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“Why are you staring?” asked Ina without lifting her eyes from the broadsheet she’d begun to steal from him in the mornings since they’d agreed to take breakfast together every day.

“Should I not be?” he asked.

“No, but you’re staring so intently there must be a reason. Maybe my hair is a wreck,” she suggested, touching the ribbon that gathered her locks at the nape of her neck.

“No,” he said, his thumb tracing a path over her knuckles.

“Do I still have lines on my face from the pillow?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” he said.

“That’s not surprising, given how little you let me sleep.”

He grinned. “You’re as much to blame for that as I am.”

Her smile matched his. “Isn’t it convenient then that you enjoyed it?”

How true that was. He loved the way her skin felt impossibly soft under his fingers except for the callouses on her hands from her tools. Her lemon verbena scent had worked its way under his skin, and he was half certain he’d grow hard if he so much as walked by the damned plant now.

Even after last night, he still yearned for her just as he would tomorrow and the next day. It wasn’t enough—it was never going to be enough. She consumed him with the awe-inspiring force of a wildfire, yet his passion never seemed to burn out.

You can’t tell her, he reminded himself sternly. It was better to bottle up his feelings and settle for whatever combination of sex and affectionate companionship she was willing to offer than it was to open his heart to her and face the wound of rejection. He could love her body, but only he would know what every touch and kiss really meant.

“I thought today we might ride,” he said.

She shot him a wry look.

“Horses,” he clarified. “You’re becoming quite depraved.”

She rounded the breakfast table and slid onto his lap. “You adore me for it.”

“You have no idea,” he said, his hands finding purchase on the swell of her hips as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Her hand slid up his chest and along his jaw. He opened his lips a hairsbreadth, ready for her kiss.

“I can think of so many other ways to find exercise,” she said, her breath tickling his unshaven chin.

His hands slid up her backside to the small of her back, bunching the fabric of her dressing gown. “Is that so?”

“Yes, and—”

The door opened. He’d thought that Ina might jump off his lap and scramble to her side of the table, but instead she remained firmly seated, twisting her neck slightly to look at a flustered Norris. His shameless wife. He’d have to thank her for that when the scandalized butler retreated.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but there’s a letter for you,” said Norris.

“On the sideboard is fine,” he said with a nod. Norris might expire from embarrassment if he came any closer, and Gavin couldn’t trust his rising cock to not make the situation even more awkward.

The butler hurried to deposit the letter on the sideboard and left.

“I believe you’ve corrupted our butler,” he said.

Ina laughed. “Just think how the servants will gossip. The very thought of a husband and wife engaged in intimacy behind closed doors.”

“You’re meant to close your eyes and think of England—or rather, Scotland—remember?”

Her lips twitched. “And what, pray tell, are you meant to be thinking about?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He touched his forehead to hers. “Off my lap, so I can retrieve my letter, jezebel.”