by Nola Sarina
The cop stepped out of the car and opened the back door from the outside. Aria climbed out, looking disheveled and stressed, clutching her large purse. She thanked the cop and shook his hand, and I noticed with displeasure that a cut marred her skin above her left eyebrow. She approached me, her arms wrapped across her chest as the cop drove away.
“Hi,” she whispered when we stood close enough to each other to feel the warm charge between us, residual from our kiss in that same spot the day prior.
“What happened?” I demanded with unexpected concern for her well-being.
“Um,” she tucked her long bangs behind her ear. “I hit a deer on the number three. Totalled my Camry. I saw you . . . told the cop I know you . . . ”
I reached forward and brushed her blue bangs from her other temple, relieved to find no injury beneath. “Are you okay?”
She glanced behind her and then back at me but couldn’t meet my gaze. “My car . . . there’s nothing salvageable. I hit the ditch when the damn thing was imbedded in my windshield. Funny part . . . the deer fucking survived. Limped away once it shook loose from the Camry. I had a few miles’ walk until the cop came around and picked me up.”
“The deer survived! And of course, you have no cell phone, right?”
Aria sighed. “Not all of us are rich.”
I ignored the jibe. “Well, I assume you’ve been attended to, medically?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, squeezing herself tighter. I watched her shiver in the early-evening sunlight and realized she might be settling into both shock and denial. “Didn’t need medical care or the bill that follows.”
“Let me drive you home,” I said, tapping the code to open my doors.
“Um, no, I’ll be fine.”
“Honestly, Aria, I’m not a stalker. I just want to see you home safely.” I hid a cringe at the hypocrisy of my words yet again. Stalker? No. Just a murdering incubus who wants to fuck you to death, sweetie.
Goddamn, what I would have given to have nothing to hide from her. To be a normal man seeing to a woman in trouble without the guilt banging on the back of my skull with every beat of my heart, reminding me I didn’t deserve this.
“It’s not that,” she winced, avoiding my gaze again. “I just . . . ” She sighed, resigned. “I haven’t lived here long. Two weeks. I don’t have a place yet.”
My eyebrows shot up with surprise. “You’ve been . . . what, living in your car?”
She nodded, embarrassed, and buried her face in her hands as she shook her head, groaning. “The Camry is totalled, Asher. Not drivable. Can you take me to a hotel or something? I haven’t gotten my tips paid out yet with that ridiculous amount you left me at the Lacy Teacup, so all I’ve got is sixty bucks . . . that should be enough for a Best Western room, shouldn’t it?”
I paused, conflicted, but the good man inside me, for once, sided easily with the incubus’s ideas. “Are you serious? I live three blocks from here. Get in, I’m taking you home.”
Aria rolled her eyes, humiliated. “Asher, I can’t impose on you like that. The Best Western will be fine, and I’ll convince the manager to cash out my tips tomorrow. If I even still have a job tomorrow, that is . . . ” She hid her eyes behind her fingers.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her around the car to the passenger’s side. She made a sound of protest, but I stuffed her into the seat and buckled her in.
“Don’t argue with me,” I ordered as I slid into my own seat and cranked the key. “You’ll have a job tomorrow. And I have plenty of space. You’re going to go into shock if I don’t get you warmed up and calmed down.”
“Asher . . . ”
“Shut up, I need to concentrate,” I said, flashing her a teasing grin. “Would be terribly inconvenient to hit a deer because you distracted me in this very expensive car.”
My redirection of conversation worked. “Yes, three blocks and you’ll hit a deer.”
“Stranger things have happened in more expensive cars than this.”
“What is this, exactly?” she asked, her curiosity piqued. “It’s so sleek, like it’s all speed. I wondered if it even had seats when I first saw it, or if you, like, just straddled the engine and held on.”
I laughed at the visual, and she relaxed a bit. “Lamborghini Superleggera. I call it the Super Car. Not all that clever, I know. But it’s nothing compared to my rec vehicle, the Sissy Car.”
“Sissy Car?” Aria shook her head, a smile glancing across her face.
