Elizabeth let her answer come from the rum in the switchels she had drunk. Giddily she whirled around, and her nightdress tightened around her body. “I feel wonderful!—Why do I frighten you?” She stopped so close to Hubbard she could feel his breath on her cheek. “I do frighten you, don’t I, Peter?”

He said huskily, “Because I’ve been falling in love with you.”

“That’s not frightening, that’s supercaledi­cious-­whatever!” She followed him in her bare feet as he moved prudently away.

He answered, “You have had too many whatever you call those drinks.”

“So do I think so! And I’m glad!” With one soft motion, Elizabeth went into the man’s arms and was kissing him passionately on the lips. When she felt his answering embrace, she was sure beyond all doubt of her destiny with this man. Leaning her head against his chest, she murmured, “Peter, I have been in love with you for so terribly, terribly long.” She reached up to stroke his face. Now he did need a shave. She enjoyed the sandpapery sensation, his skin real and masculine with the promise of his own passion.

He bent his head to her. “I have loved you for too short.”

She gave him her lips without restraint. Their tongues played wetly in each other’s mouth as they freed their hunger for their love.

Her hand went of its own accord to the hardness she felt rising against her body. Her moistness down there was as wet as her mouth, sweet with his kisses. She wanted, was glad at, his fingers seeking her other wetness gently, strokingly. She parted her legs a little to his hand. In a little while they turned together to the bed.

She lifted her nightgown off over her head and watched with a pounding heart his eyes take in all of her body and its heat.

He shed his pajamas and stood naked before her, with his aroused sex lifting to her own ardent gaze.

They were both panting when they lay back on the soft quilt. Elizabeth breathed against his cheek, then his mouth was on her nipple. The electricity of his tongue on her erotic flesh shot through Elizabeth’s nerves to her center. It was an unexpected, galvanizing shock that arched her back and brought her thighs wide open for him. She had “made it” before, but she never felt anything like this torrent of sensation.

Sex swept over her and sent her spinning in a riptide of a discovered ocean without end. Her body surged like a breaking wave itself, a curling spume and lacy foam of sheer, breath-­catching delight. Peter Hubbard’s sex pressed between her legs and she spread herself wider, welcoming, wanting, lusting for him now. She felt Peter Hubbard enter her body. He was full and strong and straight. She uttered one small cry which gave way in a moment to a gasp of ecstasy.