Sentinel of Heaven (25 page)

“Moira?” he
asked.  His smile faltered.

Still mute,
she ran her hand up the front of his shirt – it was as soft as it looked,
slippery and thin, perhaps even brushed silk.  The dark sheen of the material
appeared to swallow the sunlight.  She could feel the muscles of his abdomen
flex beneath it.

“You really
have no goddamn idea of how gorgeous you are to me, do you,” she said, voice
filled with a pain that was nearly physical.  She couldn’t look him in the eye;
it would just be too much, by far.

Leo’s grin
returned, languid and sensual.  He covered her hand with one of his, reaching
out the other to touch her moonstone pendant fleetingly, then up to caress the
curve of her cheek.  He sampled through the physical contact the flood of
emotions inside her.  At last he bent low, to put his lips bare millimeters
from her ear.

“Now you know
how I feel about you,” he breathed.

The angel went
down on his knees in the dry cold grass to wrap her up in his embrace; she
leaned on him and waited for her composure to return.

Had I ever
felt like this with Taylor?
she wondered. 
Was I ever so in love with
him that I could look at him and feel an acute agony of separation?  Did it
ever hurt me to be a distinct being before now?

No,
she decided. 
Part of me always stood apart from Taylor and preferred it
that way, trying to smile at his ego, his easy misogyny, his inflated opinion
of self.  Trying to smile and failing.

I never
gazed at him with this new naivety.  I never saw him as the giver and the gift,
both at once.  I never before shuddered under the yoke of loving something so
far beyond my destiny, as a starling must feel to love a falcon.

And what
exquisite confusion must follow when that ephemeral entity turns and fixes you
with a gaze of adoration in response!  How can I ever be at rest, knowing I
shine like a star in this man's eyes?

“My love?”
said Leo.  “Do you not hunger?  The hour grows later.”

Oh, I
hunger, all right.  I burn with it.

But her stomach
answered for her with a treacherous grumble, provoking him to loving laughter.

“Come and go
with me, my lady,” he pulled back far enough to tell her, “and we shall feed
you as you wish.”

“Kiss me
first,” she begged, feeling lost.

“With
pleasure,” he responded, and drew her in again.

He started
gently, little nibbling kisses around her lips and the corners of her mouth;
then he deepened it daringly.  His arms enfolded her, comforting and
invigorating at once.

His eyelids
fluttered open, lashes dancing on her cheeks – blue eyes that watched her from
so short a distance that there was no way to focus on them; they became blue
oceans, a soft blue haze.  He pressed her every inch against him and let her
feel his desire, both physically and along their bond.

“My lady, you
need a meal...” he pled after a delicious eternity.

Moira twined
her fingers in his hair.  “Feed me cherries while you ravish me right here, I
don't care.  I want you.”

“Now
that
is a thought,” he admitted, easing a picture into her mind of him atop her and
sunk to the hilt, biting through the reddish-black skin of a ripe cherry and
laying the half without the pit on her parted lips, staining them with the
juice before she ate its tart flesh...

Her stomach
complained aloud again.

“My lady, my
love,” he said, releasing her tenderly, “I will do all that you wish, with you
and to you – tonight.  First, you will eat.”

She inhaled
raggedly.  “Well, if the incubus before me must be the voice of reason, I
suppose it's only wise to obey.”

Leo reached
out and gathered up her cane, passing it into her hand.  “In this one case, at
least,” he demurred.

She bent
gingerly to fold up her blankets, pretending not to notice him adjusting the
front of his pants as he stood up. 
Glad I'm not the only one suffering the
effects...

He followed
her back to the yard, disappearing the quilt and afghan back inside as they
reached the house then sliding with a fluid grace into the passenger's seat of
the car.

Moira glanced
at the clock display over the radio as she started the vehicle.  “The place I
was thinking of is in town, so not too far.  Hopefully by the time we get there
the church crowd will mostly have cleared.  It's later than I thought.”

The clouds had
drifted a bit nearer, still dark, causing the early afternoon light to carry a
sickly yellow cast.  She drove on down the twisty country road, too distracted
and she knew it; every time she glanced in the rear-view mirror Leo's eyes were
on her face.

For a moment
during the trip Leo lay his hand across the nape of her neck caressingly; his
little finger slid under the silver chain he'd put there and stirred back and
forth, feeling like a much more intimate type of touch.

Different
cultures, different fetishes,
Moira thought.  She looked into his eyes in
the reflection and purred; he blushed and looked away. 
Got you, my fine
lad..

