“Last chance,” she said. Though she was already reaching for him.
“For what?”
“To be sensible.”
He sat beside her. “I’ve never been particularly sensible.”
“Nay,” she agreed, and the smile that followed was the real one, the one that reached her eyes before she’d decided to allow it. “Ye havenae.”
He kissed her again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The fire was now fully caught, casting amber light across the room, and Ava stood in front of it.
I should be more afraid of this than I am.
She wasn’t scared, which was the odd part. She had expected to feel fear.
The old, familiar kind, the kind that lived in her chest like a lodger who’d overstayed. And instead there was only this: the warmth of the room and Noah watching her from across it and the realisation, arriving quietly and without fanfare, that she trusted him.
Which was its own kind of terrifying, if she thought about it.
“Ye’re very far away,” Noah said.
“I’m three feet away.”
“For ye that’s far.” He moved toward her slowly, unhurriedly, the way he always did, as if he had all the time in the world and had chosen to use it. “What are ye thinkin’?”
“I’m thinkin’ that this is still a terrible idea.”
“Ye’ve said that.”
“It bears repeatin’.”
He stopped close. Not touching yet, just close. The way he’d been in the corridor, near enough that she could feel the warmth of him.
“What else?” he said.
“I’m thinkin’ that I daenae ken how to do this.” She stopped. Started again. “I’m nae very experienced with,” She waved a hand vaguely. “This.”
Something in his expression softened. “I ken.”
“I’m nae sayin’ that to be annoyin’ about it, I’m just...” She pressed her lips together. “I daenae want to be…”
Embarrassing.
She couldn’t quite say it.
“Ava.” He said her name quietly. “Look at me.”
She looked at him.
“There’s nothin’ ye could do that would be wrong. Do ye understand?”
She held his gaze. Something in her chest loosened.
“That’s easy to say,” she said.
