The Mech Who Loved Me(25)

       
         
       
        

For another, Kincaid was the only man who got to her like this. Every time their eyes met, she couldn't stop herself from blushing. There was just something about the look in them.

If I were a worldly woman, I'd diagnose you with a severe case of lust.

Antidote: either pretend it's not happening, or... submit to it. Get it out of your system.

"What are you doing?" she squeaked. This was not helping her levels of distraction.

Which was probably exactly what he'd intended when he told her to come in.

"What does it look like?" A black lock of hair fell over his forehead, highlighting the blue of his eyes in the reflection. "A man has to shave."

"Yes... but...." Ava gestured to his chest, and didn't quite have the words to continue. He had a thick pelt of black hair on his chest, and a trail of it led suggestively from his navel down into his-

She jerked her gaze elsewhere, feeling flushed and bothered. There was some sort of steel contraption circling his waist under his waistband, but his trousers were tight enough for her to see prime example of an exquisite gluteus maximus and she forgot what she'd been thinking about.

Kincaid smiled smugly when he saw where her attention had gone. "Are you tempted, Ava? Are you thinking about my proposition?"

My goodness. Her cheeks heated, and she abruptly gave him her back, squeezing her eyes shut. There was no help for it: the image of him was imprinted behind her eyelids. How horrifically embarrassing. "I am trying to concentrate on this case."

"Ah, the case. So... two other blue bloods visited the vaccination clinics recently and ended up dead with Black Vein," he mused, and the sound of the scrape of his razor over his skin made her nipples harden. "I'm no investigator, but that sounds like a connection."

Ava stared at the wall, the folder curled against her chest. Concentrate, damn you. "Uh, yes. Francis Jenkins was the second victim, and Marcus Long was the fourth. Both had been vaccinated around a month before they died." There was a pause. Water dripped, and she could only imagine it gleaming on Kincaid's smooth cheeks... sliding down his hairy chest in rivulets. "Could you please put some clothes on?"

"Why?" That suggestive lilt was back in his voice as fabric rustled. A towel, perhaps. "Does it bother you?"

"Yes."

"Keep your voice down," he murmured, setting something aside with a clank. His razor, she suspected. "We're surrounded by people with exceptionally fine hearing."

"What's wrong? We're not speaking of anything untoward, are we? You're not embarrassed by your suggestion?"

"I value my balls where they are, thank you very much, and several Rogues have made quite complicated threats to their well-being, should I even look at you twice." 

Her cheeks had to rival a sunset right about now. The other members of the Company of Rogues had threatened him? Wait... what? "That makes no sense. It's not as though I have to beat my suitors away with a stick. I would have thought Gemma a more likely candidate for seduction?"

The femme fatale gave new meaning to the word alluring. Sometimes Ava just liked to sit and watch Gemma in action when she was flirting. The other woman always had a witty comeback, a saucy double entendre. Sometimes Ava wished she too had the same confidence and easy manner, but she might as well be wishing for the moon.

"You underestimate your attractions, especially to a man like me. Gemma's the one warning me away. She smiled very sweetly as she offered to poison my tea with a severe emetic. Then there's Malloryn, of course, who was most put out to find Ingrid and Byrnes in a dalliance. He wouldn't approve. You're you and I'm me, and never the twain shall meet. That sort of thing."

Never the twain shall meet? "That's not what you were proposing last night."

"Oh, were you thinking of accepting?"

Ava caught her breath. "I haven't decided, but I will thank the lot of them to keep their noses out of my affairs."

"They're just protecting you."

"I can make my own decisions, thank you very much. I am not a child. I am not a weak-willed woman. And if I want to indulge in an affair, then that is my business and no one else's."

"Perhaps Gemma thinks I have a bad reputation?"

"You do." She'd seen women eye him appreciably, and Kincaid had often given them a wink in return. That utterly wicked smile spoke more than words ever could. "Now... are you dressed? We have to work out why there are five dead blue bloods."