La Maupin's,
this place was not.  The simple sign out in front of the gravel parking lot
said “Paulette's”.  Moira would come here when the craving for something
inexpensive but fresh that she didn't have to cook herself got too much to bear. 
She tried to keep her trips to a minimum – too many people she used to know
were here often, looking down at the crippled woman with expressions that said “I
ought to know where I know you from, but I don't.”

Better that it
stay that way.

Still, on a day
where the appearance of her companion practically guaranteed no one would
notice
her
, she could feel justified in going for a decent burger.

Leo reached
the door before her pain-free but still haltingly slow tread and held it open
for her courteously, then ducked under the lintel to follow her in.

Every head in
the place turned – waitresses standing, families and couples seated, even the
staff in the kitchen visible only as heads and shoulders above the
pass-through.  Women again, yes, and worse than before: they each bore
expressions like maenads, temporarily bereft of sense and sanity.  They were
looks that said the bearers would dearly like to fuck the man beside her, or
eat his flesh, or both at once.

Men here too,
Moira could see finally – and it made her laugh.  Almost all of them perked
warily, mongrel dogs who couldn't decide whether to bark or flee; except for
one slender fey-looking busboy who flushed crimson like a man falling hard and
sudden in love.

But the
children were the most interesting.  Every single one of them looked at the
giant poised in the doorway with expressions devoid of fear.  In complete trust
and wonder they gazed on her Leo.

She looked up
at him.  His face was expressionless as his eyes traveled the room thoroughly. 
Each gaze was met as he evaluated quickly for threat or foe and, seeing nothing
of concern to him, he turned his full attention to Moira again and smiled,
weaving his fingers with hers.

The entire
room seemed to exhale and life went back to its normal pace.  An older waitress
shuffled over to where they waited, looked Leo up and down once and raised her
eyebrows as she got their menus and led them to a newly-cleared booth.

“What drinks
will y'all have?” she asked in a faded voice.

“Just water
with lemon for me, thanks,” Moira answered.

Leo cleared
his throat.  “I'll have a sweet tea, please ma'am,” he replied in a flawless
Southern drawl.

Moira's jaw
dropped but the waitress took no notice.  “Jennifer'll be by to get your orders
in a minute,” she said and padded off on her sprung tennis shoes again.

“You didn't
tell me you could speak with an accent,” Moira scolded under her breath.

“I can speak
all human languages, both dead and living, with any accent I please,” he
explained in low tones.  “I thought it best to blend in.”

“Says the
seven foot tall guy.”

He folded his
hands and leaned back in the booth, grinning at her.  His eyes were dancing
mischief.  “I can't help how God made me, Moira.”

This is
not fair.  I am so doomed,
she thought.

There are some
men on whom a Southern drawl could sound effeminate, it was true.  Leo was not
one of those men.  In his mouth, backed by that rich melodious voice, the
liquid vowels and dropped consonants of her home region felt as quietly
cultured and weighted as a pearl-handled dueling pistol... and just as
potentially deadly.

She shut her
eyes.  Funny to think that the only man she'd ever met worth having who could
also speak her childhood vernacular was literally from out of this world.

Leo was
speaking again; not to her, thank God, although she could hear the quiet
amusement in his voice.  To the waitress, then.  Ordering food.  Something.  When
he paused, she murmured “That sounds good, I'll have that too,” not even
knowing what she might be requesting.

She opened her
eyes.  Leo was watching her.  Welcome back, his expression said.

“Moira, is
that you, honey?” the waitress gasped.

“Yes it is,”
and Moira looked up for the first time into a face that had been gorgeous and
cruel, fifteen years and forty pounds ago.

“It's Jen –
Jennifer, Moira.  We went to high school together.”  She laughed a
self-deprecating little giggle.  “You might not remember.”

Jennifer's
eyes slid away from Moira's face to Leo's once more.  Leo didn't notice.

“Oh no, I
recall.  Jennifer.”

Jennifer had
been prom queen the year Moira had left.  She'd acted like it too, queening it
above all the other high school girls.  Especially the poor rag-dolls.  Looked
like she still wore the same makeup, though.

“I hadn't
heard you were back in town,” Jennifer tried again; again her gaze pulled as if
drawn.

“Only for a
dozen years or so,” Moira agreed.

“Well, golly!”
the other woman said in false-bright tones, fidgeting with the notepad in her
hands.  “We’ll just have to make some time to catch up soon.”  Her watery brown
eyes, traveling like magnets back to the steel of Leo's profile.  “Real soon.”

“I guess so,”
Moira smiled.

“I'll be back
with y'all's orders in a minute,” she finished, and fled.

“The women
here can't keep themselves from looking at you,” she told the angel calmly.