“Lamborghini Sesto Elemento. Ten times the price, barely faster and totally illegal to drive. I’ll take you for a ride in it sometime. I only drive it up to my cabin.” My loins clenched at the suggestion. I only used the cabin for one purpose, and here I was already mentioning the place to this random girl who lived in her car until she totalled it. I chomped on my lip for a dose of much needed pain, reminding myself to stay in check, under control, and to keep sexual suggestions to a minimum with her. I didn’t want to kill her.
She let out a little giggle. “I’d like to ride in your Sissy Car. And thanks, by the way.”
I parked in one of my garages beside the gym and led Aria up the back stairs. Three flights up, I tapped in a code to release the lock on the door. She averted her gaze for my privacy, so I closed the door and touched her chin with my fingertip. She followed my finger as I pointed to the keypad and re-entered the number, giving her full, trusting access to my home. The lock clicked again, and I swung open the door to let her into my apartment.
To call it an apartment was a dramatic understatement by common standards, I knew, but I didn’t know what else to use. A loft? I didn’t like the enclosed feeling of a single-level divided by walls, so when Gypsy hired my architect, I had all the interior walls knocked down. My bedroom was the section of the open room on the western wall—divided by a single stair up into the space—and the living room was on the east. Only the bathroom, attached to my bedroom, was an actual room with walls and a door, across from eight windows as large as the French doors in the middle that led to the balcony. I watched as she took in my chandelier, the vast height of the vaulted ceiling and open space before us.
Aria walked into the main living area with eyes as wide as the full moon and took in the ninety-six inch, flat-screened television with a single, long, five-seat couch facing it. She glanced at my bedroom, raising her eyebrows in approval at the double-king-sized captain’s bed with drawers on each side of the base.
I reached for her injured temple. The bleeding had stopped, but she had dirt smeared beneath the small wound, so I took her fingers in my own and drew her to the bathroom where I scooted her up onto the Italian marble counter, facing me. I touched her knees and pushed her legs apart, positioning myself between them, ignoring the sensation of forbidden intimacy that curled through me at her proximity, her gentle smell. I pressed a corner of a drawer to my right and it popped open, revealing a few toiletry items. I poured some peroxide onto a cotton ball and dabbed at her injury. Aria flinched when it fizzed and bubbled, and I grunted in approval of my own decision to disinfect the wound. She held her breath in reaction to my sound and the heat of our bodies so close to one another.
When the wound was clean, I tossed the cotton into a wastebasket and wrapped my hands around Aria’s shoulders, inspecting her pupils for signs of concussion, though she tried to avoid my gaze. She still trembled, which I suspected was also because she was so unexpectedly in the lavish apartment of a billionaire.
“You’re very minimalist,” she said.
“Nah, just hate to shop.” It was true, shopping was torture for me. Sales clerks in malls wore far too little clothing for my comfort level, and even mannequins, dressed in fine lingerie, triggered the incubus’s thrashing within me. There was a time when I had so little restraint over my urges, I feared I’d assault a sales clerk while shopping at Macy’s with Gypsy, and I had run out to the parking lot in the middle of shopping to escape. After I calmed down and Gypsy finished picking out shoes—I
don’t know why the hell she invited me with her in the first place—she and I had a good laugh at the clerk’s astonished face when I bolted from the building at top speed.
“Hungry?” I asked Aria. She nodded but still wouldn’t look at me. I slid her down from the marble counter top by her hips and led her to the kitchen where I sat her at one of two barstools along the edge of my island.
In the fridge were four leftover club sandwiches from the ridiculous meal she’d served me. I pulled out two and smirked as I passed the food from the Styrofoam onto white, oval plates and slid one in front of her. She hesitated until I bit into my own.
“I was going to eat with you tonight anyway, at the Teacup,” I explained between bites. “But I like dinner here with you better.”
She dug into her food. “You don’t have many dates, do you?”
Dates. My mood darkened a bit as I remembered the last girl I dated. What would be the point of trying with anyone else, for me? To torture myself more, to get attached, and then the pain of her death would punch me in the gut with the force of a freight train? Not an experience I wanted to repeat.
