by Jan Irving
“Will you sleep with me?”
Matthew gaped. “No!”
“Because you don’t want me touching you,” Dove said, sounding as depressed as Matthew felt.
Oh, gorgeous, you have no idea how much I want that.
“Because I don’t sleep with anyone,” Matthew chose to admit, very simply. “I don’t know how, all right?”
“Oh. Aren’t you lonely?” Dove pulled off his T-shirt, and Matthew swallowed at seeing that brown, smooth, forbidden flash of skin. He wanted to lick Dove’s nipples, suck them hard, give him a lazy palm job while watching the expressions change on his face, watch him come for the first time.
“Sometimes.”
“But you are attractive. Your friend Leo thought you could sleep with a lot of people.” Dove cocked his head, obviously trying to understand Matthew.
Matthew flushed. “Leo wanted me to rent myself out; that’s a whole different thing from really sleeping with someone, having a boyfriend.”
Dove stood up and dropped his pants. He ran a fond hand over his sex, still obviously liking his new equipment. “Am I attractive to you?”
Matthew cleared his throat. “Very! God.” He had to drop his gaze from his angel’s sex, which was responding like a big, friendly golden retriever to Dove’s affectionate handling.
“If we are both attractive, we should sleep together, isn’t that right?” Dove blinked demurely at Matthew. “Then you’ll know what it’s like to sleep with a real boyfriend.”
“Uh, it’s not that simple! First, not everyone finds everyone else attractive. That’s sort of mushy ground, gorgeous.”
Dove put his hands on his slender hips, frowning, and Matthew couldn’t help but notice that his parts weren’t exactly one size fits all proportions. Definitely would be a very tight fit, if Matthew ever let him—
What the fuck was he thinking? He never bottomed!
“But you think I’m attractive, yes?” Dove pressed again, looking hopeful.
“Yeah.” Matthew reached for another cigarette to light up. His hands were shaky so it took him a few extra seconds, but he wanted Dove to take him for indifferent. Better for both of them if he did.
Dove pouted. “Attractive to sleep with or attractive to look at?”
“Both, but then I like men, right? You may prefer women.”
“I have to like one or the other?” Dove sounded plaintive. “Can’t I like both?”
Matthew shook his head ruefully at Dove’s persistence. “I don’t think it matters if you really like someone, but that’s just me,” he admitted.
“That’s what I think!” The angel sat down on the couch and took Matthew’s cigarette away. “I like you a lot, Matthew-friend, and I want to know what it is to have sex.”
“Shit!” Matthew got up and moved away from sweet temptation. “You can’t!”
“Why not?” His angel looked cranky now. His erection was also still interested, pointing straight out as if to say: blow me, Matthew, you know you want to!
“Because you don’t know what you want, not really. Or…” Matthew swallowed, “you’d know it wouldn’t be me.”
“Matthew, what aren’t you saying?” Dove stood up, and Matthew just knew there was a hug in his future. He couldn’t bear it.
“Go to bed!” he barked. He snagged the jean jacket he’d loaned his angel earlier.
“Where are you going?” Doe eyes followed him.
“Out!” Matthew hesitated, looking back at a panicked-looking angel. “I’ll be back, don’t worry, but you don’t want me, all right? You could do better.”
He slammed the door behind him, before he did something he knew he had no right to.
* * *
Matthew stayed out very, very late. He drank a little. Watched strippers, male and female. Wiping his gritty eyes, trying to forget the beautiful angel in his bed waiting for him at home.
Who wanted to sleep with him. Who wanted Matthew to show him how to have sex. And Matthew knew he could make it good, oh, so good for his angel.
Touch him, taste him, fucking worship him, thoroughly.
But what had his gut twisted was that he knew he’d only kill something in Dove if he gave in.
Soil him.
He toyed with his glass, the last person who should be the guardian to an angel.
* * *
Matthew stumbled into his apartment, unshaven, groggy, just before dawn.
Dove sat up in bed, blinking at him, demanding, “Did you find someone else attractive?”
