All the Rules of Heaven

by Amy Lane

  Angel cried out again, and Tucker swallowed, playing with smooth and hairless testicles with his outside hand, the one without the cast. His other hand was busy stroking Angel’s stomach, his thighs, anything—desperate to feel the bare ripple of skin and muscles where thought and will used to hold sole domain.

  “Tucker!”

  A massive climax shook Angel’s body, and even as Tucker swallowed the come of a more-than-human man down his throat, he felt hair tickle his hands, the coarse silky pubic strands that protected testicles and led a merry path from a man’s navel.

  Angel’s first climax—and it had changed him, physically, forever.

  Angel’s orgasm swept him again, the tremble in his muscles becoming massive and spastic, and Tucker fought the pain in his wrist, his ribs, his head, to hold on, stay right there, take all Angel had to give.

  At the last moment, he bucked away, sobbing, wanting more of Angel’s seed down his throat but pulled back by his own orgasm, a shadow of Angel’s but enough to make him jerk his sore body, enough to make him cry.

  The front of his underwear grew hot and wet, then cold, as his spend cooled.

  He listened in fierce satisfaction as Angel’s panting breath rocked the bed.

  Angel’s gentle hands on his face soothed some of his pain, and he smiled, eyes closed.

  “Proud of yourself?” Angel asked, but he sounded too satisfied to be smug.

  “You taste like lavender and lime,” Tucker said, laughing in the dark. “And a little like mint.”

  “That’s not what humans usually taste like?”

  Those hands kept up their tentative exploration of his face.

  “No,” Tucker murmured. Oh man. The cold of Daisy Place chilled his skin. He wanted this moment to last for—

  Angel moved away to grab a blanket from the foot of the bed and pull it up around Tucker’s shoulders.

  “My shorts,” Tucker mumbled, already falling asleep. “I should wash up.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  And then Angel’s hands, tender and personal, wielded a warm washcloth and helped him into a clean pair of boxers.

  Tucker grunted thanks and curled more deeply under the covers.

  Angel’s hands on his cheeks were all the reassurance he could ask for.

  “How do you feel?” Angel asked, finding Tucker’s stubble as Tucker had found his.

  “Sore,” Tucker admitted. “That was awesome, but—”

  “Too early,” Angel whispered. “I’m sor—”

  “Don’t be.” Tucker opened his eyes. Fine lines had appeared at the corners of Angel’s mouth and green eyes. He was even more beautiful than Tucker remembered when he’d first closed his eyes and hoped Angel would stay.

  “Don’t be sorry?” The hope in his voice was hard to bear.

  “No. Be grateful. It was glorious having you in my mouth, Angel. I got to make love to you. A thousand lovers or more, and I’ve never gotten to choose a single one. And I touched you and sucked your cock and loved you. I didn’t know mortals were even allowed such beauty.”

  Angel’s faint smile actually glowed. “Poetry.” He pushed Tucker’s tangled hair back from his brow. “My human lover speaks poetry.”

  “My angel lover comes in different flavors,” Tucker said crudely, just to watch Angel’s eyes open in surprise.

  Tucker smiled, happy, as his eyes fluttered closed. Angel’s flesh dematerialized sometime after he fell asleep, but even when Angel’s breath stopped fanning his face and his hand on Tucker’s cheek faded, Tucker knew he was still there.

  TUCKER NEEDED him to be there—especially during the next week.

  Angel kept the nightmares away.

  And the nightmares were plentiful and painful.

  Not even Angel could banish them completely. All he could do was be there when Tucker woke up, incoherent, in pain.

  The kitten was good at curling up in front of him during these episodes, which was sweet but not enough.

  They were one more souvenir of a life that was not going to stop throwing them curveballs just because one almost took Tucker out of the game.

  After a week of being at home, Tucker and Angel sat on the porch in the early shadows of the late August evening under a canopy of invisible—and yet shady—wings. Squishbeans purred in Angel’s lap until suddenly she hissed and stalked away. Tucker looked up and saw a familiar transparent form gazing at him soulfully from the lawn.

  “Wait right there!” he told it and then hurried inside. “Angel! Angel! Where’s my shorts from the day—”

  Angel pulled them out of the drawer, laundered and repaired. He must have stitched them himself.

  Tucker looked at him and smiled fondly. Whatever they were now, whatever they would become, being this sewn into each other’s pockets made Tucker as happy as he’d ever been since childhood. He wanted it to last.

  “Thank you, Angel,” he said sincerely. Careful of his cast and the bandages still around his rib cage, he went rooting through the pockets of the shorts. “Yes!”

  He grinned in triumph and then leaned forward to kiss Angel on the lips.

  It was their first kiss—their first sexual moment, in fact—since Tucker fell asleep after making love. Tucker had been in a lot of pain the next day, and the next. The pain had been worth it, but Tucker had missed the physical contact. Even reaching for it, hoping for it, had become a memory.

