Wild Hyacinthe (Crimson Romance) (21 page)

And then he bit my lip too hard and I shrieked.

Pain flooded through me as Asher jumped away, backing up with his hands in the air like a busted criminal, fire vanishing from his eyes. “Aria! Aria, I’m so sorry.”

I clamped my hand over my mouth and swallowed hard, trying to stop the tears brewing behind my eyes. Anger blistered forth within me strong enough to hide my fear. More than fear, though, disappointment rampaged my heart. We’d been so close. It almost happened, and now the moment was gone . . .

He groaned and wrapped his hands around his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he bent at the waist. Then he fumbled through the kitchen drawers until he found a cloth, wet it with cold water, and approached me with caution in his eyes, as though trying to help a wounded animal.

I was mad enough it wasn’t far from the truth. My instincts battled between kicking him in the balls and running to the foyer, or throwing myself at him once more and trying to repair the broken moment. I glanced at the table.

Asher didn’t miss it. “Take the keys. Go.”

I shook my head. I wouldn’t abandon him when his need was this thick, regardless of his darkness. I pulled my hand away from my lip and inspected the bright, crimson liquid pooled in my palm. “I’m fucking bleeding!”

He held out the cloth. “Please? Let me see.”

I shook my head and swallowed, suppressing a gag at the taste of blood. But the emotional hurt, the regret on Asher’s face was plain, and the closer he got the weaker my resolve grew. His touch melted my anger as he lifted my chin and bent to look closer, his hands no longer urgent, only soothing. His breath washed over my face and I inhaled, drawing his intoxicating scent deep inside, arousal waking up again with the taste.

He dabbed at my lip and I grimaced. He averted his gaze as he pinched the wound to slow the bleeding, and I sighed at his remorse.

“It’s okay,” I said, muffled by the cloth.

“You keep saying that, and you’re wrong. Nothing about this is okay.” His tone pitched higher as he ground his teeth together, and I knew he was furious with no one but himself.

I took his hand. “It will be, though. I forgive you.”

“That is going to swell.”

I shrugged and cracked a half-hearted grin. “Not the end of the world. I promise to say I walked into a door.”

“Not funny, Aria.”

“I know it’s not. But I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not going to damage your reputation with rumors that you bite women.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing you could say about me.” He said it so low I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly, so I tilted my head in question.

Asher rubbed his temples and took me back into his arms. I didn’t resist, and as his heat enveloped my body I inhaled his scent at the base of his neck. His kisses tickled my hair and cheeks as he apologized over and over again. “Never again, do you understand that? This will never happen again.”

“If you make me bleed again, it should be while we’re in bed.”

“Aria, what the hell? That is not a normal thing to say.”

“I don’t care about normal. You’re nothing close to normal, and you’re all I want.”

He chuckled a bit at that, his mood softened.

I smiled at him, ignoring the tightness of my wounded lip. “Now, about that coffee.”

“Coffee’s always good,” he said, taking a step back.

As I sat across the kitchen table from him sipping a steaming, delicious coffee, Asher left his untouched, watching me. I tried not to shiver as the darkness crept back into the room through the silence.

I knew what he needed. He was afraid of the sex we both craved like life itself. I drained the last of my coffee and resolved to quell his fear tonight, no matter what I had to do to convince him.

I felt the fire inside me as strongly as I saw it in him. If we kept denying the pull of magnetism between us, we were bound to crash and burn.

I’d rather crash into him than anywhere else. I kicked my foot up onto the table, revealing a healthy amount of thigh beneath my skirt, and stared Asher down with nothing but desire in my gaze.

Aria napped on the sofa in the spare room while I sat nearby, brooding. I couldn’t even join her to cuddle while she rested and the day drew toward night. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely fucking
think.

I called my sister. “I’m losing it, Gyp,” I muttered into the phone.

She was quiet, accepting. “Are you still set on fidelity as more important than her survival?”

My voice was hoarse with disbelief as I spoke. “The incubus demands
her
now, Gypsy. It will not be satiated until I’ve had her. I taunted him too much. No one else will do.” This separation between my personality and the demon side of me was bizarre, but we were no longer one being. He wanted one thing. I wanted something very different.

