“Ye cannae prevail on him all the time tae…” Yet Ava’s objection trailed off as Kai presented his hand forward.
Why would I ever refuse an opportunity tae dance with her?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Oh, this is useless.”
“It’s nae,” Kai assured Ava after some minutes of them dancing together. “Look.” He glanced toward their sisters, but Thora and Lyla were now much more caught up in conversation beside the fire, stifling giggles as Laird MacKinnon began to snore quite loudly. Kai used the opportunity to slip himself closer to Ava, sliding his hand across her back. At once, he felt the air shift between them. Her feelings were as easy to read for him as the snow on the pane windows in the great hall.
Comfortable. She’s comfortable, content and safe in me arms.
Trying not to smile like a child who had been given sweetmeats for the first time, he rocked her side to side.
“Trust me,” he whispered. “Aye, it’s a complicated dance, but ye can master it. Just trust me and let me lead ye. And try nae tae be too distracted.” He winked at her.
She snorted under her breath, prompting them both to laugh.
“Ye are always distracting, Kai,” she murmured, the words barely audible at all.
“Then I promise to be on me best behavior.” He couldn’t help teasing her a little first, moving his hand by caressing the curve of her waist before he formally took hold of her arms.
“Ye dinnae ken what best behavior is,” she murmured with a mocking angry look.
He led her into the first movements of the dance. This time at least, she followed with ease, but each touch they shared was somehow more scintillating than the last. They brushed their hands together, the touch too fleeting for his liking. When her hands took hold of his shoulders so he could aid her in a jump, distractedly he thought of the way she had gripped him the night before against the door, when he had explored her with his hand. She gasped near his ear at one point, and all he could think about was the way she had gasped his name.
“Ye cannae make sounds like that,” he whispered throatily as they darted around one another, dancing away, not touching, then coming back together, hand in hand.
“Am I distracting ye?”
“Ye have nay idea how much.”
She laughed in a way he found even more distracting. He twirled her around under his arm, then they came together, hand in hand. It would have been so easy at that moment to bend toward her, to steal a quick kiss. He could feel himself on the precipice of doing it, especially when her own eyes shot down to his lips.
Dinnae torment me, Ava.
“Why is everything always so easy with ye?” she whispered. “So… happy.”
He felt something in his chest break. It would have been too much to tell her,because I am head over heels in love with ye.But his lips parted, ready to say something.
“Ava…” he began.
“Aye?”
“Ah, are we practicing a dance?” Laird Grant’s words made them both jump apart.
Laird MacKinnon woke up at the suddenly loud voice, snorting in his sleep. Lyla looked like a deer caught at the end of a crossbow, her eyes wide on the three of them as she swiped her father with her hand, trying to make him quiet. Thora stepped forward.
“Ah, Laird Grant, there ye are! We are much in need of yer help. We are preparing fer our next Yuletide feast. We were hoping yewould perform a dance with Ava here. Me braither stepped in tae take yer place whilst we couldnae find ye. Off ye go now, Kai. Ye are nay longer needed.” She waved a hand at him, but Kai had no wish to move anywhere. He stayed firmly put, until Thora came and grabbed his arm, dragging him over to the fire with the rest of them. “There, now. Laird Grant, I wonder if ye would dae us the honor of practicing with Ava?” Yet Thora hadn’t even finished the question before Laird Grant had taken up Ava’s hand.
He kissed the back in a rather overbearing and sickly fashion that made Kai want to wretch. The groan he made under his breath prompted both Lyla and Thora to swipe a hand at him.
“Dinnae be too obvious, braither,” Thora muttered under his breath. “Dae ye wish Laird Grant tae ken how close ye two are?”
“He kens we’re good friends. That’s all there is tae ken.”
“Is it?” Lyla whispered, somewhat skeptically.
Kai looked at her with curiosity. If Lyla and Thora had observed something in that moment, was it possible that when Laird Grant had walked into the room he had seen the same thing?
