Wild Hyacinthe (Crimson Romance) (16 page)

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.

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 laughed, 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.”

I rested my hand against the beautiful skin between her breasts and felt her heartbeat escalate. “Aria Hyacinthe,” I chastised her, “I’ve just told you you’re the only girl for me and insisted you live with me. You don’t think that gives you the right to ask for my monogamy?”

She rolled her eyes. “Monogamy implies we’re fucking.”

“I have no hesitation to fool around with you. I’m just not comfortable with penetrative sex with you.”

“So we’re monogamous mouth-fuckers?”

I laughed. “And hand-fuckers and possibly toy-fuckers, if we decide to go shopping together again.”

Her eyes lit up. “That sounds fun! Think of the dildos I could buy with a credit limit like yours. I could deflower myself.” She smirked at me, a bit of annoyance showing through the playfulness.

But it wasn’t a bad idea, I figured, grinning.

She sighed. “Do you want to tell me about what happened, what traumatized you away from fucking a nice, tight virgin?”

I groaned and put some distance between Aria and I at the graphic description. “No. I really, really don’t want to tell you.”

“Does Gypsy know?”

“Yes. She helped me recover from it. It’s one of the weird side effects of being one half of a male-female twin pair: there really aren’t any secrets between us, even when it comes to the most personal issues.”

“So she knows you far better than I do.”

“Yeah, and she probably always will. We shared our mother’s womb. It’s nothing personal. I don’t have any friends, either, since all I’ve ever had was her.”

Aria’s brow creased so I kissed it to relax her. “Does that bother you?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. But if it does, I’ll let you know. When can I meet her?”

“Whenever,” I shrugged.
Fuck. Gypsy. She’s not going to like anything about this.

“Speaking of personal stuff . . . ” Aria chewed on her lip as she spoke. “Well, you know how I said I can’t have children, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay with that? I mean, you suggested that you wanted my company temporarily or otherwise. In the case of ‘otherwise’ . . . ”

I stroked her shoulder with the backs of my knuckles. “It’s fine. Children are not exactly high on my priority list.”
Because you have to be alive to bear my child, Aria, and I can’t knock you up once you’re dead!

She nodded. “My doctor doesn’t know why I am the way I am. My body reached full maturity but not . . . reproductive maturity. I suppose it could still happen, at some point, but it hasn’t yet. That’s probably another reason I’ve shied away from sexual contact—my body is dysfunctional, sexually, and that’s embarrassing.”

How similar we are, yet how different.

“So you don’t menstruate?” I asked.

Aria rolled her eyes and partially hid her face. “No, I don’t. But thanks for pointing out the obvious with a very clinical and uncomfortable word, Asher.”

I laughed. “And you’re worried I’ll disapprove of this? No PMS? You really
are
too good to be true!”

She punched me in the chest with enough force to halt my laughter and elicit a grunt.

“Are you okay with my silence about my sexual past?” I asked, my nerves vibrating in my chest.

She blew out a breath. “For now, I guess. I have a lot of questions, but I don’t want to pry, or shove you away. Just . . . don’t deprive me of answers forever, okay? I’ll want to know eventually.”

“But for now, we’re okay?” I asked, perplexed by my level of fear at the idea of Aria and I being anything but okay.

She smiled at my anxiety, leaned forward and kissed me, her lips inviting my tongue. “We’re okay.”

I pretended to sleep longer than I actually slept. Asher was beside me, warm and breathing on my arm while he traced the flowers of my tattoo with a light stroke. It tickled a little bit, but I didn’t mind. I liked his curiosity about me, and as much as I wanted to know more about his issues, I certainly wasn’t forthcoming with my own, yet. Perhaps if I opened that door first, he’d follow me through it.

I was the only woman for him. My heart soared as he continued to touch my back, tracing petals of blue and leaves of green, the little swirls of smoke beside the stem. The touch was so inviting, I wanted to roll over and pull him inside me.

But I couldn’t do that. He needed time. Goddamn, I felt like I was running out of patience to wait. My need for him was quickly reaching a level of demand that felt out of control. As if my libido had a mind of its own, as if sex were water and I’d been thirsty too long. Asher needed my patience. I needed
him
.

