A Touch of Heaven (7 page)

What a mess we’re in. And we’re wasting what little time he might have left.

“When you’re up there…” I glance skywards, knowing that doesn’t really make sense either “…do you actually remember what happens when you’re here? I mean, don’t worry about me. I’ll get over all this. I’ll miss you, but I’ll move on. I’ve done it before.”

“Oh, I’ll remember you. I’ll be aware of everything. All my past, everyone I’ve met and known.” He stares at me, his eyes so serious and so blue. “This is why I know that I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve been fond of all the humanity I’ve interacted with, but I’ve never loved in the way I love you now.”

I start to tremble. Fear, a great weight of it, overwhelms me. Am I responsible for this? Patrick is a heavenly being, and yet he’s prepared to abandon divinity, just for me.

“You’re not responsible for me, Miranda. You’re not obligated. If I choose what I choose, it’s because I want to live my life in a world where you are, that’s all. If another man comes along who makes you happier I’ll be content knowing you’re happy with him instead.”

Staring at him, a thought occurs, and I voice it even though I’m now 100 percent positive he can read my thoughts.

“But when—if—you’re human, like the rest of us, you’ll have foibles and you might not be quite so high-minded. What then?”

“I’ll never hurt you, Miranda. Never cause harm to you in any way, or even think about it.” I believe him as he takes my hand again. “And I’m prepared to gamble that you
will
still care for me and give me a chance if I choose humanity.”

I still feel fear, but not for myself, just for him. Can I risk the fact that he might end up damned? How can I face that outcome? The burden of cause and possible effect still weighs me down, and I feel infinitely weary.

“I’d rather take my chances, a thousand times over,” he murmurs, his fingers working their magic against my skin. “A hundred thousand times.”

My thoughts swirl. Exhaustion turns my limbs to lead. I’ve never felt more tired in my life. And of course, Patrick knows this. No matter how much I want to stay awake to savor what are probably our last hours together, he and I realize I’ve got to sleep.

“Come along, my love,” he says quietly, urging me to my feet. “You need to sleep, and I’ll sleep beside you. I’ll hold you close.”

Suddenly, just the thought of resting next to him seems infinitely sweet. I shut out all the tortuous fears and ramifications of mortality and hold on to that simple human pleasure. My hand in his, I follow him upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later, we’re lying in bed together. I’m in my usual nightdress and Patrick has stripped to his white T-shirt and his mid-gray jersey boxer shorts. My wayward libido stirs, of course, at the sight and feel of his sublime body so lightly covered, and it keeps simmering away quietly in the background. But somehow, it seems far more important just to be here, close and warm in each others’ space, rather than to fret for the intimacy of fucking when we just can’t have it.

A sense of peace settles over us. It hardly seems possible with Patrick’s choice ahead, but for now I feel calm. I’m in the best possible place and with the best possible man. He might be an angel, but I can’t imagine anyone more human and easy to love.

As I slide into sleep, I send up a prayer to his Boss to allow his servant a little latitude.

Chapter Four

In the middle of the night, I snap awake. The bed is empty beside me. Dreading the worst, I feel hollow, instantly bereft, as emotionally widowed as years ago when Gerald died.

But Patrick’s still here. As I roll onto my side, I see him by the window. He’s naked and kneeling in the moonlight.

It seems a funny way to have a meeting with his Boss.

As I watch, Patrick nods and smiles, his face suddenly radiant. Then he turns to me and bestows the same glowing expression on me.

“Are you all right?” I sit up in bed, peering at him. He looks strange, resigned yet happy, more peaceful and more truly angelic than I’ve ever seen him. Rising gracefully, he walks to the bed, lifts away the covers and slips onto the mattress beside me.

“Can you be content with a man?” He touches my face, his fingers warmer than human fingers should be. I know he has powers and whatever it is they do is sinking into me. His touch his exquisite. “Can you be content with just a man?” he repeats.

What a strange question. Has he made his choice? Is he safe? Can he live? I open my mouth to ask questions of my own, but what comes out is something altogether different.

“Yes. Of course I can. I’ve been happy with men up until now.”

It’s true. I have been, for all my ups and downs. And even with Patrick, it’s his humanity I love, not his otherness.

“Good,” he says simply, then leans in to kiss me.

