She swallowed heavily. Her breath lifted and fell too quickly, shallow with nerves, and every heartbeat rang loud in her ears.Her body betrayed her. Everything in her leaned toward him like a flower straining for the sun.
“Also, ye hum tae yerself when working,” he continued, not taking his eyes off of her even for a single moment.
“Ye rub yer thumb along the edge of yer sleeve when ye’re uneasy,” he divulged.
She almost gasped. Was she an open book to him?
In the next heartbeat which was as decisive as it was hungry, Baird caught her face in his hands and kissed her. The force of it stole every breath she meant to take. His mouth was fierce against hers, frightening in its intensity, as though he’d held himself back too long and something inside him had finally broken loose. Heat flooded her skin, her bones, everything. Davina’s knees nearly buckled, and she found her hands clutching the front of his shirt just to stay upright.
It was overwhelming and it was terrifying. It was also everything she didn’t know she wanted until that very moment.
He kissed her like a man starved, like he needed her breath to survive his own. Davina gasped into him, and he deepened the kiss instinctively, then froze. Abruptly, Baird tore himself away, breaking the kiss with a sharp inhale, as though he’d just realized how close he’d come to losing control altogether.
He stepped back, blinking heavily, as if the mist from his storm-dark eyes had just been lifted.
“Christ,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair as though trying to steady himself. “I should nae have—” His voice broke there.
Davina stood there, with a blanket of shock and yearning wrapped so tightly around her she couldn’t breathe. Her whole body seemed to hum with the aftershock of it.
Then he said it.
“This was a mistake.”
The words struck harder than any blade. They were cruel, though she knew he hadn’t meant them so. A hollow ache ripped through her stomach, stealing the air from her lungs. She blinked twice hard, fearing the tears gathering too quickly at the corners of her eyes.
“O–of course,” she managed in a voice that was barely above a whisper.
“Davina…”
“Nay, truly,” she said quickly. Her voice wavered, so she forced it steadier, slipping into that careful tone she’d been trained to use since childhood. “Ye’re right. It should nae have happened.”
He flinched, but his eyes flashed with regret.
She pressed on, desperate to fill the silence, desperate not to let him see how deeply the words had cut her. “We… we were tired. And overwrought. It was only a moment of… of confusion.”
Her throat tightened painfully.
Please, dinnae cry, Davina. Please…
She lifted her chin, though it trembled. “It will nae happen again. I should go.”
“Davina,” he called out her name as he stepped toward her.
She however, stepped back. If he came closer, she would break apart. She knew it. And she could not shatter there, not while he regretted kissing her.
“Please,” she whispered desperately. “Let me go.”
He froze at that. The hurt in her tone must have pierced even his iron restraint. He didn’t reach for her again.
Davina gathered her skirts in trembling hands, turned, and hurried toward the door. She barely managed to lift the latch. Her fingers shook too violently. Somehow, she forced it open. She didn’t look back as she fled into the corridor. She didn’t runloudly, she’d been raised to move with grace, but she did move swiftly, as though running away from her own heart.
Only when she rounded the corner did the first tear fall. And by the time she reached the stairwell, she was clutching the banister, fighting to breathe through the ache that had settled like a stone inside her chest.
Mistake.
She wiped her eyes hard, refusing to let herself crumble completely.
“Then I’ll make sure,” she whispered to the empty hall, “that he never sees me make another.”
