Biker Chicks: Volume 3 Page 14

  I loved this dress, how it fit, how it felt, and how it made me look. I quickly looked around for a place to hang it while I showered so the steam could release the wrinkles as Gabriel’s note suggested. Although the joke was on her, I actually already knew that trick.

  I settled for pulling one of the bathrobes hanging on the back of the door, abandoning it by laying it across the white, country looking; porcelain pedestal sink. I used the satin hangar to hang the dress in its place and turned on the shower over the claw foot tub in the corner. The pipes shuddered and groaned about having to do their duty, but the water that poured out was clean and clear and started to gently steam after a few seconds.

  I stripped down efficiently and stepped in, pulling the curtain closed around me and let the heat work its magic on my road weary muscles.

  I shampooed my long, dark hair and the stuff provided smelled so nice, I took the time to condition it as well. It was with a little reluctance that I shut off the tap and got out. I wrapped my hair in one of the smaller towels and my body in one of the bath sheets. I dried off thoroughly before shrugging into the terrycloth bathrobe provided by the place we were staying.

  I found a hairdryer, cord neatly coiled around the handle, tucked into a distressed, country looking cabinet beside the sink. I found an outlet and plugged it in, pointing it at the mirror on the wall above the sink to clear the steam before unwrapping my hair to give it the same treatment. I brushed it out and realized just how much it’d grown out. Before it’d hung to the middle of my back. I hadn’t noticed when it’d gotten to my waist, but I liked it and whatever was in that conditioner was something of a miracle worker because it shone with health and there wasn’t a split end in sight.

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I murmured at the mirror. “Okay girl, best get to Tab’s hair before it completely dries out and you have to make him get it wet again.”

  A light tap fell at the door and Tab called out, “Adelaide, who are you talking to?”

  “Myself,” I called out. “Guess I just got used to it, I’ll be right out.”

  I heard the light rustle of cloth as Tab moved away from the door and gave an appreciative look to the dress hanging straight and perfect on the back of the door, as if it’d been pressed and not just steamed. There wasn’t a wrinkle to it and I thought to myself, that it must be some minor miracle Gabriel had worked on it. Leave it to him to waste divine power on making a fashion statement. Although it was better than unleashing one of her plagues for fun. He got way too much of a kick out of that. Almost as much of a kick as he did gender bending just to screw with people. Gabriel definitely brought a whole new meaning to ‘gender fluidity.’

  I slipped out of the bathroom after making sure my robe was tied securely and found Tab moving a kitchen chair onto a flat sheet that had been spread onto the carpet. He stopped and straightened a concerned frown marring his gorgeous features. He was model perfect. Sharp cheekbones, the slight, dark shadow of a day’s growth sweeping down to a strong jaw and sensual lips. His skin was lightly tanned, and it leant a healthy glow to what would otherwise be a complexion too pale without it.

  Dark black hair, so dark as to have blue highlights like a raven’s wing, hung over his forehead and nearly into his soft gray eyes. I loved his eyes. The gray muted, an almost silver like thick morning mist… except when they whirled that dangerous, frightening blue. I hadn’t seen that in a while, and I was okay with that.

  Tab was taller than me by a head and I had drifted close enough that I had to crane my neck back to look at him fully. He touched the side of my neck gently with his fingertips, his thumb grazing along my jaw as he took his time drinking me in with his eyes.

  I swallowed hard, the moment tenuous, and I chickened out hardcore opening my mouth and dispelling the magic of it.

  “You know if we keep going like this, we’re never going to make dinner,” I murmured, voice strained with the war going on between my heart and head. I wanted with all my heart for Tab to kiss me, to close the gap between us and place his warm lips against mine… However, I knew that Gabriel had gone to some trouble to arrange an evening for us and I didn’t want to disappoint him. He was, after all, Tab’s best friend and had even made room to call me his friend too. That was no small thing when it came to any angel.

  “I suppose you are right, we wouldn’t want to disappoint,” Tab said, smiling.

