Falling Hard Ch. 14

He put aside the computer and talked and ate with her. Mandi couldn't help but be captivated by those sky blue eyes. But it wasn't a bad thing like when Heath looked at her. She trusted Mick for some reason.

And she could listen to him talk the whole night. His voice was beautiful, almost hypnotic. As long as she could gaze into his eyes and listen to his voice, he could be talking about computers, codes, ancient history, whatever, and she would be captivated and content.

To her surprise, he started asking her questions about herself. This surprised her, because she doubted he would find anything about her interesting. She was just a human, after all, and she already knew he thought so little of her kind. But he apparently wanted to know everything about her, and he seemed to give her his full attention.

"I must seem really boring to you," she said, averting her eyes after she'd finished telling him about her job.

"Not at all." He sounded sincere. "Humans aren't so bad once you get to know them personally."

She saw his teasing smile and gave him one back.

"I really am sorry about earlier," he said, looking down at the table. "I shouldn't have forced my way in, I shouldn't have been a jackass. I shouldn't have looked down on you. I wasn't even seeing you as a...a..."

"No, I understand," she said with a sigh. "I guess I must seem like a... a lab rat or something to you. A pet, maybe?"

His looked up, shaking his head angrily. "No, no, that's not it," he sounded disgusted. "Not even close."

He caught her with those cerulean blue eyes and she thought she could detect sincerity there. "It's my fault you think like that," he said. "My attitude... I'm sorry I made a bad first impression. You're not like a lab rat to me, I promise."

"I don't know. But thanks for denying it." She wasn't mad at him, that was for sure. "So you DO care what a human thinks about you?"

"Yeah, I guess I do." He smiled. "I care what YOU think about me, Mandi. Virta trusts you and cares about you. So do I."

He looked back to his monitor, and she felt released from his eyes.

"You really seem to know what you're doing there. I don't even recognize the language you're typing."

"How many languages do you know, Mandi?"

Now she felt embarrassed. "I wasn't a great student. I just know English. Oh, and a little bit of Spanish."

He caught her in the net of his gaze once again. He spoke passionately in his liquid-smooth voice:

"Porque tuve hambre, y me disteis de comer; tuve sed, y me disteis de beber; fui forastero, y me recibisteis..."

She didn't have the faintest idea what he said, but she loved how he said it.

"Si?," she answered shyly. Then she laughed. "I'm sorry. What did you say? It wasn't dirty, was it?"

He looked quizzically up at her. "Dirty? No. I was just expressing my appreciation for what a good human being you are."

"Oh. So how many languages do you speak?"

"Not that many, really. Maybe 10,000 languages, but they come from all over the Universe and time. I was wanting to learn more, but getting kicked out of Heaven, well, that probably means no more classes for me."

"Oh," was all Mandi could say. Her head was spinning. She didn't say anything else for a while. She felt too insignificant and well, stupid, in his presence. He shouldn't be bothered by her silly questions.

There was a long silence while he worked on his computer. She was sorry that he'd stopped talking, acutely aware of the silence. She missed his mesmerizing voice. Unable to hold back any longer, she opened her mouth to start conversation, but the wrong thing came out:

"How does it feel to be a brand new demon?" she asked. Shit. It was too late to take it back.

He didn't answer. He closed the lid to the laptop, a little hard, she thought. She looked up. He was looking down, his face a mixture of anger and sadness. He was actually fidgeting in his chair. Darn, why had she brought that up?

"This is my worst nightmare come true," he confessed, finally looking up at her. His hand on the table was shaking.

She reached across the small table and took his hand. Those hands had killed for her tonight. She brushed that thought away and looked back at his eyes, those pools of blue where she could drift forever.

"Don't be afraid," she said.

He smiled faintly. "That's supposed to be my line."

She laughed.

He sighed but kept ahold of her hand. "This feels nice," he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. She squeezed back.

"You don't have to talk about it. Unless you want to."

He seemed like he did want to talk about it, though.

