Page 48 of The Laird’s Sinful Secret

“Aye.” But he didn’t move, just watched her with that intensity that made her skin prickle with awareness.

“Right then. Good night, Laird MacLeod.”

“Euan.” The correction was quiet but firm. “When we’re alone, it’s Euan.”

The intimacy of it—the implication that they had an ‘alone’ that was different from how they were with others—made her chest tight. “Good night, Euan.”

She turned and fled before courage failed her completely, her feet silent on cold stone as she practically ran from the library. Behind her, she felt his gaze burning into her back like a brand, and it took every ounce of self-control not to look back.

Euan stood frozen in the empty library, his hands still tingling from the phantom weight of Moyra in his arms and tried to remember how to breathe normally.

Saints above.

He’d caught women before. Rescued maidens from falls and protected innocents from harm—it was part of being laird, part of the duty that came with command. But none of those encounters had left him feeling like he’d been struck by lightning, every nerve ending alive and burning with want.

The way she’d looked at him. The breathless rush of words that said she’d been as affected as he had. The brief press of her soft body against his chest, curves fitting against him in ways that made his blood run hot despite the cold rain still clinging to his skin.

He was in trouble. Deep, dangerous trouble that had nothing to do with MacKenzie scouts and everything to do with green eyes and copper hair and a stubborn streak as wide as the Highlands.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, dragging both hands through his wet hair.

He should have put her down immediately. Should have stepped back and maintained proper distance instead of holding her close enough to count her rapid heartbeats, to feel the way her breath caught when their eyes met.

Should have done a hundred things differently.

But saints help him, he wouldn’t change a single moment.

The book she’d been reaching for still sat on its high shelf, mocking him with its inaccessibility. Historia Naturalis. A favorite of his mother’s.

Moyra had been looking for information on Highland herbs.

The realization made something warm unfurl in his chest. She wasn’t just reading to pass time—she was trying to learn, to understand. To be useful rather than simply existing as the beautiful problem his Council kept insisting she was.

Euan moved to the shelf, reaching the book easily despite the wobbly stool’s defeat of Moyra’s shorter reach. The leather was soft under his fingers, worn smooth by constant handling. He should return it to its place.

Instead, he found himself carrying it toward the library door, already imagining the look on Moyra’s face when he presented it to her tomorrow.

If he could manage to string two words together around her without his carefully maintained control shattering completely.

The storm still raged outside, wind howling through corridors like a living thing. Euan made his way toward his chambers, his wet clothes clinging uncomfortably but his mind replaying the moment he’d caught her on an endless loop.

The way she’d felt in his arms. The scent of lavender that clung to her hair. The rapid flutter of her pulse against his palm when he’d cradled her closer than strictly necessary.

The absolute terror that had lanced through him when he’d seen her falling, that split second where he’d thought he might be too late to catch her.

He couldn’t keep doing this. Couldn’t keep pulling her back from danger while simultaneously becoming the most dangerous thing in her world. She needed safety, stability, the freedom to choose her own path without his growing feelings complicating everything.

But as he stripped off his sodden clothes and tried to warm himself by his chamber’s fire, all Euan could think about was the way Moyra had looked at him in that library—like she was fighting the same losing battle against attraction that he’d been waging since the moment he’d found her in Norham’s dungeon.

Like maybe, just maybe, she was beginning to lose that battle too.

The thought should terrify him.

Instead, it kindled something dangerously close to hope.