  “Sit down?” I asked and Tab nodded slowly, taking a reluctant step back and taking a seat on the kitchen chair. I swept the damp towel from my long hair and put it around him like a cape to protect his clothes before drifting over to the bedside table to pick up the kit. I unzipped it and selected a comb and proper pair of shears.

  I took my time, carefully combing his hair, sweeping it back from his face before I set to work. I was a bit rusty at it, but I managed to do right by him. It was definitely a marked improvement from the shaggy mop he’d had going on before. I walked around to the front of him but before I could clip the errant piece of hair I was after he caught my wrist. I stopped and he captured my gaze with his.

  Apparently the magic moment from earlier hadn’t completely gone, because it came back with a roaring vengeance. Tab drew me down into his lap and I folded, like a puppet who’d suddenly had her strings cut. His arms went around my waist and he settled me into his lap and before I could draw breath we were kissing.

  The scissors clattered along the back of the chair and the comb thumped to the floor as my nerveless fingers let them go. I buried my fingers in the luxurious softness of the hair at the back of his head and clung to him as his tongue passed between my lips and swept the inside of my mouth, enthusiastically met with my own.

  I moaned, a breathy thing, into his mouth and my eyes slipped shut, but not before I caught the many splendored lights of whatever mysticism angels did to travel through time and space.

  “Did you do that?” I whispered against his lips, my forehead pressed against his.

  “Of course he didn’t, I did,” a familiar voice said off to my left.

  “Way to be a total cock-blocker, Gabriel.” I said breathing slowly through my nose while I tried to get a handle on my stomach.

  When I opened my eyes it was to realize that I was dressed in the lavender silk gown, my hair dry and perfectly styled. I could feel makeup on my face, but only because I was so unused to wearing any. I met Tab’s gaze and smiled. I could tell by his expression that he was speechless and it warmed me, because the thing robbing him of speech was me.

  Of course, I was likewise taken aback. Tab’s hair was dry and perfect, too. His outfit completed by a black on black striped tie and black suit jacket. He reached up and brushed a thumb along my cheek, silver and onyx cufflinks gleaming at his wrists. He looked sharp, and so beautiful that it made my heart ache.

  “Isn’t all of this some sort of waste when it comes to your divine power?” I asked, but I couldn’t take my eyes from Tab’s to even look and see where we were.

  Gabriel chuckled, “Worried I’m going to get into trouble?”

  “A little,” I said honestly.

  “Don’t worry about it, Cupcake. You two just have a nice time.”

  I went to turn my head in the direction of Gabriel’s voice but he was already gone. The room we were in a private one. Just me, Tab, a table for two lit with two glowing candle sticks and four tastefully decorated walls with one heavy, fancy carved wooden door set into one of them.

  “Where are we?”

  “Basil’s,” Tab said as if that should explain everything.

  “That’s right, I remember Gabriel using the name but what’s Basil’s?”

  “A safe place in its neutrality. A restaurant, a bar, a club, in some ways an inn… The food is excellent.”

  “You’re tense,” I realized out loud.

  “It would not be my first choice for an evening alone with you, but Gabriel is correct that it is the best choice.”

  The door opened and someone cleared th
eir throat, Tab and I looked as one to the stately looking gentleman in the door in a tux complete with tails. I licked my lips, which suddenly felt dry when I took in his widow’s peak of black scales. He didn’t have hair, but rather shiny black scales close to his head that if you weren’t sharp you could easily mistake for a slicked back Bela Lugosi style Dracula hairdo.

  Tab’s hands drifted lower and he pressed gently at my waist, a silent signal to get up off his lap and to take my seat. I suddenly felt naked without my forty-fives and silently cussed out Gabriel in my head, using every colorful name in the book.

  “Ma’am,” the demon who was apparently serving us clicked his heels and bowed smartly in my direction before striding forward to pull out my chair opposite Tab for me.

