She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “All right,” she heard herself saying. New Year’s Eve dates never came to anything anyway. And it wasn’t likely her employers were going to agree, priest or no.
But Emily Devlin did agree, much to Maureen’s surprise. “Father Porter spoke to Mick, and Essie says he’s a lovely young man. How can I say no? I write romance, for goodness’ sakes. Of course your young man may come and keep you company on New Year’s Eve, Maureen.”
“He’s not my young man, Mrs. Devlin,” Maureen said.
“But he wants to be,” Emily Devlin replied, laughing.
Maureen saw Toryn O’Donel at the IGA the next day when she stopped in to pick up some lamb chops. “My missus says you can come,” she told him. “But remember, the children come first.”
“I like children,” he said, smiling at her as he handed her the brown paper package of lamb chops. Their hands touched.
Maureen blushed, to her embarrassment, and her legs felt suddenly like jelly. Still, she managed to say, “Then I’ll see you New Year’s Eve. Don’t come before nine.”
The Devlins were just leaving as Toryn O’Donel arrived on New Year’s Eve. Maureen introduced him to her employers.
“You’re a Donegal man, Father Porter tells me,” Mick Devlin said, looking the young man up and down.
“I am, sir,” Toryn replied politely.
Mick Devlin nodded. “Have a good evening, then,” he said as he escorted his wife out to their car.
“Gracious,” Emily said to her husband as they pulled out of their drive. “He is one big handsome man, isn’t he?”
“We’re going to lose our nanny,” Mick said grimly.
“Oh, darling, don’t be silly,” Emily told him. “This is their first date.”
“He’s got a look in his eye that Irishmen only get when they decide it’s time to marry, angel face. I know that look. I had it when I met you.”
“Pinfeathers, Devlin,” his wife said. “You might have gotten it later on, but in the beginning, I just wanted to learn what real sex was all about, and you were more than ready to teach me. Besides, if they get married somewhere down the line, they wouldn’t go back to Ireland. They came to the States because the opportunities are better. He’s got a good job. The gossip, Essie tells me, is that when Karl retires the Irishman will be head butcher. And Maureen has been trained as a nanny. She won’t leave us.”
“I want to convert the carriage house into living quarters,” Mick said.
“Why, you clever man,” Emily said, approving her husband’s suggestion. “If we can offer them living quarters when they marry, we’ll certainly keep our nanny.”
“Until they want to have children of their own,” Mick replied.
“Children?” Maureen said. She and Toryn were settled in the den before a roaring fire. The children were all in bed, and the twins were sleeping through the night now. “Yes, I’d like children one day, but not as many as my mum.”
“How many did she have?” he asked her.
“Thirteen, all living. We’ve got a priest, a nun, one girl married, and a couple of farmers among the adults. The younger ones seem more interested in getting more education. Besides, there’s not enough land to support them all,” Maureen said.
“There’re six in my family,” Toryn told her. He put an arm about her, drawing her close. “Only one girl, poor thing, and she’s the eldest.”
“I don’t envy her,” Maureen replied. His arm about her shoulders felt very comforting, and she couldn’t help snuggling a little against him.
“So how many do you want?” he asked her.
“Two or three should do it for me,” Maureen told him.
“That’s fine with me,” Toryn told her. “I’m glad we’re in agreement about that.”
“There’s no agreement between us,” Maureen said, pulling away from him.
“There’s going to be,” he responded, drawing her back closer to his side. “You’re the girl I’m going to marry, Maureen Flynn. I knew it the first time I laid eyes on you. I even told my uncle you were the one.”
“Did you indeed?” Maureen said. “You’re a bold man, you are, Toryn O’Donel!”
“I am that,” he agreed. Then, turning her slightly and tilting her face up to his, he gave her a long, slow kiss.
