Wild Hyacinthe (Crimson Romance) (25 page)

I ran a list in my head to keep it all sorted.

Fact A: I had sex with Asher Chain. I resisted the urge to giggle like a psycho at that fact. It was the one thing I accomplished tonight that I
meant
to accomplish.

Fact B: I had sex with a murderer. A man who killed forty-three women. Were they all women? I made a mental note to ask, and then scratched it out with a vigorous shake of my head, hammering on that seldom-used internal edit button as hard as I could. It wasn’t my business to probe, and I didn’t have any reason to question his sexuality after all this.

Fact C: I was a murderer, too. Nausea spun through me and I bent at the waist, tucking my head between my knees. I swallowed hard. Hurling in Asher’s Sissy—after stealing it, no less—wasn’t on my to-do list for the night, like everything else that had gone wrong.

Warmth fell, concerned and secure, to rest on my back. Asher’s hand. He rubbed slowly from the base of my spine to my neck, as I lost my composure and shuddered with tears. How could he still be so compassionate with me, after all I’d done to him?

Killing so many times must have taken a toll on him after so long, I knew. Then, I ripped into his life, spent his money, upheaved his normal—whatever that meant to a man with this power—and survived him. And his sister had a murder to hide, thanks to me.
I’m nothing more than baggage, carrying a shitload of my own baggage.

“Hang on, Aria, we’ll be there soon,” he said, breaking the lullaby of nighttime driving static with that sincere, deep voice I adored. I had to be strong enough to deal with this. I was naïve to let myself fall so hard for a man way too good for me.

My heart flipped once in my chest. Yes, I fell for Asher Chain. How fucking stupid could I be? Now I’d lose him, since he didn’t expect to keep me around anyway. He expected me to die, and leave him without all the strings attached. I could only imagine his crushing disappointment at the turn of the night’s events.

Asher slowed before I expected him to, so I pulled myself as together as I could. I sat up and he withdrew his hand, steering with both. I blinked, surprised. Why back to the cabin?

Because you left all your crap on his floor and the last thing he needs is an extra housekeeping bill because your undies are hanging from a bedpost.
I remembered peeling them off, but I had no idea where I might have tossed them.

Asher parked and hopped out, pacing around to my door. He opened it for me and held out his hand, and I took it, refusing to meet his gaze. We didn’t walk right away. He stared at me, my hand in his, and I couldn’t bring myself to look back at him. I caused so much trouble out of sheer ignorance of my own sexual dysfunction.

“Can you talk to me, sweetie?” he asked, his voice breathless.

I shook my head and pulled my hand away, wrapping my arms around myself. He let out a sigh, and I hid my flinch.
Disappointing him, again.
He touched my lower back to encourage me on, and I led the way into the cabin.

Asher tossed his keys on the table in the entryway and kicked off his shoes. I didn’t bother with mine, just took the stairs two at a time to get away from him and the hollow echo of silence between us, all the words we’d said and would never say to each other again.

The words I wanted to say were stuck in my heart, which pounded as a twinge of panic constricted my breath. I had to leave town. Get out of this place before any consequences came back to haunt Asher and Gypsy because I couldn’t control myself. Because something was flawed within me, and I killed a man. My eyes filled with tears as I crouched beside my overnight bag, shoving things in without caring if they belonged to me or not. I grabbed everything on the floor and stuffed it into the leather, and then slung it over my shoulder as I rose, dashing the tears away with the back of my hand.

Asher stood at the bottom of the stairs, his shirt unbuttoned as he peered up at me with knit eyebrows. Concern darkened his perfection, and I sniffed to make sure I wouldn’t blubber snot all over him when we said goodbye. I took the stairs slowly, dragging it out because I didn’t want it to end.

I crossed my arms and wiped another cascade of tears off my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

Asher’s frown deepened as he regarded me, but he didn’t say anything.

“I really, really hate to do this,” I said, my voice shaking but still managing to hold volume, “but . . . can I borrow some cash? Well, have it, I suppose. I probably won’t be able to pay you back.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Then, he closed his lips and reached into his back pocket. He handed me his wallet without a word.

