The Mech Who Loved Me(110)

Thank God. Lynch was going to handle it.

"Time to go home, I think," Kincaid murmured, his hand sliding over the small of her back again.

Agreed. Anything to get out of the ruin of her bloodstained clothes.



* * *

There was nothing for it but to return to Malloryn's. The duke needed to be told-though Kincaid quite suspected news of it would be all over the city-and Ava needed seeing to. He'd wiped the blood from her face, but it was all over her clothes, and she was oddly quiet and contained, startling every time he spoke to her, as if her mind had been elsewhere.

She felt cold too.

And far too pale.

He liked none of it. 

"We're home," he murmured, helping her down from the steam cab they'd hired back to Malloryn's.

Ava stumbled along at his side, leaning heavily upon him. "I never thanked you."

Kincaid swept her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs. "For?"

"For saving Garrett's life." Those green eyes held self-recrimination. "I'm a trained professional, and for the life of me I could barely move. I don't know what happened. I just sat there, like a lump of-"

"It happens sometimes, luv." He shouldered the door open to the safe house.

Herbert, the butler, took one look at them. "Miss Ava, is everything all right?"

"She needs a warm bath, her formula, maybe a pot of tea," Kincaid said, heading for the stairs to her room. His braces strained around his legs as he took the first step. He hated stairs. "I'll run her bath if you'll fetch the rest. And send word to Malloryn. Tell him it's an emergency, and we'd appreciate his presence as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir."

Kincaid pushed open the door to the bathing chamber, thankful for Herbert's competence. He didn't quite know what the man did for Malloryn-Herbert had dangerous talents, he suspected-but he wasn't just using his butler role to be undercover.

"Here we are, sweetheart," Kincaid said, starting the bath running. One benefit of working for Malloryn was the plumbing.

Ava stood there, staring down at the steaming bath water, her tangled curls hanging bedraggled from the remnants of her chignon.

Kincaid plucked a pin from her hair. Then another, and another until finally the heavy mass fell down her back, almost to her waist. Ava glanced over her shoulder at him, her blonde lashes framing her green eyes, and the look in them made his heart clench in his chest.

She never could hide her thoughts. They were there, painted across her delicate features; want, fear, the urge to ask for his hands upon her, but doubt too... doubt he'd put there, with his careless words the other night.

Kincaid slid his palms up her bare arms, feeling the gooseflesh pebble beneath his real hand. He wanted to take back everything he'd said to her. To give her what she wanted-a fairy tale, a future, a dreamlike reality. But the words curdled on his tongue, unable to spill freely.

He couldn't lie to her. Not her.

"I wish we could have forever," he whispered hoarsely, and before she could turn to him, he swept her hair over her shoulder and kissed her nape. "You are so perfect, Ava-" The second she started to protest, he captured her chin and turned her face to his, shaking his head. "Perhaps you don't see it, but I do. Despite everything you've been through, you still see so much hope in the world and that's such an awe-inspiring thing to behold. You give me hope, and that's something I haven't felt since I was a lad. Don't ever change. Don't ever wish to be someone else, because to do so would be to deny the world the gift of yourself. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Her lips parted in shock, and her green eyes gleamed. "Liam-"

"You are strong." He kissed the smooth patch of skin where her neck met her shoulder. "You are brave." His fingers started on the buttons down her spine. "And you are so damned perfect I almost can't believe you'd let me lay hands upon you."

"When I'm with you, I feel like I don't have to be anyone else. You make me believe I'm perfect, just the way I am." A troubled look filled her gaze. "I've never felt this way before."

And there they were, the words neither of them dared utter. Kincaid slid the gown down her shoulders. Silence fell between them, but it wasn't uncomfortable, and it was filled with the rasp of her dress as it fell from her hips and pooled on the floor, and then the gentle rustle of hooks as he removed the press of her corset.



       
         
       
        

Piece by piece, he stripped her bare, kneeling behind her as he slid her chemise down over her bottom, revealing her pale skin. Golden curls brushed the dimples at the small of her back, and he couldn't stop himself from capturing her hips and kissing her there, a man of reverence though it was no god he served, but her.