Page 84 of The Mech Who Loved Me
A thrill ran through her. "What are youdoing?"
"Maybe there's a way for you to experience passion, and still keep control?" Reaching out, he tugged gently on the little bow at her neckline, pulling each stringloose.
And suddenly she was aware of just how little she waswearing.
Ava didn't dare say a thing. Her body was on edge, trembling just a little. Her wrists were pressed to the mattress in silent submission. She was terribly aware if she said something she might break the spell and then he'd stop, and she didn't want him to stop. Notatall.
"Did you know," he said, almost conversationally, "I'm the only person you everyellat?"
"I'mso—"
His fingertip pressed against her lips, stilling the words. "No. Don't apologize for that, Ava. I like it when you get angry, because you let me see the real you. I'm not interested in a passionless automaton. I wantyou. I want the Ava that hides within, the Ava I see in your eyes whenever I say anything idiotic and you glare at me. And I want her, because nobody else ever gets toseeher."
Slowly, he dragged his finger from her lips, down her throat and lower, parting her ravaged neckline and tickling across the silk-slick surface of the scar between herbreasts.
He paused there, and Ava froze. She could almost feel his eyes locking on the heavy scar between her breasts. Hague's mark. Grabbing her nightgown, she tried to draw both edges together, but Kincaid caught her wrists and forced them back to themattress.
"I said, don't move." This time his voice was smoke-roughened. It pulled at thingsinsideher.
"Ihateit."
He bent his head as if to examine the scar, and Ava turned her face away. "I don't," he whispered, and the hot flick of his tongue across her scar made her suck in a sharp breath. "If you didn't have a clockwork heart, then you would have died today. It's a part of you now, angel, and there's not a damned inch of you that's notperfect."
Ava sucked in a deep breath. His mouth parted and she could feel it pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses between herbreasts.
"Kincaid." She grabbed his hair, and lifted his mouth to hers. His body drove her down into the mattress again, but he captured her lips and suddenly she couldn'tthink.
It all felt so very,verygood.
Ava ached, her nipples chafing beneath the press of her linen nightgown, her unbound breasts peculiarly heavy and... aware. Some part of her wanted to reach for his hand and place it there. To arch into his touch and beg for more. Ava slid her hands beneath the shirt he wore, drinking in the sensation of his bare skin beneath her palms. All her blood seemed to stampede into her head, leaving her light-headed and swaying against him. She kissed his jaw, her lips stinging with the scrape of his stubble, then lower, her tongue darting out to taste the beckoning kick of his pulse,andthen—
Morekisses.
More of those delightfully shiver-inducing caresses as his lips made their way downherneck.
More....
Unbidden, the images from the art gallery sprang to mind. A woman on her back, her thighs spread like a luxurious banquet as some man feasted between them. A woman on her hands and knees, a hand arching her head back as the swarthy figure behind her thrust his way between thosethighs.
Heat filled her cheeks. The color in the room dropped away. And suddenly Ava was fighting against the dark nature of the predator within her, but this time it didn't want blood. This time it wanted flesh, wanted to submit beneath the rough steel and warm skin of this man'shands.
And this time, she wanted to let itruleher.
Ava sucked in a sharp breath. Kincaid's body aligned with hers so thoroughly she knew she was blushing again. There was something hard against her hip, his belt buckle digging into her belly. The sensation set off some sort of wild feeling within her, the craving surging through her veins.Yes.She bared her teeth, tilting her face away from him as urges she'd never felt before beat sharply in herheart.
"If I lose control, then stop me," sheblurted.
She could feel him smile against the side of her breast. "I promise. You're safe here, Ava. You're the one who dictates how far this goes, but I'm incontrol."
Kincaid reared up on his knees, reaching over his head to drag his shirt off. He tossed it aside, revealing a massive chest sprinkled with dark hair. Scars marred his smooth skin here and there, and Ava lay back in pliant surrender as she looked her fill. She'd seen naked men before, but not like this. The reality of Kincaid in the flesh was quite shocking. She knew what his mech arm looked like, and the ragged, puckered scar where the limb had been taken didn't so much mar him as enhance the dangerous perfection of him. But it was the rest of him that made her eyesround.
He wasn't built like the men she knew, with narrow hips and broad shoulders that tapered to a V at the waist. He was huge, with hard knotted cords of muscle that raked his abdomen, and a deeply chiseled V at the hips that plunged into his trousers. The firm press of his erection left her slightly breathless. Hidden away, it still seemed enormous and vaguelythreatening.
Avaswallowed.
All that stood between them was her flimsy nightgown and his trousers. And suddenly it wasn'tenough.
"Nervous?" he whispered, leaning over her, one hand on either side ofherhead.
