"Hush, kitten. It's all right." Kincaid slid onto the bed, curling a hand around the back of her head as he dragged her against his chest.
Ava released a shuddering breath. She wasn't going to allow Hague to intrude upon this moment. "I know what it's like to be unable to make choices in regards to your own body," she said, absorbing the heat of his body, "but I want to learn what it's like to give myself to a man. I make this decision. It's my body to give to someone else, and I choose you."
There was a long moment while Kincaid thought about this. He kissed the top of her head. "Hell, Ava, I had no idea."
She pressed her finger to his lips. "I don't want to talk about it. I want to talk about the future. About us. About... your proposition."
"Very well. An affair." He kissed her finger. "But if we agree to do this, then we do it on my terms. I want you to be very certain about this, so I don't intend to rush you. We take this one step at a time, and I decide when you're ready for the next step, considering how eager you are, and how much you don't know."
"Agreed."
Kincaid's eyes darkened. "Agreed."
Silence fell in the room, a hush of sensual awareness. The lantern light flickered.
"Aren't you going to kiss me?" Ava breathed.
Kincaid became very still. "What?"
"Sealed with a kiss," Ava said, her heart ticking quietly in her chest as a thrill of nervousness lit through her. "Isn't that the way it's done?"
Ten
THIS WAS THE worst decision Kincaid had ever made-he couldn't help thinking trouble would come of this, no matter how much he wanted it.
But hell if he could deny her, as Ava stared up at him with those eager eyes of hers.
If she was any other woman, you wouldn't say no, said a little voice, deep in his heart.
If she was any other woman, he wouldn't care if he said yes. A quick tumble in the blankets and then he'd be on his merry way, without another thought in her direction.
But this was Ava.
There are rules, damn it. Both his own, and the unspoken one among the Company of Rogues that said Ava had to be protected at all cost. Not a single one of them hadn't had blood on their hands at some stage. All of them wanted to protect their country, no matter what that took. None of them were angels, particularly not him, but...
Ava was the odd one out.
You couldn't look at her and not know she was innocent through and through. Somehow, despite the past events she'd mentioned-and wasn't that a fucking horror story-she still looked at the world with bright-eyed optimism. Not naïve. Never naïve. But she was somehow untarnished, unlike the rest of them, which was both miraculous and a tribute to her courage. And then, of course, there was Byrnes's recent marriage. He wasn't stupid. Ava had to be smarting from the loss of... whatever hopes she'd held in that direction, regardless of what she'd said.
She was also sitting there in her thin lawn nightgown with expectant eyes, and that fleshy lower lip caught between her teeth as she waited for him to take the first step. The mere sight of her stirred him in a way he'd never felt before.
His cock roused, throbbing behind the buttons of his breeches. He'd never been a hero. He'd never played the gallant champion. He'd never wanted to. He'd taken what he wanted in fleshly sins, drowned himself in drink to hide his demons, and told himself if he was going to die young, then at least he'd know what pleasure felt like.
Ava should be just one more conquest. Another night of lust and stolen kisses, and considerably more. But for some damned reason, he couldn't stop himself from offering her this one last chance.
Kincaid cupped her face in both hands. "One kiss," he told Ava, his voice hoarse. What the hell did she do to him? "Tonight all we're going to do is kiss. You need time to process this decision, and I don't intend to rush you through it."
She unexpectedly rolled her eyes. "All I do is think, Kincaid. My mind keeps going day and night. You have no idea what it feels like to stare at the ceiling all afternoon, when you're supposed to be sleeping. I have thought about this decision."
That was interesting. "That's an awful lot of thinking in so few days."
Ava froze, and then swiftly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I-"
"You were thinking about this before I made the suggestion. Weren't you?"
"This is all your fault," she blurted. "I wasn't imagining anything of the like until the night we all went to the Garden of Eden, and I got lost in the garden, and you found me, and then unlaced my corset because I could barely breathe-"