  “Um, thank you,” I murmured and let him push me in. The only reason, the absolute certainty and love in Tab’s gray eyes as he watched my every move. All of his silent cues telling me that he was sure everything was and would be fine; even if he wasn’t precisely relaxed.

  Of course, Tab was never, ever, fully relaxed… unless it really is just you and him, I thought to myself silently.

  “What is for dinner?” Tab inquired of our waiter and the demon gave off a litany of delicious sounding things before with a click of his heels and another smart bow, he left us, the heavy door shutting tightly behind him.

  “Um, he didn’t let us choose…”

  “There is no choice in Basil’s, Addy. That is simply what is for dinner.”

  “I don’t think I could possibly eat all of that.”

  “The portions are quite correct, I assure you. I know you dislike being wasteful.”

  I swept my gaze over him but before I could say anything he murmured, “You are beautiful to me.”

  “Like it, then?” I asked and absently smoothed my hands over the clinging silk in my lap.

  “Very much.”

  “You know, I would have been just as happy with a ride to Dick’s Drive-In and dinner on the back of the bike, right?”

  He smiled, “Yes, but you deserve beautiful and nice things. Especially after your ordeal.”

  “Our ordeal, and I’d be cool if the only beautiful and nice thing I ever had to look at again was just you.”

  I had to laugh, I do believe I had just made Tabbris, soldier of God, champion of Freewill and the biggest badass I had ever known blush.

  We enjoyed the first course, a broth based soup that was both flavorful and at the same time light. It was like we found ourselves in a vacuum when it came to conversation, though. Without a need to plan everything to the last detail, no one out to try to kill us, no need to run, hide, or evade any sort of capture… Geez, we really didn’t have anything to talk about and I know I really didn’t want to talk about anything that’d happened to us. I wanted the entire thing in the side view mirrors on my shiny new Harley.

  There was one thing, I was sure I had asked before but I wanted to hear it anyways, so I asked him, “When did you know?”

  Tab looked at me sharply as the waiter cleared our soup away and refilled our water glasses. He bowed and backed from the room with his silver service tray and the silence, which was understandable when the demon was present, continued to stretch between Tab and I to the point I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, suddenly afraid of what the answer must be.

  “I want to say it was in France, when I held you as you screamed. That was when I first realized it to be true but that isn’t what you asked. You asked me when I knew.”

  “I did.”

  The moment was weighted, and he smiled to himself, “When you deviated from the plan and took off to the Oregon coast, I was angry with you. When you crashed your car evading Rahab and injured yourself, I felt concern. I realized at the temple, that the only reason I would have to be angry with you, to feel worry, would be if I cared.”

  I swallowed hard, but forced myself to meet his eyes despite the deep shame I still felt for my actions back then, at the beginning.

  “That still isn’t what I am asking, though.”

  “I’m getting there,” he said.

  “I’m not used to the long version from you.”

  “I, unfortunately, am very used to your never ending questions.”

  I laughed, “Was that a joke?” He smiled, bowing his head to chuckle. My heart melted. Tab smiling was still such a new thing and it did amazing things for him. It turned him from gorgeous to so breathtakingly beautiful I had to actually remind myself to actively keep doing it; breathe, that is.

  Tab’s smile disappeared and his gaze grew somber and I almost didn’t want to know what it was that slid behind his gray eyes, but then they did something they hadn’t done in a while. They whirled that frightening blue for a moment and he said to me, “When you fearlessly followed me into the front lines at Chernobyl, I knew. Just before the Nephilim drew me through the portal, and down into Hell I realized I needed to tell you, and so I did in the best way I could while still using my extremely limited time to tell you how best to find me – which you did.”

  “Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” I smiled in spite of myself and I couldn’t hide the tinge of sadness to it.

  Tab, of course, observant as he was commented, “I know Hell was a trial for you, I still can’t believe you came yourself…”

  I snorted, “Of course I’d follow you to Hell. After everything you’d done for me? How could I not? I mean, seriously…”

  “So Hell isn’t it… what’s wrong, then?”

