His voice, when it came, was lower. “Something tells me that is exactly what ye meant.”
“Nay.” Ava laid the cloth aside and reached for the salve. “I meant, how does it feel that it happened again?”
He went very still. The silence shifted at once and sharpened.
Ava pressed on, because stopping now would only make the question look like cowardice. “Me father told me about the attack at yer brother's wedding. I imagine that must have been terrible. Then to have to relive it again?—”
His hand closed around her wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to stop her. Then he tugged.
Ava gave a startled breath as he drew her closer between his knees, the basin and bandages forgotten for the moment. She braced her free hand against his chest to steady herself, his nearness almost overwhelming.
“But it didnae happen again,” he said, the words leaving his mouth with fierce certainty.
She looked at him. “What?”
His grip tightened a fraction on her wrist, as though to hold the point in place between them.
“It didnae happen again.” His voice had gone flat in the way she now knew was more dangerous than anger. “Jack is dead. Ye are here.”
The force of his answer stripped the room bare.
Not his pain, then. Not his shoulder. Not even, in the deepest sense, his past repeating itself. The thing that mattered to him was that she had lived where another bride had not.
Ava’s breath caught.
He looked up at her, his gaze open and sincere.“It is very important to me that ye ken that. It didnae happen again. I would never forgive meself if something happened to ye.”
The words landed with such bluntness that they might have cut.
“I wish I could bring him back,” he continued, almost unaware of the effect his words had on her. “Only so I might kill him again for even making ye think ye were unsafe for a moment.”
A shiver went through her, and he felt it. She knew he felt it because his gaze dropped at once to her mouth and then returned to her eyes, dark and intent.
“Have I scared ye?” he asked.
Ava should have lied then, or softened, or looked away long enough to recover some sensible distance. But she had come too far for lies, and what moved through her was not fear alone. It was shock, yes, and the aftertaste of violence.
She shook her head. “Nay.”
The word came out quiet but true.
His eyes held hers for another beat, then he nodded. “Good.”
The silence after that seemed to pulse.
Ava did not know whether she leaned first or whether he did. She only knew that his hand slid from her wrist to the back of her neck, the touch removing the last thin thread holding her in one place. He drew her down the final inch and kissed her.
His fingers curled into her hair, while his other hand found her waist and pulled her in until the solid heat of his body was pressed against her, and she stopped trying to think of any reason why this should stop.
He tasted of wine and something else that was entirely him. She kissed him back with a desperation that made her breathless. Her hands found the front of his shirt, and she held on.
His lips moved against hers like a man who had decided and fully intended to see it through, and when his tongue brushed hers, she exhaled sharply and pressed closer still, her fingers twisting in his shirt.
Her back met the bedpost, even though she did not remember moving. His lips dragged from her mouth to the corner of it, then to the line of her jaw. The hand in her hair tipped her head back with a gentleness that was somehow worse than force would have been.
She felt his breath against her throat, warm and deliberate, and then his mouth found the curve of it.
Her eyes closed. Her grip on his shirt went slack. Every sensible thought she had gathered over the past hours dissolved entirely.