Gypsy sighed. “What time shall we arrive?”

I glanced at Aria, peacefully dozing, from the corner of my eye. “Midnight,” I said, and darkened the phone.

Gypsy would think she was coming to collect Aria’s body. But nothing could be further from the truth. I’d let this go on far too long already. My heart rocked with sorrow as I recalled the look in my twin’s eyes when she cried on the floor of the foyer in my parents’ house as the cops delivered the news our parents were dead . . . I couldn’t bear the pain on her face then. Would she cry over me, too? Or was she already too damaged, too hardened from loss, to feel my death in high definition?

Aria would feel it. Fuck. Maybe I really was a coward. Maybe I didn’t care anymore, as long as I didn’t have to keep hurting people I loved. Killing one I loved was enough. If I killed Aria, or snapped afterward and hurt Gypsy somehow . . . it was all too much. Aria’s lip gushing blood into my mouth had sealed the deal for me. The monster was between us, urging our passion along and mocking me all the way. If I thought I hated myself before, it was nothing compared to now: I hated the monster, I hated the coward, I hated the shitty lover and the shitty brother.

But I was out of options and running dangerously low on control.

I pulled open the drawer to my desk and took out a pad of paper and a pen. Two little, folded notes later—one labeled “Aria” and one “Gypsy”—I replaced the pad and straightened my things. And then I coded open the bottom drawer, pulled out the .32 revolver, and loaded it with lead. I tucked it into the side pocket of my cargo pants, happy the thing was impressively concealable. At least Aria wouldn’t know what was coming. At least my cabin backed up to the Great Lake, and she’d be spared the visual of finding my body.

Aria peeked her eyes open once during her nap. I stared at her, hoping my face didn’t betray the sense of utter horror, shame, and fear that I felt. Her eyes reflected sorrow for me and a longing I hated to see, mixed with that beautiful, fearless power of hers, that siren’s allure that made it impossible to resist her, yet even more critical I do exactly that. She closed her eyes again and her breathing resumed its sleepy rhythm.

God fucking damn, I loved her, so much. But to tell her now would only hurt her more when I was gone.

I rose from my chair, sat on the edge of the sofa and wrapped myself around her, breathing of her sweetness at the base of her neck. I wondered if I was more attuned to the scents of different women by my nature as an incubus. It didn’t matter. In only an hour’s time, I would never smell Aria again. I would never taste her lips or hear her voice or brush that streak of blue away from her adorable, furrowed eyebrows. I would never again be tempted by the way she tugged her waistband lower with her thumbs hooked through her belt loops.

I’d never see her again, or Gypsy, or anyone, because I’d be dead. An odd relief muted my sorrow about it all. The killing would finally be over.

Aria was like no other woman on Earth—of that, I was certain. I needed her. I needed every taste of her lips and touch of her fingertips. I needed her to love me, too. But I was out of time to tell her how I felt and out of control to wait for her reply.

I kissed her cheek as she half-smiled in her sleep. “I’m going for a walk,” I whispered. “Rest.”

The hours to come would bring many questions and a whole lot of anger. But until it was over, and until she read the letter I left her, I wanted her to feel happy. I wanted her to know my love for her. The love that was crushing my soul with each moment that passed.

I slipped out the back door barefoot and reveled in the cool moisture of the grass as I strode to the rocks of the shore. I crouched when I reached the edge and wished I had another option. The sky stretched on before me, which still glowed with the glint of impending night, the color a deep indigo. The water crashed over the rocks, a faint spray cooling my face. Truly, Lake Superior could have been an ocean had the water not been fresh, and I would have gladly drowned in the endless depths of it if that meant I could avoid hurting the girl in my cabin, the woman I cherished every time she melted into my arms. But a bullet was quicker than drowning and far more guaranteed to do the job right.

I closed my eyes and imagined Aria’s face when I touched her, when she came, when I kissed her. Her long lashes batting past bright, lacy eyes. I savored every sound she made in my permanent memory, though I knew even my memory would not exist for long.

I stood and faced the house. I hoped she was still sleeping. I didn’t want her to hear the gunshot.