  Angel’s mouth opened now, and he gave a groan of such loneliness, Tucker had to answer him. Their mouths fused, Angel’s taste, lavender and citrus, permeating Tucker’s senses, flooding his heart, his stomach, his groin.

  Only the feel of the little metal object in the palm of his hand could pull him back. “Tonight,” he said hopefully.

  Angel frowned, obviously still upset that Tucker had been hurt the last time. “When you can breathe without bandages.” He looked disapproving and stern, but Tucker didn’t have time for this argument. Not now.

  The last light of the sun had almost faded by the time Tucker got back to the front lawn.

  “Here,” he said, holding out his palm. “James? Your grandson wore this to your funeral.”

  James Beaufort came stepping forward, nothing but patience and kindness in his eyes.

  “I remember,” he said, smiling softly. “Little scamp did love his poppy, didn’t he?”

  “He did,” Tucker said. “And so did Sophie and Bridget. I know it’s been hard, living—or being dead, I guess—with what you did. But what you did made Sophie and Bridget possible. You were a good man. When you touch the button, I need you to see how your loved ones saw you. You’ve paid for your violence enough.”

  James Beaufort reached out and took the button from Tucker’s palm.

  As he faded from sight, he smiled brilliantly, at peace in the end as he’d always deserved to be.

  Tucker sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Angel said, draping an arm over his shoulder and steering him back inside. It was late August, and the heat didn’t always carry through until the evening now. Angel had been pulling out sweatshirts for Tucker these last mornings and bemoaning the fact that he had no scarves and gloves for the fall.

  “We know where Conklin’s grave is now.” Right where Josh had crashed his truck. Conklin had been cogent enough to steer Josh there but hadn’t realized what he was leaving behind as he’d gone searching for havoc to wreak and vengeance to take.

  “Yes. Conklin could have had peace. You offered it to him enough, Tucker. It was more than generous. There was too much hatred in him to take it.”

  Tucker grimaced. “But we… we changed the topography. We made a release valve. We’ve already set free a whole cadre of dead grandmothers. What else do you think we’ll let loose into the world?”

  Angel shrugged. “I’ve been watching it, you know.”

  “Really?” It shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d been sleeping a lot in the last week. Angel probably got bored.

  “Yes. I’ve learned my lesson
, Tucker. I can’t afford to only look to the house—or to my person.” He kissed Tucker’s temple gently. “And you are my person.”

  Tucker smiled just a little. It had been so long since he’d been anybody’s. He couldn’t deny it felt good.

  “So what did you see?”

  Angel gave a thoughtful sigh. “So far, only the peaceful have taken the pathway you offered.” Angel frowned. “In fact, I think the people who do are probably the ones who could find peace anyway. Perhaps that’s why the graveyard became so backed up. Because this place was made to trap all the spirits, not just the ones in pain. So maybe….”

  He looked away.

  “What?”

  Angel sighed. “Maybe the graveyard got so bad because the spirits Ruth and I were freeing couldn’t find their way out. They could find their way out of the house, but not off the grounds. Maybe that’s why your ghosts were added to the masses. They calmed down, became friendly, as soon as you gave them a way out. You may have saved us from a terrible, terrible explosion of psychic energy, Tucker. We shall have to see.”

  Tucker grabbed Angel’s hand. “That’s we, though, right?” After so many years of being alone, he now had a family who called him every morning, and a partner—a lover, possibly—who he saw and touched and even kissed every day.

  He found he needed the companionship, as though he’d been dying of thirst and now his cells were struggling to replenish the water.

  Except it wasn’t water. It was love. And he needed it. It was love that watered his soul.

  “Of course.” Angel squeezed his hand and kissed his temple. “I told you, Tucker.”

  “I know.” It was a serious vow, and Tucker would hold fast to Angel’s hand, no matter what the consequences. “You’d break all the rules of heaven to stay with me.”

  “And so I have,” Angel said soberly.

  “And so shall I.”

  Together, they walked back into Daisy Place, as ready as they could be for what the house would throw at them next.

  More from Amy Lane

  Little Goddess: Book One

  Working graveyards in a gas station seems a small price for Cory to pay to get her degree and get the hell out of her tiny town. She’s terrified of disappearing into the aimless masses of the lost and the young who haunt her neck of the woods. Until the night she actually stops looking at her books and looks up. What awaits her is a world she has only read about—one filled with fantastical creatures that she’s sure she could never be.

  And then Adrian walks in, bearing a wealth of pain, an agonizing secret, and a hundred and fifty years with a lover he’s afraid she won’t understand. In one breathless kiss, her entire understanding of her own worth and destiny is turned completely upside down. When her newfound world explodes into violence and Adrian’s lover—and prince—walks into the picture, she’s forced to explore feelings and abilities she’s never dreamed of. The first thing she discovers is that love doesn’t fit into nice neat little boxes. The second thing is that risking your life is nothing compared to facing who you really are—and who you’ll kill to protect.

  Little Goddess: Book Two, Volume 1

  Cory fled the foothills to deal with the pain of losing Adrian, and Green watched her go. Separately, they could easily grieve themselves to death, but when an old enemy of Green’s brings them back together, they can no longer hide from their grief—or their love for each other.

