The Green's Hill Novellas (30 page)

First he spent some more time at ground zero. Mmmm…. Jefi tasted so
good
! His thrusts in the back of Shep’s throat made Shep’s whole body writhe, but Shep was getting close, and his body and mind were playing a treacherous game of hurry-up-and-wait. His body wanted to hurry. His mind wanted to wait. His body was starting to win.

Jefi’s hands were clenching in his hair, and Shepherd took one of them, laced their fingers tight together, and then moved, wrapping Jefi’s hand around his own body and showing him how to stroke.

Jefi made a sound like “oooooohhh” and did just that, and Shep moved his tongue and fingers lower.

Lubricant. Lots and lots of lubricant.
Shepherd only had one kind of lubricant at his disposal, and he used it liberally. He’d seen Green penetrating Adrian—he knew that Green had prepared Adrian’s body, licked it, stretched it, made it slack and wet and ready to accept Green’s large erection. Shepherd did the same thing, except it was better doing than watching. Jefi’s taste was exciting. The sounds he made as Shepherd stimulated his nerve endings were
hot
,
and the sight of Jefi’s hand on his own cock was etching the word
sexy
into Shepherd’s brain.

By the time Jefi’s opening was lax and ready, Shepherd’s own body had been leaking for some time. Shepherd pushed himself up and knelt between Jefi’s wantonly spread legs.

“This may—I’m sort of big, Jefi,” he said anxiously, but Jefi made a pleading noise, a begging noise, and Shepherd knew he couldn’t stop now. There was nothing angelic about Jefi anymore. His eyes were glazed and half-lidded, his mouth was open, his pale blond hair was mussed around his head, and his cock was rampant, erect, purple, and glistening with spit and pre-ejaculate.

Shepherd’s mind went blank as he pushed into his lover. He wanted. He needed.
They
needed possession
. MINE.

The final thrust that seated him deep inside Jefischa made Jefi’s eyes pop open widely and his lips quirk up.

“Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh….”

“Does it hurt?” Shepherd asked.

“It’s goooooooooood,” Jefi sighed. “Hurts gooooooooooood.”

Shepherd chuckled and began to move slowly, holding his shoulders up with strong arms and sturdy muscles. Jefi let go of his cock and wrapped his hands around Shep’s shoulders, urging him on physically even though he couldn’t seem to make whole real words anymore.

“Shep… please… please… yes… yes… damn… Shep… please….”

Shepherd growled and started pounding his hips against Jefi’s thighs, burying his body inside Jefi’s with determination and passion, and then… then… Jefi cried out and wrapped his legs around Shep’s hips, and Shepherd’s vision went dark against his closed eyes, and for a moment, they were on a precipice, looking out at the night sky. For a moment, they hovered, the world at their feet and heaven gentle on their faces as Shep’s body heaved and his lungs gasped and he supplicated….
Please, God… please. Let me be enough. Let me take care of Jefi like he deserves.

For a moment, they hesitated, and then Shepherd opened his eyes, and Jefi’s wide gray eyes were fastened on him, drinking in the sight of his passion and his lust and his love.

Shepherd plunged one last time into his lover’s flesh and then buried his face in Jefi’s neck and roared as his body released, and then he and Jefi clung together, shaking in orgasm….

Stepped off the precipice.

And flew.

ADRIAN KNELT
on the floor of his room, gazing through the window he was allowed and onto the crown of his home, Green’s hill.

“Do you see them yet?” Saint Peter asked over his shoulder, and Adrian shushed him.

“Wait… wait…. There they are. See?”

Saint Peter knelt, right there on the floor of the vampire’s room, and peered down to the earth below. In a lovely garden—with exceedingly interesting trees—two naked men huddled under a canopy of feathered wings, touching each other’s faces in wonder.

“They’ll be all right there?” Peter asked anxiously. “They fell with their wings intact. None of the others did—they can all pass for human.”

Adrian looked up at Peter, troubled lines written across his eternally young human face. “These two were purer than the others. Why did you set them to guard me?”

Peter blew out a breath and sighed. “Shepherd would have soured, Adrian. The only thing keeping his soul clean was Jefischa. I… I just wanted them to have a vacation, that’s all. Shepherd’s stubborn about things like duty and obligation. If you hadn’t”—Peter waved his hands vaguely—“you know, done whatever you do, he never would have chosen to fall.” Peter shook his head. “You’re a master, you know. How do you get them to fall so fast?”

Adrian shrugged. “It’s not something I do on purpose, guv’nor. I really didn’t even have to talk to the others. They just sort of fell on their own. But not these two.” He looked down again and saw Green emerging from the trapdoor that led to the garden. He looked shocked by the new residents of his hill, but when it appeared they were too wrapped in each other to notice him, he sat on a marble bench, pulled out a book, and patiently waited.

“Was it worth it?” Peter asked curiously after they had spent some time just looking at the happy couple, feeling the sort of pride a set of parents must feel when seeing their children married off.

“Always,” Adrian answered soberly. “Was what worth it?”

Peter looked disconcerted for a moment and then continued. “The time you spent with them—the extra effort. Was it worth it?”

“They were friends.” Adrian shrugged. “Anything to help friends, right?”

“But Adrian, it must have hurt, opening your soul like that….”

“Hush, dammit. Wait. The best part’s coming.”

IF HEAVEN
was in Jefischa’s arms, a better heaven was in Jefischa’s arms on the top of Green’s hill.

