by Nola Sarina
“Aria, stop. We need to talk.”
“If you had something to say, you should have said it back in the apartment. Leave me alone.”
I wanted to die from remorse. No, I wanted to let Aria beat me to a pulp with a dumbbell for being such a dick. Then I could die satisfied. “You have no idea how I wish I could.”
She stopped and whirled, anger brightening her face even more. “Now, see, here’s the problem, Asher. You say shit like that, making me feel unwanted yet needed, and you don’t want me to leave, but you don’t want to fuck me because I’m a virgin . . . God, there’s a million guys who would kill to have a virgin and for you, it’s a complete turnoff!”
I grimaced, knowing that there were plenty of people in the street—people who knew me well—watching and listening.
“But that’s exactly the issue here. I wouldn’t kill to have a virgin. Will you let me explain?”
Aria blew out her breath and stared at me for a long moment, conflicted.
“No,” she finally said, turning again and stomping away, offended. “You had your chance.”
I followed her, my chest constricting with the thought of losing her already. Was it my fear of rejection, loss, or the hollowness of losing a delicious kill that flooded me with alternating waves of panic and grief? The incubus and I had been so synonymous, moments before, both of us driving the same body. She walked all the way uptown, barefoot, to the Best Western hotel. She stopped at the check-in counter and asked for a room, and the vested boy at the reception desk informed her she would need a credit card to book for incidentals. Aria eyed me as he spoke and I sighed.
“Put it under the Chain account,” I ordered the boy. His eyes lit up and he typed into the computer for a moment, then passed Aria a small plastic key card and nodded at me politely, seeming perplexed by my appearance: all sweat and shorts. I supposed it was the most un-billionaire moment—half-naked in the lobby of the Best Western—of my adult life.
Aria strolled off to the elevator, refusing to look at me. I grumbled under my breath. Women were so difficult.
In the elevator, I tried to put my hand on her waist but she slapped me away. Another gentleman in the elevator leaned over to Aria and glared at me with threat. “This guy bothering you, sweetie?”
I heard a growl build within me at his unwelcome use of the endearment I selected for my girl.
“No, thank you,” she answered with a genuine smile. She raised her eyebrows at me in all of my shirtless, muscled glory. “He’s completely harmless. No threat to any woman.”
I rolled my eyes at the mockery but held my tongue.
Aria’s suite was on the third floor. She let herself into the room and slammed the door in my face but didn’t lock it. Her attitude reminded me of her freak-out about kittens. She sat on the bed and huffed, then glared at me, expectant.
I dropped to my knees and scooted close to her, resting my hands on her thighs. She trembled, angry, hurt, frightened and all rightfully so.
“Aria, please listen to me.”
She blinked. “I’m listening, Asher, but you’re not saying anything.”
What could I say? I decided on half of the truth. “Look, my first time was shortly after my parents died. Things didn’t go well for either of us, and I have intense reservations about taking a woman’s virginity because of that. It was traumatic.” Holy understatement!
“You had reservations about sex with me before you knew I was a virgin.”
“Yeah, I did. I don’t want to give you all the gory details.”
She frowned, her eyebrow creasing. I resisted the urge to smooth it.
“Did you hurt her?” Aria asked, referring to my first time.
I found myself unable to lie to her. “Yes,” I whispered, refusing to tear my gaze from her beautiful, lacy eyes.
Her frown deepened. “Are you going to hurt me?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m trying to do everything in my power to avoid that,” I replied with conviction.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Asher Chain?”
I murder every woman I touch. Sex and death are synonymous to me. And I hate every orgasmic second of it, yet I can do nothing to stop it. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to talk to you. When I’m near you, I can’t get enough of you, but when I’m away I know I should stay away. I’m not the good guy I look like on the outside, and I don’t want to drag you down into this personal hell with me.” My heart constricted. I wanted to tell her so much more.