Dumbfounded, I took it and flipped through the bills. Of course he didn’t carry anything smaller than a fifty, so I slid one out, crumpled it in my palm, and held his wallet out to him.

He didn’t take it. “What the hell are you doing?” His voice was a whisper, a hollow sound.

My voice couldn’t stay strong anymore. I sobbed through my words, blubbering as I’d hoped I wouldn’t. “I need cab fare. I’ll go far away, and I won’t . . . you won’t . . .” I broke off, unable to form a sentence.

“What do you mean, go far away?”

“I never meant to make you stuck with me, I never wanted to trap you like this. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“Look at me,” Asher said.

I shook my head and the tears fell again. I wished I had an internal button to make the crying stop, but I couldn’t seem to control anything at all.

He was closer, then, his breath on my hair. “Aria, look at me.” His voice was pleading and soft. Or was that my fucked up imagination again, blending the love I’d only just acknowledged into the worst moment possible: the moment something perfect ended before it ever existed?

I managed to raise my head and take in his perfect, sorrowful gaze.

“Why in the world would I want you to leave?” His eyes searched mine, and he seemed genuinely bewildered.

I tripped on the words I tried to say, but I couldn’t make sense of my own thoughts. I heard my bag hit the floor, and then his arms were around me, scooping me into his embrace before I crumbled.

Motion and tears blended together in my mind like the most confusing dream. I opened my eyes in Asher’s lap. We lay strewn out across the massive couch in front of the television in his cabin’s living room. A blue blur obscured my vision, and Asher’s warm finger brushed my hair out of my eyes as I blinked.

“Did I faint?” My voice was thick from crying.

He trailed his finger from my temple down my jaw. “No, but I moved us to the couch just in case. You were crying so hard, sweetie. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

I squeezed his hand.
Wait, that’s not his hand.
I glanced down and found his wallet still clutched between my fingers. I cleared my throat and held it out to him, but he didn’t release me to take it.

“Keep it,” he said.

“Keep your wallet?” Did I hit my head at some point?

“Keep it all. My houses, my wallet, the Sissy—if you like it, that is. I’ll get you something better if you prefer. Lamborghini made one in white and pink for Gypsy, and they’ll make another like it, if I ask them to. Or black and pink. White and blue?”

I shook my head, confused as hell with his nervous rambling of the color options. Were we really car shopping for a custom Lamborghini on the couch of his cabin after all that transpired?

“Just don’t run out on me again. I can take a lot, but I can’t take that.”

What?

He chuckled that boyish sound I adored. “You think I’m unhappy to be . . .
stuck
with you?” The disgust in his tone morphed the word into something that didn’t fit us. “Aria, you can fucking Velcro yourself to me. Please do make me
stuck
with you.”

He wanted me.

I searched his expression, digging for any sign that he was saying this out of guilt because I had such a shitty life already but found nothing other than the purest of sincerity. Wrapped in his arms, looking into his eyes, I knew it was true. Relief soared through me as I let out my breath, stunned.

Asher still wanted me. Of course he did—he wanted me before I survived him, and now he could have me again, if he wanted. I sought his kiss, and he gave it to me without hesitation, his lips thankful, his breath mixed with a tender groan.

“Help me understand,” I whispered.

“I will. I promise, I’ll tell you everything. But right now . . . ” He pulled away an inch, hesitating.

Realization pricked in the back of my mind. Asher had never slept with a woman twice. Every woman he touched that way was dead, except for me. My heart rocked—my own torment at sins I never imagined committing forgotten—and I kissed him harder, wrapping my arms around his neck and dropping his wallet somewhere as he lifted me, wrapping my legs around his waist. He carried me upstairs and set me down on the bathroom counter, starting the shower. I let him undress me as I admired him, his expression hot but still haunted.

Now I understood the why of it all. Why he looked so chilled outside his cabin, why he resisted me. Every time I pushed, I set one foot across that invisible danger line.

I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, and he led me into the steam of the shower. His hands slid up my arms to cradle the base of my head and he parted his lips to give me access to his delicious mouth. His tongue stroked the sides of mine, and then he took my breasts in his hands and bent to taste them, adoring me with his lips.

