Wild Hyacinthe (Crimson Romance)

by Nola Sarina

  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 m
y 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.

  So I waited. His fear was so tangible in the steam that pain lanced through my chest, stopping my breath. It was the pain of my heart breaking for him, for the horror he’d lived for so long and the disbelief he carried that I would, indeed, survive him again.

  I touched a kiss on each of his cheeks, though he wouldn’t look at me. “I can feel your pain, Asher. But nothing’s going to hurt me. Especially not you. We’re okay.”

  He dropped his forehead to my shoulder and shuddered. “I’m not okay. I don’t know how to be okay.”

  The gravity of it all—murder, fear, sex, the love between us we didn’t know how to describe to each other—sank in. I wrapped myself around him every way I could as his shoulders shook and he tried to hide his ragged gasps of emotion.

  No, he wasn’t okay.

  But he would be someday, if he let me have anything to say about it. The water washed away the salt of our mutual tears as Asher clung to me with more vulnerability than I’d ever seen from him. I cherished his honesty, and the emotion dwindled behind my hands exploring every muscle of his body. He hardened anew inside me, desire exploding like fireworks through my system. He moved once more, unwilling to pull away from me until he was spent for a second time and the water ran cold.

  He found the courage to withdraw, then, and I shouted with the ecstasy of another climax as the aura between us burst brilliant blue: he absorbed me, and I absorbed him. As we did before, as we were meant to do forever. He drank in the release, cupping my face, kissing me again.

  Wrapped around him once more in the bed, fresh sheets beneath us soaked by shower water, Asher took both of my hands in his and clasped them to his chest, a smile tugging on the edges of his lips. “Aria.”

  “Hmm?” I returned his smile, warmed by his skin on mine, this perfect man who made love to me, who showed me a home I never expected.

  “I’ve done some terrible things,” he said. “I’ve lied to you. But I need you to believe this. I love you with every moment of everything I am. You’re everything, and I want you forever.”

  My breath caught. He loved me, too. I didn’t know what to say, so I lunged forward, kissing him, tasting his breath. “I love you,” I finally managed through his fervent kisses. “I fucking love you so much, Asher. Thank you, thank you for everything you are.”

  And then I was lost in the flawless pleasure he offered, and I matched his pace, needing him to the same intensity he needed me. I couldn’t count the number of times I peaked and fell around him, but he drove me on, stroking me inside, forcing me to come over and over again until I begged him to finish, to grant me the final climax, the aura between us that illuminated the cabin. It might as well have illuminated the whole world.

  Asher loved me, too. Our souls burned brighter with every release.

  Chapter 24 – Asher

  I didn’t count the nights as they passed. Time didn’t matter anymore—I wasn’t a ticking time-bomb waiting to go off. I wouldn’t slip up and snap, I wouldn’t take someone’s life without thinking.

  I wouldn’t take life at all anymore, and I struggled to wrap my head around the reality of that. Aria was my way out of killing. I wished I’d found her long ago.

  Aria’s emotion swelled from time to time, her fears about taking a life tumbling forth. I just held her as she got it out of her system, let her blame me and apologize for it, and when she quieted down she usually drifted into a deep sleep. I knew this feeling so well: guilt, disbelief, and shock. The difference was that she had me to comfort her, to wipe away her remorse with affection, and though I knew I couldn’t take it all away, I did my best to soothe her.

  When sleep overtook her fretful soul, I lay awake beside her, unable to stop the tsunami of my own remorse that emerged. She didn’t need to see this part of me. Dealing with the awakening of a succubus inside her was enough without my bullshit. I might not be okay, but I’d make damn sure she was.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, my head in my hands, trying to stop the images as they flashed before my vision. Eyes, over and over. The eyes of Kellie, Jeanne, Tami, and so many more. Their eyes were so cold, lifeless, and I couldn’t sleep for fear of the dreams I knew lurked behind slumber.

  Some nights, I watched the sky, searching for shooting stars or some sign that I deserved the joy I’d found in Aria. Other nights, I simply watched her sleep. Days ticked by and still I couldn’t rest.

  On the edge of the bed once more, the memory of Anita refused to dwindle. My first. My girlfriend, a girl I loved. I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyelids, but I couldn’t shake the image of her dead gaze, and the sick feeling in my core that I’d taken pleasure from sex before I knew it could kill. Her eyes were frozen in my memory, stuck open and dead. My tattoo itched, so I scratched it once, hard, and with the motion I swore I saw my fingers closing Anita’s eyes, as I’d done what seemed like forever ago.

  “Hey,” Aria’s voice shocked me alert as she stroked my back with a tentative touch. Had I been pleading out loud for the memories to stop?

  I met her gaze. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Talk to me, Asher.”

  I sighed. I didn’t want to lay all the horror on her. She deserved so much better than that. “I can’t shake the past,” I admitted.

  She rubbed my back again. “We can’t change anything in the past. All we can do now is take comfort in each other, and the truth that we never need to go back to our dark places.”

  I nodded, but my mind still raced. How could I take comfort in her when I knew I didn’t deserve her?

  Aria took my fingers and pulled me to the pillow beside her. She wrapped my arm around her and tucked my hand between her breasts. I splaye
d out my fingers as she snuggled her backside against me, and her heartbeat thumped lightly into my palm.

  I buried my face in her hair and inhaled, the sensation of her heartbeat lulled some of the memories away. Her even breathing reminded me she was alive, and the horror of my life was over. I could move out of the darkness with her, a woman who showed me the possibility of light.

  Her vitality smoothed over some of my jagged remorse as I held her, and finally, sleep let me sink down beneath its silent warmth.

  Chapter 25 – Aria

  “We need to get out of the house,” I said over breakfast, taking a sip of my steaming coffee. “We haven’t even put clothes on in four days.”

  “Has it been four days?” Asher asked.

  I looked him over from sexy head to sexy toe. “Six, since we arrived here, but four since we stopped getting dressed.”

  Asher smirked and dug back into his cereal. How could a man still look so perfect while devouring a mixing bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch stark naked? I giggled and sipped my coffee again, happy his mood from last night seemed somewhat resolved.

  He smiled in reply and drank the last of the milk in the bowl, and then rose to take it back to the kitchen. He kissed me on top of my head as he passed, heading to the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

  I waited, enjoying my coffee, and he came back down the stairs dressed in khaki cargo pants and a black, button-down shirt, open to the third button with that effortless coolness he wore so well.

  “Hey!” I protested. “I wasn’t complaining that we haven’t put on clothes.”