The incubus had other ideas, and his control over me stopped my confession. “But I want you so badly,” I heard myself saying, keeping her close once again instead of pushing her away. “I want to touch you and taste you and make you cry out with pleasure, even though I know I have no right. But you’re the only person for me, Aria. The only one in the world.”
Her eyes widened, and she rose to her feet. She crossed the small space to the kitchenette and poured herself a glass of water, not meeting my gaze. Her voice was dark with disbelief. “The only person.”
I sighed and stood as well, forcing myself to ignore the way her deep swallows of water contracted her throat . . . Fuck me, her mouth on me . . . I walked to her and slid my hand around her waist. She trembled at my touch as she drank again.
“Yes,” I said. “The only woman I want. I want you in my arms every day. When I wake up with you beside me, it’s like I’ve been stuck underwater and now I can breathe.”
She choked on her drink and sprayed the sink—and me—with water from her mouth, laughing. I stammered, taken aback. Some of the water splattered me in the face and I licked my lips. I wanted her taste any way I could get it.
She put the glass down, coughed into her fist for a moment and laughed so hard she had to bend at the waist and lean on the counter.
She was laughing at me. Really? A combination of irritation, embarrassment and humor twitched my neck.
“Asher,” she finally managed through her laughter, “that was so lame!”
“Lame?” I couldn’t keep the offense out of my tone.
She straightened and reached out to me, and I stepped forward to sweep her into my embrace without hesitation, wrapping my arms around her still-shaking midsection, stroking lace over bare skin. “Yeah, Asher, lame. But adorable lame.”
I shrugged, still a bit miffed that she laughed at me in one of the most honest moments of my life. “Well, excuse me. I haven’t really done the relationship thing; you know that.”
“Yes, and you could do it with me, but you won’t have sex with me. And those words would be so much better after a night of sex so crazy I can’t walk the next day.”
I groaned and tried to pull away at the temptation in my soul, but she slipped her hands up the back of my neck and kissed me, closing her eyes.
I took a draw of her breath as she sighed into my kiss, our tongues teasing through open lips, and crushed her against me. Lame or not, my words were the truth. She gave me a feeling of life I’d never had before—a feeling I never thought possible.
I broke the kiss as my shorts tightened painfully when her tongue slid once, long and slow, along my lower lip. I chuckled as I pulled away. “Lame.” I scoffed.
“I’m sorry, Asher. No one’s ever said anything like that to me before.”
“I should hope not, since you think those words should be reserved for after thigh-crippling sex.”
“Thigh-crippling?” Her voice was half-moan, half-whisper. “Way less lame.”
“Look, Aria,” I said. I swallowed, my sweat beading off my pectorals from nervousness more than from exertion. “I don’t give a shit how I sound. I need to tell you this. I’ve screwed up too many times already. I can’t stomach any more of the bad shit I’ve done to women. And when I’m with you, it’s like I can breathe again, like I haven’t breathed since my parents died. I’ve been holding my breath only for you.”
Her eyes darted from side to side, trying to process what I said. I ran my free hand roughly t
hrough my short hair, my entire being exposed, all my secrets on the line. It was true in more ways than one, because her pleasure—her breath—filled some of my needs. I was drowning in the horror of my life, and even one little gasp of hope was enough to keep me going. Aria was that hope for me. Air underwater, a life raft and the most dangerous thing I’d ever met, all at once.
I let half a grin spread across my lips. “I know how it sounds. But I can’t explain things any other way, and I’m terrified I’m going to hurt you, and I’ve never actually been afraid of hurting a woman before you. And when you’re around . . .” I trailed off, the admission of my fear hanging in the slight space between us like fog, shrouding the truth. I selected my victims with harm in mind, every time I needed to charge the monster of my soul to keep the murder within my scope of control. With Aria, the thought of living with myself after killing her was abhorrent.
She tugged me over to the bed with sadness in her eyes. I sank to the mattress beside her. “Asher,” she crooned, “you’re not going to hurt me.”
“How do you know that?” I almost laughed at the impossibility of it. “How do you know what I’m capable of? You don’t even know what I’ve already done.”