Of course, if I were able to date someone, Aria . . . I shook the idea off. Indulging a fantasy like that could be dangerous to the hardened conscience that allowed me to keep going with life despite my guilt. “No, none,” I said. “Nor do I allow anyone but Gypsy into my apartment. And my housekeeper, who comes twice a week.”
“Gypsy?” She looked up from her sandwich.
I couldn’t help but grin as I reached to smooth her concerned brow. Her skin was so soft. I never took time to notice the subtle niceties of the women I briefly courted before slaughtering them with sex, or perhaps none were as notable as Aria. Either way, I enjoyed touching her, and even though I knew I had no right, I wanted more of her. More of this: casual talk, casual touch. The skin of her face was soft beneath my fingertips . . . and in her eyes was some insecurity I didn’t understand as she met my gaze for such quick moments. She didn’t trust herself to look in my eyes, and I wanted to know why.
Oh, shit, I do want to date her. Bad news.
“Gypsy is my twin sister. She’s a stunning woman. My dad always speculated I would never settle down, since male twins tend to hold women up to the standard set by their sisters. Gypsy is a high standard.”
“You were close with your parents?” Aria asked, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.
I forced myself to look away from her lips as she licked them clean. I wanted to kiss her. Holy fuck, did I want to taste those lips! My tongue would do the job better than hers, anyway. But we were eating, and it was way too fast, and she’d make all kinds of wrong assumptions if I did, like all women did in the movies. And she’d probably want to sleep with me, which would be even worse than dating me. I cleared my throat. “I was close with them, yes. They’ve been dead for almost seven years.”
“The girls at the Teacup told me about that. Quite a high-profile accident, I hear. Sorry.”
I nudged her with my elbow. “No reason for you to be sorry. Drink?”
She nodded. I grabbed two root beers from the fridge and downed mine as Aria sipped hers. I let out a belch and watched her hide a giggle, then release a tiny, pathetic burp of her own.
“Come on,” I extended my hand as she shivered again with the fresh chill of the soda. I led her to my bedroom and opened the recessed closet door, pulled out a black athletic shirt—the sleeveless kind—and handed it to her. “You can change in the bathroom. Your shirt is full of glass, so toss it in the tub and my housekeeper will take care of it tomorrow. I’ll be in the living room.”
I excused myself as Aria held my shirt, hesitant and perplexed. I turned on the television and plopped down in my black leather sofa, kicking my heels up on the glass-topped coffee table before me. I heard the click of the bathroom door, the swoosh of water in the sink and then a long silence. I muted the TV and strained to hear. What was she doing in there?
She emerged and walked over to me with her arms crossed over her breasts. I blinked, surprised to notice she was only in the undershirt and her panties. Then I realized the brilliant yellow confirmed my suspicions: her underwear matched her socks.
“My pants were full of glass, too. I’ll sweep the bathroom.”
My intelligence blanked for a moment, unable to muscle enough brain power to think of where I kept a broom while she stood there, the skin of her bare thighs just begging for my tongue. Goosebumps pricked up along her flesh, and a grin tugged at the corner of my mouth as I drank in the sight of Aria—stubborn, mysterious Aria—so exposed in my living room. I waved her concerns off and when I spoke, my voice was rough. “The housekeeper can take care of the glass.”
She smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“You look good in those colors. Black and neon. I like it.”
She smirked at me. “You wanted to know my name . . . ” It was not a question, so I just nodded.
Aria turned around and grabbed the hem of my shirt with both of her hands. I couldn’t help but stare at her ass, my cock twitching against my khakis as I watched her flesh jiggle over the relaxed muscle. She shimmied as she worked the shirt up to her shoulders, revealing an elaborate tattoo in the middle of her back.
It was an ornamental, bright blue flower. The stem wrapped along her spine, almost appearing to wind fully around her vertebrae, though I knew that was impossible. Little swoops of gray smoke played alongside the slender stem, springing out of a few narrow, green leaves and leading up to the tall, starburst-adorned flower head. It was like a column of blue fireworks, the petals showing many layers of depth and color shades, though the brightest blue was identical to the blue of Aria’s hair.