Leo tilted his
head.  “I don't see why I should care,” he replied, soft as a distant song.  “The
only one that matters is sitting here with me.”

He reached
across the table and hooked his index finger around hers.

Her lover
spoke it slow into her mind and heart, so that she would understand it and
grasp it all completely: that he shocked and dismayed her only to rouse her;
that he could easily have made himself unnoticeable and didn't bother because
in the same way he spared her their gaze and took it on himself he showed her
how he gloried in her eyes alone.

That
everything, every single word and deed of his was offered with intent – to
cajole and invite her, to keep her yearning, piqued, surprised, and stimulated.

He would
deliberately use every item that existed in the world to tempt and to tantalize
her, to make love to her with all their clothes on.  All that he did here or
elsewhere was just more foreplay, prelude to the time when they were free and
alone together again.

“You,” she
answered aloud, “are so going to get it when we get home.”

He bent to
kiss the back of her hand.

“As my lady
commands,” he drawled, his eyes snapping sparks.

They might not
even have noticed the plates set down on the table beside them until Moira's
stomach complained again.

He had ordered
for himself a cheeseburger with her favorite condiments, and a serving of the
house fries she liked.  Her order was a duplicate of his.

“How the hell
do you even know these things?”

He shrugged,
getting the bottle of steak-sauce from the sidebar and tapping a puddle of it
onto a cleared space on his plate, then on hers.  “I know you, Moira.  Somehow,
I just do.”

It was
sufficient, for now.  She tucked into her food with gusto.  He watched her and
ate his fries like a man listening to his favorite symphony long memorized
note-perfect, for the joy of it alone.

The meal was
good and filling; it'd been too long since Moira had devoured a big juicy
burger and she loved it.  She could see Leo's amusement at her attempt to eat
it in a ladylike fashion.  He had no such compulsion but at least made mannerly
use of his napkin.

Leo took only
a few sips of his tea, after a while abandoning it entirely in favor of
sneaking gulps out of Moira's glass of water.  “Why order it if you won't drink
it?” she asked him, smiling at his machinations.

“Why ever
else, darlin'?” he answered softly.  “For the taste.”

The look he
gave her was knowing.  She blushed.

When the
burgers were gone and every last fry was eaten Moira was too stuffed to even
consider dessert and Leo waved away the idea himself with a kingly bearing.

“I think we're
ready for the check,” he said, glancing at Jennifer, whose eyes went wider
still.

She tore it
out of her notepad and offered it to him reverently.  “Y'all can take it to the
register when you're ready.”

Moira reached
for her wallet but Leo stopped her with a look, drawing her free hand to his
lips once more.  “I got this, darlin',” he told her easily.  Then he stood up
out of the booth, brushing the waitress aside to walk across the room.

I hate to
see you leave but I love to watch you go,
thought Moira, feeling faint. 
Damn;
it should be criminal for a man to have an ass that fine.

“Where did you
get
him
?” demanded Jennifer, whipping her head around to stare at
Moira directly for once.

I didn't
bring enough for the class,
she thought.  Thirty feet away Leo was talking
politely to the black-haired busboy now manning the register, reaching into his
back pocket for an old leather billfold she'd never seen previously and which
may not have existed before this moment.

“Ran into him
at the store,” she lied casually.  “His name's Glenn.  He says he does migrant
work as a field-hand, in between going back to college.”

“They must
grow them big out on the farm these days...” the other woman sighed, losing
interest in her again.

You've no
idea, honey.

Leo was
laughing and shaking his head to the young man, accepting his change in one
giant hand.  Then he was walking back to the table and both women lost thought
in contemplation of how the tight jeans pulled and shifted across his thighs.

“He asked me
if I had been a wrestler,” Leo chuckled to Moira.  “I told him 'kinda'.”  He
sorted out a five and a few ones out of the change in his left hand – a far too
generous tip for the small and distracted service they'd gotten – and laid them
on the table.

Then he bent
in a very courtly fashion, extending his empty palm to Moira.  “Shall we, my
lady?” he asked; still using the accent, but every word her angel's.

Out of the
corner of her eye she saw Jennifer mouth “Oh my God!”

Moira pulled
herself to her feet on his granite grip, sorting out her cane to take her
weight.  The moonstone at her throat flashed its fire and caught Leo's gaze
once more.

“Y'all come
back real soon,” the other woman was saying firmly.  “We'll be seein' ya,
Glenn.”

Leo shot Moira
a question-mark through the bond.  She returned a flippant demurral – roll with
it.

“I'm sure you
will... Jen,” he answered.  He tucked Moira's hand into the crook of his elbow
and escorted her from the restaurant as grandly as if she were a reigning
monarch.