She shook her head. “Does it matter what you’ve done? Or does it matter what you’re going to do differently this time?”
I clenched my jaw. “If I want to be sure you’re still with me tomorrow . . .” The thought of killing you, of satisfying the monster with your virgin blood . . . I couldn’t live with myself.
“No,” she sighed, drawing me into her arms. She pulled my head to her shoulder and I nestled my mouth against her neck, kissing her. I wrapped my hand over the front of her throat, pulling her closer as my mouth moved of its own accord along her skin. She moaned at my breath on her neck.
“You won’t hurt me.” She tilted to let me kiss her more.
I mouthed her chin until I reached her lips, and then kissed her, our tongues dancing a slow seduction of heat, apology and need. I pushed her back against the mattress, drawing myself over her and resting between her thighs. We must have kissed for hours, like that, and though my cock hardened anew, the incubus side of me had no say in what happened. None. I would be her protector from myself, if I could manage it, and the monster within did not like that one bit. My growing care for Aria was contrary to the violence and lust of the demon I was inside.
I have control of you, you fucking bastard, I sneered at myself. And in that moment, I found a peculiar pride in resisting the urge, mingled with acknowledgment of how deeply I loathed myself and the crimes I’d committed. I needed Aria. And if she wanted me this badly, it was only because she had no idea who I really was. A killer of women. The worst man on Earth, because I coerced my victims until they wanted me to do it, and I got away with it every time.
“Okay,” she said when I finally released her lips and gazed into her blue eyes. “Let’s do this your way. We’ll take the sex slow.”
I let a smile tug the corner of my lip up. “Just let me figure out how I want to handle the sex, okay?” I begged her. “I just don’t know how to go about it with you. I want to do it right. You deserve the best I have, anything you want . . . but I don’t know if I can do this without hurting you.”
It was a total lie, and I hated myself further for misleading her with my reply. I knew the answer. No, I could not do it without hurting her. She frowned, either from fear or disbelief, I couldn’t tell.
“Can we try?” I begged.
Aria trembled at the dangerous promise of my words. Was she afraid of what I might reveal? Or, worse, did she love me, too? And enough to not care what I’d done in the past? She chewed on her lip and took a deep breath.
“Please? I’ll buy you anything you want. I’ll buy the Lacy Teacup or jewelry . . . a pedicure? Pedicures are amazing. I have a guy who comes to the gym, if you want.”
“I don’t need that shit, Asher. Do you really have a guy do your pedicures?”
Yep. No way was some hot chick massaging my feet, for obvious reasons.
I ignored the jab. “But do you want that shit?” Anxiety tightened my throat as I spoke, searching her eyes. “You don’t have to need it, just want it. Just want me. Please.”
Her words answered me as her hands stroked the back of my shoulders, her eyes glittering with excitement. A genuine smile brightened her cheeks, and my heart flipped over once. “Okay, Asher. Don’t go buying me a bunch of shit, though. I want you. Yes, we can try.”
My heart lurched. Was I allowed to have this? A chance at life without killing, the chance to keep trying . . . I never thought something like this was in the cards for me. My care for her multiplied as I stared into her lacy eyes and silently prayed I’d have the control to stop myself again, if I needed to.
Aria stroked her palm along the stubble of my chin, and her touch was like salve to my bleeding, self-hateful soul. She rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe I’d really like a pedicure, too.”
I laughed, brushed the blue strand of her hair back into the black and kissed her again. I wrapped myself around her and held her close as she shivered in my arms—overwhelmed, I supposed, or maybe emotional and hiding it behind her cool. All I cared about was that she was in my arms.
Right where I needed her. Bullet dodged, for me, I thought as I cherished her touch. And she doesn’t even know we’re playing Russian Roulette.
Chapter 14 - Asher
Hours passed. We didn’t sleep. We touched, caressed, kissed. We shed our clothing. Eventually, Aria propped herself up on her elbow and traced her fingertips over my face, touching me, memorizing me. I blinked at her when she stopped.
