Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 7

shorts down my legs. I kicked off my running shoes and shook my feet 'til the shorts fell too. I didn't hear them hit the ground. I wasn't sure if there was ground. It should have been terrifying, but Sariel's breath was on my neck, his lips on my shoulder, speaking wordlessly. Fear had no place there.
    I reached between us, trying to find his cock, wanting to know if he was hard yet, if he wanted me at all or just to get out of this place. It seemed absurd to hope, but then he shifted, and my fingers curled around his shaft. He felt enormous against my palm, bigger than anyone I'd ever been with, bigger than the dildo I kept hidden from Todd in a shoebox under my bed. I couldn't help groaning with excitement that a goddamned angel was that hard for me.
    How many thousands of years had Sariel been celibate? Who would ever resist this creature if he deigned to be interested? But he wanted me. He had chosen me, saved me, called me here.
    Our eyes met, and a frisson of need shot through me like nothing I'd ever felt. My lips ached, my arms, my ass, as if I would die if I couldn't kiss him, hold him, be filled with him. His mouth pressed to mine innocently, like I might have kissed my mother at bedtime long ago, when she still let me do such things. Then he seemed to get the hang of it and teased my lips with the tip of his tongue. It was obvious he'd never done this, but he was going to do this now, with me of all people.
    The weight of what I was going to do descended. I would take this immortal creature's Grace. He would fall from heaven and into my arms, and he would belong to me like no one and nothing else ever had.
    "Why?" I blurted, regretting it even as I plunged onward. "There are others. Why me?"
    Sariel's hips shifted closer until his cock brushed against mine. We gasped in tandem, united by pleasure. Then he kissed me again and said against my lips, "They almost broke you, my beautiful man, because they couldn't see what you did: Love is always right. You wanted to live by the law of Love. You tried."
    I felt vindicated. Sariel looked into my heart and wanted what he saw. I'd tried so hard for so long, pushed through the rejection, the hurt, the condemnation, and it mattered that I had survived. It mattered to Sariel. He wanted me.
    Tears stung my eyes as I kissed him and wrapped my arms tight around his waist. Feathers brushed against my skin all over, sending tiny, tickling currents of air rushing against my nerves until every hair stood on end. He frotted against me with the same artlessness with which he kissed, ageless and sincere, as hungry in his way to know me as I was to know him.
    He spoke a word in his arcane language and another sigil floated against my skin, just above my heart. Its light burned brighter than that of the others, dazzling my eyes until I had to squint through my lashes. Sariel traced it with his fingertip, smiling in a way more dazzling than light. He was so beautiful that it hurt to look at him.
    I loved him, help me. I loved him so much that without thinking I wrapped my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, fighting to be closer. We seemed to drift through nothing, his wings buoying us, his might inexhaustible. The light flared around us until I had to close my eyes. I knew then that the third sigil was Love.
    Sariel kissed me until my lips bruised and chafed. His fingertips brushed against my forehead, leaving something slick and wet there as he marked symbols on my skin. Its spicy fragrance was ancient, numinous, intoxicating.
    "Aleph-Tav. The first, the last, the joining. So are you anointed, Remy Cooper, human that I will love." Sariel stared into my eyes. His were pale and gleaming, beatific but fierce as no human's could ever be. My heart flipped over. No words were enough, so I begged with my body, arching and rubbing against him, clinging with arms and legs and kissing him 'til I was breathless.
    His fingertips trailed down my spine, seeming to count the vertebrae. They were slick still, and I realized it was the precious oil of anointing that coated his fingers and dripped down my skin. I'd read about it in the Bible, heard it talked about by Christian ministers who tried to appropriate the Hebrew mysticism to bolster their credibility as scholarly men.
    Now Sariel circled my opening, teasing my hole as if this was why such oil had been created. He breathed faster just as I did, as excited as I was. It amplified my own excitement until I felt drunk. I rubbed