When their hearts had quieted down and their breath was no longer deafening in their ears, they realized they had landed. Shepherd rolled to the side and pulled his wings up to shelter the two of them, and they lay staring at each other under a feather canopy.

Gradually they became aware of small things. The grass below them smelled wonderful and real, but it was starting to itch. The smell of flowers in the sun was borne to them on the breeze, but it was a little cool—almost uncomfortably so—in the shade. The sun itself slanted longways. It was autumn, probably early autumn, and early evening as well. Humans probably didn’t wear shorts in these temperatures, and Shepherd stopped the study of his fingertips along the curves of Jefi’s jaw to pull his wings closer for warmth.

“Look, Shep. Your wings have feathers on them,” Jefi said in wonder.

Shepherd smiled and reached out a hand to caress the slope of Jefi’s wing. They did have feathers—and musculature and definition. Nothing on their bodies was energy and a wish for a form anymore. Everything about them was muscle, sinew, blood, and bone.

Except their hearts, Shepherd thought with wonder. Whatever was swelling in his chest felt like the swelling chorus of… of… of angels.

For the first time in four millennia, Shepherd understood Jefi’s love of music, and he let out a helpless, happy laugh as he buried his face in Jefi’s sweaty shoulder. That realization alone was worth the fall.

“Where are we?” Jefi asked, bringing Shepherd to the here and now again.

Shepherd abandoned the idea of warmth and struggled to sit up. “I think we made it to Green’s hill,” he said with something like hope in his heart.

“You did indeed, my boyos!” There was a man—an elf, in fact, with pointed ears and wide-set, alien features, a pointed chin, and long, long butter-colored hair—sitting on a granite bench with the likeness of Adrian sculpted on the side.

“You’re Green,” Shepherd said in awe, recognizing him. Green nodded and smiled and offered Shepherd a hand to help him stand up off the grass. Shepherd gratefully took it—and understood it for what it was. He and Jefi had not landed alone. They were not in a terrible, frightening place. They were on Green’s hill, Adrian’s home. They would be all right.

“I am indeed,” Green replied, his voice sounding like Adrian’s but different. Different parts of the world had different accents, Shep recalled, even small countries like Great Britain, and Shepherd wondered at the sound of that accent here on a hill a continent away. He forgot that for a moment and bent to help Jefi up. Jefi immediately wrapped his arms around Shepherd’s waist and tucked himself under Shep’s arm.

“I’m Shepherd, and this is Jefischa.” Shep spoke hesitantly, then looked at Jefi to see if this was the right time. Jefi shrugged and nodded, and Shep reached out his hand to Green’s cheek. The elf’s eyes widened, but he allowed Shep to cup his cheek and then lean in to kiss his temple.

“Adrian says ‘Hullo, luv,’” Shepherd said carefully. He was unprepared for Green to close his eyes and trap Shepherd’s hand against his cheek with his own trembling hand. Green pulled in a breath that quivered, and let it out slowly.

“Hullo, beloved,” he said softly, savoring Shepherd’s touch as though it were Adrian’s own. “Hullo.” Shepherd’s palm grew wet with tears, but he didn’t move it, not for a long time.

ADRIAN KNELT
on the floor of his room in heaven and pressed his palm against his viewing window as though he really could touch the elf’s cheek. “Hullo, luv,”
he whispered. Through a trick of perspective, for a moment, just a moment, it looked to Saint Peter as though their flesh was really touching. For a moment, Adrian really did hold his beloved’s face in the palm of his hand.

“Yes,” he said out loud to Peter, although Peter noticed he never pulled his attention from the tableau below. “Yes, it was worth all of it, everything, just for this moment.” Blood-brine tears dripped onto the back of his hand; he wiped them on his T-shirt and then put his hand back to pretend he truly touched his lover’s flesh.

Saint Peter watched soundlessly, understanding and accepting at once. Idly he wondered who else needed the prompt to fall, to take a “flesh vacation,” as he’d started to think of them, but the question could wait. The fact was, the vampire’s ghost didn’t really need guarding, and Adrian deserved some time alone.

Saint Peter blinked and disappeared, and Adrian continued his vigil at the window to the world of Green’s hill.

Little Goddess: Book One

Working graveyards in a gas station seems a small price for Cory to pay to get her degree and get the hell out of her tiny town. She’s terrified of disappearing into the aimless masses of the lost and the young who haunt her neck of the woods. Until the night she actually stops looking at her books and looks up. What awaits her is a world she has only read about—one filled with fantastical creatures that she’s sure she could never be.

And then Adrian walks in, bearing a wealth of pain, an agonizing secret, and a hundred and fifty years with a lover he’s afraid she won’t understand. In one breathless kiss, her entire understanding of her own worth and destiny is turned completely upside down. When her newfound world explodes into violence and Adrian’s lover—and prince—walks into the picture, she’s forced to explore feelings and abilities she’s never dreamed of. The first thing she discovers is that love doesn’t fit into nice neat little boxes. The second thing is that risking your life is nothing compared to facing who you really are—and who you’ll kill to protect.

Little Goddess: Book Two

Vol. 1

Cory fled the foothills to deal with the pain of losing Adrian, and Green watched her go. Separately, they could easily grieve themselves to death, but when an old enemy of Green’s brings them back together, they can no longer hide from their grief—or their love for each other.