Maureen could have sworn her toes were curling. To her complete surprise, she melted into his embrace, slipping her arms about him and letting his kiss sweep her away. One big hand slipped beneath her sweater to unfasten her bra and cup a breast. The kiss deepened, and his tongue slid into her mouth to stroke her tongue as his thumb rubbed the nipple of the breast he was cupping. She should stop him. Yes, he was much too forward for a respectable girl, and she was a respectable girl. But, dear Lord, his kiss, his caresses felt so damned good. She was going to stop him. Just another moment or two and she would make him desist from this shameless behavior.
His head was spinning. The touch of her lips set off those odd flashbacks he sometimes got. He could see them in a bed of furs making very passionate love to each other. He knew he should not be so bold with her. No one, his priestly uncle and Mr. Devlin included, had to tell him that Maureen Flynn was a proper girl. But the fragrance that seemed to surround her, the softness of her skin, her sweet response seemed to be playing havoc with him. He was finding it absolutely impossible to cease his behavior, but finally, and with the greatest effort he had ever made, he broke off the kiss.
Maureen’s lips were swollen. Her green eyes gazing up at him were befuddled. “Wha-what just happened here?” she managed to say.
“God, you felt it too, didn’t you?” he answered her.
She nodded, realizing as she did that his big hand was still on her breast.
“Do you want me to go? I’ll go if you say it,” he told her.
Here was her escape, but instead she heard herself saying, “No. I don’t want you to go, Toryn O’Donel. Unless you want to go,” she added.
“I don’t want to go,” he replied. “I want to kiss you again, Maureen Flynn.” And he did, taking her lips in a furious kiss that seemed to awaken a fierce passion in them both. They devoured each other with their mouths, and then his hand was leaving her breast, slipping beneath her wool skirt, and sliding slowly, slowly up her leg. Reaching her thighs, he let his fingers gently stroke the soft interior flesh, his kisses moving across her face as he did.
Maureen had had sex once or twice in her life. It had been hurried and certainly nothing like this. She quivered as his finger brushed the curls of her mons, then ran along her slit. She could feel the moisture already beginning to rise. He found her mouth again and gave her a delicious, deep kiss, their tongues exploring each other as his finger slipped between her nether lips to begin stroking her clit. The gods! The gods! The voiceless words formed in her mind, and she moaned softly as the finger played with her. Maureen felt herself squirming against his hand, actually encouraging him, and she couldn’t help it. She shivered with a tiny orgasm.
Damn, she is passionate, Toryn thought, and we are going to make beautiful babies. I want to fuck her so badly, but I can’t tonight. She wants it now, but tomorrow she’ll be furious with herself, and especially with me, but she needs release. He pushed a single finger into her vagina and began to frig her.
Maureen moaned with undisguised pleasure. “More!” she pleaded with him, and cried with pleasure as the one finger became two, which moved faster and faster, harder and deeper, until she released a sobbing climax, the walls of her vagina spasming around his hand as she rode it. And when it was over, she turned to hide her face in his sweater.
“No,” he said. “Don’t turn away from me, little one.”
Maureen stiffened at those two words on his lips. Her fantasy Celtic warrior, Toryn of the Thousand Pleasures, called her that.
“I don’t want you ashamed of what just happened between us. I told you we’re going to marry. Hard as it may be to believe, little one, I love you. You’ve hau
nted my dreams for years, and when we met a few weeks back, I couldn’t believe my luck to have found you, little one.” He caressed her hair.
“Crazy as it sounds, I’ve dreamed of you too,” Maureen admitted to him. She could keep silent, push him away, and continue to live in a fantasy world every Saturday night. Or she could have the flesh-and-blood reality of her fantasy and a happily ever after just like in one of Mrs. Devlin’s novels. She sat up, touching his face. “You were lovely to pleasure me, Toryn O’Donel, but what of yourself?” Reaching out, she touched the hard ridge in his slacks, stroking it gently.
His warm hand covered her hand. “I’ll live. Hey, look at the clock on the mantel. It’s almost midnight, Maureen Flynn. Let’s turn on the telly and watch all those crazy people down in Times Square.”
“Mrs. Devlin left us a little split of champagne in the fridge,” she said. “I’ll get it, and we’ll toast in the New Year in a proper fashion.”
