“Stubborn?” he teased.
She narrowed her eyes. “That, and a great many other things.”
His laughter rippled through her. It unsettled her in a way she didn’t want to examine too closely.
She smoothed her hand down his uninjured arm. “Lie back,” she urged softly. “Please.”
He didn’t move at first. Instead, he watched her with that storm-gray gaze.
“Davina, ye dinnae need tae fuss. I told ye already.”
“I’m nae fussing,” she corrected him. She fussed with his blankets anyway, drawing them up around his waist. “I’m making sure ye dinnae dae anything foolish.”
“Everything about this is foolish,” he said under his breath.
She froze. “What is that supposed tae mean?”
He closed his eyes, inhaled hard, then shook his head. “Naething. Forget it.”
But she couldn’t, not when the tension in him spoke louder than words.
She sat down next to him. “Baird.”
He opened his eyes again, and they were darker than before, shadowed with guilt and fear.
“This…” He gestured faintly between them. “This closeness. It could lead tae trouble.”
Her heart stuttered. “Trouble fer whom?”
“Fer me,” he said quietly. “Fer ye.” A pause. “Fer both of us.”
“I… I dinnae understand.”
He exhaled sharply, as if frustrated with himself for saying anything at all. “I shouldnae want what I want, lass.”
Her breath caught and before she could think, before she could stop herself, she reached out and touched his cheek in a featherlight caress.
“Baird…”
He didn’t pull away. In fact, he leaned forward. And then their lips met.
It wasn’t the frantic, startled kiss from the study, nor the accidental brush of longing. This kiss was slow and aching, like he had been fighting himself for days and had finally lost the battle. His good arm slid around her waist, drawing her down onto the bed beside him. She melted into him, and the taste of his lips was both steady and devastating.
He answered that small plea with a soft groan at the back of his throat, and the sound vibrated against her lips. Davina’s heart hammered. She parted her lips without even thinking, and his breath caught, just before he deepened the kiss.
She felt it everywhere… in the warmth that spread through her limbs, in the flutter low in her stomach, in the way her knees weakened even though she was already sitting.
When they finally parted, their lips were still barely touching. He rested his forehead against hers, and her eyes fluttered open. He was looking at her like she was the most impossible thing he’d ever seen and the one thing he wanted most.
That was the kiss: deep enough to shake them, gentle enough to undo them, and dangerous enough to change everything.
“That,” he suddenly murmured, “was a mistake, too.”
Her heart dropped.
“But one I cannae seem tae stop making. And I think I dinnae want tae.”
He guided her down gently, easing her so her head now rested on his chest. She shifted without thinking, settling into his arms, into the curve of his body, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
