River's Edge (Unlikely Gentlemen, Book 1)

by Sivad, Gem

  Afterward, she lay with her head on his chest listening to his heart beat. While he slept, she stroked her finger in a line from his shoulder down his arm, and memorized the bumps and bones in his wrist. Pressing her nose against his flesh, she breathed in the scent of his skin and planned her next canvas—the picture of a sun-kissed cowboy.

  Not any cowboy, she corrected her thoughts, closing her eyes in contentment. My Edge.

  EPILOGUE

  Six months later…

  Edge turned the book over in his hand and looked at it in amazement. Kid Starks Rides Again—the title appeared in bold letters across the front. Underneath, in a much more modest font, the words, Story by Edge Grayson and Illustrations by River Prescott appeared.

  “They’ve already sold out of the first printing and want more,” she grumbled as if she wasn’t as excited as him.

  “You said you tossed it,” he scolded. River, it seemed, had a penchant for telling different versions of the truth. Edge hadn’t complained when his notebook went missing after he’d first moved in. The first couple of weeks had been pretty hectic, and when he’d asked River what happened to it, she’d been apologetic and claimed to have thrown it away.

  “I wanted to surprise you. It’s gorgeous isn’t it?”

  “You surprised me,” he said gruffly, emotion making his voice rough. “I hope the Kid’s up there looking down and can see.” He touched Kid’s name on the front and his own name next to hers underneath.

  “If he is, I’m sure he’s pleased.”

  Edge laid Kid’s story on the table and crossed to River, pulling her from behind her easel and into his embrace.

  “I love you,” he growled before covering her lips with his.

  “I love you, too,” she murmured. Her arms went around his neck, and she clung to him, returning his kiss with passion.

  “I suppose now that you’re an author, I’ve lost my best subject and the bridge will never get built,” she said breathlessly when the kiss ended.

  “The bridge is a work in progress as you well know. And if you stayed here every day instead of traipsing down to the willow tree to watch, I’d get a lot more done.”

  “But you’d have a lot less fun,” she said quickly.

  Her words made Edge smile inside. River was something all right. Original that’s what the lawyer in town had called her. After she’d coaxed Edge into agreeing to pose for a portrait, she’d lured him into her studio and stunned him with the gift of the book.

  “As for being your model; I’m here.”

  “Exactly,” she said dramatically, stepping behind the canvas and taking up her palette. She pointed a brush at him. “It’s time to focus. We have a painting to complete.”

  “So what do you want me to do and where do you want me to do it?” He couldn’t keep a hint of surliness from his tone. Her portrait idea was pure silliness but he’d taken on the job of spoiling her so he didn’t argue. Edge glanced at the book and admitted she spoiled him more than a little, too.

  “After you've removed your clothes, please stand in the pool of sunlight, slanting through the window.”

  Feeling like a damned fool, he stripped stark naked; with great reluctance, he posed in her puddle of sunlight while she gave him instructions from behind her easel.

  “Now, touch yourself as you did by the river,” she said in a superior tone that announced she was unimpressed with his cock, other than of course, for purposes of art. He knew better. He spent each night with her in their new bed.

  Edge started to refuse, then paused. “Exactly who's going to be looking at this picture?”

  “Me.” A hint of red touched her cheeks and her serious expression became an impish grin. “I’m calling it River’s Edge. What do you think?”

  The much anticipated next book

  in the Unlikely Gentlemen series is here!

  OUTRAGEOUS PRIDE

  UNLIKELY GENTLEMEN BOOK II

  by Gem Sivad

  Available soon from

  Dark Mountain Books

  Keep reading for a sneak peek

  to see what River’s friend,

  Talia Fitzwilliam, has been up to…

  OUTRAGEOUS PRIDE

  Unlikely Gentlemen, Book II

  Blurb

  Talia Fitzwilliam doesn’t know she’s the love child of a Texas rancher until he dies. Her father’s legitimate heirs want the land and money he’s willed her, and to get it, they attack her reputation with vengeance. Her only options are to give up what is rightfully hers or marry to gain protection.

  As the drought around Isaca takes its toll, Irish immigrant and bare-knuckle boxer, Kell, “Pride,” Lonigan is building an empire by buying up land before it goes to auction. Kell isn’t the most popular man in the area, but his career winnings make him the richest. He sees opportunity in Miss Fitzwilliam’s dilemma. She’s refined, beautiful, and chaste; three things a rough brawler can only dream of when he takes a wife.

  Though she barely knows the Irishman who’s come to town, desperation has Tali considering the former boxer’s proposal. Before she can accept or decline, lurid rumors about her begin to circulate, provoking Tali to make her own outrageous suggestion to the man who’s offered her respectability at his side.

  Excerpt

  This will prove nothing, Mr. Lonigan,” Jeb Carter’s widow hissed. “I’m here to observe this farce and establish forever that Talia Fitzwilliam is a whoring slut just as her mother was. The two of you suit just fine, trash calling to trash.”

