But before he could answer her the doorbell rang.

"This conversation is over if that's someone else for dinner," Ryan said.

"It's Frankie," Angelina said, getting up to go to the door and let her youngest daughter in, kissing her as she did so.

Francesca Mulcahy O'Connor was thirty-seven years old, and the mother of a single child. She had lost her husband, an investment banker, during 9/11. "Ma," she said, returning her mother's greeting. "Hey, big brother." She took the aperitif her mother poured her. "So, what's new?"

"Ray Pietro d'Angelo found Ryan a wife," Angelina said, and then hurried to catch her daughter up.

"That is so cool," Frankie said approvingly. "So when's the wedding?"

"August twenty-fifth," he said quietly.

"You've set the date already?" Angelina was a little surprised.

"I don't have much time," Ryan said. "I'm forty in April, Ma. Remember?"

"Yes, I remember," Angelina said quietly. "I remember very well."

"So what kind of a shop does she own?" Frankie wanted to know.

"It's called Lacy Nothings," he said, and grinned when his sister squealed.

"Oh, my God! The real Lacy Nothings? The one I get my stuff from?"

"One and the same, although why a nice widow lady needs stuff like that, I don't know," he teased her.

"Shut up!" Frankie said. "Do you think once you're married she'd let me have merchandise wholesale?"

"What is Lacy Nothings?" their mother asked.

"It's a lingerie shop, Ma. Very high-end, very expensive lingerie," Ryan said.

"It's gorgeous, Ma," Frankie enthused. "Real quality. She's got a catalog, and my most recent one says she's opening two new shops. One is right near me!"

"You're marrying a girl who sells underwear?" Angelina said.

"She's marrying a guy who makes furniture," he countered.

"You aren't a craftsman," Angelina said. "You're a businessman, Ryan. Your father was the artisan, but not you. It's different." She was very proud of her son. She knew what he had done for his father, even if Fin never acknowledged it. Her late husband had had a very typical Irish attitude. Not once had he ever told Ryan he was proud of him.

"August twenty-fifth," Frankie said. "I can't wait to see the look on the girls' faces when I tell them you're getting married." She grinned almost maliciously.

"You are not to breathe a word of this," Ryan said quietly. "Either of you. The lawyers are handling the business end. Ashley and I will be seeing each other over the next few weeks, and it will be said to be a whirlwind courtship. You and Ma get to come to the wedding. The others will learn of it afterward. I don't want them trying to interfere. They are not going to get R &R."

"Dee is going to be furious." Frankie chortled. "She's already looking for a bigger house, although with her kids all grown I don't know why she needs one."

"Will we meet Ashley before the wedding?" Angelina Mulcahy asked her son.

"How about two weeks from tonight? Here. For dinner?" he suggested.

Angelina nodded.

"Can I come?" Frankie asked.

"Where's Michael? Isn't he home from school?" her brother said.

"Home from St. Peter's, and off to Mountain Lake Camp in ten days to be a junior counselor this summer," Frankie said. Her son, who was seventeen, had been given a full scholarship to his late father's old preparatory school after Mike had been killed at the Twin Towers. At first Frankie hadn't wanted to send her son away in seventh grade, but they had both grieved hard after Mike had been killed so tragically, and their grief fed off each other's grief. Frankie realized that the only way she and her son would be able to get on with their lives, and past that awful day, was for Michael to go to St. Peter's. And it had worked. Neither of them would ever forget that terrible day, but without each other they had no choice but to move on. Her son would be a senior at St. Peter's in the autumn. He was student body president, and Frankie knew his father would be very proud.

"I don't know why he can't stay home with his mother in the summer," Angelina said disapprovingly. "He was in England at Brixton School for his spring term. We've hardly seen him this year."

"Going to Brixton on the exchange program was a big honor, Ma, and he wanted to go," Frankie defended her son. "And he's been at Mountain Lake since before his dad died. He's always wanted to be a junior counselor. He gets his fee free this year, and a stipend of five hundred dollars for the summer. I like encouraging him to earn his own money. He's a very responsible boy."

"Maybe if your son were home you wouldn't work so hard," Angelina said.

"Nope. If he were home he'd be a latchkey kid, and I'd feel guilty," Frankie said.

Her brother laughed. "I think you and Ashley are going to get on very well together," he said with a grin. "She kept me waiting this morning because she had to take an overseas call from her lace supplier in Madeira."

"Having seen you now, sweetie," his sister teased, "I'll bet she doesn't ever keep you waiting again."

He laughed. He had been a little put off when she had been late, but her explanation had been perfectly logical and practical. And when she had looked directly at him with those gorgeous green eyes, he had to admit that he was intrigued. Why had he ever considered a blue-eyed blond the perfect ideal? Ashley's dark hair had been cut very fashionably short in a boyish bob, but he had to admit there had been nothing boyish about her body. It was, to use an old-fashioned expression his dad had been fond of, curvy. Her breasts had pushed out that red tee nicely, and her ass in those tight pants had been very tempting.


***

As he sat alone later that night in his own apartment, half watching Letterman, Ryan again considered his ideal, and decided that maybe he had a new ideal. He wondered what she would look like without that red tee and those tight pants. Did she wear her own merchandise? Having thumbed through his sister's catalog once, he had to admit Ashley sold some pretty provocative stuff. He remembered in particular a little thigh-high black silk robe with the model's boobs half-visible, and the smallest bikini bottom he had ever seen that matched it.

