by Bec McMaster
What a picture the pair of them would make. She in her buttoned-down gray serge, with a froth of lace at the throat, and he in his coveralls, streaks of oil marring his skin.
Kincaid cleared his throat and let her fingers go. "Sorry. Didn't mean to get grease all over you."
She stepped back as if suddenly realizing the impropriety of the moment herself, and examined her fingers. A mere smudge darkened her index finger. "No harm done."
He produced a handkerchief, and she gingerly cleaned it off.
"Well," she said, handing him back the piece of fabric. "Everyone's home tonight, so I guess... I'll be sleeping alone."
He shouldn't do this.
But he wanted to.
"Would you like to go for a walk?" he finally asked, staring at her. "A walk?" she repeated, glancing toward the thin cellar window. "It's almost evening."
"I know." He started packing his welding gear away. "Give me time to wash up. I feel like I need to get out of here." Slowly he looked at her. "And I'd like it if you came with me."
A soft pink filled her cheeks. "Is there any particular reason you're trying to lure me somewhere private?"
Kincaid gave her a flash of his usual devil-may-care smile, capturing her fingers in his and dragging her hand down to cup the heated erection in his trousers. Jaysus. His balls tightened, blood flooding through his cock. "I need you to help me examine a crime scene."
"Has there been a crime?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes." His voice turned guttural. "A certain gentleman made a promise he hasn't kept, and there are going to be dire consequences if he doesn't change that fact sometime soon."
She glanced up as the floorboards above her creaked. "You wash up," she said, removing her hand with one last lingering caress. "I'll go fetch my cloak."
"Ava," he called, as she turned to the stairs.
"Yes?" She rested one hand on the timber railing, and he almost smiled when he saw the look in her green eyes.
"Leave your drawers at home."
* * *
"Where are you taking me?" Ava demanded, her nerves on fire with anticipation. She'd expected a hotel, or some set of private rooms somewhere, but they were heading toward a section of the city she vaguely remembered, but couldn't quite place.
"Someplace you've been before," he said. "The place it all began."
The place it— She paused. "The Garden of Eden."
The place she'd stolen his coat. The place where he'd calmed her after her hysteria attack, and she'd thought about kissing him.
"Are you saying that's where we began?" she whispered.
Kincaid leaned back in the carriage lazily, his fingers laced with hers. "At least, it did for me. I thought you wanted my blood, but you were overcome with lust. You. Sweet Miss McLaren, who looked at me like she wanted to fuck me."
Ava shivered. "It was all your fault. You unlaced my corset."
"You were struggling to breathe—"
"And then you put your coat around me, and all I could smell was your cologne...."
He nuzzled against her throat. "You like my cologne. I've noticed you sniffing my shirt when you think I'm not paying attention."
Ava pressed her hands against her hot cheeks. "I do not sniff your shirt. I'm a blue blood. My senses are more acute. It's just... distracting."
Kincaid stole a kiss, and Ava was suddenly overcome—not by embarrassment, but by a heated curl of desire. She moaned into his mouth, kissing him back with ardent, barely restrained desire, until he captured her face and drew back, leaving a scant inch between them.
"I notice you don't deny you wanted to fuck me."
The words fell into the silence of the carriage. Kincaid slid a hand down her shoulder and cupped her breast in his palm. Ava caught her breath. Yes.
"That would be lying," she whispered in return, aching for him to extend the touch. "And I try not to lie if I can help it."
He'd told her to wear nothing beneath her skirts, and the sudden flush of heat between her thighs was slick.
The smile on his lips was positively decadent. His thumb found her nipple behind the thick fabric, rubbing a little, teasing her. Ava shifted on the carriage seat. "Was that the night it began," he whispered, her nipple hardening beneath his touch, "for you?"
She'd promised not to lie. "Do you remember the day you were helping me set up my laboratory? You were lifting all of the heavier items I had: the box with my microscope, and the brass spectrometer I use to test my CV levels... and it was a warmer day, and you took off your coat."