  “Get the screeching cailleach out of here,” Kell snarled.

  “No, please, just finish this,” Talia whispered, no longer sure that her idea had been a good one now that she lay with her skirts rolled up to her waist. As soon as her peach colored drawers were removed, her naked lower region would be on view.

  Kell was grim faced and stern so after the first look at him, she closed her eyes. If she hadn’t been so scared, she’d have been mortified.

  This will be over in no time. It’s nothing. I’ll just pretend I’m doing something else. That didn’t help a bit when she heard the rustle of skirts as the ladies moved around the cot to get a better view. Talia felt calloused hands remove her pantalettes and recognized Kell’s unmistakable touch.

  I will never live this embarrassment down. The cot sagged under her and then he was there, pushing her legs apart.

  “Tali, look at me,” Kell said gruffly.

  “No,” she whispered. She was shaking so hard the bed moved from the force of her tremors.

  He leaned over and brushed his lips across hers, his message hushed and intimate as he said, “It’ll be fine, sweetheart. I’ll try not to hurt ye.”

  Talia’s eyes popped open at his words. It was all for show of course. She wasn’t his sweetheart and he had no real affection for her. But she knew many of the women who’d volunteered to be observers and she was grateful for his pretense.

  “They’ll be no chicanery here, Pride Lonigan. I know you think you’re going to spill your own blood somehow to make it seem she’s virgin. I demand that you either show what you’ve got in your pockets or take off your pants.” As the women watched, Celia Carter grabbed Kell, which, given his state of mind, was a mistake.

  “I canna smack the lying smirk from yer face, but if ye donna take yer hand off me arm, I’ll put ye on yer arse.”

  “Don’t threaten me, you Irish lout.” But Celia dropped her hand and stepped back.

  Since Talia’s lower extremities were bare with nothing between her and the women’s stares, she drew a deep breath and ordered him, “Don’t you dare hold back now, Kell Lonigan.”

  Without a word, he dropped his pants and climbed back on the bed, again situating himself between her legs.

  “Oh, me lovely colleen, ‘tis a fine gift ye bring yer husband today,” he said in his lilting Irish brogue before he covered her mouth with his. Distracted though she was by his kiss, she still felt the head of his shaft part the lips of her cleft and bru
sh across the opening of her channel.

  He ended the kiss and sat back on his heels so the ladies could see what he was about to do. Talia leaned up on her elbows and looked too. The heart of her womanhood was as dry as her mouth when he rubbed his manhood in the soft folds of her sex. She’d never envisioned her first time being this way.

  “Natalia Lonigan, I’ll be making you my wife now.” Talia felt a shiver of awareness as Kell spoke grim words for her ears only and held her gaze as if trying to reassure her. It had the opposite effect. Her flesh chilled and her breath stopped in her chest. She looked at the stranger kneeling over her and then in panic at the women gazing down at them.

  Somebody stop this right now. The women’s avid stares announced clearly they were not going to interrupt the proceedings. Celia Carter’s eyes glittered with malice.

  “Tali.” Kell cupped her chin, angling her head so that she stared into his eyes. Below, the tip of his shaft nudged and stretched what had never been touched before. She gasped when he pushed harder, breaching her flesh.

  He stopped; his expression was almost sorrowful. He stared down at her with his manhood half lodged in her narrow opening and witnesses waiting to testify for or against her purity. It was obviously up to Talia to take charge.

  “Now,” she demanded and thrust her hips upward, propelling his thick member through the veil of her innocence.

  It was awful. It felt as though the walls of her channel were being scraped with sandpaper. Kell took back control, tilted her for better access, and plunged to her core. Her vow to be silent forgotten, Talia’s scream echoed around the room.

  “What the hell’s he doing to her?” she heard someone on the outside of their enclosure say.

  Kell shielded the view of her body from the others as he cradled her face in his hands.

  “The likes of such loving will be but once, my sweet, sweet Tali.” His gaze held hers as he declared, “I’ll not hurt ye again.”

  Their flesh remained joined and their first marital discord witnessed.

  “Don’t promise to be a saint when you’re closer to a devil, Kell Lonigan,” she told him. “You’ll hurt me a thousand times more and you know it.”

  “Aye, I expect ye have the right of it, Mrs. Lonigan. I’m glad to see ye’ve got yer sass back,” he murmured.

  Talia watched his eyes crinkle at the corners in an almost smile and then he hugged her close for a moment before he began the process of withdrawing. It hurt worse. Pain ratcheted through her, necessitating that she bite her lip to keep from crying out again. She could feel a trickle of wet sliding down her cheek and prayed it was sweat and not tears. She would not weep like a child in front of these people.

  Kell held her gaze as he withdrew. Then he stood and faced the women with the red of Talia’s innocence displayed on his still engorged cock.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gem Sivad is a multi-award winning author with a reputation for creating multi-faceted characters in complex stories that simmer with passion. Gem enjoys turning up the heat and has been dubbed by reviewers as “the queen of naughty historical romance.”

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