“It’s a Hyacinth flower,” she explained. “Aria Hyacinthe. That’s my name.”
I reached forward instinctively and traced my fingertips over the stem from the base of her tailbone up her spine. A shiver ran along her back behind my touch as I trailed up to the flower, touching it, fearing the petals might wilt beneath my murderous touch. So soft, yet strong. Even her back rippled with lean, subtle musculature beneath her delightful skin. I swallowed, suppressing the urge to grab her ass as I did with her breast on the street.
My fingers continued up after I finished tracing the tattoo, reaching to her shoulders. I found the hem of the athletic shirt and tugged it down. Aria released it and let me slide the shirt over her back, covering her body again. I slid my hand around her waist and pulled her by the hip to sit beside me.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, drawing her head against my chest and tossing a blanket over both of us.
“Thanks,” she whispered, snuggling closer.
I wrapped the blanket over both her shoulders. “Not as beautiful as the person wearing it, though.”
I wasn’t sure why I was so opposed to her nudity in my apartment. Perhaps it was because no woman had ever died here and I didn’t want to break the purity of my home. Perhaps it was because I just learned her name and wanted Gypsy to have time to do some damage control before I killed Aria. I knew it was inevitable, if I continued to carry on with her this way. Or perhaps I simply knew she would expect to have to pay for her stay with me in some way, and I wasn’t about to let her pay me with her body. No, the stay was a freebie, a perk of being my friend, and I wouldn’t let her think she was worth so little to me.
After all, I planned to charge my murderous soul with her beautiful life, and that was worth a hell of a lot. Way more than I deserved.
“Why do you smell like gasoline?” Aria asked suddenly from the comfort of my hold, her shivering nearly ceased.
“Gypsy and I were racing today. I rented out the track.”
“That must cost a lot.” She yawned.
“Fifty grand for the afternoon.”
“Do you do that often?”
“Nah, only on her birthday. Gypsy has very exclusive interests, so I do what I can for all that she does for me.”
“It’s your birthday?”
Aria realized at my fond mention of my twin.
I frowned. “Yes, I suppose it is. Twenty-two.”
Aria was still for a moment, then stretched up and wiggled her hand free of the blanket to find my cheek. She touched me with tenderness, stroking the stubble of my chin with her soft finger as she turned my head to face her.
“Happy birthday, Asher Chain,” she whispered, and then she leaned up to kiss me, and as my tongue finally connected with hers again, I lost myself in the sweetness of her mouth.
Chapter 9 – Aria
Waking brought excitement after the initial confusion of opening my eyes in the arms of a man cleared.
My cheek rested on his arm, which curled around my back like a pillow, holding me close as he slept. I stared up at him, amazed—how could I be this lucky? Asher. I’d spent the night on Asher Chain’s couch, wrapped up in his embrace. It was so far from my usual reality that I inhaled deeply to make sure this was real. Yep, he still smelled like yesterday’s cologne: his typical, enticing smell mixed with gasoline from racing at the track with his sister.
I watched his face as he breathed evenly, his shirt open to the third button, showing just a bit of his sculpted chest. His eyebrows were furrowed while he dreamed. My God, how me must look shirtless. I tried not to squirm at the way his close, hot proximity sparked a deep, burning desire within me, spreading out through my body.
He shifted in slumber and tightened his hold around me, and I couldn’t help but smile. He tucked his other arm across his stomach and the sleeve of his shirt tugged up, revealing his solid forearm.
What was that? I frowned, surprised he hadn’t mentioned having a tattoo of his own when I showed him the giant hyacinth flower inked down my spine. I touched his arm to make sure he wouldn’t wake, and then pushed the sleeve to see a few rows of little, black spots on the inside of his forearm in a neat arrangement the size of a barcode. I counted forty-three dots, but there was nothing else to the tattoo, no tribal pattern around it or anything else to accentuate the black. Just simple dots. I stroked it with a feather-light touch, wondering what significance—if any—the tattoo held for him, and he startled awake.
