Duke

"So..." Azrael said as soon as we were back at the farm, back to our room and Noah was fast asleep in his room. "Fiance?"

I turned to him, unable to hold back my smile.

Fiance.

And to think I never thought I'd ever have a boyfriend and all of a sudden I didn't just have one, I had a fiance. And soon...a husband.

How had I gotten so lucky in my misfortune? When had the Fates decided I deserved some reprieve, some happiness, some joy?

"So…what, fiance?" I asked and took his hands.

He pulled me into a hug and our chest crashed together, knocking me completely and utterly breathless.

I didn't think there would ever be a time when I wouldn't feel that way with him.

And you would too. Azrael is literally the perfect man. No ifs, no buts.

Maybe some butts.

"How do you feel?" he whispered in my ear, the ghost of his words sending goosebumps all down my spine.

"I feel..." I started but when his lips were so gorgeous and inviting and in my face I couldn't talk. I had to kiss them. Again. And again. And again. "This is the best day of my life."

"I'm glad," he said, touching his forehead to mine and giving my hands an extra squeeze. "I promise to make each day better than the last for you until I draw my last breath."

It was my own breath that hitched at those words, at the way they reverberated through me as if I'd been granted a new soul, a new life.

I moaned and freed my hands so I could explore his face, so that I could presse him on me, so that I could stroke his hair.

"Are you sure? That's a pretty high standard you're setting for yourself," I mumbled, kissing him all over, mouth, nose, cheeks, eyes, anywhere and everywhere I could reach.

"Uh-huh. Very sure," he replied, closing his eyes and leaning into each kiss I planted on him. "It'll be easy. As easy as...loving you."

I stopped and stared at him.

"Are you saying I'm a cheap date?"

Azrael grimaced and I gave him a moment to realize what he'd said and once he did, his face dropped.

"Oh my God. That's not what I meant," he started but I'd already forgotten all that.

There was nothing he could say to me anymore that would make me step away from him. Nothing that could ever make me hate him.

Azrael was it for me. How lucky had I been to have had true love, lose it and still find true love again? Some people weren't lucky to find true love once and here I was having found it twice.

"I know, silly man. I know." I pulled him back into our kiss and as if reinvigorated by my reassurance and my need for him, he took a deep breath and slipped his tongue into my mouth with passion.

It knocked me off balance but even when I fell back in our bed, I wasn't scared, because I knew no matter what happened from now on, he'd always catch me. And I would always catch him. Forever and ever like some sort of fabled lovers or an epic romance from which constellations, whole galaxies were named.

"I love you," he said, mounting me, touching me in every place, every way a man could be touched that could drive him to absolution.

"Shut...up...I love you...more," I said in between kisses.

His fingers found the hem of my shirt and he pulled it off me just as I started unbuttoning his jeans. We'd never been so hungry for each other. So rushed and desperate to be together and I'd be damned if it didn't make my cock pulse with my need for him.

Naturally, it wasn't long before we were both naked on top of the covers, our breaths, heartbeats, our gazes in sync. Until Azrael stopped, sat up and stared at me with those beautiful eyes of his that had the power to compel me to do anything and licked his lips.

"What?" I asked.

His chest rose and when he exhaled his smile wavered for a second.

"I...I think it's time," he said.

"Time for what?"

He looked down to my chest, my stomach, my cock and bit his lower lip.

"Time for you to make love to me."

I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he meant when I realized.

"You want me to fuck you?"

He shook his head.

"No. I don't want you to do anything of the sort. I...I want you to claim me. To make love to me. To make me one with you."

Well...fuck. If I hadn't been hard before...

"Ar...are you sure?" I asked.

We hadn't switched since we'd got together, partly because my tool wasn't fully functioning due to all the drugs, but also because I didn't want to push Azrael to do something he wasn't ready for.

"Yes. Of course I'm sure, baby." He lowered himself over me again and peppered kisses on my mouth and my chin. "I just didn't want to put extra pressure on you while you were still on chemo."

Chemo. It felt like forever ago since I'd started it but now, hopefully, I could put it well, truly behind me. For good. If I never saw the inside of a hospital again I wouldn't be sad about it.

"If you don't want to or it's too soon—" he started.

"No. I want to," I said. "I want to f—make love to you. Trust me, I want it more than anything."

Azrael smiled and gave me one last kiss before he reached for the bedside drawer and pulled out a bottle of lube—and yes, we still had a whole supply of them due to his overexcitement before our first time. I imagined it would last us for five years at this rate—and a condom.

He ripped the condom up but before he put it on me I grabbed his hand.

"How...how about we don't?" I asked. "If you want, I mean. You know I've never been with anyone but you and we've been exclusive now for so long..."

Azrael smirked and dropped the condom on the floor, grabbed the lube, slathered me in it and positioned himself on top of me.

As he drove my cock to his tight pink muscle I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't function. I was a statue. Literally. And to think all this time my erections had been laughable at best. As if this day could get any better.

His groans coursed through me, a rumble that awakened all the parts of me that hadn't been fully awake yet due to so many years of celibacy, due to so many months of chemo, due to everything wild that had happened to me in life. Not only did it awaken them, it blasted them to life, making sure I was fully aware of their presence.

All I could do was sit still and watch Azrael, his face stretching this way and that, trying to breathe through the pain while also being thirsty for more, for faster, harder.

Seeing him how much he wanted to be fucked by me, how much he needed me as I needed him only made me harder and more desperate for release but I wasn't a fledgling anymore. I wasn't so easy to bust even though I had a literal Filipino god in my bed every day. My Apolaki. The Filipino god of light and war. A perfect description of everything he was. A whole sun in and of himself, not just a ray, but also a true warrior that would go to the ends of the Earth for those he loved.

"Oh my...goodness." He fully sat on me, taking in all of me as if he'd been doing it for years and I fisted the sheets under me to hold back everything that threatened to spill. My tears, my love, my cum. All of it.

Something passed through me. An energy. A feeling. This kind of maturity that gave me confidence. The confidence to grab my fiance, push him down next to me and make love to him.

I thrusted in and out of him as if I'd had practice. As if I was one of those pornstars I'd been jerking off to until I met him. As if I was a sex god and he my faithful disciple.

I probably should stop equating us to gods if I was going to convert to Christianity. Or initiated back into it or whatever. I was pretty sure I couldn't be baptized twice but I'd have to ask Antonia about that. After all, she was going to marry us. Religion was an important part of who Azrael was and I wasn’t going to deny him that.

Besides, God may have played a little part in saving me all those months ago when Penny and I almost died. Becoming a Christian was the least I could do.

"Baby," Azrael cried and I couldn't resist his pleas anymore.

I lowered myself to his mouth and kissed him with all my might as I fucked him fast and good, like all the times he'd done that to me. All the times he'd taken care of me in a similar manner.

"Angh, fuck. Yeah, baby," he moaned. "Don't stop. Don't..." He let out a loud growl and when I looked down I caught him painting his chest white without touching himself and that about did it for me.

I grabbed him by the jaw, pushed my tongue into his mouth and let loose inside of him.

Absolution had never felt so good.

"We're doing that again," I panted.

Azrael bit my lip and that threatened to make me hard again.

"Over and over until the day we die," he whispered.

I nodded and kissed him and stroked him and tasted him and fucked him again all the way into the morning and I didn't care if I was going to drag my feet the following day. He was worth it.

"Best birthday ever," I told him when we were finally so spent we couldn't keep our eyes open.

"Best future husband ever," he said and that was how we fell asleep.

In each other's arms, exhausted but smiling even in our dreams.

From now on there would only be smiles, love and laughter in our lives. And good health.

Always and forever.