Emily didn't even dare consider what her grandmothers would think of these past three months. My God, after tonight, what hadn't she done with Michael Devlin? The thought, though sobering, still brought a grin to her face. It had been exciting in a taboo sort of way, but anal sex wasn't something she was anxious to repeat-even with her duke. Was she up to the Channel tonight, after what had happened? No, she was not. She was going to go home to bed, and go to sleep. After she had some Forbidden Chocolate ice cream. For some reason she suddenly needed chocolate in the worst way. She turned onto Founders Way, and drove straight down the street into her driveway. Her cell phone began to ring as she got out of the car. Smiling, she answered it. "I'm just home. Do you have radar, Devlin?"

"Are you in the house?"

"I'm opening the kitchen door now," she told him as she turned the key and walked into her house, closing and locking the door behind her. "I'm in and locked."

"Can I come over?" he asked her plaintively.

"No. I want a good night's sleep. Tomorrow's a workday for me. Good night, Devlin. Sleep tight. My pussy and I will be thinking of you." She made kissing noises into the telephone.

"My cock and I will be thinking of you both too," he promised, and made kissing noises back at her. "Good night, angel face." He clicked off.

Emily sighed. Why did love have to hurt so damned much?


***

August seemed to fly by. It was a hot and dry month. Devlin was at her house for breakfast on the mornings she hadn't been at the cottage overnight. They swam together at the club. He rented a small catboat for the month, and they spent afternoons out on the bay. They celebrated her birthday in bed with champagne, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. It was clear on the peak night of the Perseid meteor showers. The moon was new, and had set by after midnight, which was the prime viewing time. They lay in a double lounge chair down on the cottage's narrow beach, watching the shooting stars. Afterward they made slow, leisurely love, dozed, and swam in the bay as the dawn broke. Emily could not remember a time in her life when she had been so utterly and completely happy.

And neither could Michael Devlin, although it was a thought he kept to himself.


***

Labor Day weekend Rina Seligmann insisted they join her and Sam for dinner at the club. "You've been hiding out all month," she told Emily. "You don't even answer messages, and you gave Essie all of August off, paid. How am I supposed to get my gossip if Essie isn't there?"

Emily laughed. "You aren't. This has been a private time, and even I'm entitled to one of those at least once a century. What time do you want us? Devlin is going back Sunday night to beat the Monday traffic."

"Saturday night. Eight p.m. Have you heard from Aaron?"

"I got two postcards from Capri. The last one complained that Kirk wouldn't let him stay longer, but insisted on returning to Tuscany," Emily replied.

Rina chuckled. "My brother is such a gadabout," she remarked. "I don't blame Kirk. When are they back?"

"Sunday afternoon," Emily said. "See you Saturday night."

"Do we have to go?" Michael Devlin wanted to know.

"Yep, we do," Emily answered. "Rina's my mother figure, and her brother is my agent. She's practically family. And you liked her, and Dr. Sam will keep her under control, I promise. I'm surprised she called. I thought she'd be up at Camp Cozy this weekend. Sam must be on call at the hospital."

"What's Camp Cozy?" he asked, curious.

"Rina and her neighbors on Ansley Court bought a big old house up in the mountains on a lake twenty-five years ago. The women used to go up every summer with their kids. The kids named it Camp Cozy. The men would come on weekends, or for a week or two in August. At least they won't all be at the club Saturday evening," she said.


They had taken his car that night. Arriving at the Egret Pointe Country Club, they were seated at a table overlooking the golf course.

"Do you play?" he wanted to know.

Emily shook her head. "I'm not particularly athletic," she replied.

"I beg to differ," he said with a small grin.

She laughed, and then she said, "Oh, hell! There's Carla Johnson and her husband, Rick. And Tiffany and Joe Pietro d'Angelo."

"Who are they?" he asked.

"Some of Rina's neighbors. Rick and Joe have a little law firm in the village," Emily explained. "But I thought they would be up at Camp Cozy. Rats! They've seen us." She returned Carla Johnson's friendly wave. "I'm going to kill Rina!"

"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.