," Rina considered.

"Rina, you know women don't get pregnant the first time," Emily told her.

Rina Seligmann looked both astounded and appalled at the same time. "Who in the name of God ever told you that?" she wanted to know. "Not your grans."

"I guess I wasn't thinking too straight at that moment," Emily muttered.

"Oy vay!" Rina muttered. "When your editor goes home tomorrow you come right over and let Sam have a look at you, Emily Shanski. I promised both your grans on their deathbeds that I'd look after you, and I'm not about to break such a promise."

"You mean I could have gotten… could be pregnant from that one time? Oh, my God, Rina! Then why the hell did my friends in college say stuff like that if it wasn't so?" Emily looked distinctly unhappy. "God, I'm Katy O'Malley all over again, and I've tried so hard not to be." She looked like she was going to burst into tears.

Rina put comforting arms about Emily. "Sweetie, it's all right. More than likely you aren't pregnant, but you've got to be careful. Girls in school believe all kinds of silly things in order to justify behavior they know damned well they shouldn't be doing." She laughed lightly. "Come see Sam Monday after Hot Stuff has gone back to the city, but I'm sure you're okay." She set Emily back a pace, and wiped a tear from her cheek. "And you are nothing like Katy O'Malley. You are sweet and thoughtful and very dear. That woman who birthed you has none of those qualities."

"You never liked my mother, did you, Rina?" Emily said.

"No, I don't like her. But neither do I dislike her. She just isn't my cuppa, sweetie. I guess it's that too-cool, too-sure-of-herself attitude that gets me. I remember when your gran died. Her own mother, and she didn't show up until the morning of the funeral. Came in a limousine, as I recall. And left immediately afterward. Didn't even stay for the luncheon you had arranged for the mourners."

"She had to get back to D.C., she said," Emily remembered. "An important deposition, as I recall. Some big case she was working on."

"She could have rescheduled it. It was her mother, for God's sake," Rina said sharply. "But your gran always said Katy let nothing stand in the way of her success. Not even having a baby." She took up the sheets. "I'll stick these in your laundry on my way out. I don't want to run into himself on his way back from the drugger."

"Thanks," Emily said. "And Rina…"

The older woman turned. "Yeah?"

"I love you," Emily told her.

"Go on with yis," Rina Seligmann said, using what had been a favorite expression of Emily's grandmother O'Malley. Then with a smile she hurried down the stairs.

Emily looked about the room. It looked the same, and yet she would never look at this room again in the same way. It was in this room that she had lost her virginity. She still felt a little sore, but she would live. She heard the front door open and close as Rina left. Well, she had better go downstairs herself and decide what to do for dinner. There was beef left over from last night. And gravy. Lots of gravy. Open-faced hot roast-beef sandwiches and a salad sounded good. And a dessert. She'd do a simple yellow cake with raspberry jam between the three layers and powdered sugar on the top.

Michael Devlin found her in the kitchen when he returned from his shopping expedition. "Mission accomplished!" he told her, holding up a little bag. "But before I take you to bed again, Miss Shanski, I want to know something about this book you are going to write. And I want to know if there is a wonderful restaurant in Egret Pointe where we may have dinner tonight. I'll book a reservation now."

"I thought I'd do dinner for us. Just leftovers, and this cake I'm putting in the oven now," Emily told him. "But we could have it for tea."

"No, I want to take you out," he said firmly.

"Let me think," Emily said. Lord, Saturday night was the night that everyone who was anyone in Egret Pointe ate out. If they saw her with a strange man it was sure as hell bound to cause talk. And she did not want to answer any questions. At least, not yet. "I think the nicest restaurant around is the old inn up in East Harbor. It's a bit of a drive, but it's along the bay road, and quite pretty. Would you mind?"

"No," he said. "How long a drive?"

"About half an hour," she told him, closing the oven door on the three cake pans and setting her timer for thirty minutes. She drew open a cabinet drawer and pulled out the local Yellow book. "Here. Better call them now. Saturday night's a big night, especially at this time of year. Spring seems to bring everyone out again."

He took the directory from her, found the number, and, using his cell, called to make a reservation. "Eight o'clock all right for you?" he asked.

Emily nodded, then said, "I'll go get my notes. With cake in the oven I'd rather do our work here, if you don't mind." He didn't, and she was quickly back, carrying a wire basket and a pink file folder. "Sit," she told him, and took a chair for herself.

"You haven't written anything yet?" he asked.

"No," Emily answered him. "Only a couple of descriptions. I wanted to run some things by you first. I always did that with Rachel, and talking over the plotline usually makes everything clearer for me. Can we work that way too?"

"Of course," he agreed. "I'm not here to change your work habits. Just to help you to get back on track. Sex, as you've now discovered," he said with a mischievous grin, "does happen in real life, and so your plot should reflect real life too."

"I don't know enough about sex yet," she told him, "so why don't we just start with the main focus of the plot?"

"Go," he said with a nod.

"You know the story of the Scarlet Pimpernel?" Emily asked.

"I do. Great swashbuckling tales of Sir Percy Blakely by Baroness Orczy."

"Same sort of thing, but with my heroine in the Sir Percy role," she told him.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is she traveling into France to rescue people from the Terror?" he wanted to know. "There has to be a damned good reason."

