Sir Peter Devon spends his nights fleecing London’s young bucks, but when Fate traps him in her delicious coils, he must surrender or flee.
Sir Peter Devon inherited a baronetcy, survived a war, was knighted and spent too much time fleecing London’s naive rich. Gambling was—his mother often said—an immature way to spend the dark hours he spent awake, but he was unsuited to the normal life of a rich gentlemen. But Fate, in the form of friendly fire, trapped him anyway.
In his attempt to rescue a young girl from a corrupt and immoral ex-officer, he found himself engaged and quickly married to the chit. Abandoning her to the chaperonage of his mother was straightforward enough, but the girl didn’t stay young. Fate’s trap became a delicious torment. If he could only be certain that he wouldn’t lose his mind, he would want to keep her.
Genevieve, once an earl’s daughter but truly the bastard daughter of a duke and now a wife-in-name-only, is tired of waiting for Sir Peter Devon to see that she’s no longer sixteen. He’s watched over her, guarded her, supported her, appeared on command to escort her, called on her for twenty minutes at a time in his mother’s drawing room and even pandered to her desire to immerse herself in art and the country, when she believes he prefers the smoky gaming hells of London. Her hero has always been Sir Peter. He can be more than an absentee husband, and she doesn’t understand why he is so reticent when he clearly desires her. One way or another, they are together for life. Eventually he will let her be close to him. Won’t he?
General Release Date: 3rd May 2016
1 May 1825
“Happy May Day, angel.” Peter’s words reached Genevieve’s ears, but she didn’t respond immediately. Peter was half reclining on the divan in her studio, thoroughly distracting her from the afternoon of painting she’d planned. Instead, she was completely nude, stretched out comfortably over Peter’s thigh, her upper body tucked against his so comfortably that he might have been a silk-covered pillow. Given the cool rain falling outside since luncheon, she could have been cold, but Peter had built the fire high before tempting her away from the easel with hot chocolate and delicious biscuits. While she’d nibbled on the mid-afternoon snack, he’d stripped her of her smock and the simple gown beneath it.
Not that she’d objected. No, when he stroked her skin and his admiring gaze scanned the curves of her form, Genevieve felt the urge to preen, not to pretend any sort of false modesty. But quite soon she’d found herself lying on her side, her plump thighs between his hard ones. Peter was an expert at fondling her bottom, and if he’d lightly smacked it a few times as he rubbed away the stiffness in the muscles of her hips and upper thighs, she’d only arched and tried to open her thighs to invite him to explore much more intimately.
Peter had, eventually. And here she was, his fingers still inside her from behind, bliss-filled and completely at ease.
At least the babe was quiet, perhaps worn out by the morning dancing in the village square and their afternoon antics. Genevieve spread her hand over her abdomen, the curve of her swollen body evidence of the change in their marriage in the last year. He followed her movement, clasping her hand in place against her skin.
“All the village women say that I need to slow down and rest more. How could I possibly do that, unless I’m to lie flat on my back all day?” Genevieve finally asked. But resting did sound awfully enticing. She didn’t want to move. She wanted to dwell happily in this warm, bliss-filled cocoon of Peter’s embrace. “No one will let me do anything except walk in the gardens and paint.”
He chuckled. “I am quite fond of you lying flat on your back. Should I demonstrate?” he suggested wickedly.
“I should let you demonstrate how to do such a thing, then bring my brushes over here and paint it,” Genevieve threatened.
Around her, Peter shuddered. It was such an unexpected reaction that Genevieve was immediately intrigued. He was aroused by the idea. Peter couldn’t hide the jumping of his cock, even though it remained inside his trousers. Her outer thigh had been pressed up against his groin, and erections didn’t lie.
“Would you like me to paint you, Peter?” she purred, turning her head to look at him. “Strip off your shirt, run my brushes over your chest, your hips, your upper thighs?” She hummed happily at the thought, her imagination wild with a thousand possibilities representing the plethora of emotions and dreams she’d experienced with him. “And, of course, your cock.”
He grunted, not a particularly eloquent reaction. Peter was usually articulate when it came to intimacy, so she forgave him the momentary inability to speak. She, on the other hand, had at first been unable to express herself in any sort of intelligible language. But slowly, as the months had passed, Genevieve had been able to spell out what she was imagining and experiencing. Peter enjoyed that too.