"I remember." That thumb said, go on. "It was two days before the Garden of Eden. You were wearing white. Layers upon layers of lace and muslin. You didn't realize I could make out the shape of your legs beneath your skirts when you stood in the doorway with the light behind you."
Ava shuddered, biting her lip as he deliberately pinched her nipple. "Oh." She cupped her hand over his, forcing him to caress her entire breast. She wanted to touch herself between her legs, to rub her fingers there, the way she sometimes did when she was alone in bed. Her fingers curled into a fist. That wasn't something a lady admitted.
But he'd always challenged her to accept her sexuality.
He'd love it if she touched herself in front of him. Ava just knew it.
Opening her eyes, she stared into his. "The very moment I first saw you I was taken aback. You were so large." She stroked his shoulder, shifting onto her knees. "Intimidating. I was still a little uncertain of you when you helped me with my laboratory. And yet, that night, when I lay alone in bed...." She shuddered.
"Go on," he whispered.
And Ava slid into his lap, settling one thigh on either side of his hips, trying to manage her skirts, trying to find her balance. Kincaid caught her hips, dragging her closer until she couldn't help feeling the hard-muscled thighs beneath her, and the leather straps around his legs that were part of his leg braces.
"What did you do, Ava?" He stroked her thigh, making no attempt to avoid the areas that made her shiver.
"I touched myself," she whispered. "You'd rolled your sleeves up, and I kept thinking of the muscles in your arms, the blue of your eyes."
"Where?" Of course he wouldn't leave it at that.
Heat flooded her cheeks. "You know where."
"Show me."
"Please tell me you're not going to stop tonight," she whispered.
His thumb rasped along her inner thigh, breaking off just before he reached the very area where her fingers had been. "I'm not going to stop."
A flood of relief—and nervousness—swept through her. "Good. For I should be tempted to commit a crime of my own if you even think about it tonight."
"Someone sounds determined," he teased.
"I want you," she breathed, coaxing her hands over his chest and absorbing the sensation of his coat. "I've always wanted you. And it means a lot to me... to think of making love to you."
Kincaid grasped her hips, hauling her closer to him so her legs straddled his thighs. "Pull up your skirts. And then show me where you touched yourself."
"Here?" She glanced toward the window, but nobody could see her.
Kincaid's wicked smile sent a flush of heat through her. "Right here," he said. "I want to see if you obeyed me or not."
Ava grabbed a handful of her skirts, yanking them, inch by inch, out of the way. It bared her stockings to the cool night air, and his hands. She shivered as metal raked over her skin, his thumbs stroking up her inner thighs and catching beneath her garters.
"Wider," he whispered, kissing the line of her jaw as he shoved her knees further apart.
She'd never felt so exposed in her life.
"Now show me," he demanded, in a tone that brooked no denials.
Ava stared into his eyes as she slid her hand lower, searching for her clit beneath her skirts. Kincaid's eyes glittered, and his chest heaved in a breath. "That's it."
She felt the first tentative touch, and arched her head back, closing her eyes.
/>
"Merciful heavens," he breathed, fluffing her skirts away so he could see. "Look at you, all pink and glistening."
He'd kissed her there, but it was one thing to remember that—quite another to have him staring at her so blatantly. Ava shuddered as she stroked herself. A sweet, familiar tension began to form. It always took longer than this, but there was something about the moment, about him watching her, that ignited the pleasure within her.
"That's it." He captured her wrist and drew her hand to his mouth, sucking her wet fingers. She felt the pull of his mouth all the way through her womb.
Ava stared, unable to look away. "Kincaid."
"Liam," he demanded, reaching between them and undoing the buttons on his breeches. "Now touch me, Ava. I want to feel your wet little pussy on my cock."
Touch him— Then his other hand caught her bottom, and pushed her against him.