Outside the
storm was threatening right overhead.  It'd probably already be raining at the
house.

“Oh, my dear
angel,” Moira mused as she got into the car.  “You are something else.”

“I'm yours,
darlin',” he answered.  The wheels shot gravel as she bullied the car back onto
the main road from the parking lot.

“Can't you
drop the accent now?”

“I could...
but I don't see why I
should
, when it has such an effect on you,” he
purred.  They cleared the town limits quickly; she blamed a non-existent cramp
in her leg for the way her foot trod the accelerator pedal.

“We've got to
beat the storm home, if we can,” she murmured.

“Don't bother
on my account,” Leo answered.  His fingers went to the top button of his shirt
that was fastened and popped it open. Thoughtfully he unfolded the hand that
still held his change.

“The young man
there passed me some paper with numbers on it.  How odd is that?”

Moira glanced
over at what he showed her.  True enough; the name “Gregory” written in a
lovely hand on a scrap of menu, and ten digits.  “Ha!  That's his phone
number.  Oh my God.”

“What did he
mean by it?”  He shoved the wad of cash and the little piece of paper into his
pocket carelessly.

“Leo, baby –
he was hitting on you.  Ummm... inviting you to have sex with him.”

“Really,”
mused the angel.  He flicked another button open.  “Why didn't he ask you?”

“Because he
didn't
want
me, baby.”  She could see naked flesh in the widening gap
of the shirt – surely his wings were still there somewhere but it looked like
an expanse of bare chest instead.

“No – I mean,
why didn't he ask you if you would wish me to?”

“Because...
that's not how most couples are.”  Internally she was boggled, and more than a
little intrigued.  “Would you have wanted to?  Have sex with him?”

He shrugged
and played with the next button, parting his shirt down to the cup of his
navel.  “Men aren't often to my taste, but he radiated desire and need.  I
might have obliged him, if it pleased you to watch.”

“Oh my God,”
croaked Moira, caught between scandalized and aroused.

Leo spread his
shirt all the way open and ran trailing fingers down his apparently naked
abdomen.

“God isn't
here,” the angel prompted, “and we were discussing sex, namely: would it have
excited you to watch me take him?”  He flashed his predatory grin.  “To watch
me
fuck
him?”

Moira reminded
herself that ninety miles per hour was not an acceptable speed on this road.

“I don't know,”
she breathed.

Don't lie to
the angel like that, said her little voice.

He rambled his
hand over the front of his jeans and exhaled.

“Think about
it.  He'd be no threat of any sort to you; he isn't female and I don't love
him.”

“So we'd be
using him... as some sort of foreplay?”

Leo's tone was
dry.  “I don't think he would have minded; probably not before and definitely
not during.  What he thinks of it after would be his own business.”

He fiddled
open the buckle of his belt, drawing it apart with a sigh of pleasure.  She was
driving almost mechanically, nearly by muscle memory alone, and Leo was
eavesdropping on her rampant imagination.

Her little
voice pointed out a wide shoulder on the outside of the next turn; she slowed
down and pulled the car over to park on it.  He studied her with shining eyes.

“Something
about that... frightens me.  I don’t know why,” she managed.

Leo turned in
his seat, reaching across to cup her cheek in his palm; the contact made it
more simple than breathing to insinuate himself into her mind.

“We would use
him together,” he observed softly, “but he would know and consent to it.  There
is no crime in that, no harm to health or soul... but you almost feel as if there
should be.”

“Blame it on a
repressed upbringing.”

“Mmm.  The
presence of taboo causes fetish; what we are told not to enjoy can become an
irresistible temptation.”  He let the put-on drawl fade away, returning to the
precise and unaccented way of speech that was his usual.

“So there is
the distress of breaking that taboo – of enjoying your own and others'
sexuality casually – and the distress of having it rouse you.  But something
more.”

She squirmed
in her seat.

“Since I have
suggested such an act soon after we have become lovers ourselves, part of your
soul wonders if I feel so cavalierly towards you as well.”

The mortified
flush across her cheekbones told him he had hit the mark.

“Moira my
love, look at me.”

She forced her
eyes to meet his.

“You do not
yet understand,” the angel told her with a gentle smile, “and I do not care if
it takes a dozen lifetimes to convince your soul of the truth I feel.  Intercourse
to a being that lives tens of thousands of years and becomes fertile only at
choice – it
does
become a toy, a plaything.  The act is nothing but a
few hours' pleasant sensation, no more.

