Courting Guinevere (The Davonshire Series Book 1)

by Olivia Gaines

She enlarged the photo and when she got to that goatee she had asked him to run down her spine, she felt her stomach knot up. The second photo was of him shirtless with a pair of snug-fitting low rider jeans. Well, that answered that question! She blushed and shifted her thoughts back to something that didn’t make her want to get happy in her pants.

  She thought of all the legal ramifications of GGU285 and what the implications would be if they were to marry. Would the pharmacy gods have him sign some form of paperwork, especially considering he worked with hedge funds and emerging futures?

  31

  Well...Damn!

  Gawain paced the room. He recounted her few words. Farm markets shift on my research. She was contracted with patents pending to the farm gods. Farm with a P-H.

  “Duh, knuckle dragger … pharm gods as in pharmaceuticals,” he admonished himself.

  She had contracted labs in Princeton. Her sister was her co-worker– her last name was Murphy. He picked up his phone, hit the speed dial, and asked his assistant four questions. Ten minutes later he sat at his computer staring at a picture of his beautiful future wife, Guinevere, who not only held a PhD but an MD, as well just as she told him.

  He chuckled. He would have to sign a prenup because she did in fact have substantial assets, as well as holding the patents on the little blue pill, the primary treatment pill for acid reflux, and the hottest item on any planet, that weight loss pill. He ran his finger across the image of her lips and felt a stab of desire all the way to his toes. The future Mrs. Dr. Devonshire, PhD was world-famous and yet no one knew her face because her sister Cecily was the face of her company, Affinity Labs. He started to rub the hair on his chest.

  By God, our children will be little geniuses!

  In the same thought he realized his stupidity. She was right. She could not move the labs— but she could take a hiatus.

  32

  Share My Fears

  After a fitful night, Guinevere was irritable. She took a moment to practice some deep breathing techniques she had learned in yoga class, but realized she just needed a moment to pray. If Gawain was the man destined for her, all she needed was a small sign.

  The two months since the marriage conversation they spent talking about larger things, and she needed to know some of the smaller details. It was about 6:30 a.m. in Phoenix, and she took a chance and called the number he had given her.

  To her surprise he answered the phone. “Good morning, milady.”

  She smiled at the sound of his voice. He was more worried about her, “Are you okay? It is rather early.” The concern in his voice warmed her over.

  “Yes, I just wanted to get a few annoying thoughts out of the way and talk to you about a few things that popped into my head last night.” She paused and waited for a response.

  She could hear rustling and heard a woman’s voice. He told the woman he would be a few minutes and to have the family start breakfast without him, but sweetly asked her to bring him a coffee. Into the phone he simply stated, “Go ahead, I’ll answer any questions you have.”

  Guinevere breathed a sigh of relief. “How are you so certain that I’m the one?”

  He must have had the phone on speaker; she heard a light tap on the door, he mumbled something, and again a woman’s voice, “Is that her?”

  He must have nodded. The voice only said, “Good morning, milady.”

  Guinevere giggled and figured it was Mina. “Good morning to the world’s most beautiful little sister!”

  Mina smacked her lips. “Did you tell her you call me that?”

  The banter between him and his sister went back and forth. He asked Mina to leave several times, but she made small talk with Guinevere. She heard another male voice and assumed it was the brother. “I can’t wait to meet you, woman,” Will said bending over and yelling in the phone.

  “Stop it before you hurt yourself. Both of you out!”

  Gawain pushed the two out of the room. “After dealing with those two for a week, I may be okay to live in Jersey, just to get away from them.” Laughing, he asked her to continue the thoughts she had started.

  “You seem so certain, Gawain,” she repeated. “How can you know that this … us … we will work out?”

  He inhaled deeply and allowed the question to hang in the air. “In truth, we don’t. We only know that what we currently have is not working either, and I would rather build something with you from scratch than continue something that hasn’t been working.”

  Gawain sounded more confident than he actually felt. “Before I began this quest, I fasted and prayed and prayed and fasted,” he exhaled a bit.

  If they were going to be anything to each other, honesty would have to be at the forefront. Gawain confessed, “The first two or three weeks on the site I went out on a couple of dates. They went pretty much as I expected”.

  “But I didn’t and don’t want a bed partner. I want a wife, a life and children,” he said softly.

  Guinevere wasn’t buying it. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why me? You’ve never even seen me.”

  He told her how he had pulled away from many of his old habits and started to plan for his future. “The more I spoke with you, the more intrigued I became and looked forward to just our online conversations.”

  Gawain admitted that the online conversations he shared with her were deeper than many held in person with people he had known for many years. “I knew you were the one when I ran into an old flame a month ago, and I was totally uninterested,” he said calmly. “I told her I was seeing someone.” He exhaled slowly. “I knew you were the one when I would not and could not accept a substitute.” She could almost feel his smile through the phone. “I only want you.”

  Think positive. “How do you know we will be compatible, you know,” she paused, “um … you know … sexually?”

  Gawain chuckled. “Do all your parts work?” He took her pause to mean yes. “Then we are compatible!” he said emphatically.

