"FOUND IT!" AVA declared, holding the folder up high as she hunted Kincaid down the following afternoon. She could hear him moving around inside his bedchamber at the secret house, and rapped swiftly on the door.

"Come in," he called.

"I was right. There is more to this than expected," she said excitedly, slipping inside his bedchamber. "Two of the other victims recently received vaccinations! One of them was a staunch humanist and the other—" Ava staggered to an abrupt halt, losing track of what precisely she'd been saying.

For there he was.

Half naked.

And everything she'd been trying to forget rushed back in. "Pretend all you like, kitten. I know you shiver when I touch you."

Kincaid's braces hung from his waist as he stared into his mirror, and the top button of his trousers was undone in the reflection. There was a towel around his bulky neck, barely covering the heavy slabs of his pectoral muscles, and a froth of shaving cream covered his cheeks. She wasn't a complete innocent; she'd seen half the Nighthawks at the guild in various states of undress as they fought and sparred in the weapons room, but Kincaid was... different.

For one thing, he was an absolute brute of a man, layered with thick, heavy muscle, his left hand constructed purely of steel spars and hydraulics. The posterior triangle of trapezius muscle flexed in his back like a pugilist’s, and his deltoids rippled... both drawing her attention and making her mouth a little dry.

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."

"Yes, I'm dressed." Fabric rustled once again. "Your poor innocent eyes should be safe if you turn around. So what's the diagnosis? Disease? Murder?"

"I don't know. But don't you find it interesting this Black Vein rears its head at this particular time—right when Lord Ulbricht and the dhampir group have shown themselves committed to causing civil unrest in London? Right when one of the dhampir themselves died in the same way? As much as I dislike leaping to conclusions, as you said, that sounds like a connection."

She chanced a look at him, only to find him doing up the buttons on his shirt. A pity.

Ava pinched herself. Not a pity. It is not a pity. She needed to forget he'd ever put his hands on her at the Garden of Eden. It was too distracting, too close to home. There was nothing between her and Kincaid.

You're lying to yourself. You find Kincaid physically compatible.

If one were looking at a list of faults and strengths, then she had to admit she found him attractive in a visceral, somewhat barbaric way. He was no gentleman, and sometimes it looked like his shoulders threatened to tear through his shirt and coat.

Ava belatedly realized he was staring at her, and he'd said something, and— "Pardon?"

"We don't even know they're working together," he clearly repeated, looking younger with such smooth cheeks. "Ulbricht was Zero's puppet. There may be no connection between him and the remaining dhampir, now she's dead."

She forced herself to focus. "But their cause is the same. Civil unrest, chaos, the queen off the throne, and in Ulbricht's case, the Echelon back in control."

"I'll concede that point, but what makes you think our little mystery is even connected to them? It sounds like there's something wrong with the vaccination, a side effect or a... vulnerability. Something causing this Black Vein, since you're not convinced this is a disease."

"Perhaps there's a bad batch of vaccine? The science behind it is accurate—I remember reading about it in the medical monthlies when Sir Artemus Todd published it posthumously, but I confess I simply haven't had the time to research the science in more depth." The black veins in Mr. Thomas's pale dead face sprang to mind again. Ava frowned. "The vaccine works because the craving virus cells they inject have been made inert. So if it were a bad batch, then you could perhaps say Francis Jenkins, Marcus Long, and David Thomas might then become blue bloods—which is what happened. But... there's no reason to suspect it would do anything other than afflict them with the craving. No black veins. No side effects, barring perhaps a fever. I've been speaking to Dr. Gibson, and the entire time the craving virus has been known in England, there's never been a single case of something like this happening to a blue blood. This Black Vein looks like... like something ravaged Mr. Thomas's body, rupturing all his veins and capillaries and making a mess of his inner organs. The craving virus simply couldn't heal all that damage in time. But I would like to attend some of the clinics today, just to see what their procedures are like, and whether Jenkins, Long, and Thomas are isolated instances."

"Sounds more like connected instances to me," he said. "We just happen to have three dead bodies, who were all recently vaccinated, and all just happened to come down with this Black Vein?"