He considered how Ashley might look in such an outfit, and actually felt himself begin to get hard. Damn! How could you be attracted to a girl you had just met, who didn't at all meet your original expectations? He was horny, of course. It had been months since he had had any kind of a relationship with a woman. Business just kept him too busy. Maybe getting married wasn't such a bad idea. Except that she had told him they wouldn't have sex. But they could have sex if they wanted to, couldn't they? They would be married, and today a lot of people who weren't married had sex. Then he shook his head. He was an idiot. This marriage was going to be strictly business.


***

Yes, business, Ashley thought as she contemplated entering the Channel that evening. Her marriage was going to be a business arrangement, but God, he was the sexiest thing she had seen in ages. The height of a Celtic warrior combined with that beautiful Italian face had actually made her go weak in the knees. She couldn't wait to see what he looked like in a bathing suit. He probably had washboard abs. He looked like he had them. And he had been hung. Even in those elegant custom-tailored slacks she had been able to ascertain that he was a big guy, and he dressed to the left.

Ashley shivered. She was going to have to share a bed with him the nights he stayed at the hall. Share a bed, and no sex. Was such a thing even possible? Well, it would be, because she suspected she didn't appeal to him physically. Big men always seemed to like little women, just like little guys always liked having a big girl on their arm. Ashley laughed softly. So their marriage would be a business arrangement, and after a few years they would go their separate ways. But she always had the Channel.

She picked up her remote. She loved the new features the Channel offered now. Ashley didn't know who owned or managed the Channel, but it had to be a woman. Only a woman would have thought of having two fantasies available to each customer. It was like getting a two-pound box of Godivas. Contemplating the remote, she considered which fantasy for tonight. Her finger brushed over button A, but she wasn't in the mood to dominate Quinn tonight. Tonight she wanted to be dominated. Ashley pressed the on button first, watching as the wall opposite her bed opened to reveal her flat-screen television. Then she pressed the button marked B, and the one marked enter.


Almost at once she found herself at the booted feet of a tall warrior. Her hands were chained before her. Her long, dark hair was loose. Her stola was half ripped from her body, and her breasts were easily visible. Looking up at the blond warrior, she snarled, "Unchain me at once, barbarian! My husband will have your life for this!"

"You should have remained in your civilized south, Roman whore!" he snarled back. "Now you will serve me, as you made yon Celtic warrior serve you." He turned to Quinn. "You are free now either to return to your homeland or join with me. I am Rurik, lord of the Northmen, and I bid you welcome to my camp."

"I'll stay," Quinn said. "What do you mean to do with my mistress?"

"She's no longer your mistress," Rurik said. "She's my whore until I grow tired of her. After that she will service my men." His booted foot pushed at the woman at his feet. "What is her name?"

"She is the lady Cordelia, wife to Tribune Maximillian Alerio Patronius, who is kin to Caesar," Quinn said.

"And this tribune permits his wife to fuck a captive slave?" Rurik wanted to know. "He is most generous with his wife's favors."

"I was part of the tribune's booty after a battle in Gaul," Quinn explained. "He noted my, er, male attributes, and gave me to his wife to serve as a sex slave. Many highborn Roman men give sex slaves to their wives. The lords know that if their women have sex slaves they will not stray and cause a scandal while they are away. They also know that no Roman matron would have a child not her lord's."

"He is either a practical man or a suspicious one, this Maximillian Alerio Patronius," Rurik noted with a laugh. Then he reached down his hand to wrap a hank of Ashley's hair about his fist. Roughly he yanked her up and kissed her mouth hard. "Is she good?" he asked Quinn when he had finished.

Quinn smiled a slow smile. "Aye," he said. "She has the tightest cunt I've ever fucked. Each time it's as if she were a virgin taking a cock for the first time."

Rurik nodded, and then he looked down into the green eyes blazing up at him. "Tell me, Roman whore, have you have entertained two cocks at once?"

Her eyes widened.

"No?" he murmured against her lips. "Well, my proud Roman beauty, you soon will. And you will learn to please your master in any way and at any time he demands."

"You will die for this, barbarian pig!" Ashley said furiously. "I will personally see you crucified in the most painful manner I can devise. I will whip you myself!"

"Aye, she enjoys whipping," Quinn remarked. "My back is permanently marked."

"So," Rurik said, "she likes punishment, does she? I think we should adjourn to my tent and give the bitch a taste of her own, eh, Quinn?"

"Let me go, you beast!" Ashley shouted, struggling as she was half carried, half dragged into the lord of the Northmen's tent and flung down upon a bed of furs.

Rurik then proceeded to tear her garments off with great precision. He unfastened the manacles about her wrists, laughing as he ducked a blow aimed at his head. Forcing her onto her stomach and holding her down by her slender neck, he proceeded to spank her as she shrieked her outrage and her bottom was burning and red. Then, pushing her into the position he desired of her, her torso and arms pressed forward, her buttocks elevated and high, he proceeded to enter her woman's channel.

Ashley screamed furiously as she divined his intent, but as she did, Quinn, kneeling before her, pushed his engorged cock into her open mouth, warning her, "If you bite I will see you punished in far worse fashion. Suck me sweetly, Roman whore."

She tried to moan as the thick peg of flesh filled her mouth. There was no other choice but to suck him. And as she did she became very aware of the enormous cock filling her cunt, stretching its walls as Rurik began to thrust into her with a skilled motion that left her breathless. When both men had emptied their load, Quinn down her throat and Rurik into her cunt, they fell away from her, temporarily satisfied. Ashley collapsed, gasping as she was pushed to the floor. She had needed the roughness tonight. Now, she knew, they would be pleased at having mastered her for the time being.