“Why would you kill my wife?” Dr. Sam asked as he joined them. He gave Emily a kiss on her cheek.
“Everyone in town is here,” Emily muttered. “I told Rina I didn’t want to have dinner at the club tonight, but how come Carla and Tiffany aren’t up at your place in the mountains? Isn’t this the last big weekend of the summer for Camp Cozy?”
“There’s a forest fire in the mountains near the camp,” Dr. Sam explained. “It’s been so dry. They’ve got it under control, but they asked people to evacuate just to be on the safe side. The Ulrichs are in Europe,” he added as an afterthought. “You know my Rina. She works the room of people like a Catskills comedian entering the lobby of his hotel. She’s probably telling those two he’s your editor, and you know how Carla appreciates a handsome man.” He chuckled.
“I’ll give her two minutes,” Emily said darkly.
Michael Devlin stood up. “Let me handle this,” he said with a grin. Then, walking across the country club dining room to where Rina stood in earnest conversation with her two friends, he took her arm, saying, “Rina, my dear girl, we cannot order until you have joined us, and I for one am famished.” Then he smiled at Carla Johnson and Tiffany Pietro d’Angelo. “I’m Michael Devlin, Emily’s editor. I hope you won’t mind if I steal Rina away from you.” He turned Rina Seligmann away from the two women and escorted her across the floor.
“You got chutzpah, dearie,” Rina murmured as they walked.
“Emily was getting upset. For some reason—and I cannot fathom why—she wants to keep our love affair a secret, Rina,” Michael Devlin said softly. Reaching the table he seated her with a flourish, and then sat back down himself.
Rina chuckled. “I like him,” she said to Emily. “You have my approval to do what you will with him, my child.”
Emily burst out laughing. “That, sir, was ballsy,” she told her lover.
“I agree with my wife, but don’t I always agree with my wife?” Dr. Sam said. Then he turned to the waiter, who was now hovering. “I’ll have the salmon with dill sauce, but I want rice, not those red potatoes you’re always trying to palm off on me. Balsamic on the salad, and I want more than one of those blueberry muffins in the basket tonight.”
While they ate an orchestra tuned up, and by the time they reached dessert people were beginning to dance. The music being played wasn’t at all new, given the audience. There were foxtrots, waltzes, rumbas, and sambas. The Seligmanns got up to dance, and Emily smiled watching them.
“Aren’t they cute?” she said. “He adores her, and she adores him.”
“They’re good people. I’m glad you have them,” he answered.
“I’m lucky,” Emily admitted. “Only in America would an Irish-Polish Catholic girl have Jewish parent figures. Sam’s ancestors and my Dunham ancestors were among the founders of Egret Pointe. There has been a Dr. Seligmann here as long as anyone can remember.”
“I don’t think of the States as having such history,” Michael Devlin admitted. “I am not going to ask you to dance, angel face, because if I do I will embarrass us both. I can’t seem to hold you in my arms without getting a hard-on.”
She blushed, but laughed softly at the same time. “What is going to happen with us, Devlin? This tutorial is getting out of control, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I don’t find that I am unhappy—rather the opposite. What about you?”
“I feel the same way,” Emily said quietly. “Let’s see how well we travel together. When are you going to Frankfurt?”
“Early October,” he replied. “Want to meet in England on the tenth?”
“I’ll make the reservations at the inn in Barrow tomorrow,” she said. “How long do you want to visit with the Palmers?”
“I’d better fly back the fourteenth so I can be in the office that day,” he said. “I don’t want J.P. asking why I’m away so long. Since I’m going to smooth things out with Sava and Pruny, I’ll call it business, and then say I wanted to check on my house as well, since I was there. Who will know you’re away?”
“Rina and Essie,” Emily replied. “I’ll fly home the sixteenth, so Sava and I can have a little girl time together. I know I said three days, but I haven’t been to England in a while, and I can call it a research trip.”
“You two should get out there and dance,” Rina said breathlessly as she returned to the table. “They’re playing real music.”
