Page 99 of The Mech Who Loved Me
She grew bold, reaching for his trousers and capturing the tented arch of his cock. Kincaid groaned, bracing himself on his hips over her and thrusting into her hand. He held her hand there, forcing her fingers to close over his thick length. "That'sit,Ava."
She brushed his hand aside, fumbling with his buttons, desperate to feel his heated flesh upon hers, helping him tug his trousers down around his hips, finding the leather belt of the girdle around his hips, andpausing—
But he captured her hand, pushing it aside, and she could see his head shaking. "No," he whispered. "I can fuck you like this," he whispered, undoing the placket on his trousers and capturing her hand, pressing it against the swollen erection that spilled into herhands.
"But—" She wanted himnaked.
"I can't get the brace off, not easily. It's fine." A hint of frustration came into his voice. "I hate it, but it gives my legsstrength."
"You're perfect, Kincaid." This time she threw his own words back at him. "Strong, and brave, and always at my side. My very own knight in shining armor, if you believed in fairytales."
A faint laugh exploded through his chest. "You never give up,doyou?"
"Sometimes the fairy tale comes true." Ava smiledsadly.
Silence. He was thinking. Then his body pressed into hers, and she could feel his hardening erection hot against her belly, the buttons on his trousers pressing into her naked skin. "Then let's pretend we believe in fairytales."
Even though she knew it roused him when she used his dirty words, she stroked the hair off his temples. "Make love to me. Give me a memory I'll never forget." She kissed his jaw, then his cheek, tracing the sharp lines of his face with her lips. "Just this one night, and then we can pretend the fairy tale is over, and you can fuck me as often asyoulike."
"As you wish," he breathed, and kissed heragain.
This time Ava pushed everything but the feel of his body out of her mind, and set about making love to the man she... wasfallingfor.
* * *
Kincaid lay there beside her,staring at the faint stars in the sky as Ava's head rested on his shoulder and her body curled against him, leg thrown carelessly over his. Soft breaths stirred the hair on his chest, and he glanced down at the blonde curls strewn across his shoulder. Moonlight turned them silver, and he couldn't make out her sleeping expression, but he could imagine peacethere.
The trust she placed in himshatteredhim.
The emotion in her eyes, the thoughts she could neverquitehide....
The way she looked at him destroyed him. Because there was something there tonight that hinted at more, something he desperately wantedtosee.
He'd never been in love before. He'd seen the way Maggie looked at Xander, the way Byrnes looked at Ingrid, and thought it such a foreign experience he hadn't quite noticed it creeping upuponhim.
He'd never asked for this feeling of unsolicited tenderness. It scared the hell out of him attimes.
The future stretched in front of him, a future where Ava accepted what he could offer her, and it was the most tempting dream he'deverhad.
The thought of losing her had terrified him yesterday; the thought of a future with her, however, was infinitely worse. He didn't want to depend upon her. He didn't want her to see his body deteriorate until his heart finally stopped working. It was her heart, she held it in her hands, and she didn't even know it, but he couldn't...hecouldn't....
His breath caught, his stomach knotting, and the muscles in his left calf launched into a painful cramp that made him grit his teeth as he silently tried to straighten his foot to alleviate it, and finallysucceeded.
Kincaid stroked the pale curve of her back, dragging her cloak over them. Her body was cool, the result of being a blue blood, but he didn't complain. This moment was precious in a way he had never expected. Ava nuzzled into his throat as he shifted, a quiet, reflexive move that made himfreeze.
They were so different. He'd never seen it coming. The hot flame of his temper to the cool logic of hers; the sweetness of Ava's smile, to the seductive quality of his own. His humanity versus her blue bloodnature.
Complete opposites in every way, and yet she complemented him, fitted so perfectly against him. She gave him hope, and laughter, and a lightness that had been missing from his life for years, and he drove her to stand up for herself, and to see how perfect she was despite her ownmisgivings.
I could love you, he finally admitted to himself, twining one of her curls around his finger.I could wake every day like this, and smile every time I saw your face. I could spend the rest of my life with you,and make something of my life. Something more than this, something that could lastforever.
But the problem was, he knew he didn't haveforever.
Andshedid.
Twenty-Three
AVA SETOUT the next day with renewed vigor, leading Kincaid on a merry chase through the streets of the East End and the docks. Malloryn had provided her with a list of potential importers who had connections to the Orient, and she was determined to track down some of the caterpillarmushroom.