The gun was heavy in my hand, despite its petite size. I blew out a harsh breath, my heart pounding in my ears, my toes icing with fear of the moment. I’d tried to kill myself once before, after my first kill, and fantasized about it many times since. Gypsy saved me the first time. After that, I never let her know how close to reality the suicide option was in my mind. If I killed Aria, there wouldn’t be anything left of me to save. Gypsy would lose me, but I’d still be here in her face, my body dominated by a killer, my soul as dead as the soul of the woman I loved.

Aria. I pulled the hammer back on the gun and bounced on my heels. She deserved better than me. Both of them did. My fingers iced further, and as I shivered from the chill of the lake air, I put the barrel in my mouth.

When I tried this before, Gypsy found me with the gun to my temple. She took it from me, pistol-whipped me with it, and then screamed that if I was going to be such a coward and leave her there, I should at least have the decency to do it right.
“In the mouth, aim up, you fucking moron!”
But I saw through the rage. Her tears betrayed her pain and fear. I’d scared her so badly I never tried it again.

But this time was different. I had two living people to think about, two that I loved. So I aimed up.

I’m sorry, Gypsy.

I closed my eyes and let Aria’s beautiful face drift into my thoughts, the final image I wanted with me when I blasted myself straight into hell. Her eyes . . . her body . . .
fuck me, her body . . .

I flexed my grip around the gun.

And I couldn’t pull the trigger.

I tried. Something was wrong. I flexed that one little muscle to end it all, and the incubus caught on, heat seizing through my body like lightning, electrifying and melting me from the inside out. The blaze of his control shot from my heart to my fingertips, and the shiver of the cool evening vanished, replaced by need, desire, and flames in my veins.

I watched my hand pull the gun from my mouth, though I kept trying to squeeze the trigger. My fingers only released the gun and let it clatter to the mist-dampened rocks by my feet. The fire in my body tripled, and I broke into a sweat. I tried to reach into my pocket for my phone, but my feet moved forward without my consent, and I walked to the house, fists clenched at my sides.

In my mind, I saw flashes of thoughts not conjured by me. Aria moaned in my memory, her heat quivered around my finger with moisture, tightness . . . I didn’t want those memories now, with my feet carrying me toward my cabin in a vicious stalk, my erection stiff and primed to take her life.

It was the incubus controlling me. I had no choice. I couldn’t quiet the memories he brought forth, heightening my desperation, my arousal . . . he wanted to kill her. He wanted
me
to kill her. He demanded it.

Stop!
I screamed at myself.
Stop, you bastard!

The incubus stopped my feet. A moment of relief bounced through me that I might still have control. I was wrong. The incubus raised my hand, chuckled quietly through my mouth, and made me slap myself in the face, hard.

Stunned into mental silence, the sting of my own palm on my cheek ringing through ears I no longer owned, I resumed walking.

I walked beyond Aria, still dozing on the couch, to the main level bathroom.
Thank God I walked beyond her.
Fear pounded in my chest with every beat of my heart. I stopped in front of the sink and turned on the water to wash my hands.

What the hell was he doing? Taunting me? I couldn’t command my hands as the water scalded my skin—way too hot. I pumped soap into my palms and scrubbed as I’d done too many times to count while riddled with guilt, and I looked up at my reflection. My muscles were thick, bulging against my skin. My eyes blazed red like the fire burning me from the inside out. I tried to look away, but the incubus just stared back at me, mocking my futile struggle to regain control.

I didn’t have any control of my body. Every action was involuntary as though I wasn’t even in the backseat of my own consciousness. I couldn’t tap the driver—the incubus—on the shoulder and ask him to pull over, to let me out. I was so helpless, I might as well have been in the fucking trunk of my vehicle.

The incubus tilted my head to the side, grinning at me with hideous arousal in the mirror. “Play time, Asher,” he said through my lips.

No! No! Aria!

I watched myself dry my hands, and the incubus winked at me in the mirror.

Holy fuck, he was going to kill her. I couldn’t warn her, or get Gypsy for help, and the more I mentally thrashed against the restraints the incubus had around me—the same restraints I’d imposed upon him for years while I did his bidding—the more gleeful he grew at my suffering.