Emily swallowed hard. She had read enough Victorian porn to know a little of what his suggestion involved. "Do you like to do that to a woman?" she asked him slowly. She wasn't certain it was something she wanted to attempt.

"Some women enjoy it," he said candidly. "But it's one of those things where you have to trust me completely in order to experience it without fear. You may not be ready. You may not want to do it at all. But then again, you might want to try it just once."

"Would you stop if I said I didn't like it?" she asked him. "I mean, it's not like our first time, where you couldn't stop after a certain point, is it?"

"If we do it and you say stop, I will stop immediately," he promised her. "We probably won't do it entirely the first time. It's important you aren't frightened. Once we've done it you may not want to do it again, angel face, but you will enjoy it. And you will be in total control of our situation, not me."

Emily stood, considering the suggestion. She knew Devlin was trustworthy. And frankly the idea of anal sex-the very forbidden nature of it-was intriguing and tempting. Was she bold enough to try? She thought some more. Yes! She did want to try it, if only once. He had said she would be in control, yet shoving her ass up at him to be fucked seemed a submissive position to her, and it was considered deviant. Still… "I'm game," she finally said. "Scared, but game."


He nodded. He hadn't been certain she would attempt this new form of sexual pleasure, but he realized more and more that Emily was a consummate researcher. And he knew that eventually their play would show up in a book, if not this one, then the next. "Give me a moment more to recover from being ravaged by you," he said wickedly.

"I'll meet you in the bedroom. The guest room where you are staying has the same king-size bed as their bedroom. Do you think they knew I'd been visiting you?"

Devlin laughed. "I think you're probably the only woman to ever stay here, let alone get fucked here." He chuckled.

Emily shot him a grin and disappeared into his bedroom. He waited a few minutes until he heard the shower, and then, getting carefully up, followed her. Stripping off his clothes he joined her under the pulsing jets of warm water. She took up a bar of olive oil soap from Italy and began rubbing it across his broad, smooth chest. He closed his eyes with the simple pleasure her touch gave him. Her hands moved the soap across his taut belly.

"Considering your age," she teased, "you are a fine figure of a man, Devlin."

"Ouch!" He groaned. "That was low. I was only forty last month. I loved your present, by the way," he teased back. "But it didn't last."

"You can have more anytime," she offered him, her hands soaping his balls with such a delicate touch he almost squealed like a kid being touched for the first time. She turned him about and washed his shoulders, her hands sliding down his back to fondle his buttocks with soapy fingers. Then she turned him to face her again.

In response his big hands fondled her bottom, the edge of one hand moving along the crease between the twin halves. She tensed slightly, but the hand was gone before she could even protest. "Let's get out," he suggested.

They exited the shower and dried each other off before returning to the bedroom. Devlin threw back the coverlet, revealing a smooth, pale peach jersey sheet. "They make their beds as in Europe and England," he said. "I like it. No top sheet just a bottom sheet, and down coverlet." He fell back, bringing her with him. Then he rolled her off of him and cradled her on her side. "It's better to begin this slowly," he said. "We're just going to make love, but I'm going to concentrate on touching your butt and not your tits, okay? This isn't the kind of thing where I jump your bones, angel face. I've told you that you will be in control. If you say stop, I'll stop."

"Do you like ass-fucking your lover?" she asked him, curious.

"It's an interesting variation," he said slowly. "It's no fun if your partner doesn't enjoy it. I'm not into degradation. It's like any other aspect of making love: If your partner enjoys it, you are more likely to enjoy it. We don't have to do this, Emily."

"No, I want to try," she said. "The forbidden is always enticing, Devlin." She felt his hands caressing her back, touching her buttocks with gentle touches. Why were women so sensitive about their asses? she wondered. We're all quick enough to flash our breasts at our men. The edge of his hand was now running along the crease between her buttocks. She tensed just slightly, and he immediately moved away. Okay. He's keeping his promise, she thought. But if I'm nervous when he just brushed by, what the hell is going to happen when it gets down to the nitty-gritty? Do I really want to do this? Yeah, I do. The unknown is always scary.

Devlin loved the feel of her skin, the curve of her butt. His hand moved back to the shadowed furrow separating her buttocks. She tensed again, but as quickly relaxed as he followed the line of the crease. His hand pressed slightly, dipping into the fold of the flesh. He rubbed slowly, moving deeper, letting his hand remain there. "Breathe," he told her, sensing her nervousness. The little finger on his hand reached out to caress her anus, pressing just slightly.

"Oh!"

" 'Oh' good, or 'oh' bad?" he asked.

"I didn't realize you could be sensitive there," she said.

"It's an erogenous zone too. It's just not used a whole lot," he told her.

"Touch it again," she said, and he did. "Oh, very good, Devlin," she assured him. Then she gasped as the merest tip of his little finger penetrated her, but barely. "Ohh!"

He held the finger there for a moment, and then removed it. Over the next hour he played with her gently. He had taken a tube of K-Y jelly from the nightstand, but she said nothing. They used it with the dildo, and she could understand the need for it in this situation. He never stopped kissing her, attempting to take the edge off of her nervousness. A single finger, covered with lubricant, pressed gently against her asshole. "It's all right, angel face," he whispered in her ear as he felt her tensing up again. And when she said nothing and relaxed with his reassurance, he pressed a bit more firmly against the sphincter muscle until it slowly gave way and allowed his finger forward an inch, then two inches. He stopped, letting her grow used to this invasion. "What do you think?" he asked her softly.