Several minutes later they counted down the seconds with everyone else, shared a quick kiss, and raised their glasses to celebrate the New Year.
“It’s a new beginning for us both,” Toryn O’Donel said to her.
Maureen nodded. “I know,” she agreed.
On Valentine’s Day he gave her a small engagement ring, which she accepted. They planned their wedding for March 17, which was a Saturday. Their lust for each other was just too great. Maureen feared she would be pregnant if they didn’t marry quickly. They had decided to refrain from the final act of sex until they were married. Neither was a virgin, but they didn’t discuss the past. It was their future together that they were interested in.
“I knew we were going to lose our nanny,” Mick Devlin said when Emily told him of the engagement.
“We’re not losing Maureen,” his wife told him, laughing.
“Have you seen how that butcher boy looks at her? She’ll be pregnant on her wedding night—I guarantee it.”
“No, she won’t,” Emily said.
“They’re both good Catholics of the old school, for God’s sake,” Mick grumbled.
“They’re not in Ireland anymore, and Maureen has seen Dr. Sam. They both want children, but they also want to wait a bit and put some money aside. When will the carriage house be finished for them?”
“Beginning of March,” Mick answered her. “All you women have everything nicely in hand, angel face, don’t you?”
“Yep,” Emily answered him. “And not only that, I’ve done about a third of the new book. You can tell J.P. when you two have your weekly sparring session at the editorial meeting that I’m right on schedule.”
“I’ll tell her whatever you want as long as we don’t lose our nanny. Are they honeymooning, and for how long?”
“You are such a selfish pig, Devlin,” she accused. “And yes, they’ll be off for a week at Disney World in Florida. Maureen and I already have her temporary replacement lined up. Annie Marshall is letting us have Nanny Violet for a few days. She won’t be sleeping over, but she’ll be here during the day.”
“I am not a selfish pig, angel face. I’ve just grown used to having my wife back,” Mick Devlin said. “I’ll bet the twins decide to walk when Maureen’s away, and with four toddlers, there’ll be merry hell to pay. Nanny Violet will have her work cut out for her.”
Father Seamus Flynn was flying from Ireland to celebrate the wedding mass with Father Porter for his sister and Toryn. Neither Mrs. Flynn nor Mrs. O’Donel had ever flown, and neither was of a mind to, even for the wedding of their children. Toryn’s closest brother, Francis, lived and worked in the city.
He would come to stand up for his younger brother, and Maureen’s friend Jane would be her attendant. The two girls had had a wonderful time shopping for wedding outfits. Maureen had finally settled on a winter white silk suit with a narrow skirt, and a fitted jacket with a peplum. She found a wide headband with a wisp of veiling. Jane, who was a pale blonde, chose a pretty turquoise dress.
The renovation of the old carriage house behind the Devlins’ big house was completed. The downstairs still housed Mick and Emily’s precious Austin Healeys, along with a new small, efficient furnace. But the upstairs had new wood floors, wiring, and plumbing. It had been divided into two bedrooms, one large, one small; a living room with a fireplace and a small eating area; a galley kitchen; and a bathroom. Maureen was stunned by her employer’s generosity, for Emily had insisted that she and her nanny shop for furniture, and then all the ladies Maureen had come to know in Egret Pointe gave her a traditional bridal shower in the Devlins’ spacious living room.
Afterward, looking at all of her gifts, Maureen couldn’t help but cry. She had received bedding, towels, washcloths, pots, glasses, and dishes. Nanny Violet came with a fine large brown English teapot and a set of cups and saucers. “I can’t believe everyone’s generosity,” she said to Emily.
“Americans, like the Irish, are very generous people,” Emily said as she helped Maureen put everything away in the carriage house apartment.
The seventeenth of March dawned sunny and mild, as it sometimes did.
“Luck of the Irish,” Mick Devlin said.