The heat of the shower beat on my back as Asher’s hands roamed over my body, igniting that familiar need, fiery and demanding, inside me. He touched every inch of me, and I shivered as he held me. He hitched my leg around his waist and I sucked in a breath, letting it out with a moan as he stroked his other hand down my side. In one fluid motion, he swept my other leg up around his waist, spun me around, and pinned me to the wall of the shower. He held me up without effort, my legs wrapped around his waist, and I couldn’t resist him anymore.

A flood of joy poured through my body as I kissed him with abandon, the taste of his tongue muting any hesitation I had. His dark past didn’t matter as I clutched him tightly to my chest, his kisses soothing my lower lip. His restrained desperation—his unsaid terror of harming me—was gone. All that hung in the steam between us was passion and need, burning as brightly in him as I felt it in me. His groan vibrated through my mouth, and I knew what he wanted. What we both needed.

I held my breath as I pulled with my arms, lifting my hips up to invite him inside.

His thick arms tightened as he lifted me a little further and slid his length into my heat with one long stroke. I whimpered at the tightness, but pleasure overwhelmed my discomfort as soon as he was all the way in, his breath harsh against my cheek, his eyes closed as we were one again.

I buried my face against his smooth neck and kissed him, drinking the water that poured from his delicious skin, reveling in the strength of his embrace. His arms were like solid iron around my sides, and he held me like he couldn’t dream of letting go.

He started to move, lifting and settling me around his length while thrusting up. I moaned, his thickness secured within me. He drove into me again, and I cried out.

“Yes,” he whispered, and he filled me again. I let out another cry, melting into his arms. I tightened my grip around his neck, terrified of falling as the pressure built inside me, but Asher didn’t waver. He’d hold me up, if I couldn’t do it myself.

He thickened inside me and I shrieked at the intensity as he continued to slide in and out, his rhythm divine as he stroked me from the inside. He found my mouth with his and drove his tongue beyond my lips, invading my body in every way he could, his hands desperate and slipping off my skin in the heat. The burn ignited in my heart and spread to my toes, and my nerves lit between my legs, where Asher quickened his pace, hardening further. I tried to say something, to warn him that I wouldn’t be able to hold myself up through the release, but he touched my lips with a slow kiss, groaning against me, and it happened too fast. I came around him with crushing force, my gasps peaking as screams, and he rocked faster into the deepest place within me.

He held me tighter as my head fell back and I struggled to take a breath. He was so deep, so thick . . . I cried out again, the sensation one of joy teetering on the edge of my limits. He pressed me against the shower and slowed his thrusts, drawing out to the tip of his length and then shoving it back inside me,
hard,
once, twice . . .

And then he let out a growl that was nearly a shout, burying himself inside me, emptying his need into my warmth.

The pain, the fear of earlier was gone. All that mattered was this unbelievably strong, tormented man between my legs, kissing me mindlessly as we sank to the tile of the shower floor. Nothing mattered but us, one body and heart, beating and panting together in the aftermath.

I held him back, touching him with disbelief. Could all this really be mine? This man and this curse we shared . . . it was so much to take in.

I dragged my fingernails through his hair and tilted him up to gaze into my eyes. His eyes smoldered with awe, his gratitude obvious as he reached out to kiss me again. I giggled as he nipped down my neck as though he couldn’t stop tasting me if he tried.

I slipped my feet down off his hips to the floor, preparing to stand up.

“No, wait, please,” Asher said, breathless, his hands tightening around my lower back.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

He held me in place around his still-throbbing erection and shook his head, refusing to let me move. “No. Please don’t. Give me a minute.”

The fear in his voice was clear, and when he begged me for a moment before, on his breakfast bar, I hadn’t grasped the severity of his request. Now I understood.

Asher spent our entire relationship terrified he’d lose control and kill me. As I stroked his thick shoulders, his solid, pumped arms with my fingertips, I felt his fear as vividly as if it were my own. He was afraid he’d screwed up again, and upon withdrawal, would kill me after all.