The taste of his mouth and the stroke of his tongue against the margins of my lips is gorgeous. But even so, the questions roil and surge. I try to pull away, but Patrick gently holds onto me, and I feel as much as hear him say, “Relax” against my mouth.

I try to. And suddenly I can. As we kiss, a new illumination comes to me. Why fight? What will happen, will happen. Patrick’s made his choice, and whatever it is, I know he’s made it with my welfare in his mind and his heart. All I have to do is believe that and trust him. It’s so simple.

I finally understand what a leap of faith is all about. And I’m ready to take mine alongside Patrick by making love.

Still kissing me, he rolls across me, and I feel his erection hard and hot against my thigh through my nightgown. I press myself against him, moving to caress him by hitching my body against his cock. His low growl against my lips tells me he likes it.

We kiss on, and on, our hands roving over each other as our mouths press and flex and savor and taste. Whatever fears and forebodings I might have had are firmly secured in the casket marked believe and trust. I can only enjoy and revel in Patrick’s body.

The fact that I can touch him now, and pleasure him, adds dimensions of joy to the experience. I stroke his buttocks and he purrs and moves against me. I touch his cock and he gasps and growls my name. It occurs to me, as he leans back for a moment so he can peel off my nightdress, that technically he’s a virgin. But that small yet awesome fact doesn’t seem to impede his ability to make love. He seems imbued with all knowledge, all skill, all instinct.

The glide of his hands subdues me, yet at the same time sends me soaring. His touch seems to be everywhere, exploring, delighting. Intense sensations make me grab involuntarily at his shoulders, his ass. I might have broken the skin there, but he doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, my abandoned fervor only seems to drive him on to greater heights and more vocal expressions of response.

Eventually, he moves between my thighs, and a sly whisper of reality intrudes itself.

Should we use a condom? Do we need one? Why would we need one?

He’s a perfect, pure virgin angel and I know for a fact that in that respect, at least, I’m completely healthy, even if unlikely to conceive. And if I were to? Well, if that happens, that’s good too.

He pauses, no doubt reading those thoughts, so I smile up at him and clasp his buttocks, urging him on. The resulting light in his eyes, and the way he smiles at me, are nothing short of heavenly. “Oh, my love, my love,” he sighs, then thrusts.

Tears fill my eyes as my body yields to him, my silky channel stretching around his heat and hardness. His cock feels magnificent inside me. Bigger, harder, hotter than any of the very few I’ve previously welcomed, but even if he’d been average, he’d still have delighted me—because he’s Patrick.

Thrust in to the hilt, he groans, and I experience a moment of fear.

Believe. Believe. Trust.

With happiness, I do, and I start to soar, rejoicing anew. Patrick’s body is still real, alive and full of magical substance as he presses against me, in deep, and then starts to thrust again. He moves smoothly, rhythmically, perfect in this as in all things. Is he still an angel? Is he human? Is he both, yet neither, maybe the sum of many parts?

But as we rock and writhe against each other, our bodies moving in a sweet, synchronized dance, such philosophical questions become irrelevant. We’re just a man and woman in love, joining our bodies in pleasure.

I try to hold out, to save my climax to match his, but he has the better of me. When he kisses my neck and then angles his body anew, going in deep, he works my clitoris with his swiving plunge, and I’m lost, lost, lost.

Pleasure is incandescent, and I rise through layer after layer of it, floating up as if I were the angel, as if I had wings. “Patrick. Oh, Patrick,” I cry, holding onto him, and even in the midst of sublime sensation, I experience more wonder.

I’m holding onto him, one hand clasping at his bottom, the other hooked around his shoulder. My pussy is clenching again and again on his cock, but even so, I feel a strange glowing, effervescing sensation in my hand and I’m compelled to slide it down from his upper back towards his waist.

I hear a familiar sound, like billowing sails, and my eyes snap open.

Spread out from my angel’s back, and curving round us both, are his great white wings. And as his body arches and he beats them once, twice, and three times, he cries aloud and comes in glory, along with me.

When I wake again it is morning. The sun’s rising in the sky and my bedroom is warm. My body feels well rested and well pleasured, with no arthritic twinges other than a slight one in my left hip, but much less than usual.

Patrick.

