Synful Demon

Aria hesitated. These weren’t normal circumstances, and she needed to get her feelings out before she exploded. She was never going to see this man again, so her words would never come back to haunt her…right? “Their lyrics, when they said ‘everybody’s gotta die sometime’. There isn’t a reason why everyone’s ‘got’ to die; there isn’t a reason why people have to die.” She leaned back in her seat, pulling one leg with her to her chest and resting her arm on it. “It’s just some sick joke from God, making us go through this pain and suffering.”

Her voice had a slightly bitter edge to it. The man turned his face away at an angle to hide his smirk. He preferred busty, loose blondes to this beautiful, innocent angel, but it was always the good girls that turn bad. She would be perfect to help him fulfill his debt.

“Maybe you’re just reading too far into it,” he offered.

“No,” Aria disagreed almost instantaneously. “From someone who listens to a lot of music, I can tell when time and thought and effort have been put into lyrics. They meant exactly what they said.”

She’s perceptive, he mused. This could be fun. “It would help to get your mind off things. Do you want to get coffee or something?” Aria’s eyes zeroed in on him, narrowed and almost calculating. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s on me. You look like you could use one, and you don’t seem like the martini kind of girl.” Aria contemplated. She really was tired of being alone, and this really would just be a harmless drink with a complete stranger she would never see again.

She twisted the key in the ignition, starting her car and heading to the Starbucks nearby. “I’m Brian,” the stranger introduced. Aria fought back a mental growl of irritation. So much for being strangers.

“Aria.” She answered curtly, before driving slightly over the speed limit for a very strongly caffeinated drink.

At the Starbucks, with a double-shot of espresso in her mocha frap, soaked in caramel, Aria sat back against a single couch, with Brian across from her. He literally had not given her a choice in paying for her own drink.

“So who was it?”

She looked up from stirring her caramel into the rest of her drink. “What?”

“Who did you lose?” Brian lounged casually back in his chair, shoes on the small table between them, and removed his aviators. Aria was temporarily stunned by the color of his eyes. And no, unlike most girls, she was not a sucker for eyes and didn’t believe that someone could stare into someone’s eyes and lose themself unless they zoned out. But his eyes were brown, and unlike hers, they had a reddish tint to it, like a ring around the edge of the pupil. She snapped out of her reverie a couple seconds after, having processed his words, and her eyes narrowed slightly.

“I don’t think that’s anything you need to be concerned about.” She took a long sip of her drink and forced herself to refrain from moaning at how delectable it was. Still, it unfortunately would not solve all of her problems. She twisted her necklace around with her free hand and chewed on her straw, lifting her gaze to Brian’s piercing brown-red eyes.

“Be my girlfriend.” He said abruptly. She. Was. Stunned. That came out of nowhere! He’s crazy!

Aria settled for an un-ladylike snort. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious, Aria.” Somehow, he was now leaning over her, his arms on either side of her head, trapping her efficiently to the chair. Her heart rate shot up, accelerating as she concentrated on keeping her face composed. Looking into his eyes, she could swear they flashed completely red. Staring in to her soul, reaching for her secrets. The nervous feeling in her stomach and chest that had settled when she saw him over her, increased tenfold- and it wasn’t just attraction. Of course, her body was a thread away from tearing his clothes off then and there, but her instincts were far stronger. And they were screaming at her to get away. She didn't know what it was about him, but Brian was dangerous. Nor just in the sexy, sensual way, but in the way that he could pose a potential threat to her life. The gleam in his eyes was that of a predator.

Realizing that they, his eyes, were unnerving her, she forced hers away. “Get off, Brian.” she was relieved that her voice didn’t waver, but she didn’t show it. “We just met, and I don’t go official on the first date.” She couldn’t identify why or how she felt threatened by him, but her gut feeling intensified and all she could do was hide it. Feeling for her pen, she clicked it and hoped with every fiber of her being that she wouldn’t have to stab him with it in the middle of Starbucks.