Ava grabbed on to the seat behind him, her breasts in his face. Oh my goodness! A large, brutish instrument butted against her, sliding over her clit. She chanced a look down. She'd seen penises in books, and she'd felt his erection behind the safety of his trousers—a monstrous thing—but she'd never seen an aroused cock in the flesh.
Her wetness gleamed on the slick purple head of his cock, the slit weeping. "Ride me," Kincaid dared her. "Use my cock in place of your fingers. Show me what it felt like when you fucked yourself with your fingers, and thought of me."
It was wicked, and wet, and delicious, and so, so tempting.... Ava rose and fell against him, grinding her hips in a rhythm he coaxed from her, one hand on her bottom, the other on her waist. She could feel their breath heating the carriage space, sense need tightening within each of them. Her corset seemed too tight, her clothes confining. Heat bloomed all along her skin. Need, hot and fierce.
She just wanted him inside her.
Here.
Now.
She was all hot and shivery and so close to orgasm she had to grip the carriage seat behind him and bite her lip to stop herself.
Somehow their positioning changed. She could feel the tip of him pressing insistently between her thighs. Ava paused to hold him there, her thighs quivering, and her... her pussy, he'd called it, begging to take him all the way.
Kincaid's lip curled up. "Ava. Jaysus. Not here."
"Yes," she gasped, rubbing against him. She didn't want to give him a chance to say no. Not again. She wanted to fill herself with his body. To claim him, even as she surrendered herself to him. "Aren't you the one always telling me to be naughty?"
"I had a plan," he rasped, rocking her against him so his erection rode over the swell of her clitoris. "It did not include taking you in the carriage."
Sensation speared through her. Ava cupped the back of his broad neck and arched her spine, shamelessly riding him. "I would not... be averse to that."
After all, did she not want adventure? Did she not wish to take one trembling step outside her usual boundaries? And it didn't matter where she was, when she was with Kincaid, she was utterly, perfectly safe. This was her body. Her choice. And she wanted to be his.
"Damn you, kitten." He was breathing hard. His cock breached her, wet and slick and slippery, and impossibly wide.
Kincaid's hand rested on her waist, his breath coming harshly. "Fuck. Ava." Their eyes met in the shadowy twilight, and then curling his fist in the gathering of fabric around her waist, he pushed her down, even as he thrust up.
Gone, her virginity, in a single thrust.
Gone, her innocence, and with it, a piece of her heart.
Ava froze, her body locking around him. It seemed too much for her; he was too wide, too long, a battering ram inside her. And the rocking of the carriage forced her to take everything in a single sharp glide.
"Ava, Ava," he breathed, no, he begged, his hands urging her to stay there, his body still with pent-up violence, as if pressure wanted to burst through his skin. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."
"It had to hurt a little," she said, swallowing, and beginning to shift. "It's...." Fine was not the word. It was an intense feeling. Not quite pleasure. Not quite pain. Ava met his eyes and begged him to help her make sense of it.
He kissed her, and suddenly that was the answer she needed. Their mouths met, sloppy and heated. His tongue was pressing inside her mouth, a conqueror without mercy, and somehow he urged her to rock against him. To glide up and down, frozen inner muscles slowly unclenching as her body grew used to the stretch.
"You're beautiful," he breathed. "That's it. Ride me. Rub yourself against me." He buried his face in her throat, grabbing a fistful of her chignon.
Ava moaned. Her thighs were quivering. "Please.... Oh." She was almost on that edge again, her body tightening, reaching for orgasm. Her fingers were clumsy in his shirt as she tried to keep the rhythm he was showing her, but couldn't quite manage. "Oh. My. Goodness."
Kincaid laughed. "You make even the dirtiest fuck sound prim and proper. I love it." He licked her throat, teeth grating against her sensitive skin. "That's it, sweetheart. You're so close, aren't you? Take what you want.... That's it. Oh, Jaysus."
Hands tightened in her skirts, then his thumb was reaching between them, pressing indignantly against her clitoris. She felt hot all over, tingles erupting through her. Too much. Far too much. Ava's eyes widened, her hand squeezing the back of his neck as she tried to keep going, her body bucking under the force of that swirling pressure.