“Though you’d have to remain still—very still—or it would just be messy. Not a proper piece of art at all.” She permitted herself the luxury of envisioning it—Peter spread out on the divan, his arms and legs spread apart. “Perhaps I’d have to tie you in place, to make sure you didn’t try to stop me halfway through.”
Peter began to shake his head, widening his eyes, but Genevieve put out a hand to his chest. “You’ve said that turnabout was fair.” Both of them suddenly jerked as she remembered the day months earlier when she had been tied down to her bed for hours while Peter had driven her nearly to the brink of unconsciousness through repeated orgasms. Genevieve could tell from Peter’s face that he was remembering the same afternoon. She liked to think it was then that she’d conceived the wee babe inside her. “You like it when I’m astride you. You like it when I take you in my mouth. You’ll like this too. You find being the focus of my attention, my imagination, extremely pleasurable.”
He gasped, but he didn’t deny being intrigued by her words. “And how exactly will I explain it to Grady?”
Genevieve smiled, raising her eyebrows and admiring the hard muscles before her, even if they were still covered by his shirt and waistcoat. Inwardly she was amused by the thought of Peter’s two devoted servants—his fastidious gentleman’s gentleman, Robin, and strictly reserved majordomo, Grady—trying to help Peter remove the paint from his body, but she’d never admit to that. She’d probably enjoy removing it herself anyway. “You will admit that you cannot deny me anything or that I’m fascinated by your beautiful skin. Or that you can’t stand it when I cry and I seem to all the time now that I’m in this delicate condition. Or that we were drunk and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Peter humphed, but his fingers were tangled at the buttons of his waistcoat. Genevieve sat up and kissed his jaw, her fingers slipping the buttons open and pulling up his shirt. He grunted. “I’ll undress. You get your paints.”
Not bothering to hide her smile, Genevieve stood, grabbing her smock from the floor as she did. With some three months to go, she could still bend, but the maneuver was more difficult.
“Don’t you dare put your gown back on or I’ll take it right back off.” He paused. “And no tying me down. What if you fell or the coals in the fire needed tending or someone came to the door?”
Genevieve frowned, but Peter’s fussy protectiveness was a natural outcome of his love and affection. He’d always been protective, but since he’d deduced she was expecting, he truly hovered. “I’d ring for help,” she returned serenely, slipping the smock over her shoulders. “The object is to paint you, not me. I need to wear something.”
Behind her, Peter grumbled, but she heard him moving, so she found a dry palette and considered what she might do with the opportunity. It took her only a few minutes to retrieve the paints she wanted, then she turned back to Peter.
He waited obligingly on his back on the divan, completely nude with his erect staff displayed proudly. Perhaps it was obscene for it to be that blatantly erect, but Genevieve had long since lost any inhibitions when it came to admiring Peter’s body. He lusted for her touch, and she loved pandering to his cravings.
Genevieve licked her lips. He’d spread his arms out wide, gripping the legs of the divan on each side. His feet rested against one end, since he’d chosen the piece to suit his height, and he’d spread his legs so that there was enough space between his knees for her to kneel, should she so wish.
She grinned at him, and he fidgeted slightly.
Nevertheless, he was as still as a church mouse as she positioned her supplies alongside the daybed and joined him, her finger reaching out to trace his hip then over the front of his pelvis. She found the edge of the scar that marked his damaged skin and followed the edges of it up to his shoulder. Unable to resist, she bent forward and used her tongue to follow the path her fingers had made.
All of Peter’s muscles hardened, which she rewarded by pressing her lips tenderly to the nipple closest to her. “Thank you for letting me indulge my fantasies, husband,” she whispered.
“As long as they have to do with me, you’re welcome to use my body any way you see fit, angel,” Peter allowed. His voice was already low and strained, so she straightened and took up her brush and palette.
It was careful work, and she put all thoughts of intimacy out of her mind to concentrate. Keeping in mind his masculine pride, she kept to the red and orange hues, mixing the paints and gradually adding darker tints.
She’d never done anything like this before, and she loved it. She wanted to keep him there longer, but sitting for a portrait was fatiguing, so she knew this enforced stillness that Peter was enduring would exhaust him. She used a very narrow brush, blowing on the black lines, and wound the image around his nipples, leaving them clear, working her way down and using his muscles to define the shape of the animal she was constructing.
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