The wedding was set for two thirty at St. Anne’s, with cake and champagne punch afterward at the Devlins’. Sean Michael was to be the ring bearer, and little Emlyn the flower girl. Emily thought her son looked adorable in his short navy pants and Eton jacket. Emlyn preened in front of her mother’s closet mirror, admiring her floaty pink dress. “I pretty,” she declared, and her father heartily agreed.
It was a simple ceremony with a brief mass. The IGA had closed for two hours so all its employees could see the handsome assistant butcher wed to the pretty nanny. The cashiers all sat together, sniffling happily. Karl, the head butcher, had brought his wife. Emlyn Devlin played her part beautifully, almost skipping down the aisle, tossing rose petals as she came. She was followed by Sean Michael, who was serious and intent upon not dropping the silk cushion, which held the two simple wedding rings. Jane, with a small multicolored bouquet, preceded the bride. Mick Devlin brought Maureen down the aisle to where Toryn and his brother stood awaiting her. He put her hand into that of her groom and gave her a kiss on the cheek before joining Emily. The vows were spoken. The mass celebrated. The cake cut. A toast drunk to the happy couple. The Mulcahy chauffeur took the bridal couple to the airport.
“Well,” Mick Devlin said, “there goes our nanny.”
“She’ll be back.” Emily laughed and secretly hoped that Maureen’s wedding night would be as wonderful as hers and Mick’s had been.
Maureen, of course, knew nothing of the island where her employers had spent ten naked days making love after their wedding. What she did know was that Toryn O’Donel, her husband—the word sounded so strange and yet familiar—was a worthy descendant of his ancestor, Toryn of the Thousand Pleasures. Honeymoon sex was supposed to be explosive, and it certainly was. Fortunately, they had been upgraded to a cottage when they checked in, which meant they didn’t disturb their neighbors.
There was a wonderful round sunken bath in their suite. They couldn’t resist. Oddly, Maureen didn’t feel any shyness about taking her clothes off before him. His blue eyes followed her every move, even as he was removing his own travel garments.
She had a lovely body, he thought. Long legs, high, full round breasts, a great butt.
Maureen was counting his assets as he looked at her. Wide chest and shoulders. Narrow waist. Tight butt, and a seriously long penis that touched a cord of memory in her.
Holding hands, they stepped down into the warm tub. The water came to his waist. Wrapping his arms about Maureen, Toryn gave her a long, sweet kiss. Feeling her breasts against his smooth chest, her belly and thighs against him, his cock began to stir.
Feeling it, Maureen boldly reached down and gave him a little squeeze. Toryn cupped her mons in his big palm, whispering in her ear as he did so exactly what he was going to do to her. Maureen giggled and told him what she would do to him. They kissed
again as he backed her up against the wall of the tub. She continued to play with his cock.
“My, what a fine spirited laddie you have here, husband,” she told him. The column of flesh in her hand had thickened and lengthened, and it was very hard now.
“The better to fuck you with, wife,” he told her. “Put those sexy long legs of yours about me, little one. I very much need to be inside you now.”
She eagerly complied, and felt him guiding his penis to the entry of her vagina. “Yes!” she encouraged him, and then he began to push himself inside her. The sensation of him filling her, stretching the walls of her cunt until she thought they could not be stretched any more, was mind-blowing, especially when he began to thrust back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. With virtually no foreplay, he was bringing her to a climax. His hands cupped her bottom now as his thrusts grew deeper and harder.
“Don’t stop!” she gasped as the first wave hit her.
“I can’t,” he groaned. “I don’t want to! I want to be like this with you always. I’ve waited forever for us.”
This wasn’t her fantasy. This was her new reality, and Maureen decided that it was better than anything she had ever experienced. They remained in the tub fucking and fucking until finally, after she had experienced several small climaxes, they came together in an explosion of passion that left them both breathless. And when they had finally recovered, they adjourned to the big bed and took up again where they had left off. They seemed unable to get enough of each other.
After three days of sex and room service, Maureen suggested that since they were at Disney World, they might want to see some of it. He reluctantly agreed. Four hours later they were back in their honeymoon cottage, naked and making love again.
“We’ll come see Disney World again another time,” Toryn said.
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