For once she didn't care where she was, or who could have heard them. She cried out as she came, silenced by the press of his mouth as he captured her scream with a ferocious kiss. His unrelenting thumb kept grinding against her, his hips thrusting up into her, forceful now, as if he'd lost all sense of himself, and then—
Wet heat spilled within her. Kincaid shuddered and groaned, his body stilling as he pressed into her, as if he could find himself within her skin.
And then it was over, Ava collapsing in his arms, her skin dewed with his sweat, and the heat of his body like a furnace beneath her, within her.
The stillness of the aftermath was almost as sweet. Ava's body clenched and unclenched in a dozen little aftershocks, his hand stroking the buttons down her spine, sweetly tender as sensation began flooding back in again.
Ava looked at him from beneath heavy lashes. Her mouth was wet and ravaged, her body too. No longer a maid. She felt the sudden urge to smile, and then he was smiling back at her and everything was perfect.
Utterly perfect.
"Thank you," she whispered, as he tried to shift her off him.
"It was my pleasure," Kincaid replied and then he gave her a boyish smile that stole her heart.
Twenty-Two
THE CARRIAGE ARRIVED at the Garden of Eden, and Kincaid helped her down. Ava stared up at the lush pleasure house. COR had celebrated a night out together to get used to each other, and the night had opened her eyes in a myriad of ways. It seemed like a year ago, and yet it was barely seven weeks.
Seven weeks since it all changed.
She looked down at the broad arm beneath her hand, and glanced up at Kincaid's shadowed jaw, feeling a flush of... something... squeeze in her chest.
There'd been shadow shows, with a man and two women behind a backlit sheet.
Fire-breathers. Jugglers wearing bright spangles and lurid makeup. More wine than she could ever drink, and men and women showing more skin than she'd ever seen.
But the pleasure house seemed quiet now, the lush gardens behind it whispering with only wind. Ava turned to him in surprise, and Kincaid smiled at her. "It's ours for the night. I asked Charlie to run ahead and pull some strings. He owed me a favor."
"A rather large favor."
Kincaid shrugged. "They were closed tonight anyway. They're always closed on a Monday."
She decided she didn't want to know how he knew that.
"This seems somehow anticlimactic," Kincaid said. He'd tucked his shirt back into his trousers, and his coat was on, but there was a rumpled air about him.
/> "Not for me." No man had ever tried to organize a surprise for her. "I want to see what you had planned."
"I'm fairly certain you've glimpsed a preview of it."
The pulsing throb between her thighs was still damp, though he'd helped clean her up in the carriage with his handkerchief. Ava blushed.
"Come," Kincaid said, capturing her fingers. He was carrying a heavy basket in his mech hand, and she kept peering at it, wondering what it contained. "I don't think you ever managed to view the gardens in detail. They're more exotic than you could realize. Full of flowers and plants. You can gush over them to your heart's delight."
The servants in the house wore livery this time, a bold luscious red. They averted their eyes as Kincaid guided her toward the back of the house.
"They have all manner of ferns back here, and lush foliage. There's a little waterfall in the back, with a beautiful clearing," he said, leading her through the winding paths in the garden, the lantern he'd taken from one of the servants casting a long shadow in front of him. His luxurious, fur-lined cloak made it look like his shadow had wings.
"It's lovely," she whispered, looking around. The place seemed completely different tonight. No capering jugglers or acrobats. No drunk men wandering around.
Just her. And Kincaid.
And the twitter of birds, settling in for the night.
Moss carpeted the ground, and little lanterns were strung through the trees. Not bright enough to light the garden, but it felt like she was following a mysterious trail. A rush of water whispered ahead of them. His waterfall.
Ava saw it and rushed to investigate, her soft-soled boots crushing the grass. Someone had set a string of lanterns over the waterfall, and light gleamed on the churning foam.
