The Mech Who Loved Me(85)

Ava shivered. He couldn't be right, could he? "It's dangerous to let myself lose control. You, of all people, should know that."

Kincaid reared up onto his hands and knees, staring down at her. She started to sit up in protest, but he pressed a hand flat between her breasts and pushed her back down. "Don't move," he told her, with a wicked gleam in his blue eyes.

A thrill ran through her. "What are you doing?"




       
         
       
        
"Maybe there's a way for you to experience passion, and still keep control?" Reaching out, he tugged gently on the little bow at her neckline, pulling each string loose.

And suddenly she was aware of just how little she was wearing.

Ava didn't dare say a thing. Her body was on edge, trembling just a little. Her wrists were pressed to the mattress in silent submission. She was terribly aware if she said something she might break the spell and then he'd stop, and she didn't want him to stop. Not at all.

"Did you know," he said, almost conversationally, "I'm the only person you ever yell at?"

"I'm so-"

His fingertip pressed against her lips, stilling the words. "No. Don't apologize for that, Ava. I like it when you get angry, because you let me see the real you. I'm not interested in a passionless automaton. I want you. I want the Ava that hides within, the Ava I see in your eyes whenever I say anything idiotic and you glare at me. And I want her, because nobody else ever gets to see her."

Slowly, he dragged his finger from her lips, down her throat and lower, parting her ravaged neckline and tickling across the silk-slick surface of the scar between her breasts.

He paused there, and Ava froze. She could almost feel his eyes locking on the heavy scar between her breasts. Hague's mark. Grabbing her nightgown, she tried to draw both edges together, but Kincaid caught her wrists and forced them back to the mattress.

"I said, don't move." This time his voice was smoke-roughened. It pulled at things inside her.

"I hate it."

He bent his head as if to examine the scar, and Ava turned her face away. "I don't," he whispered, and the hot flick of his tongue across her scar made her suck in a sharp breath. "If you didn't have a clockwork heart, then you would have died today. It's a part of you now, angel, and there's not a damned inch of you that's not perfect."

Ava sucked in a deep breath. His mouth parted and she could feel it pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses between her breasts.

"Kincaid." She grabbed his hair, and lifted his mouth to hers. His body drove her down into the mattress again, but he captured her lips and suddenly she couldn't think.

It all felt so very, very good.

Ava ached, her nipples chafing beneath the press of her linen nightgown, her unbound breasts peculiarly heavy and... aware. Some part of her wanted to reach for his hand and place it there. To arch into his touch and beg for more. Ava slid her hands beneath the shirt he wore, drinking in the sensation of his bare skin beneath her palms. All her blood seemed to stampede into her head, leaving her light-headed and swaying against him. She kissed his jaw, her lips stinging with the scrape of his stubble, then lower, her tongue darting out to taste the beckoning kick of his pulse, and then- 

More kisses.

More of those delightfully shiver-inducing caresses as his lips made their way down her neck.

More....

Unbidden, the images from the art gallery sprang to mind. A woman on her back, her thighs spread like a luxurious banquet as some man feasted between them. A woman on her hands and knees, a hand arching her head back as the swarthy figure behind her thrust his way between those thighs.

Heat filled her cheeks. The color in the room dropped away. And suddenly Ava was fighting against the dark nature of the predator within her, but this time it didn't want blood. This time it wanted flesh, wanted to submit beneath the rough steel and warm skin of this man's hands.

And this time, she wanted to let it rule her.

Ava sucked in a sharp breath. Kincaid's body aligned with hers so thoroughly she knew she was blushing again. There was something hard against her hip, his belt buckle digging into her belly. The sensation set off some sort of wild feeling within her, the craving surging through her veins. Yes. She bared her teeth, tilting her face away from him as urges she'd never felt before beat sharply in her heart.

"If I lose control, then stop me," she blurted.

She could feel him smile against the side of her breast. "I promise. You're safe here, Ava. You're the one who dictates how far this goes, but I'm in control."