“Yeah,” Matthew lied, hating himself for hurting Dove’s budding feelings, but he couldn’t take advantage of his innocence. “Yeah, I did.” He couldn’t look into Dove’s wide dark eyes. He turned away.
“Oh. You wanted someone, but not me.” Dove sounded very depressed.
“Yeah. Had a good fuck, and now I’m tired, so go to sleep, Dove.”
“But you didn’t sleep with him like a boyfriend?”
“I told you. I don’t sleep with anyone.”
Matthew took off his clothes, feeling really shitty. Being good was crappy! He was much happier when he did shit to suit himself, but how could he look in those untarnished eyes and use his angel like all the rest?
He was reaching for the blanket he’d used on the couch when he caught the sound of a suppressed sob. Oh, fuck.
“Dove?” He turned on the light and saw his angel had tears in his eyes.
“I hurt, Matthew,” Dove said simply. “You don’t want me and I hurt.”
Matthew pulled his jeans back on and went to Dove. He sat on the corner of the bed and patted his angel’s knee awkwardly.
“You don’t want to be with me and it hurts!”
Matthew shifted closer and brushed Dove’s muscled shoulders with his fingertips while he rested his forehead against his angel’s. “I want to be with you very badly,” he confessed. “I hurt too.”
“I don’t understand you, Matthew.” Dove’s great dark eyes were fixed on him, waiting on his word, and he was aware that to his angel, Matthew was his whole world. It humbled him and made him feel like a shit, because he wasn’t up to being anyone’s hero. Look how he’d fucked up tonight by trying to do the right thing?
Matthew stroked Dove’s hair away from his flushed, damp cheeks. “I like your smile. I don’t want to see it go away. You get that?”
Dove grazed Matthew’s lips with his own. “But touching you makes me smile, Matthew. Is that so wrong?”
A wave primitive heat surged through Matthew’s sensitized skin. He groaned as his control broke. Suddenly he was kissing the fuck out of his angel, stroking his lips with his tongue, asking to be let inside...
Dove’s hands gripped Matthew’s bare back, almost bruising, making crazy skittered paths all over as if he couldn’t get enough of touching him.
When Matthew put his tongue in Dove’s mouth, penetrating his angel for the first time, they both groaned at the sensation.
So right….
And then Matthew felt something soft brush his shoulder.
He opened his eyes to see his very young angel had his wings back, and they were hovering about eight inches above the bed, Dove with his legs wrapped firmly around Matthew’s slim waist.
“Holy fuck!” Matthew cursed.
“I’m sorry. I can’t control them when I get excited,” his angel confessed, blushing.
Chapter Eight
Matthew couldn’t stop kissing Dove’s lips, his chin, his neck while his fingers were buried in soft, warm feathers. “Shit, I think I’m getting a new kink, wing kink!”
They were floating a few inches above the bed, the soft fluttering of his angel’s feathers keeping both men lazily aloft, but when Matthew gently bit down on Dove’s neck, the fluttering became a little more frantic, and they jolted abruptly against the ceiling.
“Ouch! Gorgeous!”
“S-sorry, I never felt such things, Matthew!” Dove kissed him back, eager, clumsy, but Matthew didn’t care. It was ho
t to be the first, the only.
“I know,” Matthew sighed. “But I think we better stop and head back down to Earth. I’m a bit scared of heights, so this is distracting. And you really don’t seem too good with those wings, pet.”
Dove looked disappointed. “But I wanted you to touch my penis, Matthew!” Dove blinked sleepy dark eyes, which Matthew found adorable, though he’d eat nails before he’d actually put that into words. “I burn.”
Matthew bit down on Dove’s earlobe, and the miracle in his arms cried out, his erection inscribing a wet circle against Matthew’s lower body, so needy, so fucking hot, wrapped around Matthew like a gift bow.
This time they smashed their heads against the ceiling before dropping like a plane hitting turbulence. Only a frantic sweep of wings cut their dive at the last possible second—
“Fuck!” Matthew closed his eyes tightly, huffing.
“I’m sorry.” His angel was rubbing his head, looking mussed and rueful and incredibly aroused. His wings were still seething excitement, reflecting Dove’s mood.