  “What if your parts don’t react to me?” She sounded like a wounded child.

  Gawain was still laughing. “Milady, if the way my parts respond to the sound of your voice is any indication, I can only pray that I don’t embarrass myself when we speak in person! Thank God my sister knocked before she walked in the room!”

  Think positive. Ask and he shall answer. “What if I like things you don’t like?”

  Gawain was not swayed. “Guinevere, there are only a few things I don’t care to partake in. The rest is pretty much fair game or based in compromise. I am not a man of unusual appetites or strange proclivities.”

  There were three things in the sex department that Gawain would not compromise on. “One: no groups.”

  He went on to add, “I do not like swapping, orgies, or multiple partners.”

  “Second,” he continue, “I don’t like anything regarding the butt.” She inhaled sharply when he said, “It is an evacuation unit. I want nothing going in mine, and I do not wish to put anything in yours!”

  She giggled as he placed hard emphasis on the ‘anything.’ He closed with, “Last but not least: animals!”

  She could almost see his frown through the phone. “Combining the three is a deal breaker for me!”

  Curiosity had taken over, and Guinevere had to ask, “Did someone try to put a gerbil in your butt or something?”

  “Yes, at least she tried,” he said, sounding defeated. “She traumatized me, the gerbil, and my penis.” He threw his head back and let out a throaty gut-busting laugh. “Even now when I see a caged gerbil, I get all PETA and want to free them all!”

  She laughed, too. Maybe she was being silly, but she still she needed some sort of sign. “Gawain, what about phone sex?”

  “I’ve never had a phone that I like that much,” he said flatly.

  “Funny, but what if I wanted to have phone sex?” Guinevere asked.

  Gawain was trying to avoid the subject. “Well, if you like your phone that much –go ahead.”

>   He heard her sigh and knew where she was going, but they had avoided this subject on numerous occasions. There was no avoiding it now and he had to just face the music. “Gawain, you are avoiding the subject. It’s been eight months.” She paused. “And I am about to go nuts!”

  “You too, huh?”

  “Yes, what are we going to do about this?”

  “We are not going to have phone sex – that is for certain,” and he took her off speaker. “There are two things I will not do for myself, one is cut my own hair and the other–nope–can’t have too much of that! It gets addictive.”

  “Well, what about me, what if I need your help?”

  “If you truly need my help, I can be there in a couple of hours, but on the phone, I can’t do it.”

  “If it was something I truly wanted, then would you?”

  “If you truly want me to do this for you, I will,” he stated. “But I’m not comfortable with it.”

  “Sweetie,” she said in a patronizing tone, “if I need some relief and need you to talk me off the ledge that smooth voice may need to start working!”

  He laughed, and laughed, and laughed even harder. “My lady, if it’s that bad, I am on my way to you right now.”

  “You’re making fun of me aren’t you?”

  He inhaled slowly to calm his laughter. “No, I would never do that. I’m just not comfortable to do it. I mean, I’m no prude. It’s just …”

  He waited until he had the right words. “… exploring your body is a hands-on activity. I would feel stupid telling you how I wanted to plant light kisses along the base of your neck if you don’t like that kind of thing.”

  Think positive. Not everything can be perfect. You are not in a lab. He is not a lab specimen.

  He continued, “When I explore your body, I want to learn where your hot spots are. If I touch you here, will you inhale? If I touch you there, will you pull me closer? If I kiss you here, will your eyes roll back in your head? These things require you and me in the same room. I can’t describe something I want to do when I don’t really know what you like.”

  Gawain said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t want you to describe what you want to do to me, you may say something I find offensive or vice versa.”

  He paused. “What if I really get into it and say something that is vulgar and scare you away. Hell, what if you say something that makes me cringe…. It could happen, you know.” You like licking your Boo-Bear’s Honey Pot, don’t you?

  Who says that? He shuddered and cringed at the same time.

  She started to chuckle. Gawain said it flatly, “Now you’re laughing at me.”

  “I’m not laughing,” she said, “but I can kind of guess what you like, and I can describe how I want to touch you there.”

  He arched his brows and held the phone closer as she went on to say, “And if I wanted to take you in my hands and massage you with long caresses.”

  He was still quiet.

  I feel so stupid.

  He lowered his voice a couple of octaves, “Go on,” he said, “you may be on to something with this phone sex thing.”

  “What if I took you into my mouth,” she asked.

  Gawain was pulled right out of the fantasy and dropped into a visual locker room full of sweaty men. “Stop right there! I’m cringing,” he said. “I’m not opposed to that, but I am not quick to reciprocate.”

  Her eyebrows went up this time. “A little selfish, Sir Knight?”

  “Not at all, milady,” he said. “I just need to be familiar with a person’s hygiene habits before I can take that route.”

  She was laughing.

  “Don’t laugh,” he said. “Remember I lived on the road with models, and I’ve seen some really nasty stuff that women do and don’t do.”

  Guinevere felt a little better. He continued, “I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me until you were able to see my hygiene routine as well.”