"Nothing was supposed to go this way," he began. "Me and the others, Flash, Carol... we'd been working for years gathering intel against Banner. I knew Virta was going to be sent to Earth. And that's when we decided to confront the General. I knew it was safer for her down here, rather than up there when it all went down."

He was silent for a moment, and Mandi just watched him. She gently caressed his hand with hers.

"Oh god, I was so worried about Virta," he mumbled. When he opened his eyes, it looked like he was trying to hold back tears.

"Why were you so worried about her?"

"The General had me watching her since she was created. I was supposed to report any missteps she made. But he figured he couldn't trust me to report accurately against her. I was biased. So he recruited some others, like Flash and Carol. But they worked with me. They only periodically reported on her, just enough to keep suspicion down."

He took another drink of water.

"It was all driving me crazy for the last 2,000 years. I was responsible for her."

"Why?"

"Because... I made her."

"What? What does that mean, exactly?"

"I was assigned at one time to create code for new angels. They're always tinkering with the design in some way. Always changing something or another... making them more refined... less of this, more of that." Mick was rubbing his forehead, staring beyond Mandi's shoulder as though seeing something off in the distance.

"Anyway, I slipped in this code when her batch was processed. It was experimental. Something I was proud of. She was the first one to go through the line. After her, they shut down the line. There were problems. They were going to scrap her. They thought there was a mistake in the program. Her batch was compromised. She wasn't even assigned a serial number. They were that sure she'd be destroyed quick enough."

"Oh my God."

"I wouldn't let them destroy her for my sake. So, they said I had to be responsible for her. I grew to really care about her. I did everything I could to keep her out of trouble." A hysterical laugh came from his throat. "I had my hands full with her."

"I thought I could tame her, get her into school, and she'd be happy with Office life. They thought there might come a use for her someday. I guess they saw their opportunity when Athan noticed her - they thought she would bring him down."

"Oh god. So they must be really mad at her now. They're a couple!" Mandi ran her fingers through her long, dark hair.

"Has she told you what they did to her up there?"

"No. What happened?"

"The torture. I couldn't stop them. She would have been killed or worse. So as much as I hated what they were doing to her... it was the lesser of two evils."

"Does Virta know about any of this? Does she know you... made her?"

Mick shook his head. "I'm going to tell her everything when I see her. I can't keep it from her any longer."

"You have to stay on Earth though, right? You'll always be on the run? What will you do?"

He looked up. "I don't know." Was that fear that passed over his features?

He pulled away to rest his head in both his hands.

"Excuse me, my nerves are still shaky."

She got up and put an arm around him. "No wonder. All that's happened. And then you killed an angel tonight."

"Demon," he said. Then he sighed. "Oh, I'm just splitting hairs here."

"You've been through a lot."

He looked up at her. "So have you. I don't know how you haven't broken down under what you've gone through tonight. You're a strong human."

"Thanks. To be honest, I don't think it's all sunk in yet."

She began to massage his firm, muscular shoulders.

"Oh God, that feels good," he muttered.

She thought of how good it felt to have her hands on him. "I'll be right back," she said.

Mandi went into the bedroom and returned, having taken off the shirt she'd put on after her shower. She was wearing a camisole.

"Your tattoos," Mick said, as he stared at her chest.

She looked down, then back at him, and smiled.

"Those are exactly like Virta's," he whispered.

"But Virta doesn't have tattoos. I would have seen them. I saw pretty much... everything."

Mick's face reddened. "No, I mean when she was in Heaven. Before they..." He turned his gaze from Mandi's body.

She saw him try to discreetly adjust the front of his pants. His face was glowing and he didn't make eye contact. "I'm feeling... I have parts I'm not used to, and I think they're reacting to... to..."

What would he do if I touched him? she wondered, her eyes moving across his groin.

She glanced up to find he was following her gaze. His eyes were like a dusky sky.

Mandi stood up and resumed rubbing and massaging his back and shoulders. She heard his groans of pleasure.

