Forbidden Pleasure

mail you all the details.'

She didn't want to go into New York, especially two days before Christmas. The traffic would be horrendous. But this was a command performance, and Emily knew it. 'I'll look forward to it,' she told J. P. Woods. 'And thank you for calling me. I'm so glad you enjoyed the book, J.P.'

'I did, Emily. Good work! I'm now looking forward to what you'll do next for us. Good-bye.' There was a click, and J. P. Woods was gone.

Emily set the phone back in its charger. Damn, and double damn. Now she would have to have everything done before the twenty-third. It was going to be a push. But it would be her first Christmas with Devlin, and she wanted it to be perfect. She had pretty much decided that if he didn't tell her he loved her, she was going to break the cardinal rule of dating women: She was going to tell him that she loved him. What could happen? He'd bolt and run? Well, that was always a possibility, but maybe, just maybe, if Rina was right, it would give him the balls to tell her that he loved her. And once they were over that hurdle there would be a future for them. And Emily Shanski wanted that future with all her heart and soul. She had two weeks to go.

She managed to finish the Christmas cards by the ninth. They were in the mail by the tenth.

'Right on time, Em,' Bud Cranston down at the post office said as she handed him the shopping bag of Christmas cards over the counter. 'You're like clockwork-December tenth, every year. Pat wants to know if you've got another book coming out soon. She says she's ready for one with the long winter ahead.'

'Tell her next spring. Sorry,' Emily said with a smile. 'Merry Christmas, Bud, to you and the family. The kids okay?'

'Off the wall waiting for Santa.' He grinned back at her, giving her a wave as she stepped aside to allow the next customer up to his window. Bud Cranston had gone to high school with Emily Shanski. Who knew she'd turn out to be a best-selling author? But Em never changed, he thought with a smile. She was still a nice small-town girl who always had a friendly word for you.

Now it was time to Christmas shop, and Emily did as much of her shopping locally as she could. The rest she purchased from catalogs. Now, as the gifts began to pile up in the den, she set about wrapping everything. Rina and Dr. Sam came by on the weekend, and they all drove out together to the Christmas tree farm to buy their trees, picking from among those already cut. Emily had never, since she was a little girl, had the heart to go out into the field, point at a living tree, and have it cut down. If it was already cut, that was a different thing. Her grandmothers had always laughed and said she was too softhearted, and she always agreed she was. Sam grumbled as he and the farmer's helper tied the three trees to the top of the car. Emily always bought two: a great big eight-footer for her living room, and a small table tree for the den window.

The trees were stored outside the kitchen door in buckets of water and sugar. On the twenty-first Emily and Essie set them up in their stands. Emily would spend the next few days decorating the two trees. She had come down with a cold that day at the tree farm. It had been cloudy and drizzly, but at least it wasn't snow, she thought thankfully. Despite the romantic song, white Christmases were very rare in Egret Pointe. But the beautiful blond weather forecaster in the city was predicting a seventy percent chance of snow late on the twenty-second, curse him.

'Good thing we're getting out of here in the morning,' Essie said to Emily. 'But I hate to leave you when you're sick, Miss Emily. And especially at Christmas.'

'You've had this Florida trip with your son and his family planned for close to a year, Essie. I'll be fine. Mr. Devlin is coming,' Emily reassured her housekeeper.

'Well, if you're sure then,' Essie said, knowing even as she spoke that Emily would never ask her to cancel her plans, 'I'll be going now. The car service is picking us up at six o'clock in the morning. By this time tomorrow I'll be lying by the hotel pool,' she finished with a grin.

'Do a lap for me,' Emily told her, and hugged the older woman. 'Merry Christmas, Essie. I'll see you January second.'

'Thanks for my Christmas gift, Miss Emily,' Essie said, pulling on her gloves.

'I thought a little cash would be more appreciated than a flannel nightie this year, considering your trip,' Emily replied with a grin.

'It is,' Essie agreed. 'Merry Christmas to you, Miss Emily. I hope you get just what you really want. And say hello to that handsome Mr. Devlin for me,' she finished with a broad wink as she hurried out the door.

Emily closed the front door, the large green pine wreath on it rustling faintly as it shut. Her cell phone began to ring. Emily pulled it from her pocket and flipped it open. 'Hello?'

'Hello, angel face!' Michael Devlin's voice purred into her ear.

'Devlin! Where are you? Are you home yet?' she asked.

'London still. Something has come up. I'll tell you all about it when I get home, but I'll be with you for Christmas, angel face, come hell or high water. I should be back just in time for Stratford's Christmas party Friday. Is it snowing yet?'

'God, no!' she said. 'I'm dreaming of a sunny green Christmas, but they are predicting snow late tomorrow and into Thursday. Hopefully the AccuTracks, the Dopplers, or their Ouija boards don't know anything, and we'll get rain.'

'Madame Scrooge, I presume,' he teased her.

'Did you find a real Christmas pudding, Devlin?' she asked.

'At a little shop I know where they make it themselves,' he answered. 'It's already packed in my suitcase.'

'Don't let them confiscate it at customs,' she warned him.

'I had them box it, and then wrap it in some rather garish holiday paper complete with a big floppy bow,' he told her. 'I'm telling them it's a present for my maiden aunt.'

'Perfect!' Emily replied. 'Every customs agent has at least one maiden aunt.'

'Emily? I miss you. These last weeks without you have been lonely for me. And I've missed Egret Pointe. Will they still have the windows up that you told me about by the time I get there?' He sounded almost wistful.

'They don't take them down until the day after New Year's, Devlin,' she answered him. He had missed her! He was lonely without her! Now why the hell couldn't he get the rest of it out? 'I've missed you too,' Emily said, 'but I've been busy. The house is all decorated inside and out. Garlands and wreaths up. Two trees. The one in the den is all finished. I'm working on the one in the living room. We're having an open house on New Year's Eve, Devlin. Will you still be here, or do you like your city celebrations?'

'Publishing is closed down Christmas week,' he told her. 'Can I stay the whole week with you? Or maybe you would like to come into town and stay at my place?'

'Stay with me,' she said softly, meaningfully. 'Besides, you live in a studio apartment, Devlin. You've said yourself there's barely room to swing a cat, and I'm much bigger than a cat.'

'What will the neighbors think?' he asked her.

'To hell with the neighbors, Devlin,' Emily said.

He laughed low. 'Can you be a good girl until I get there, angel face?'

'If I can be a bad girl once you're here,' she told him mischievously.

'I've got a big present for you,' he teased her.

'And I have just the perfect place to put it,' she responded.

'You're making me hot,' he told her.

'I'm putting my hand in my pants,' she said. 'Oh! I'm already wet, Devlin. That's what the sound of your voice does to me.'

'I'm in bed,' he replied. 'I've got my dick in my hand. It's already getting hard, because that's what the sound of your voice does to me.'

'Make yourself come,' she murmured seductively. 'I'm going to make myself come. I'm already playing with my clit. It feels so good, Devlin. Oh! Oh! But I wish it were your tongue there, and not my finger.'

'I'm polishing my cock to a fine stand,' he said. 'But I wish it were in your juicy cunt, angel face. I'm going to fuck your brains out when I get home.' He heard her breathing coming faster in his earpiece.

'Oh! Oh! Oh! Ohhhh!' she exclaimed. 'God, that was good! But not as good as you, Devlin.'

She heard him groan. 'Jaysus! What a waste of good cum! I've had to use two handkerchiefs. Damn it, I want you, angel face! I don't want to have any more dirty-talk phone sex with you over the transatlantic cable.'