She was quiet a long moment, and then she said, "I think I could take a little more. It's an interesting sensation. Not uncomfortable at all."

"My cock is a lot bigger," he reminded her. "Let's try two fingers and see how you manage, okay?"

"Okay," Emily agreed nervously as she felt the single finger being withdrawn. Then she felt the pressure again against her asshole. Slowly, slowly, and with great care he now inserted two of his fingers. The sensation was, to her surprise, exciting. "Oh! Oh, good. Oh, interesting." she told him.

He was surprised at how well she was handling this. He had assumed they would not manage this style of intercourse in one session, but now he considered she might very well be ready for it. "Want to try going all the way?" he asked her, kissing her shoulder.

"Yes," she answered him. "Yes, I do."

"Do you know the correct position to assume?" he asked her. "Is it in those books of yours?" he teased mischievously as he withdrew his fingers from her.

"As a matter of fact, it is," Emily told him, rolling over, drawing her knees up beneath her, and resting her arms on the pillows.

His penis was more than ready. He slid on a well-lubricated condom and rubbed her anal opening lavishly with the jelly. Then, kneeling behind her, he positioned his cock and began an insistent pressure he knew would force the little ring of muscle open. It gave, and he moved forward, inserting himself slowly, slowly, slowly into her asshole. She gasped as he began to fill the very tight passage, but she didn't cry off. He didn't know whether to be surprised or proud. Her trust in him was obviously total.

Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Emily whispered silently in her head. The feeling of him, of his thickness, of his mass sliding into a place she had never really considered a penis should be, was incredible. There had been a slight pinch of pain, but she had held herself very still, and he had been extraordinarily gentle. Now fully sheathed, he stopped, letting them both experience the sensation of his throbbing cock in her asshole. It was certainly unlike any sensation she had ever experienced before. "You don't even have to move." She gasped. "It's not going to take much to make me come."

"Just a little of this," he said, reaching beneath her to tweak her clitoris with a skilled and very wicked finger.

"Oh, my God!" Emily screamed softly, and then her orgasm exploded, leaving her almost breathless.

He pulled his engorged cock from her deliciously tight asshole, pulled the condom from it, and, rolling her over onto her back, slid into her vagina. Then with slow, deliberate strokes of his penis he began to again rouse the fires within her until her head was thrashing back and forth, and he could see nothing but a haze before his own eyes. Sensation! He could only feel sensation: the muscles of her vagina squeezing him hard, the heat and wetness of her. His lust grew in intensity as he sensed she was ready to erupt again. And when she did, her second orgasm even greater than the first, his passion met hers with equal force and determination as his own juices burst forth.

Neither of them spoke for several long minutes. Finally he asked, "Well? What do you think, angel face?"

"I don't think I would do it again, Devlin, but it was a trip," Emily admitted candidly. She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on an elbow, looking down into his face. "Thank you for being so gentle. I imagine with the wrong lover that would have been a very painful experience."

"It's not my favorite thing to do either," he admitted, "but some of the women I have known can come only when they've got a cock in their asshole." He pulled her into his arms. "I have to say you've got a cute one."

She felt her cheeks growing warm. "Shut up," she told him.

"Stay with me tonight," he said. His thumb brushed across her lips.

"I can't. I left all my lights on. If I don't come home until the morning someone will notice, and trust me, in Egret Pointe there will be questions, if not a cop car checking to see if I'm all right. I like that what we have is private, is ours alone."

"What do we have?" he asked her, wondering what the hell had possessed him to voice his own insecurities.

"Whatever you want, Devlin," Emily answered him. She slipped from his arms and, getting up, went into the bathroom.

He lay quietly listening as the shower ran again. A few minutes later she returned, dressed, and, giving him a quick kiss, was gone from the bedroom. He heard the cottage door close behind her, and then the vroom of her Healy as she pulled away and drove off down the long driveway to the two-lane country road that would take her back home again. He loved her. Oh, yeah, he loved her. He had tried, but he couldn't get a handle on how she might really feel about him. Were there still women in this world who could fall in love with the first man who boffed them? Or was he merely a research helper to Emily Shanski? The thought of any other man making love to her set his pulse pounding with anger. He loved her, but could he reasonably expect her to love him back? He didn't know. Michael Devlin had never before found himself in this kind of situation.

And as she drove Emily was wondering the same thing. He had said at one point, "I adore you." Did that mean love? He had asked her what they had. Was he testing her to be certain that she wouldn't embarrass him by girlishly declaring emotions for him that he could not reciprocate? For the first time in her life Emily Shanski regretted her lack of experience with a man. With love. She had never had a crush on anyone growing up. She had never had her heart broken, even once, because she was so busy trying hard not to be like her mother and her father. Maybe just once she could have thrown caution to the wind, but then the thought of the grans disappointment had always stopped her.

They had given up their middle years and their old age to bring her up. To love her and raise her to be the kind of person they had wanted Katy and Joe to be. But their own children had, in one foolish action, thrown aside the morality they had been raised to have. Only the grans cool heads and logic, along with the respect of all of Egret Pointe, had saved the day for them all. Had saved her, Emily thought. Yes, her parents had been married when she had been born. But they had been given a quick annulment with the cooperation of a local judge before Thanksgiving vacation. And everyone in town knew why they had married. If it weren't for the grans, Emily Shanski would have had a far more difficult life.