"That feels so good. It's like I can feel the tension from the day just melting away."

She smiled over his ear. "I know what else will relieve the tension."

"Yeah?"

"Well, for starters, I have this bottle of excellent champagne..."

* * *

Athan did a double take, his eyes widening, and he pushed back from the table. She heard a sharp intake of his breath. He stared at the relic for a moment, then back to her.

"I had two. One for Heath, and one for..." Virta struggled to say something that hurt so much, "... one for you, too."

He let out the breath he must have been holding. Then he picked up the relic, still not saying anything.

"Rose visited me today."

She saw his hand clench into a tight fist around the object. She dared to look into those eyes that were erupting with hate at the mere mention of the other woman.

"Oh?" he finally said. He dropped the relic back onto the table. "Is this a set-up?"

"If I wanted to capture you... you'd already be captured."

She saw the grin spread over his face, and his hard, black eyes twinkled and softened.

"By the way, she put that thing on me."

"What?"

"Just for like, ten seconds. It was horrible. I just want you to know, I know what it's like. Thankfully she didn't torture me or anything. I guess in her own sick way, she thought she was proving that I could trust her."

"Damn that bitch."

Virta took a deep breath and said all at once: "She wanted me to help her bring you to the General with that thing. She's been waiting to get her revenge on you for ruining her plans before. Now, she claims she'll be reinstated and given her heart's desire."

Virta let out a breath of air. "Anyway, I just wanted you to know everything right up front. No secrets."

He nodded. "No secrets."

She leaned toward him, the relic glimmering on the table between them, as he reached for her hand, and told her everything.

When he got up to refill her coffee, she said, "There's something else. Something Rose and the General are doing to umm, motivate me to go along with their plan. The General says he's going to Banish my best friend, Mick. He'll be sent to the Mines and then to Hell."

"Oh, Mick's already on Earth. I thought you would have talked to him already."

"Oh my god, no, this is the first I've heard of it. When?"

"I haven't known that long. He was very much under the radar with it. Barely a blip on the screen, but we saw it."

"Shit. Did the General do this to him because of me?"

Just then, Athan's cell phone rang. She barely heard anything he said into the phone, as she worried over the news that Mick was on Earth.

"There's a problem in the ranks that I have to take care of," he said to her, flipping the phone shut. "Did you see Mandi today?"

"I was worried about her, but didn't know where to find her. She wasn't home, she wasn't at the club."

"Heath escaped."

"Oh shit. I'm going to her place right now. Heath might be hurting her, or worse."

"Heath is dead."

"What?"

"He was found ripped up in an alley not that far from your place."

"I'm going to Mandi's NOW. I've got to make sure she's OK."

Athan stood up. "I'm going to go check on some things and I'll meet you in a little bit."

"Where?"

"I'll find you." He winked.

He leaned down and kissed her. Her head was swimming. "I can't wait to be with you," she whispered.

"Soon. Very soon," he said. She could feel his hardness against her body.

Virta raced to Mandi's place.

She put her ear to the door. She definitely heard voices, a man and a woman. Virta knocked, then she tried to open the door.

She heard footsteps. The door was unlocked. Mick opened it.

Her best friend was standing there, looking very much the same as he did in Heaven, only now, he was human too, with human parts. Her mouth gaped as she took it all in, from his mussed dark hair, to those twinkling blue eyes, and down his long, lean body. And the outline of his cock in the boxers he was wearing.

She couldn't take her eyes off of it. "Y-you have a... a..."

Then it hit her, something else about him.

He was a demon.

She looked into his eyes, the same ones that were as blue as a diaphenous sky. Oh god. What had he done to Mandi? He was getting his revenge on Virta through her? No, that couldn't be.

"Mick," she said. She looked beyond him and saw Mandi on the bed, apparently naked with a sheet pulled over her.

"Is that the pizza?" Mandi called.

"Mick? My god, you're a demon!"