I fly straight up in bed, and then moan inarticulately.

He’s gone.

But he can’t be. He said to trust and to believe. The unthinkable can’t have happened. There must be an explanation.

I refuse to accept that I might have lost him.

Clambering out of bed whilst fishing around for my nightgown, I refuse to give up hope, even though Patrick’s clothes are nowhere to be seen. My faith starts to waver, but just as I grit my teeth and start to get angry with myself, I hear a familiar sound coming closer, approaching up the stairs.

Someone’s singing. They’re singing in a sweet way that’s both tuneless and tuneful at the same time. My heart leaps as Patrick appears in the doorway with a smile on his face and a cup and saucer in his hand.

“Good morning, Miranda,” he says. He sounds both happy and somehow a bit uncertain, as if he’s not quite sure of the sound of his own voice. With his shirt and waistcoat hanging open, he looks both innocent and effortlessly macho.

“Good morning to you too. You’re still here then?”

He pads forward barefoot and sets the cup down. A bit of its contents slop over the side into the saucer, and he makes a little sound of mild exasperation. The way he frowns and stares at the spilt tea is perfectly adorable.

But Patrick himself isn’t perfect any more. My face cracks into a Cheshire Cat-like grin, and I want to leap up into the air and whoop for joy.

My beloved isn’t precisely perfect because he’s human, like me, and he’s alive.

“Yes, I’m here.” The little mishap forgotten, he sits on the bed beside me, his face wreathed in smiles as he reaches for my hand. “Did you ever doubt that I would be?”

Did I? I’m not sure. Maybe for a moment here and there, but not when it mattered.

“Perhaps a little bit.” I squeeze his hand. It still feels warm and reassuring and deliciously powerful and sexy. “I’m only human, you know.”

We both laugh. “So am I now, I’m afraid.” He gives a little shrug, looking that little bit uncertain of himself again. “I hope that’s going to be enough for you, my love.” With his free hand, he reaches behind himself and rubs the back of his neck and his shoulder. “No wings, no special healing powers, no mindreading. We might find that I’ve magically acquired a fully formed life history from somewhere, as I understand it, but other than that, I’m just an average guy from now on. That’s all.”

I stare at him, drinking him in. He looks far more than average to me. Okay, so he does have a few lines on his forehead and those laughter crinkles at the corner of his eyes. He’s far closer to my age than he was when I very first set eyes on him, but he’s still the most handsome creature I’ve ever seen. And his blue eyes are bright and intelligent and full of love.

I
can
believe in him. I
can
trust him never to leave me. I love him, and I love what he did for me.

“You’ll be just fine for me, my love.” I squeeze his hand. “I’m not perfect either, so we’ll make a pretty good partnership, I think. Don’t you?”

He drags me into his arms and kisses me soundly as an answer, and his clever mouth and his demanding tongue are just as angelically sexy and provocative as ever. His touch, when he starts to explore me, is still heavenly too.

Pretty soon, my nightdress is off again, and so are Patrick’s clothes. Arching back against the pillows, I claw at his shoulders, his strong, muscular non-winged shoulders as he strokes me in rapid flicks and dabs and circles to my first orgasm.

“Still as good as ever,” I gasp, fighting to get my breath back as I descend. “Even without special powers.”

“Are you sure?” he murmurs, kissing my brow.

“Perfectly.”

“I’m not so sure of my tea-making skills though. That’s a very special art indeed and doesn’t come as naturally as making love.” He laughs against my skin and then nods lightly to the forgotten cup on the bedside table.

“Let me be the judge.” I sit up. Having a delicious climax before my morning cuppa has left me parched. Even if it’s cold and stewed, a sip of the tea will fortify me for the pleasures yet to come.

He hands me the cup. I sample the brew. It’s a bit on the weak side, but it’s still warm and it tastes like the most divine of nectars as far as I’m concerned.

“Needs work,” I tease. “But don’t worry, I’ll soon train you up.”

“I look forward to it,” he replies, taking the cup from my hand and setting it aside so I can concentrate on him again. “Let’s make love. I have a lot of catching up to do.”

As he starts to move against me, I suddenly have a question to ask. “How come you know how to do this so well, when you were a virgin until last night? Are there escapades in your angel past that you’re not telling me about?”