“Why do you frighten me so much?” Aria whispered.
“Do I frighten you?”
She swallowed. “Yes. I mean, your physique is frightening, to begin with. You’re so strong and so solid, but you glare at me as though you’re both inviting me in and trying to scare me away. I don’t know how to read you.”
I took my turn to trace the planes of her face—her delicately creased brow, her high cheekbones that held her massive, blue eyes and the narrow chin beneath her pouty lips. “You frighten me, too. You make me care. I don’t know how to care about a woman.”
“Are you so screwed up because of your parents? Being an orphan, and all. ”
I shrugged. “Somewhat, I’m sure. But I think most of my issues stem from something born in me rather than trained into me.”
“And you’re not going to elaborate on those issues, are you?”
I kissed her nose. “Not yet.”
“Are you a rapist?”
“No!” The one rule I’d left unbroken.
“Are you a vampire?”
I laughed. “No. Stop watching those shit movies.”
“Ha!” she declared, pointing accusingly at me. “You wouldn’t know what I’m talking about if you hadn’t seen them.”
I smirked. “With a TV like mine? Of course I’ve seen them.”
“Well, I live in my now-totalled car and don’t watch movies. I read the books.”
“Then stop reading those shit books, Aria. And you don’t live in your car. You live with me.”
“Do I?”
“Consider yourself formally invited.”
“I don’t even know what your issues are yet. I have no idea how fucked up you might prove to be.”
“Give me a chance to show you, in the comfort of our home together, how normal I can be when I try.”
“Are you a fag?”
“Aria!”
“I mean the term affectionately, Asher. I only had gay friends in high school. They called me a Fag Hag.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I have worked with enough gay male clients—amazing fighters, too—to object to the term, no matter how you intend it.”
Aria blushed. “Sorry.”
I tilted my head. “Speaking of your own history,” I hedged, “why are you still a virgin? I never would have guessed.”
She laug
hed, throwing her head back on the pillow. “What, do I act like a total slut?”
“Another term I’d prefer you avoid, especially when referring to yourself.” God, I was a hypocrite. The only reason I objected to that one was because I’d already killed so many of them. Aria really hit the nail on the head with my “fucked up sexual issues.” I pressed back a wave of crushing depression as I tried to keep the shame out of my eyes.
“Sorry again, Mr. Morality. I don’t know . . . I’m comfortable with my body, and I’m good at taking care of myself, as you witnessed on your breakfast bar.”
I grunted approvingly of the memory. “Yes. You’re fucking awesome at that.” My cock jumped to attention as I remembered inhaling her climax through her mouth. I wished I could jerk off and be done with this goddamn arousal, but that stupid need-sex-to-survive issue prevented that from being of any use.
“ . . . and my hand can’t cheat on me. I’ve always felt like it would be the worst thing in the world, to connect with somebody so fully, sexually, and then to be betrayed.”
“Cheating? You’re still a virgin because you’re afraid of being cheated on? What about, you know, a one-night stand? Something where the expectations are clear from the beginning . . . ” I trailed off, having never been able to expect more than a one-night stand.
Aria sighed. “I looked for that, for a while.”
“Why did you stop looking?”
She blinked at me and a slow smile spread across her lips. “You stopped me in my tracks, Asher.”
Oh. She’d been looking for sex when she found me. Talk about star-crossed!
My expression must have showed my astonishment. “I’m happy you did, too. My mother was kinda promiscuous,” she admitted. “I don’t want to get into details. I’ve seen enough of one-night stands in my life.”
The picture trickled in through my mind. Her poverty, her embarrassed quiet about her own history. I tried to imagine Aria as a little girl and realized I knew far too little about her life to probe so intimately into her phobia of cheating.
“My fear of being nothing more than my mother is why I’ve shied away from relationships for so long. I would rather die than have dysfunctional sexual relationships like her. It makes me sick to think about. Hell, even imagining you with anyone else makes my stomach turn, and I don’t have any reasonable claim to forbid you from doing such, yet.”