“We’re enjoying drinking our wine and talking,” Emily quickly spoke up. “Besides, we don’t want your friends gossiping, do we?”
“They’ll gossip anyway,” Rina said with a grin. “That’s what we do every Monday morning: eat doughnuts, drink coffee, and gossip. We’ve been doing it for years. Now that we’re all working again we just meet earlier. And you have to admit that no one has seen you having dinner at the club with a handsome, eligible man in years, Emily.” She turned to Michael Devlin. “And I know you’re eligible, and quite the man,” Rina told him. “Oh, Emily is very quiet, but I see how happy she is. It would be such a pity if you were gay. Every time I see those men on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy I want to weep. That Kyan! So handsome and sexy. Jai ... now Jai I would take home and mother. He’s adorable.”
“I’d like Carson as a best friend,” Emily said. “He makes me laugh, and he’s so witty. But kind too.”
The evening was coming to an end. Fewer couples were dancing now. The dining room was growing quieter. Dr. Sam insisted on picking up the check, and they all left together, passing by the now empty table where Rina’s friends had been sitting. In the parking lot they kissed, then went to their separate cars. The Seligmanns’ Lexus pulled away first. Michael Devlin’s Healy followed.
“He’s in love with her!” Rina said triumphantly.
“Stay out of it, Rina,” her husband warned.
“I just want her happy, Sam. She deserves to be happy.”
“Yes, she does,” he agreed. “So stay out of it. They are two grown people, and they will find their own way. What’s meant to be will be.”
“She’d make the most beautiful bride.” Rina sighed.
Sam Seligmann laughed as they drove along. “My wife, the matchmaker,” he said fondly. “A daughter and two sons, and you’re still not satisfied. Now I know what your ancestors did back in Russia, Rina.”
She joined in laughing. “So I’m a Golda the matchmaker,” she said. “Sue me!” Then she grew serious. “Do you think he’ll marry her, Sam?”
“You said he was in love with Emily,” her husband reasoned.
“But he’s forty, and never married before,” Rina fretted.
“Do you think she loves him?”
“You can’t see it? Oh, yes, Sam! Emily loves Michael,” Rina declared with great assurance. “He’s her first love, and I suspect her last love. She isn’t a girl to give her heart lightly. Oh, God! What if he doesn’t want a wife?”
“What’s meant to be will be,” Dr. Sam repeated. “It’s already written in the book of life, Rina, my darling. So stay out of it!” He turned their car onto Ansley Court.
The Healy turned into Emily’s driveway. They walked together into the house.
“Are you hungry?” she asked him.
He pulled her into his arms. “Only for you.” His mouth took possession of her, moving tenderly over her lips, tasting her with his tongue, playing with the tongue she offered him back. “Why are you always so delicious?” he murmured against her short strawberry-blond hair. “I can never get enough of you.” His hands pushed up her silken skirt, caressing her hips, her buttocks. He backed her against the kitchen table, green eyes dancing mischievously. “We’re going to do it on the table,” he growled in her ear. “Right now, angel face!”
“Devlin!” She gasped as he lifted her up. She was quivering with her excitement. Tomorrow he would return to the city, and she wouldn’t see him again for almost a week. Her buttocks felt the rough oak beneath them as he lowered her. His head was between her
open legs, searching out the core of her, finding it, teasing it. “Oh, yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” she encouraged. Her nipples were hard and tingling. She slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders and freed her breasts from the fabric. He was pulling her forward onto his cock. His mouth found her nipples. “Oh, God!” He was inside her, moving slowly at first, and then with a quicker and more intense rhythm. He suckled on one of her tits hungrily as he worked them to a fever pitch. Emily cried out as they came together in a blaze of heated passion.
What the hell is the matter with me? Michael Devlin asked himself as he pulled himself off of her. He loved her. Did he really want to go back into the city tomorrow morning and spend the day away from her? But what if it didn’t last? What if it had just been a wild and wonderful fling that Emily had initiated to learn about sex? And that had been her—their—original intent. Maybe she was one of those women who prized their independence above everything else. He needed more time. He was too old to offer his heart to a woman, only to have her refuse him.