I shifted to peek at him, and he smiled, never stopping the soothing motion of his fingertips as he traced each flower head individually. I smiled back and then he slowed his fingers and paused.

“Why seventeen flower heads?” he asked, his touch resting where I knew there was an uneven gap of flowers.

I rolled further and pulled his arm toward me, stroking my thumb over his tattoo. “Why forty-three dots?”

He gulped hard. “You counted.”

“While we were cuddled up on your couch the first night together, yes.”

He shrugged, but his nonchalance didn’t touch his eyes and I didn’t buy it. “Not a happy story.”

I caressed the first row of dots on his arm, and he shuddered, averting his eyes. Could it be that bad?

Time to open that door. “Mine isn’t a happy one, either. Seventeen flowers: one for each of my siblings.”

His eyebrows shot up with shock and he pressed his palm to my back, as though cradling the entire tattoo. Emotion pricked in my throat and I swallowed to keep the tears away.

“You have seventeen siblings?”

I nodded, wishing the sorrow would someday diminish, though so far, it hurt every time I thought about it, no matter what I did. “My mother was on welfare my whole life. She never worked. Once a year, she would call me into her bedroom, swollen with pregnancy, and ask me to get her the special dark sheets from the closet. Then she would ask for towels, and then for water.” My voice shook, and Asher scooted his chest closer to me so he could kiss my forehead as I spoke.

I took strength from his affection and continued. “When she had everything she needed, I curled up on the foot of her bed and listened to her moans become cries and eventually, screams. Terror doesn’t even begin to describe it, Asher—no matter how shitty a mother she was, I loved her, and I thought she was dying every damn time.”

“Aria,” he whispered, but he didn’t say anything more.

“When the screaming stopped, I’d help her change the bloody sheets while she nursed the babies. Ten of them I caught with my own hands when I was older. Some were twins. I wrapped them in towels and gave them to Momma. Every time, I’d ask her, ‘Can I name this one?’ and she’d say to me, ‘No, my flower, not yet.’ And after a month or so, she’d wake me in the early hours of the morning and tell me she took the little one to the hospital to find it a home with a momma
and
a daddy. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t get it now. A year later, we’d do it all over again: our little secrets, babies that would never be ours, given up for adoption over and over again.”

Asher let out his breath in a rush and pulled me on top of him, cradling me against his chest. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry.”

I half-shrugged. I’d never told anyone before, and having it out in the open felt somewhat healing, like I’d peeled the Band-Aid off an old wound to expose it to air, but also like I’d betrayed my past, given up our secret.

“Kittens?” Asher asked in a whisper. “Or babies?”

I turned my cheek into his embrace, pressing my ear to his chest to feel his strength. “They cry all fucking night long, and they won’t eat the food you buy for them and they barf on all your favorite shirts . . . ” I trailed off, sorry I’d lied to him.

“You cared for them, and then you had to give them away. Oh, Aria, I can’t even imagine. Life without Gypsy, missing her . . . ” he groaned and kissed my hair.

I propped my chin up on my hands against his chest so I could look into his eyes. “When I hit about sixteen, I realized there was something deeply wrong with the way we lived, moving all the time to hide the pattern. So I worked and saved money for my first trip: I was going to Rome.”

“You want to travel?” Excitement lit his eyes.

I nodded. “Everywhere. I want to visit every country and soak in the water of their lakes, their oceans. I want to collect a shot glass from each place and then whenever I’m sitting in a campground by myself, I can do a shot from Italy, and be there again in spirit.”

The corners of Asher’s eyes crinkled a little with concern. “Does it have to be in a campground?”

I smirked. “I suppose it could be in a Best Western, or maybe a really nice apartment above a gym in Duluth.”

He grinned and rubbed my back. “You’ve been saving for how long? Why haven’t you gone yet?”

“Two reasons,” I said, pursing my lips. “I had to get my tattoo first, so my brothers and sisters could come with me around the world. It was over two grand, and I know that’s chump change for you, but it was a lot for me.”