  “The Nephilim…” I said and trailed off, swallowing hard.

  “Ah.” The light went on behind his eyes and he heaved a deep breath, waiting me out. I was temporarily saved by the arrival of our entre and waited until our server left the room.

  “Stop me if I’m wrong,” I said defaulting to Tab’s favorite teaching method. He seemed to like to let humans figure things out on their own and I was no exception. He nodded once for me to go on and didn’t start to eat until I did.

  “The Nephilim were the product of angels and humans having intercourse. They were, and are, giants. Monstrous too, if you ask me, but their monstrosity in and of its self was a punishment from God. Right?”

  “More or less.”

  “God was unhappy with the angels fornicating with the humans, and even after the Nephilim, he punished both sides… like really punished them.”

  “True.”

  “So what would happen if we…”

  Tab smiled and nodded, “I see your concern and while it is well founded, there are some elements to the story that I do believe were missed when passed on. Oral traditions are quite notorious for leaving out the details.”

  “I mean, it was in the bible…”

  “True enough, but the stories of the Nephilim were an oral tradition for centuries before anyone thought to record them.”

  “Fair enough, so what am I missing?”

  “For one… love.”

  “Love? But I thought that was the story, the angels fell in love with mortal women, took them as their wives and the Nephilim were born.”

  “Not precisely. During the time, a man lying with a woman was enough to make her his wife. Love had very little to do with anything. God was angry with my brethren for fornicating with the mortal women which held a slightly different connotation than what is does today. The angels lay with the human women, but it was sex without love which is what angered our Father.”

  “A marriage without love and respect isn’t a marriage at all,” I said thoughtfully.

  “Precisely.”

  “So by the standards of the day if we…”

  “Fear not, Adelaide. If the standards of then were applied to now, you and I would be safe from our Father’s wrath.”

  “Because we both love and respect one another.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  The rest of the meal passed swiftly, a weight I hadn’t realized I carried lifted from my shoulders. When dessert was done, Tab wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin in his la
p and set it to the side of his plate. He rose from his seat and with an elegant bow from a bygone era held out a hand to me. Laughing lightly, I took it and let him draw me to my feet.

  I had expected to go back to the bed and breakfast the same way we’d arrived, but apparently Tab wasn’t quite ready for the evening to end. He drew me close to him and gaze locked to mine, we swayed. I went along with it, unsure what it was he wanted from me in the beginning, but then the music started and I had to smile. I tucked my body close to his, arms around his neck even as his twined about my waist, drawing me into him. The plunging backline of the dress, less fashion statement and more to accommodate wings that I would never possess, put his hands in contact with my skin.

  I couldn’t help it. My eyes drifted shut as I relished the little touch, my back and arms breaking out in a sweep of gooseflesh. We danced, slowly, like a couple of teenagers in the slow moments of the spring formal, and it was so nice.

  I cuddled into him, and he held me sweetly and it felt safe and right. I hadn’t realized the old stories had weighed on me so much… and truthfully, even though I didn’t want children, accidents happened and there was no way I would ever do anything to harm an innocent life. It wasn’t a change from who I’d been before I had definitive proof that the divine was real. I’d never believed in abortion, but that didn’t mean I’d disbelieved in contraception like condoms or the pill.

  I wasn’t a completely awful Catholic, I just didn’t believe in going to church and followed my heart more than doctrine the older I got. Okay, okay, that made me a bad Catholic, but it didn’t make me a bad person.

  Tab’s fingertips brushed my cheek and I startled. I pulled away just enough to look Tab in the eye and he smiled gently.

  “You are thinking far too much,” he murmured.

  “It’s like I can’t turn it off anymore, you know?”

  He looked solemn and nodded, closing his eyes in an attempt to hide the regret from me, but failing pretty miserably at it. “I do,” he said gently. He opened his eyes and our swaying to the hidden music source slowed.