34 - There dwells a spirit, waiting to be released

Merlyn felt the hands release him and turned as he had at the club to look at the man—or god perhaps. And as had happened then, there was no one behind him. “He’s got to stop doing that,” he grumbled before breaking into a smile that lit up his face. “You’re mine, forever, just as you are now.”

Alan’s smile matched his. “I am, if you’ll have me.”

“Always.” Embracing Alan, Merlyn kissed him gently. And then again with rising passion. Suddenly he broke away to look at him. “The roses, they were from him?”

“Yes, a message for me. Not that I needed it. I was supposed to find them before you,” Alan snickered softly, “before you woke up with what I presume was the hangover from hell. The problem was, it was the first time I was actually human and, well it took a bit of getting used to. He told me to go down and take a look at you. By the time I got to the top of the stairs you were coming to. I saw the roses and later I heard you when you read the message.”

“And you wondered if you really wanted to choose me considering I was hardly in the best of shape right then.”

“Choosing you was a no-brainer, I’d already done that.”

“Even though you were a statue you could do that?”

“Yes.” Alan smiled. “Even then I knew I loved you.” He tapped his chest. “Somewhere deep inside was all the passion that you invoked when you made me. That allowed me to feel—or he did. I suppose we’ll never know which. But from the moment you finished I knew that you were all that I wanted but couldn’t have—ever.”

“Apparently you were wrong about that,” Merlyn told him, kissing him softly. “You have me now, and I have you. We have each other and by all that’s holy,” he glanced over his shoulder for a second to where the god had stood, hoping he wasn’t tempting fate, “nothing and no one will keep us apart.”

“Will you two stop taking this to death,” a deep voice growled, “and seal your union. Merlyn, you are decidedly over-dressed.”

“Oh hell, I hope he’s not going to be doing that often,” Merlyn muttered.

Alan laughed happily as he reached for Merlyn’s shirt, pulling it off over his head. “Even if he’s watching that’s not going to stop me. You and I, my love, are going to do exactly what he ordered and seal our union as he put it. Several times if I have my way. Here, at home, maybe on the way home as far as that goes.”

“I think I can handle that, even at my age.” Merlyn grinned, embracing Alan the moment he was as naked as his lover.

And he did handle it. Several times in fact.

The End