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He smiled sheepishly. “It will be back tomorrow afternoon.”

Suspicion crept into her mind. “Back from where?”

He shrugged and turned away, striding back to the dressing room. “From the carpenter’s. As I was cleaning this morning, I stumbled into it, toppling it over, and accidentally broke its foot. I had to take it to the carpenter to replace the leg.”

Victoria’s eyes widened. He had never had any intention of getting rid of it. “You lied to me!” she accused his back.

He paused in the doorway, turned his head, and raised a finger. “I absolutely did not.”

“You took advantage of the situation to spin it in your favor!”

William gave her an odd look. “Darling, are you really that surprised?”

She grunted and turned away, feigning affront. “Unfortunately, I am not.” And I am not even mad.

* * *

William had a raging erection by the time they stopped arguing. It wasn’t the first time it had happened either. Just talking to her was invigorating. The mere sight of her, or even the thought of her, set his body aflame. But when she argued with him, fire glowing in her eyes and her rosy cheeks flushed with fervor, this was the closest he came to feeling her passion.

If he couldn’t feel her ardor in their bed, at least he could feel it in her words. As long as she argued with him, he knew she cared.

William leaned his hips against the copper bath and took himself in hand.

God, how he wished it were her fingers encircling his cock, sliding up and down his length, slowly at first, then picking up the speed and stroking him in sharp, short jerks.

He could envision her clearly, kneeling between his knees, holding him in her silky-soft hands, looking up at him with her dark brown eyes. Gazing at him with a desire that left him breathless, just the way she used to look at him two years ago when they’d just met.

He closed his eyes and threw his head back.

In this vision of his, Victoria let down her jet-black hair and it cascaded down her shoulders in thick waves. She’d look up at him with a gaze that told him she saw him for exactly who he was. And she loved it.

Loved him.

When she looked at him, she could see straight into his heart. She could read all his desires and feel what he had felt for her ever since the moment he saw her on the ground, in a heap of her skirts, in the middle of the night two years ago.

This vision of her was something he had dreamed about for years. He imagined her taking him into her mouth with a gleam in her eyes, closing her lips around the tip of his cock.

Oh, Victoria!

He groaned and continued his rhythmic stroking, his hips moving, thrusting into his palm. Only in his mind’s eye, it wasn’t his hand, but her lovely mouth that he plunged into. And she enthusiastically took him in, her tongue circling his tip, her hands teasing his base, as she coquettishly glanced up at him.

In his vision, she knew exactly who he was: a bastard, a thief, a criminal. And she still loved and accepted him. She desired his body, and she ached for his soul, just as he ached for hers.

Oh, how he wanted to plunge his cock into her depths and fuck her hard until she cried his name. His name on her lips was one of the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard.

His body tensed, his hips quickening the rhythm until his seed spilled with the strength of his release.

William froze for a few long moments, still holding his erection, softer now, sticky with the evidence of his lust. He took a few deep breaths to calm his rioting heart.

He had dreamed of Victoria for so long. And now that she was finally so close, he felt that the need in his body could never be slaked. Not by his own hand, not by anyone else’s.

Just hers.

He only hoped that having relieved his urges, sleeping in the same bed with her wouldn’t be so painful.

Chapter 15

William had been wrong.