“And had I met
you and not loved you, and you had wanted me – I would have been delighted to
take my ease with you and bring you to yours at any time, with little concern
and no regrets.

“It is what I
feel
for you that complicated that intimacy.  It was the way I longed to belong
to you, all unsure how you might feel for me in turn.”

He tilted his
head.

“I love none
but you, Moira.  Because of that, all other sex cannot be more than casual. 
Because of that, the same passion-plays between us will not be less than
significant.”

“But all of it
is significant to me,” she answered.  “I've never knowingly shared a lover, not
someone I truly cared about – I don't know if I could ever manage it, outside
of fantasy.”

He brushed the
backs of his fingers across her cheek with great tenderness.  “A fantasy is all
it is, my love; a fantasy between you and I only – I do not want the busboy any
more than I would want that calf-eyed waitress or anyone else we saw today.

“But I gave
you the idea in seriousness, to provoke you, to stir up your desires, and to
demonstrate to you: my sex is yours to command.”

“You are not
my slave,” she answered.

“Surrendering
control with full consent isn't slavery,” he drawled again, barely breathing,
his gaze burning into hers, “it's freedom.”

Leo drew his
hand back and ran the curve of his thumb over the bulge in his crotch.  His
deep groan was shocking in the silence of the car.  His fingers moved eagerly
to open the button of his jeans.

“Wait!” she
managed.

He gazed at
her, eyebrow raised.

“Someone will
see!”

“No one'll see
me
,” Leo corrected patiently, “although the vehicle may attract
attention if we stay here much longer.”

“Leo –”

“If you say
no,” he continued inexorably, “I'll keep my hands on my knees like a
very
good boy,” his gaze turned briefly mischievous, “– and I'll stay that way until
we get home, because your word and your will are my law no matter how your
heart and body cry otherwise to my hearing.”

His hand
rested where it was, supremely calm on the evidence of his arousal.

“... and if I
say yes?” Moira asked.

Leo smiled at
her.

“If you say
yes, my lover, my lady... I take myself in hand and we both enjoy the ride.”

Just then the
roiling clouds above them split open, spilling rain in a torrential downpour
over the car.

“You're going
to be the death of me,” she breathed.

“Yes,” he
promised.  “Over and over, today.”

“I mean
literally, because I'll probably wreck the car driving home in this flood and
trying to watch you jack off.”

“You could
always say no,” he countered.

“I'd rather
die,” Moira answered savagely, feeling lust burn through her veins like a
flash-fire, back from wherever it had hid.  “Do it, angel.  Show me.”

Leo gave a low
chuckle that became a throaty growl as he eased the zipper down, freeing a cock
that had gotten painfully hard and uncomfortably trapped inside the restraining
denim.  He stroked it once – up, then down – and squeezed it hard around the
base to watch the head swell.

“Mmm... start
the car, Moira...”

“Who's driving
who?”

“You're
driving us both home,” he answered, “and I'm driving us both mad.”

She checked
her mirrors and pulled back onto the road in the heavy rain. 
I'm doing
okay,
she thought after the first few turns.
 Not too fast, not too
crazy; I can see him out of the corner of my eye... it's all good.

And then the
demented seraphic bastard started talking again.

“I know you
can't,” he began, voice casual despite the roughness that demonstrated his
tension, “but I prefer  when you do this.  I love the feel of your hands on me,
and how they look.”

“Really...”

“Mmmhmmm.  So
slender.  So small.  Pale against my flesh.”

“Makes it look
even bigger.”

“Yes ma'am,”
he sighed. 
Oh angel, that accent.
  “Makes me worry sometimes that I'm
gonna hurt you.”  His tone was tender, though the thread of lust was evident in
it.

“I'm not glass. 
I won't break.”

“Oh darlin' –
I'm counting on that.”

“You're gonna
come before we can get home, you greedy thing.”

“I won't come
until the instant I choose to.” He caressed himself once more, languidly.  “Doesn't
mean I can't have some fun, meanwhile...”

He open the
connection between them again only the tiniest amount and then she could share
each leisurely stroke, sending rills of sensation up her spine.

Moira was
never so happy to see her own damn driveway, that was for sure.  She turned the
car into it, the wheels sinking into the water-filled ruts of the dirt road. 
She pulled behind the house and parked, turning the engine off.  Leo was
studying her flushed face with deep amusement, still fondling himself.

She snarled in
frustration and reached out – to flip the latch under his seat that reclined
the back.  He fell on his shoulders with a surprised grunt but she was already
moving, pushing off with her good leg and getting a grip on the “oh shit”
handle over the passenger side door so she could drag her body atop his,
half-kneeling/half-sitting over his thighs.