“I think kissing is off the menu for the night, gorgeous. At least until I buy a helmet and pads or something,” Matthew said ruefully. Shit, he wanted to get it on so much, but it turned out it wasn’t easy to do that with an angel.
Dove’s grip tightened on Matthew’s shoulders. “But we’ll do it again? You won’t go out and be with someone else instead? It hurts for me to think about you touching someone else and wanting to be with them. More than me, I mean. Is that jealousy?”
Matthew sat back, taking Dove’s hand and running gentle fingertips over it. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from touching him! His sweetness, his body combined to become Matthew’s most alluring dream man. He tried not to look at Dove’s hard cock in the center of his luscious, glowing body. It was slightly disconcerting to see a big boner on an angel, but that definitely signaled the kind of heaven Matthew hoped to experience.
“Jealousy, yeah, I guess. Dove, I lied to you,” Matthew confessed, avoiding Dove’s frank gaze. He was so open, so heedless of the pain of sharing himself. Matthew hated to disillusion him.
“Lied? You wouldn’t lie to me, Matthew, you are my friend.” Dove’s brow wrinkled as he tried to work this out. “Friends don’t lie to friends, do they?”
“I did.” Matthew swallowed. “I wanted to shove you away from me because when you get too close, I almost can’t take it. So I lied about doin’ someone else. Went somewhere and thought about you and drank some beer, but I didn’t touch anyone.”
Dove seemed to consider Matthew’s revelation. “I don’t understand, Matthew, but I don’t hurt as much as I did before.”
Matthew smiled, feeling his heart sliding on suddenly slippery footing. Oh, Christ! He couldn’t fall for an angel, because he’d fall hard, and then Dove had to leave.
Still, Matthew couldn’t fight the impulse to know more about Dove. “Are you… connected to God and all that?”
Dove shook his head, smiling. “No, we are just a higher intelligence who visit your world. Caretakers for some of the younger races, but we try not to interfere.”
“So you’re smarter than we are?” Matthew asked. Was he even more inferior than he thought to this dazzling being?
“No, just different. We don’t have your passion, and we are formed differently, made of light and energy and not flesh.”
“Passion.” Matthew flushed, playing with the bed spread. “Yeah, guess I’ve got plenty of that.”
“I like it! It’s what drew me to you, Matthew.”
But Matthew shook his head, still wary. “You’re young and innocent, but physical passion between humans has consequences. It can hurt. You can lie awake after and know you didn’t find what you wanted.”
“Your aura doesn’t say it wants to hurt me, Matthew; it’s full of care for me. That’s why I trusted you from the beginning. I could see you would always be gentle with me.”
Matthew’s eyes widened, but then he scoffed, “My aura? I’m not sure I really believe I have one and anyway, I thought you said it was bleeding and I would die!”
Dove nodded. “Your aura is bleeding, but when we touched, it seems to have helped you.”
“I don’t want you taking my memories from me, Angel,” Matthew rasped. “I don’t want them inside you, cutting you.”
Dove sighed, looking frustrated with Matthew. “I would take them from you, but I can’t without your consent. I wish you’d let me. I don’t understand what happened to you and I want to. You aren’t alone in the dark. I am with you.”
Matthew stroked hair away from Dove’s forehead. “Very poetic, Dove, but people talk about things, share them that way. That’s how we deal with our pain.”
“Will you tell me about yours?”
“No!”
“But, Matthew—”
“It’s more intimate than fucking, okay? And as much as I’d love to spread you out and do you, it’s maybe better for both of us not to get too close. You’re going to leave me, remember? Uh, I mean, leave here.”
“Can’t we touch while I’m here?” Dove asked wistfully, reaching out and cupping Matthew’s cheek. “I’ll never have another chance to be human and to touch you and never in the ages of this world have I ever wanted to touch another human. Only you, Matthew.”
Matthew took a deep breath, that sliding feeling in his gut getting even more scary. His angel was going to go back to the friendly skies and take Matthew’s battered old suitcase of a heart with him if he wasn’t careful.