“Do you have to go back tomorrow?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “If I leave around noon I’ll miss all the traffic. The Healy doesn’t like idling in traffic.”
“You could leave the Healy here, and take the train in on Tuesday morning,” she suggested casually.
“I pay for garaging in my building,” he answered her.
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
“We have the rest of tonight, and tomorrow morning,” he told her as he helped her off her kitchen table. “And if you need me to come back next weekend, I can.”
Emily nodded. “I think you have to come back every weekend until the book is finished,” she told him. “And after that, only if you’d like to, Devlin.”
He ruffled her soft hair. “I would like to, angel face.” Was the suggestion casual? Or did she mean something by it? Could she care for him as he did for her?
“Let’s go to bed!” Emily suggested happily. Men were so dense. Did Devlin really think she was going to let him get away from her now that she had found him? If he loved her, as Rina said he did, he wouldn’t want to leave her.
She barely had time to feed him, they lingered among the sheets so long the next day. But she wouldn’t let him go until she had given him a late breakfast, and then she tucked into the Healy a bag containing several sandwiches and fresh peaches. “Call me so I know you’re back safe,” she said to him, kissing him sweetly on the back porch where no one could see them.
He nodded, kissed her back long and hard, and fondled her butt. “Be good, angel face,” he said as he walked off the porch and climbed into the car.
“I only want to be bad with you, Devlin,” she told him, and waved him off as he backed out of her drive and roared down Founders Way. Well, that wasn’t one hundred percent true, the afterthought struck her. She liked being bad with her duke. But the duke wasn’t real. He was a fantasy lover. She wondered if she would take other fantasy lovers now that her writing had taken a turn for the hotter. The Channel offered such safe sex. No unexpected pregnancies. No STDs. Just utter incredible bliss. It wasn’t real, but it certainly seemed like it was real when you were experiencing it. Going back into the house, she considered having the Channel tonight, but it seemed almost disloyal to Devlin to get it so soon. Couldn’t she live without sex for a single night? She grinned. Now that she knew what it was all about, she wasn’t sure she could.
He called her around four to say he was back in his apartment, and the Healy garaged. “It prefers your driveway to its space in the building,” he told her.
“My Healy misses yours,” she teased. “She liked being nose-to-nose with your Healy in the drive. How was the traffic?”
“Good, but thickening as I got near town,” he said.
They talked for a few more minutes, and then he rang off, telling her, “Now playtime is over, angel face. Get back to work. I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Okay,” she said. “And I’ll see you next weekend.”
“You bet you will,” he promised.
Emily hung up, and then, considering the time, she dialed Savannah’s cell number. It wasn’t that late in England, and Sava was a night owl anyway.
“Hallo?”
“He went back to the city, and I’m alone,” Emily said.
“Well, you’ve had a month of him now. Not tired? Not bored?” Savannah asked.
“I will never be tired or bored with Devlin,” Emily answered honestly.
Savannah laughed. “I’m so glad you finally know what love really is, pet. And the sex? Still incredible? I always heard he was the best.”
“God, yes!” Emily sighed. “Oh, I know that because he’s my first and only lover, some people might say I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I do. I guess it’s an instinct, Sava. The duke may look like him, but he isn’t at all like him in either personality or in the boudoir. Does that sound crazy?”
“Not to me,” Savannah replied. “The gentlemen on the Channel seem to have their own personalities. I don’t really understand it, but I also don’t want to question it.”
“I’m coming to England next month. Devlin goes to Frankfurt, and then we’re meeting. We’ll come down to Barrow and spend a few days. Make me a reservation at the inn in the village, will you? The best they have to offer.”
“You’ll stay with us,” Savannah protested.
“Not this time,” Emily said. “We want a romantic interlude, and we can hardly have one at the manor. Besides, you listen at keyholes, and don’t deny it.”