"Her mother is a French noblewoman, her father an English earl. Caroline is seventeen, and has been in Normandy with her mother for almost a year. They had gone the previous summer to visit her mother's family. The earl learns that his wife and daughter have been caught up in the arrest of his wife's family. They have all been imprisoned in her grandparents' cellar. Her father is pulling every string he can to get them released. Meanwhile in France, his wife and daughter are struggling to survive. Caroline catches the eye of their jailer, but her mother saves her by submitting to the man, who afterward hands her over to several of his men because she hasn't given him the pleasure he anticipated from raping a hated aristo. Caroline's mother grows mortally ill from her harsh treatment just as the order comes through from Citizen Robespierre, who has accepted a large ransom from the English earl for the release of the two women. The mother swears her daughter to secrecy about what has transpired, and then dies as their ship is in sight of the English coast. I may make some changes, though, before I even begin to write it."

"Great opening!" he said. "Dramatic, poignant. I like it. Okay, so how does she end up rescuing others? I mean, if she's seventeen she's hardly in a position to do something like that in Georgian England."

"Her father is so distraught by his wife's death that he commits suicide. But before he does he makes certain provisions for his daughter. The earl's heir is his wastrel brother, and while he is going to inherit the title, the earl's estate isn't entailed upon an heir. The earl makes a will that gives his daughter the bulk of his fortune, leaving the rest in the form of a trust to care for the estate and provide his younger brother with a small income.

"Then he goes to a friend of his, the Duke of Malincourt, who is an elderly man with no children. He arranges with the duke to marry Caroline so her fortune will be kept safe from his brother. The marriage, of course, is in name only. The fortune will be hers when the duke dies, so she will, as a young, beautiful, and wealthy dowager duchess, be an excellent marriage prospect for the man she will eventually fall in love with. Without a husband for Caroline, her uncle would have had access to her monies, and probably would have gambled them away, leaving her impoverished. Caroline knows nothing of her father's plans, but as an obedient daughter, and still in shock over what has happened in France, she accepts his decision to marry her off to the duke. The day after the wedding the earl puts a pistol to his head.

"Grief-stricken, Caroline is horrified to learn the truth from her kindly old husband as to how her father has protected her before taking his own life. She vows then and there to get back at the revolutionaries in France for destroying her family. She seeks out others among her class who are like-minded, and begins her operations. She is known to her enemies as Lavender, for she always leaves a sprig of the flower behind when she has snatched someone from the clutches of Madame la Guillotine."

"Very nice," he said, "but where are we going to fit the sex in, m'dear?"

"The old duke dies when Caroline is twenty," Emily continued. "His heir is his nephew, and the nephew wants to make Caro his wife, a fact known to the old duke, who fully approved. He even suggested to Caroline that after a proper period of mourning she marry his heir. But of course, Caro fears a young and alert husband will discover what she has been doing, so she resists. But the new duke, Justin Trahern, seduces her. She tells him she will be his wife, but she will be answerable to no one but herself. He agrees because he is deeply in love with her.

"By accident-and don't ask me how because I haven't decided yet-he learns what she is doing. At first he is outraged that a woman would behave so. Then he becomes frightened for her. He tells her he knows, and in an effort to make him understand why she does what she does, Caro tells him the truth of what happened to her mother. Trahern realizes the only chance he has of stopping the woman he loves from putting herself in constant danger is to find the jailer and the men who raped her mother, and see them dead."

"I like it," Michael Devlin told her. "I like it very much. It's clever, and we should be able to make the love affair between Caro and Trahern sizzle. Women who have had tough times will identify nicely with the heroine. She's suffering survivor's guilt, of course, and that does make you do things you might not otherwise do."

The timer on the counter pinged, and Emily got up to check her cakes. They were perfect. Turning off the oven, she drew each pan from inside, carefully setting them on her counter to cool before turning them out onto her cake racks.

"Smells good. What kind of cake is it going to be?" he asked her.

"Just an old-fashioned kind my grans taught me. Raspberry jam between the layers, and powdered sugar on top," Emily explained.

"My gran in Ireland used to make that," he said. "It was always my favorite."

"I think everything is your favorite." She laughed. "There isn't anything I've cooked so far that you haven't scarfed up like a starving man, Devlin. I think you have a tapeworm," Emily teased him.

"Roast beef, chocolate trifle, cake with jam," he replied. "What isn't to like?"

She laughed again. "I like you, Devlin," she told him. "I was really upset when I learned Rachel had gone, but I'm not as upset now."

"I haven't edited your manuscript yet," he said with a small grin. Then he said, "I think turnabout is fair play, Emily Shanski. I'm going to make you lunch. I'll need bread, rat cheese, honey mustard, and olive oil or butter. And a cast-iron frying pan."

"Grilled cheese sandwiches!" she said. "Now, those are my favorites."

"Get going, woman, and fetch me my supplies." He chuckled, giving her bottom a small smack.

"Yes, sir!" Emily replied, and she bustled off to find what he needed. "And I want you to know I'm a connoisseur of grilled cheese. These had better be good."

"I'm good at everything I do, Emily, as you are about to discover," he said.

And she laughed. "I'll be the judge of that," she told him.

He grinned, suddenly realizing that he was happy. And Michael Devlin couldn't remember the last time he had been really happy.