After staring at her for another moment, he returned to his seat and she stood quickly. I have to use the bathroom.” A few quick strides and Aria locked the door and leaned against it, panting as if she had just run for miles. “What the hell was that?!” she whispered to herself, a hand pressed over her frenzied heart as she tried unsuccessfully to calm and even out her breathing.

Outside, Brian smirked before allowing his lips to lower into a frown. How had she managed to refuse him? Despite her grief, there was no way she should have been strong enough to resist the compulsion. He punched a few commands into his phone, and it picked up after a few rings.

“What?” a voice growled through the earpiece. “This better be fucking important.” A loud, squeaky moan pierced through the earpiece, and it took all of Brian’s willpower not to burst out laughing.

“You have a girl over right now?”

Matt growled in irritation. “Two, actually. And unless you want me to rip your-”

“-I found someone who can resist the compulsion,” Brian interrupted lowly, still working to contain his laughter.

“Son of a—fucking damn it. Fifteen minutes. I fucking hate you.” Matt snarled from the other line. “Fucking cockblocker.” The line went dead.

Brian’s body shook silently as he laughed.

“Something funny?” Brian looked up to see Aria, who had regained her composure and looked relatively at ease. She looked at him with an eyebrow quirked. Apparently, she had regained more than just her composure. Something about her stance and expression seemed to imply that she was no longer the depressed and angry woman he had found, throwing things in the park.

After giving herself a pep talk in the mirror and splashing some icy cold water on her face, Aria had returned. The past was the past, and that was that. It was time to move on, and nothing was going to stop her from leading her new life. Not pain, not guilt for something that she could not have prevented. And not the mysterious man with crimson-ringed eyes that could send shivers down her spine with a single glance. She wasn’t going to run, and her instincts could go and suck it.

“Not really.” Brian pulled his aviators back on smoothly, but at a glance, Aria could tell that he seemed to be…less at ease than he was letting on. He was a quick thinker, which matched with her gut feeling that he was dangerous. “My eyes are really burning though, and I don’t think I should drive. Would you mind giving me a ride back home?”

Aria raised her eyebrows, surveying him from under her lashes, as opposed to her previous narrowed-eyed glaring. “What’s wrong?” She asked innocuously. Lifting and finishing the remainder of her drink, Aria slid her bag onto her shoulder.

“I don’t know.” Lie. “But one of my friends back at our place took some pre-med and he’ll probably know what’s wrong.”

“Sure, let’s get you home then.” Aria tossed her drink in the trash on her way out, contemplating his actions as she turned her back. She had some previous experience as a cop-in-training, although she was too indecisive to put all of her efforts into one area, and took a couple of years to help children in third-world countries instead. Either way, her self-defense was reasonably sound. But she returned to the subject of his eyes as she unlocked her car. What was it about them that were so peculiar? Just before Brian had slid his aviators back on, she could swear that they had been brown again, hardly a speck of red!

She followed his directions and drove to the top of a hill, just on the outskirts of the city. “You live here? I would think we would have met before- it’s a pretty small town.” She turned to look at him, wondering if she would catch any signs of lying with his face shadowed and eyes hidden.

“We just moved here,” Brian replied as he got out of the car, nodding to a couple of dents in the grass. “You can still see where the sign was hanging earlier today.” Aria saw them, and nodded. He was telling the truth…about this anyway.

“What happened to the old couple that lived here before? The Ashtons?”

Brian turned to unlock the door to their relatively big house, hiding the smirk that he was otherwise unable to completely obscure. “Not here anymore. Maybe they moved…” He held the door open for her, with a slight tip of his head to indicate that she precede him in. Aria moved back to her trunk first, however, and moved a few things around with her purse before shutting her trunk and closing the roof of her convertible.

“Perhaps…” she mused as she sauntered in slowly.

Brian’s lips twitched upwards again, as he fought off yet another smirk. If only she knew…