Walking home with five Heinekens coursing through my system proved amusing. I swayed so much on the sidewalk that at one point I gave up and played an imaginary game of hopscotch. The funny looks I’d gotten were plentiful, but I was in too good of a mood to care. Thank God our room was on the bottom floor. Not sure if I could handle stairs in my state.
After dropping the card once or twice, I managed to slide it in and kicked the door open with my foot. Michael immediately glanced over at me from the foot of his bed. He wore a grey tank top and faded blue jeans. Some part of me loathed how good the archangel looked day in and day out. For once, I’d love to see him disheveled, even the slightest bit.
“I thought you’d be back hours ago. Where’d you go?” He asked, tossing aside the book he’d been reading—Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher, I noted somehow—and standing up.
I hesitated letting go of the door since it seemed to be the only thing keeping me upright. “Bar down the street from the restaurant. They serve really good tequila shots.”
The archangel’s green eyes enlarged as they raked over me. “What?”
I flashed him a grin and shoved the door shut with my heel. “Kidding. I don’t drink tequila. Had some beers. No biggie.”
Michael sighed, sweeping the dark hair off his forehead and giving me a critical once-over. “Great. How many beers is ‘some’?”
“Five. I’m not drunk,” I insisted, poking him in the chest. It felt so very nice and warm that I leaned into him. All at once, my knees gave out, and he made a small noise of surprise, catching my arms so that I wouldn’t slide down onto the floor.
“Sure you aren’t,” he grumbled as I snuggled the side of my face against his broad chest. So many muscles and yet I never saw him go to the gym. Damn perfect angel.
“I guess I can just yell at you in the morning, since you’re not gonna listen to me now. In the meantime, you need to sleep this off.” He scooped me up in his arms, bridal style, and carried me towards my bed. Being in his arms was comfortable. When he got to the mattress, he balanced my entire body in one arm and pulled back the covers. Even I had enough clarity left to be impressed by it.
Michael deposited me on the bed and began to pull back, but my arms were stubbornly locked around his neck. He paused, arching an eyebrow.
“You can let go now.”
I shook my head. “Mm-mm. Comfy.”
He let out a nervous chuckle, settling his knees on either side of me so he wouldn’t have to hunch his six-foot-one frame over my body. “Could you try using words with more than two syllables?”
I exhaled, pressing the side of my forehead into his neck. Like his chest, his skin felt warm and smooth, with the light scent of whatever soap he’d used in the shower. Some sort of AXE brand, like the one Terrell said he could smell on me. I preferred the Old Spice Michael normally wore, but it worked for him.
“You think I’m an idiot, huh?”
Some of the tension in his shoulders eased. “Sometimes.”
“No, I meant about seeing my ex. I shouldn’t have seen him. Can’t have him anyway. Not good enough. Besides, nobody wants to date a crazy lady who sees ghosts.” My voice grew softer with every sentence.
Michael let out a small sigh, but I could hear the smile. “You never know. I hear the crazy ones are the most fun to date.”
At last, a grin found its way to my lips. “Like you’d know.”
“Well, I was human for a long while.”
I let my head drop to the pillow, filling my vision with Michael’s smirking visage. “You ever sleep with anyone?”
His eyebrows shot upward in surprise. “No, I…didn’t get into a relationship. I didn’t think it was a good idea. I couldn’t remember who I was and I doubt many girls would understand that.”
An interesting thought materialized in my head. “Was I your first kiss?”
He watched me with a careful expression. After a moment, he closed his eyes and his voice lost its emotion.
“I think you should get some rest.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s late and I don’t think it’s very healthy for me to be around you like this. I might end up breaking rules that are in place for your protection,” he whispered, eyes smoldering with something that made shudders trickle down my back. Normally it would have made me nervous, but tonight I wasn’t. What I saw in Michael’s eyes was the opposite of what I’d seen in Terrell’s. Terrell wanted me because he thought I’d be a good wife and mother. Michael wanted me because…he wanted me. No ulterior motive or future plans. He knew we’d be screwed up if we tried to have a relationship. I knew it too. The only problem was that neither one of us seemed to accept that fact just yet.
Evidence of the latter began to rise as I lifted my face enough to brush a small kiss on the corner of his lips. “What if I don’t want you to protect me?”
Michael let out a long exhale. “Jordan.”
I didn’t know if the alcohol made me do it or if it was my own selfish desire, but I kissed him again and he didn’t move away or tell me to stop. God. His lips were so soft. The tension that had been there when he laid me down returned to his back and shoulders, which I felt coiling beneath my fingertips like mattress springs. We stayed pressed together for a long moment until he let out a low sound—a groan of pleasure—and slipped his tongue past my lips. Just like that, I felt something metaphysical between us snap, and then my entire body became engulfed in an almost palpable heat. It ate at my skin like fire devouring a log, dizzying, torturous, and amazing. All at once, I realized it was his desire. He’d been holding it back from me. I’d never known just how powerful his feelings were when they manifested into physical forms.
His fingers wrapped around my forearms and lowered them from around his neck, pinning them against the pillow on either side of my head. He sighed into my mouth—a warm rush of breath—and broke the kiss, his voice several octaves lower for reasons that made goosebumps roll over the skin along my throat.
“Sleep.”
He let go of my arms and climbed off of the bed. My eyelids began to droop almost immediately. I didn’t fight the creeping darkness. As my mind started to drift, I could just barely hear Michael’s voice—low and soft in the quiet room.
“The angels are stooping
Above your bed;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.
God’s laughing in Heaven
To see you so good;
The Sailing Seven
Are gay with His mood.
I sigh that kiss you.
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown.”
“A Cradle Song” by W. B. Yeats. With that, he disappeared into the bathroom. I fell asleep just as the spray of the shower reached my ears.