“No, we can’t. And anyway, I’d have to use some kind of ‘angel bondage’ to keep you from whacking your head on the ceiling if we did more.” Matthew quirked an eyebrow, thinking that would make first sex potentially painful.
Dove’s eyes glistened. “Bondage? I want to try that! I want you to tie me up, Matthew!”
Matthew threw himself on the bed, groaning at the image that came to mind, closing his eyes. “Angel, you’re a slut.”
Chapter Nine
Following a lead given to them by Leo, Matthew leaned now against the office door at the local university belonging to Nathan Albertson, professor of astronomy. He’d attended a couple of the professor’s free public lectures in the past, fascinated by new discoveries of galaxies beyond their own. And, honestly, he was also grateful for an unexpected reprieve. Any more time alone with Dove in his tiny apartment, and he wasn’t sure what would happen. The angel was irresistible.
The professor stepped outside his office, shaking out the keys to lock his door, which was dressed with a holly wreath and gold stars and planets for the holidays. “So, we want to know about the stars and stuff,” Matthew began, flushing. With a little research he’d discovered the professor was also the head of a team that worked at an observatory outside of the city; it might be just what they was looking for.
“Really? Well, most people enroll and take classes.” Professor Albertson blinked impassive gray eyes, gathering his wrinkled leather briefcase, obviously not impressed by his two odd, would-be students: Dove beaming at him, while Matthew frowned.
“I, uh, just need to know how to send a message into outer space,” Matthew confessed sheepishly. “I got your name from The Fixer.” Apparently Albertson was also a gambler and owed Matthew’s connection some money. Talking to him was worth a try, anyway.
“I’ll have you both escorted from the building if you harass me further, young man!” Professor Albertson said frostily before leaving without looking back.
“That didn’t go well, Matthew,” Dove noted. “I thought you said he could help us?”
“He can, but we might have to show him your embarrassing secret. Or I’ll think of something.”
“Show him my penis?” Dove smiled. “But I’m not embarrassed about it. In fact, from looking at your magazines, I don’t think I have anything to be embarrassed about.”
Matthew groaned, trying not to think of Dove’s beautiful cock. No, he had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of! “N
o, I mean your wings. Can you try not to talk about sex so much?” He cleared his throat.
“I get to show off my wings?” Dove brightened; he had told Matthew he felt more like himself when they appeared.
“Don’t flash them now,” Matthew growled. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to show them to him; I’m not sure we can trust him, so we might have to go with my Plan B, but I need to think about that, so let’s get something to eat. Too bad we missed the last bus to get back to the apartment, but I wanted to jump on this lead.”
They walked out onto the campus grounds, deserted for the holidays. There was a little shattered ornament of an angel that had fallen from the holiday tree in the center of the green park. Dove picked it up. “Broken,” he said.
“Yeah, things break.”
The angel closed his eyes, still holding the ornament, and then blew over it. When he opened his palm again, it was whole, little wings no longer bent and the crack through the breast of the tiny figure whole again.
“Fixed now.” Dove smiled at Matthew and put it on the tree.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Matthew said.
Dove gave him a confused look. “Did I do something bad?”
Matthew dug his hands in his pockets, feeling the cold wind in his hair and knowing that soon he’d feel so much more alone.
“What’s wrong, Matthew-friend?” Dove’s voice was gentle.
“Nothing’s wrong!” Matthew snarled. I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with you. I’m not meant to be with an angel, I’m just a guy, and a very fucked-up one. “And don’t call me ‘Matthew-friend’! I told you that you sound like a fuckin’ moron!”
“I’m sorry.” Dove bent his head, and Matthew saw the sparkle of suppressed tears. “I don’t fit in and I embarrass you.”
“Yeah.” Matthew swallowed. “It will be better when you go home, for both of us.”
The angel nodded, looking sad.
Matthew felt crappy about his nasty turn of temper, but how could he explain he had to crush this tender vine before it covered him? He already was on fire to touch his glorious angel, but he liked him too, so what did that mean? He’d never liked anyone he’d slept with, not as a friend.