What a pity.
She smiled against Brendan’s lips, pushing against him, running her tongue along the seam of his lips. If he would just…
He pulled back abruptly, and Freya very nearly lost her balance, staggering forward. She feltcoldwithout his warm body pressed up against hers. She could still feel the shape and heat of his lips, and the desire building up inside her was not fading away. She blinked, like a newborn kitten seeing the sun for the first time, and stared up at him.
“What did ye do that for?” she managed at last, her voice a little hoarse.
Brendan was red in the face, his eyes sparkling in a strange way, and he was breathing heavily through his mouth.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he burst out, lifting a shaking hand—shaking—to rake through his hair. “That wasn’t proper. It wasn’t yer fault, ye are just a wee lassie, ye wouldn’t to know. I’m older, and I’m the man, so it was my responsibility.”
Her eyebrows shot up towards her hairline. “I’m sorry, what?Ye are the man? What’s that supposed to mean?”
He was turning redder by the minute. “Ye know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
“Well, women can’t act as men do, can they?”
She leaned back, fixing him with a stare. “Ye know, I am understanding less and less of what ye are trying to say, lad.”
He sighed. “Women’s reputations are much more fragile. Men can bed who they like, when they like…”
“Ha!”
“… but lassies are expected to be different. Chivalry dictates that I should never put ye in a position where ye could be compromised, and kissing ye did it very neatly.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Ye can’t believe all that nonsense. Chivalry? I’m no damsel, in case ye haven’t noticed. As for kissing, it doesn’t matter who kissed first. I kissed ye back, remember?”
He fidgeted. “It hardly matters. I should have taken responsibility. This… This was a mistake, Freya.”
A mistake. That simple word hurt more than she could have imagined.
He made a mistake. He never wanted to kiss me. Or perhaps he did, but decided he wouldn’t kiss me, and simply made a mistake. It doesn’t really matter what happened. It mattered that he didn’twantit to happen.
He doesn’t wantme.
“Oh,” she said, the word coming out sharp and disappointed, despite her desperate attempt to sound unconcerned.
Brendan worried at his lower lip, eyeing her. “Ye aren’t upset, are ye? It was just a kiss.”
“To hear ye talk, ye would think it was the end of my life as I know it,” she snapped. “I’ll not try to kiss ye again, if that is what ye are afraid of.”
She wouldn’t kiss him again. He didn’t want to kiss her again. Freya was a little horrified to feel her heart sink. The plain fact was that shewantedhim to kiss her again, wanted him to touch her, to touchhim, to explore that terrifying and thrilling feeling that had swept through her.
She wanted more.
It doesn’t matter what I want.
“Fine,” Freya heard herself saying. “Ye want to call it a mistake? Fine. It was a mistake. It’s done. Forgotten. I’ll not talk about it anymore, happy?”
She sounded like a child, she knew that. A spoiled child, throwing a tantrum because she couldn’t get what she wanted. Freya knew that, and yet she couldn’t stop. Disappointment spread through her, numbing her and making her feel small and silly.
“Freya…”
She turned her back. “I should go back to the convent. They’ll be worried about me.”
He hurried after her as she began to walk away.