Savannah giggled. “That’s how I gained my first knowledge of sex,” she admitted. “Mama used to bed my father’s brother every chance she could. Of course, she was a widow, but Uncle Dorian was married. Mama always left her bedroom door open except when Uncle Dorian came. I wondered why. I certainly got an eyeful and earful that first time I peeked. My nanny caught me and hauled me away, muttering about bad girls coming to bad ends.” Savannah laughed. “Thank God for the Channel, for I seem to have my mama’s wild libido! But I would never embarrass Reg. I do love him.”
“You’ll make the reservation then?”
“For when?” Savannah asked.
“We’ll get there October tenth. He’s leaving the fourteenth. I’ll come up to the manor house then until the sixteenth, if that’s all right with you,” Emily said.
“That would be super,” Savannah agreed. “Reg goes up to London a few days a month, and we’ll have girl time while he’s gone. The Channel is trying something new here in England and France, and it’s a perfect time to use it.”
“What is it?” Emily asked.
“It’s a new channel changer. You know how they replaced our old ones with one that got us in by simply pressing the enter button? Well, now there’s a new one that you can program to allow two women to enter the same fantasy at the same time! And I’ve been working on a wonderful idea about a Victorian bordello. You know how prim and proper the Victorians are said to have been. Well, sexually they were animals, darling! While old Reg is up in London we can indulge our most wicked little selves at the Cock and Cunt. That’s what I call the place.” Savannah chuckled.
“Sounds very wicked,” Emily said slowly. “I don’t know if that’s my style, Sava. You are far more adventurous than I am.”
“Emily, we hold the power in the Channel. That’s what makes it so ideal for experimentation. If you say stop, it stops. Not like real life, where, when a man gets past the point of no return, you can’t say, ‘Whoa, Nellie,’ ” Savannah reminded Emily. “I know these last few months you’ve been a participant in the Channel and not an observer, but I also know you’ve probably played it safe. Try something new and maybe just a little dangerous. We’ll be together, darling. Aren’t you just the least bit curious to know what it would be like to have multiple partners at the same time? Or to spend the night entertaining several different cocks in your pussy? Come on, admit it. Every woman thinks about it, and given the ri
ght circumstances most of them would attempt it at least once. I’ve created a really fun group of gentlemen. There’s Bertie and Willie, Freddie and St. Albans. And several others. More than enough to go around. Don’t make a decision now. Wait until you get here. I’m really excited about this. Imagine being able to go into the Channel with your best friend.”
“It is tempting,” Emily considered thoughtfully.
“Devlin will be on a plane flying back to the States. Old Reg will be up in London, and you and I will be in our fantasy getting ourselves fucked to distraction. I know it’s not the correct period for you, but sex is sex. You might pick up something you could use in The Defiant Duchess.”
“I might,” Emily said.
Savannah laughed. “You are intrigued, aren’t you?”
“I admit it,” Emily said.
“Then we’ll have to do it, darling,” Savannah decided for them.
“I expect we’ll be doing it a whole lot that night,” Emily riposted back.
“Gracious, what a wicked thrust,” Savannah said drolly.
“There will be lots of wicked thrusts that night, won’t there, Sava?”
Savannah laughed. “God, I hope so! I haven’t had a good orgy in ages, and you haven’t had one at all. I do so want your first orgy to be fun, darling.”
“I’m going to ring off, Sava,” Emily said. “I’ll talk to you before I come. Have the inn e-mail me a confirmation.”
“Of course. I’ll tell old Reg you sent kisses,” Savannah replied. “You know he would fuck you if you let him, Emily. He’s always fancied you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t fuck him. Not my best friend’s husband,” Emily said, a bit shocked. “Give William and little Selena a kiss for me, will you?”
“Well, just thought I’d ask now that you’re well broken in and all. It’s his birthday in a few weeks, and you would really make a terrific gift. I mean, another consumer something is so predictable, after all.”
“Savannah! You are a dreadful woman,” Emily said, half laughing. “The one woman in this world you will never have to worry about where Reg is concerned is me. As your husband he is off-limits, as far as I am concerned. I’ve never even made one of my heroes look like him. Ewww! Creepy. Now, kisses for the children, remember?”
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