Silence greeted her words, a drawn-out silence in which she thought they were both holding back.
"Don't ever forget me, Ava," he finally whispered, and there was the answer to her unspoken question.
This wasn't going to go any further, and a part of her grieved.
"I don't think I ever could," she admitted. I never expected you to come into my life like this. I never.... Her heart felt like it was in her throat. I never realized how much I want you to stay.
His face slowly lowered, his breath stirring over her lips. And then he kissed her.
Gently.
So softly the ache of denial made her moan and arch up into him. She'd asked for fleshly pleasure, for him to make her a woman, but what she hadn't expected in this moment was connection or tenderness.
Kincaid was charming, and brash, and loud. Everything about him was physical, from the way he flung his arms wide when they argued, to the way he pushed her against a wall and claimed her mouth when he kissed her.
But this... there was a hesitancy here. As though he wanted to say something, and yet couldn't quite bring himself to do it.
"Liam." A sigh of surrender on her lips.
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's it, 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, and pausing-
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 her hands.
"But-" She wanted him naked.
"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 legs strength."
"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 fairy tales."
A faint laugh exploded through his chest. "You never give up, do you?"
"Sometimes the fairy tale comes true." Ava smiled sadly.
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 fairy tales."
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 as you like."
"As you wish," he breathed, and kissed her again.
This time Ava pushed everything but the feel of his body out of her mind, and set about making love to the man she... was falling for.
* * *
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 peace there.
The trust she placed in him shattered him.
The emotion in her eyes, the thoughts she could never quite hide....
The way she looked at him destroyed him. Because there was something there tonight that hinted at more, something he desperately wanted to see.
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 up upon him.
He'd never asked for this feeling of unsolicited tenderness. It scared the hell out of him at times.
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'd ever had.
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... he couldn't....