  But Cory’s grieving has cut her off from the emotional stability that’s the source of her power, and Green’s worry for her has left them both weak. Cory’s strength comes from love, and she finds that when she’s in the presence of Adrian’s best friend, Bracken, she feels stronger still.

  But defeating their enemy is by no means a sure thing. As the attacks against Cory and her lovers keep coming, it becomes clear that their love might not be enough if they can’t heal each other—and themselves—from the wounds that almost killed them all.

  Little Goddess: Book Two, Volume 2

  Green and Bracken’s beloved survived their enemy’s worst—with help from unexpected vampiric help.

  But survival is a long way from recovery, and even further from safety. Green’s people want badly to return to the Sierra Foothills, but they’re not going with their tails between their legs. Before they go home, they have to make sure they’re free from attack—and that they administer a healthy dose of revenge as well.

  As Cory negotiates a fragile peace between her new and unexpected lovers, Green negotiates the unexpected power that comes from being a beloved leader of the paranormal population. Together, they might heal their own wounds and lead their people to an unprecedented place at the top of the supernatural food chain—a place that will allow them to return home a better, stronger whole.

  Little Goddess: Book Three, Volume 1

  Humans have the option of separation, divorce, and heartbreak. For Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick, sorceress and queen of the vampires, the choices are limited to love or death. Now that she is back at Green’s Hill and assuming her duties as leader, her life is, at best, complicated. Bracken and Nicky are competing for her affections, Green is away taking care of his people, and a new supernatural enemy is threatening the sanctity of all she has come to love. Throw in a family reunion gone bad, a supernatural psychiatrist, and a killer physics class, and Cory’s life isn’t just complex, it’s psychotic.

  Cory needs to get her act and her identity together, and soon, because the enemy she and her lovers are facing is a nightmare that doesn’t just kill people, it unmakes them. If she doesn’t figure out who she is and what her place is on Green’s Hill, it’s not just her life on the line. She knows from hard experience that the only thing worse than facing death is facing the death of someone she loves.

  Loving people is easy—living with them is what takes the real work, and it’s even harder if you’re bound.

  Little Goddess: Book Three, Volume 2

  Cory’s newly bound family is starting to find its footing, which is a good thing because danger after danger threatens, and Green can’t be there nearly as often as he’s needed. As Cory learns to face the challenges of ruling the hill alone, she’s also juggling a ménage relationship with three lovers—with mixed results.

  But with each new challenge, one lesson becomes crystal clear: she can’t be queen without each of the men who look to her, and the people she loves aren’t safe unless she takes on that queendom with all of the intelligence and courage in her formidable heart.

  But sometimes even intelligence, courage, and steadily increasing magic aren’t enough to do the job, and suddenly the role of Cory’s lovers becomes more crucial than ever. Nobody is strong enough to succeed in every task, and Cory finds that the most painful lesson she and her lovers can learn is not just how to deal with failure. Cory needs to learn that one woman is only so powerful, and she needs to choose wisely who sits outside her circle of family, and who is bound eternally in her heart.

  Readers love the Little Goddess series by Amy Lane

  Rampant, Vol. 2

  “With the intensity (and the stakes) jacked to eleven, Rampant, Vol. 2 is a white-knuckled thrill ride of a resolution, leaving the reader with a tantalizing peek into what’s in store in the next book in the series.”

  —The Novel Approach

  Rampant, Vol. 1

  “I think Rampant, Vol. 1 is my favourite book in the series.”

  —Prism Book Alliance

  Bound, Vol. 2

  “As usual, Amy Lane blew my socks off with this story and left me in a huge book hangover because there simply isn’t other books out there written like hers.”

  —Inked Rainbow Reads

  Amy Lane lives in a crumbling crapmansion with a couple of growing children, a passel of furbabies, and a bemused spouse. She’s been a finalist in the RITAs™ twice, has won honorable mention for an Indiefab, and has a couple of Rainbow Awards to her name. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action-adventure mov
ies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and gay romance—and if you accidentally make eye contact, she’ll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She’ll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.

  Website: www.greenshill.com

  Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com

  Email: amylane@greenshill.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167

  Twitter: @amymaclane

  By Amy Lane

  ALL THAT HEAVEN WILL ALLOW

  All the Rules of Heaven

  GREEN’S HILL

  The Green’s Hill Novellas

  Green’s Hill Werewolves, Vol. 1

  Green’s Hill Werewolves, Vol. 2

  LITTLE GODDESS

  Vulnerable

  Wounded, Vol. 1

  Wounded, Vol. 2

  Bound, Vol. 1

  Bound, Vol. 2

  Rampant, Vol. 1

  Rampant, Vol. 2

  Quickening, Vol. 1

  Quickening, Vol. 2

  Published by DSP Publications

  www.dsppublications.com

  Published by

  DSP Publications

  5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA

  www.dsppublications.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.