“Withdraw,” she instructed, panting, “You must withdraw.”
With a groan of frustration, he did. Wet, exhausted, she rolled onto her back. Her bottom hit the bed, driving the phallus impossibly deep inside her. She came with it, but the orgasm was a mere ripple through her sated body. She didn’t need to give more instruction. Rodesson moved to straddle her shoulders and he held his rigid cock down to her lips.
Once he forced himself to wait it became almost impossible to bring him to climax. Sometimes she had to leave him unsatisfied—on the days he took her by her arse. But today, she must give him special pleasure, for she knew he had secrets to reveal.
She tongued the head, drawing out a moan. His story had been true. Even shackled she possessed great power. She kissed the bubbling eye. “You can’t paint at all?” she whispered.
He tried to thrust himself inside her mouth, but she kept her lips together, teasing the engorged head. “But that is not so tragic,” she reassured. “Wouldn’t your books become more valuable if it is known there is to be no more?”
“I wish there weren’t,” he muttered, speaking more by reflex than by conscious thought.
She took him inside then let him out to torment him once again.
“It doesn’t work that way, love,” he said louder. For a man experiencing skilled pleasure to his cock, he looked decidedly grim. “I done a few things considered shocking in the world of publishing. Keeping me copyright, for example. But if the volumes stop, me blunt will.”
So if she wanted anything from him, she must get it now.
“And hell, since me money’s gone, I’m to be in dun territory. Again.”
“Don’t think of such things, master. Let your slave suckle you and please you.”
“You’re a talented and cunning lass, aren’t you, Lydia?”
No, she could not let him think her cunning and calculating. She must play the courtesan who loved to please, even if he could readily see through the ruse.
She took him deep into her mouth and he rewarded her skill by swelling large. She grabbed his buttocks and let him thrust into her as vigorously as he needed to. She curled her lips over her teeth and endured. His explosion rocked him, and for a moment she feared that his heart was not strong enough. He collapsed to the bed beside her, muttering endearments and words of appreciation.
She breathed hard and murmured words of pleasure. He still seemed to be semi-conscious as he struggled to free her of the ropes, as he gave her the key to free her own hands.
“Yes, you’re a talented woman…” He flopped back.
Knowing Rodesson, she guessed he’d played cards all night and had not yet slept. Curling up beside him, she stroked the damp gray hair on his chest, and waited until he drifted into a post-coital slumber.
Lydia slipped from the bed and drew on her silky wrapper. As she tied the belt around her waist, she padded out of the room.
Once in her library, she scanned the leather-bound books on the crowded shelves. To extract the one she wanted, she had to tug hard to free it. With a warm sense of pride, she surveyed the books surrounding her. Her library was as well appointed as any gentleman’s.
Stroking a finger across the gilt letters embossed in the rich leather, she lay the book on the large table. Opened it, flipped the pages until she found the first erotic picture. She then took a second book and laid it beside the first. Rodesson’s last two books, Tales of a London Gentleman and A Gentleman’s Pleasures.
Why should his inability to paint be a secret, unless…
She studied the pictures closely. The poses. The expressions. The style.
Her guess had been correct. These pictures were…different.
Who had painted Rodesson’s work?
CHAPTER ONE
What would her jaded lord do with his hands while the lovely courtesan knelt between his legs and kissed him intimately?
Venetia Hamilton tapped the end of her brush against her lips as she studied her watercolor painting. Even though her earl—yes, she’d decided he was an earl—was a most experienced man, this time he’d met his match in the delightful auburn-haired woman pleasuring him.
She couldn’t resist smiling at her imaginary earl’s downfall in the arena he believed he reigned supreme. Since his lordship was so steeped in vice, so bored by customary sensual acts, he’d begin with definite ennui, merely an onlooker to his own seduction.
In his right hand, Venetia sketched a glass of fine champagne. In his left, since he was in the theatre box of the pretty woman, she gave him a peeled orange the size of an ample breast, large enough to fill his strong hand. No, he would not touch the woman, she decided. But in his expression…there she could show not only the desire, but the growing wonderment as his heart began to open, to unfurl, to delight in the pleasures bestowed upon him.
She turned her attention to the audience, for her earl was receiving these daring caresses to his intimate parts in full view of the Drury Lane theatre. Ah, the expressions told the tale—the matrons pretending to be scandalized, but really enraptured by his magnificent proportions, his exquisite form, his handsome face. Envy on their husbands’ faces. And the leering looks of the mob in the orchestra.
Now she must tackle the earl’s expression. Capture perfectly the growing astonishment on his face as this act that he must have experienced a thousand times—at least—became new and special and wonderful once more…
She took short, unsteady breaths as she stepped back from naughty fantasy to the reality of her tiny studio. When she drew, she became one with the scene—not a participant, but a figure in the shadows, holding a brush, telling a life’s history in one erotic moment.
Her body hummed with desire, ached with it. She should be ashamed to admit it, but she wasn’t at all as proper as her mother had raised her to be. She was, after all, her father’s daughter.
With a sigh, Venetia plopped her brush in the jar and swirled it until the water blushed pink, lit by the fragile spring sunlight that spilled through the paned window. The only raven-haired scoundrels in her life lived on the canvases stacked on the narrow shelves of her studio, all safely hidden beneath muslin covers.
She knew perfectly well that love was a woman’s folly. That rakes never truly reformed—
A sharp rap on the door had her almost knocking over the water glass. The rap came again. Followed by a breathless, “My heavens, Miss Hamilton!”
She had to take the time to turn the easel so her painting faced the wall and Mrs. Cobb burst through the door just as she hid the scandalous picture.
Mrs. Cobb puffed from the jaunt up the stairs. Her cheeks blazed red, her cap was askew. She held out a card. “There is a gentleman to see you, mum. A gentleman calling upon you alone!”
“Which gentleman?” Her father? Rodesson outwardly appeared to be a ‘gentleman’. But he wouldn’t dare visit.
Her housekeeper pushed her cap upright. “The Earl of Trent, mum! I put him in the drawing room. Tea? Should I put the kettle on?”
Venetia’s heart tapped a frenzied dance in her chest. She pushed her chair back, snatched up the studio key, and crossed the floor in a heartbeat to take the card. Her thumb slid over thick, textured vellum embossed with a crest. Her gaze fell to the title, in bold text. It did indeed read—THE EARL OF TRENT.
She slumped against the doorframe in disbelief. How could the earl know who she was?
Mrs. Cobb lurked over her shoulder, demanding a decision on tea as Venetia locked