Mick looked down, one hand supporting himself on the door frame, the other holding onto the door. He sighed, and his head jerked as he looked back up at her, a disgusted look on his face.

"Would everyone quit calling me that? I prefer -" suddenly, he looked at Virta as if seeing her for the first time. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

"Virta, you're still a Heavenly angel! You haven't Fallen. Why?"

She rolled her eyes. "Just in name only. I haven't made it official, I guess. But god, I can't believe this. You're a Fallen angel. First. You've already had sex. First. Christ, you beat me at everything!"

They looked at each other for a moment and then both of them burst out laughing.

"Virta, babe, are you trying to steal my boyfriend again?" Mandi suddenly appeared in the doorway with Mick, one eyebrow cocked, a grin on her face.

Virta couldn't draw her eyes away from the tattoos on Mandi's chest.

"Hardly. I just wanted to check up on you, Mandi, make sure you were OK."

"Heath is dead."

"Oh?"

"Mick here killed him."

"I, er, finished him off," Mick said, pulling on his black trousers.

"Oh, that's good news, Mick." Virta's arms flew around her best friend, nearly throwing him off balance. "It's so good to see you. You make a good-looking demon." She grinned.

"I guess I'm just going to have to get used to being called a demon." He rolled his eyes, which were full of mirth.

"You're a sexy demon," Mandi said.

Virta pulled Mandi aside.

"Please take care of him, Mandi," she said, suddenly feeling protective of her new Earth friend. "I mean, he's vulnerable, he's helpless down here in some ways."

"What are you trying to say? You think I'm just going to have my fun and drop him?"

"No, Mandi, I-"

"The truth is, he and I talked about this already... we both know it can't work out between us. He's supernatural. He's not gonna get older or die. Me, on the other hand. I can't become an angel."

Virta saw the sadness in Mandi's eyes. "I'm so sorry, Mandi."

"I'm trying not to think about it. Just trying to enjoy the moment with him."

"I'm so glad he was there for you, in the alley tonight. And that you were there for him."

"Oh god, me too."

Virta walked back to where Mick was still leaning against the door.

"Mick, what will you do?"

"I don't know, Virta. Just avoid getting caught, I hope." He leaned down and fished something out of the messenger bag. " I have something for you, for Athan. The General is going to have people searching high and low for me. I was on my way to the Mines when I got away."

"Oh, you must hate me, Mick. It's all my fault."

"No, none of it is your fault. Don't you ever think that. I have some important things to tell you, Virta. Why don't you sit down?"

* * *

Virta raced to her apartment with too many thoughts running through her head. Mick had told her what happened in Heaven, with the General. She couldn't believe Flash and Carol were really gone. It was hard to take in that Mick was nearly sent to the Mines. It hurt at first that he and the others had been basically spying on her, but she understood it now.

And the most amazing thing... Mick was the one who essentially made her. Her heart was bursting with emotion. And she needed to see the one person who could help her put it all in perspective. Her body needed him even more. She hoped to god that Athan found her soon. She wanted him in bed. Now.

She ran right past him.

He was leaning up against the wall of the building. Virta stopped and walked back.

"I almost didn't see you there in the shadows."

She put her arms around him. He lifted her up against him in a sensual hug.

"Are you ready to go to my place?"

"Yes."

He held out his large hand and she placed hers inside. Together, they walked and she told him about Mick, about her own creation.

Suddenly, he was pulling her through the wall, into his new home. It was set up much like the one before, even the big leather sofa was there.

He led her through the room, down the hall, and into his bedroom. His large bed was taking up most of the space, just as before.

Athan pulled her into a kiss, and she raised up on her tiptoes, her arms winding around his neck, pulling him in even deeper. Athan began to walk her backwards toward the bed, still locked in the embrace.

They fell onto the bed.

---

Thanks, Readers, for the feedback. I am including a little extra info on the story in my profile, for those who are interested.

Sexay times are coming for Athan and Virta in Ch. 15! Finally! :)