  He was laughing now, mostly at himself as he told her, “I sound like a prude, but I travel a great deal and see American men leave the Far East with things they can’t cure and rashes that will not go away. I’m just cautious.”

  She felt better when he told her, “If you want me to walk you through a rough spot, I will do that for you, but I would rather you wait until I can hold you in my arms and kiss those luscious lips in person. I am really looking forward to running my hands across that smooth, dark, velvety skin…running my fingers across that sexy boy cut hair, pulling you close and inhaling the scent of your soap…touching you…” Suddenly Gawain stopped talking. His breathing was uneven. Get a hold of yourself, Man!

  “I understand better now why we haven’t gone down that route.”

  “No Shit,” he said, “I’m about to poke a hole in my mattress. Enough of that!” He could hear her laughing hysterically on the other end of the phone, “When we get together, you can touch, taste, and explore every inch of me.”

  Through her laughter, she couldn’t resist, “Everything except your butt.” She laughed louder.

  He burst out laughing as well. Guinevere had a few more questions and she would let him get about his day with his family.

  “Gawain, please don’t think I’m silly, but I just need to know some of the smaller details.”

  He could hear the concern in her voice. “Okay, then,” he said as he gathered his thoughts. He began to think of what he could tell her to help appease some of her concerns. “I’m going to tell you three things that I am going to need that are important for us to start our life together.

  “Marriage and children are a given, but I will need a really big closet.”

  That was the last thing she expected to hear him say. “I have nearly 200 custom suits, matching shirts, ties, and shoes. I am a clothes whore. I can’t help it. It’s my sister’s fault.”

  He added, “I plan to keep them all and require a closet that would hold not only my business clothes, but other items as well.”

  “I also would like a wine cellar.”

  Guinevere asked, “Wine cellar, with the vineyard, and all, you are a Sommelier?”

  “Close. I have been studying hard this past year. I am going to take the test next month. And I would love to own a vineyard. I also have about 150 bottles of wine that would need to be relocated.”

  “And last but not least, I need a lot of land because I plan to bring my horses.”

  He heard her gasp.

  “You have horses?” she asked.

  “Yes, I have three.” He paused. “Plus my sister’s gelding, Galahad, who hates her, so now I have that one, as well, which makes it four.”

  Guinevere clucked. “You castrated Sir Galahad?”

  “Yes,” he said solemnly, “and my sister wears way too much perfume, which Galahad hates, so he often throws her off his back.”

  He went on, “She is convinced that Galahad is the devil and is trying to kill her, so she gave him back and bought herself a pretty Palomino pony.”

  Guinevere asked him about the others. “I plan to have 12 in all. Along with Galahad, I also have Percival and the mother of my Black, Morgana.” She was amazed and yet knew what was coming next, but she had to hear the confirmation from his mouth.

  This morning she prayed for a sign and knew that his answer to the next question would remove all doubts from her mind that this man was meant to be hers. “And tell me, Sir Knight, the name of your trusty steed? Arthur, Bedivere or Bleobedis?” she asked with a bit of caution.

  He chuckled. “No, my Black is regal, poised and gallant. There was no other name for him other than the most valiant knight of them all, Sir Lancelot.”

  The conversation ended on a high note and she was ready.

  I am going to be his wife and give him beautiful babies with dark wavy hair and dimples. The planning had to be started. She was convinced and ready.

  Explaining this to her parents was going to be a challenge. Gawain was equally uncertain of how to explain it to his. In his head he knew what was
next. He only had to gather his courage.

  He had reached the mountain top and the opening of the cave was there. The dragon also knew he had arrived. The time for talking was over.

  33

  The Knight's Around the Table

  The waves lapped at the sides of the boat and Gawain had spent most of the morning feeding the fish from his line. His mind wandered back and forth over the conversation he had yesterday with Guinevere about their future.

  Am I insane?

  Yes, I have seen a picture, I have all the research on who she is…. But do I honestly know who she is? Shit. I lived with Shontae for three years and didn’t know who she was either.

  He did know some things. Guinevere was beautiful, smart and one of the greatest chemistry minds on the continent. She also had her own money, that she earned by the sweat of her brow and her skillsets. He sorrowfully admitted to himself in the mirror during his shave that he was madly in love with Guinevere and had never touched her. He wanted to board a plane, fly to Princeton, sweep her into his arms, and spend the rest of his life making her happy.

  The past eleven months had been some of the happiest in his adult life all because of his ability to chat with her about her day, her feelings, and her views on life. She had taken dance lessons to be able to dance with him, and he had offered to give it all up if she would leave Jersey.

  Is Princeton really the breaking point?

  Technically, he could live one place during the winter and she another.

  Maybe I am just mind-humping myself to give me an easy out if she dumps me.

  Hell, I would live in Buffalo if that was where she was…. What am I doing?

  The line was being pulled and he hadn’t even noticed. Wilfred picked up his pole and began to wrangle in the fish on the line. Gawain barely paid any attention because he was so deep into his thoughts.

  His father walked over and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Son, you hair is on fire.”