Ava released a slow breath. "I've been taught not to believe in coincidence and not to make judgment until we have solid evidence. If you lock your mind into a position, then it's very easy to convince yourself with the merest fragment of proof."

"Still, it's a damned good thing I haven't received a vaccination," Kincaid muttered, rubbing his arm.

"You were thinking of getting the vaccination?" Of course he was. He despised blue bloods, and the worst thing any humanist could imagine would be to become infected. "What stopped you?"

After all, it had become common practice among those who were rabidly humanist as soon as the vaccine was made widely available.

Kincaid shrugged. "I don't like needles."

Ava felt a smile curve her lips.

"What?" he demanded.

"Nothing."

His eyes narrowed. "You're trying not to laugh at me."

She couldn't help herself. It erupted from her in a loud snort. "It's just the thought of you, Liam I'm-too-brash-for-my-own-good Kincaid, shuddering at the thought of a needle." The mere image of it set her off again. "Mr. I don't need laudanum for my broken nose because I'm far too brave for that."

Kincaid very carefully crossed his arms over his chest, scowling down at her with menacing form. "Miss McLaren, I'm a man. I am brave."

"You're a fool," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's not as though I thought any better of you for denying yourself pain relief for your nose. That's not courage. That's obstinacy."

"Well, I was flirting with you. I hardly wanted to look like I had the pain tolerance of a child."

"While you had a broken nose?" she demanded. "You were not!"

"I assure you, I was."

Kincaid would flirt with her dead grandmother. Ava turned away with a scowl of her own. She didn't know why that thought bothered her so much. "I shouldn't believe a word that comes out of your mouth."

But a little part of her was still wondering....

Disadvantages: he is arrogant, he hates blue bloods, and he drives me insane.

Advantages: he thinks I'm not like other women. In a good way. And he called me beautiful.

There was silence.

"What?" she demanded.

"Nothing."

But she could tell it was something all right. He had that thoughtful expression that made her feel a little wary at times.

"Spit it out. It's not as though we've ever kept secrets from each other." Indeed, the blunt way he spoke his mind often made her feel relaxed—she had a terrible habit of blurting whatever came to her mind, after all, and it was nice to know she could do that with him.

Kincaid grabbed his coat, slinging his arms through it. The metal spars of his mech hand caught in the fabric, and he worked them free. "You may think the worst of me, Ava, but the truth is, you also think the worst of yourself. The very idea a man might be flirting with you or find you attractive doesn't even occur to you, does it?"

She was trapped between him and the door, and the sudden lack of space between them made her nervous. Ava dashed a blonde curl behind her ear. "What... what do you mean?"

Kincaid pressed a hand against the door beside her head, leaning closer. The scent of his cologne did wicked things to her, and the hunger within her awoke, whispering naughty thoughts inside her head.

"I mean... if you weren't off-limits, then I'd have had you in my bed a dozen times over already." His gaze slid down her body in an intimate caress, and Ava froze, feeling that look on her skin. "You're beautiful, and intelligent, and a part of me wonders exactly what you're hiding beneath all those ruffles and lace. You think you're not the sort of woman that men look at, but you're dead wrong. I've been looking."

"You'd say that to any woman," she retorted, flushing hot.

He made it sound like she was highly desirable. Me, Ava McLaren. With my stuttering awkwardness, and my logical assessments, and my slender, pale body....

"No." Kincaid leaned closer, his mouth a bare inch from her ear. "I'm not going to let you tarnish me with a lie, nor yourself with doubt. I've never been a saint, Ava. I never will be, perhaps. But there's something about you that takes my breath." He lifted his mech hand, those steel fingers almost, but not quite, brushing against the spill of lace at her throat. "I think together, you and I would be explosive. I sometimes see you looking at me, and there's some part of you that wants to be utterly wicked. And I want to help you unleash her. I want to be wicked with you, see if we're just as good together as I suspect we'd be."

He pushed away from the door, gesturing her through it with a particularly scorching look that lit her toes on fire, almost as if he was challenging her. "But I guess we'll never know, will we? Unless you make a choice."

Ava practically fled.