In The Flesh

In The Flesh Part 9

For a long moment I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I felt cold to my core, and there was a strange ringing in my ears, but worst of all I felt jealous. "You were his lover? How's that possible," I managed, forcing the words up through my throat, which threatened to close. "How the hell is that even possible?"

"What do you mean how's that possible? You and I just made love, same general principles."

"Same general principles my arse." I pushed up off the bed, grabbed the towel and wrapped it around me feeling suddenly very naked, indeed. I paced at the foot of the bed, jealousy just at the edge of my consciousness like the irritating buzz of a mosquito seeking a place to bite.

"What? Do you think an angel can't be vulnerable, can't want the same things you want?" The smile that curved his lips was almost a grimace. "I was a lot more beautiful then than I am now. But beauty's a fleeting thing." He waved his hand absently, still not looking at me. "I knew that was a part of the price, and I didn't care. I would have done anything."

"Well if it's beauty he's after, he sure as hell doesn't want me. Annie's the one with the looks. Not me."

Suddenly he stood and pulled me to him, the look on his face shifting from confusion to complete understanding. "You're jealous."

I said nothing. It was no use denying what had to be written all over my face. That Michael had been with Him, that Annie was with Him, and that I still wanted to be, in spite of everything messed with my mind.

"I understand your jealousy," Michael said. "Once he's touched you in some way, in any way, you can't help but want him. You can't help but want him to want you and only you. That's his power."

I didn't reply. What could I say? Instead I turned my back on him, trying to focus, trying to be logical. I didn't want to be jealous, and I didn't want to want Him. I knew what the result of wanting Him, of giving into that want, would be, and yet, I still wanted.

He grabbed my arm again in a grip that was none too gentle and pulled me back to him. "Susan, it has nothing to do with beauty, what he wants. Beauty is far more fleeting than ... other things." He lifted my chin with a thick curled finger, forcing me to meet his gaze. "That he wants you, I can completely understand." He pulled me close against his still naked body, making sure I was fully aware of his desire for me, then he took my mouth in a kiss distracting enough that I would have been perfectly happy to linger in a lip-lock with him for twenty years or so. But then he released me, guided me back to sit on the bed, and pulled his jeans up over his hips, commando, I noticed.

"Tell me," I said, watching in fascination as he zipped his substantial self into the tight fit of denim. "Tell me what happened."

He shoved another log onto the fire then plopped down into the wingback chair. For a long time he stared into the flames, so long that I thought maybe he'd chosen not to answer; maybe it wasn't something he could talk about. But at last he took a deep breath and spoke. "I thought it would be easier being human." He lifted a shoulder in a lop-sided shrug. "I suppose we all romanticize the things we wish for before we actually have them. We don't know the pitfalls and the difficulties until we're faced with them, and then they're such a shock, sometimes it's too late." He forced a laugh. "You'd think someone who had spent eons as a being only slightly less than divinity would have been aware of the threat of demons and spirits and such things that do a whole lot more than go bump in the night. I'd even met demons and incubi and spirits of the land. They never seemed all that threatening to me, but then I wasn't human, was I? I know it's insane to think that I could forget, I mean after all, it was a part of my job to protect humans, to ease their suffering from such beings." He grabbed the poker and gave the log he'd just put on the fire a hard shove that resulted in a shower of popping and crackling sparks. After another long moment of gazing into the flames as though he sought wisdom there, he continued. "They were never any threat to me as an angelic being. I just assumed that would be true when I became human. I knew how things were, after all. I understood, and I was still me, at the end of the day. Surely I was safe from such things. But I wasn't, was I?"