The Sinner

“As you wish,” he said softly, and I felt his lips on mine in a last gentle kiss. “I will give you us. Li’ili, my beloved.”

I floated down to sleep and journeyed backward at the same time. Thousands of years to the mud-brick house that is filled with guests come to celebrate. It’s dusk. The lamps are lit and she

wears her thick black hair piled on her head, and a dress decorated in gold and blue. Her eyes are lined in kohl and more gold and lapis lazuli glint from a circlet on her brow. The groom steps forward. He is wearing a kilt of leather, his jerkin decorated with gold coins. He lays a heavy necklace around his bride’s neck. When he reaches around to fasten it, their eyes lock; they see no one but each other.

He places a veil on his bride’s head and pours a few drops of scented oils over it. Behind the veil, her eyes glitter with tears.

“This is my wife,” he announces to those assembled.

A great cheer goes up in the front room of the house. Her father—the high priest of Utu—smiles and nods knowingly. Men make lewd jokes. Women nudge the bride and whisper the hope that her new husband’s axe has sufficient weight and heft to it, now that she’s allowed to handle it.

Carried on this tide of lascivious merrymaking, the bride and groom lock hands and hurry upstairs to the bedchamber. A wedding bed of fresh rushes under soft sheepskin awaits. Laughing but with urgency fueling them, they strip each other naked and kneel on the bed, facing each other.

His fierce expression of want softens as he takes her face in both hands. His eyes roam, taking in every detail of her body. Under his armor, he’s as magnificent as she suspected, proudly bearing the scars of battle. She cranes for his kiss, lips parted, breath hot. But he waits, draws out the moment. One by one, he removes the delicate hair clips of lapis and carnelian. Long ribbons of

thick black hair pour down her bare back.

Her lips reach for his, restrained by his strong hand.

“Take me, my love. My husband. I’m yours,” she whimpers. Begs. “Spill your seed inside me and I will give you sons. Fine, healthy sons. Strong, like their father.”

He grips her neck, moved by emotion and barely constrained desire. “How have I earned the gods favor, to be blessed with a woman like you?”

She shakes her head. “We cannot know the gods’ will. Just love me, Casziel. Love me as I love you…”

“I will never stop.”

She moves onto his lap, and he kisses her and thrusts deep, breaking her boundary with rough need. A cry rises to her lips, but he drinks it down and thrusts again. Taking her completely. Conquering her. She surrenders and is victorious at the same time. Her hands clutch his shoulders, nails digging into his skin, and she rides him fearlessly. The fire between them burns hot in every heated gaze, in every scorching kiss. Bodies move, bronzed skin sweat slicked in the torchlight. Her hair clings to her back; his hands are tangled in it as she comes down onto him. As he drives up into her.

Their love is raw and rough but deep, sinking into the marrow of their bones now that they can finally share their bodies. His devotion to her is complete. Her desire is for him and no one else. They are perfect in their love—Casziel and his wife. They move and breathe and touch as one. One soul in two bodies.

Their movements become more frenetic, more urgent as they drive each other toward bliss. He is darkly beautiful in his lust and tenderness. His animal need and his reverence. He fucks her as he loves her. And she

She is me.

The thought—the truth—nearly jars me from the dream or vision, but I fight to stay so that it can flood me completely. Centuries of dammed up love finally breaking free. Somewhere I hear my gasp, as my love for Casziel is all I know or feel. It ceases to hover at the edges of my awareness or reverberate down the long corridors of time like a mournful echo. It’s real and restored to me in all its potent ferocity.

Tears blur the scene before me, but I blink them back. I don’t want to miss anything. I want everything. Every touch, every sigh…

No more watching. Somehow, I will it to happen and I become her. I am

me and he’s inside me—huge and stretching. He holds me tightly, protectively, his mouth taking mine, breathing his love into me. Sweat, sex, and the perfume in my hair hang heavy in the air. The scent of his skin, salty and spiced, fills my nose and I want to lick him and bite him, consume him completely.

The pain of our joining is still raw, but I want that too. I want to feel where he marked me. Where he took me for the first time. I’m filled with her fearlessness, her courage. But then, those were always mine, I’d just lost them for a while. Lost myself. Now I’m restored too.

I reach down between us, my fingertips running over his slick cock that is moving in and out of me.

“My warrior.” I draw my finger down one cheek, then the other, my blood his war paint.

His breath catches then releases, like a gust of wind that stokes the fire higher. His hands are exquisitely painful, digging into my hips as his thrusting cock drives deeper and harder. I ride him just as ferociously, taking him to a peak as he takes me to the edge and over. I feel the pleasure in every part of me, erasing all pain. It consumes me until I’m delirious and crying out his name. Because there is nothing but him. My world, in memory and reality, is only Casziel.

And there is nothing for him but me. I see it in the fire burning in his eyes. I feel it in his hands that grip me and hold me tight to him. I feel it in the thunderous beat of his heart against mine, one answering the other.

He comes in me, grunting, his release hot and thick. I’m wrapped around him so tightly, sealing us together so there is no separation. For long moments, there is only the slowing of our rocking hips and our gusting breaths. At last, we’re still. I remain impaled on him, not wanting to feel his absence.

Never again…

“Beloved.” His voice is ripe with concern as he brushes strands of my hair that are stuck to my cheeks by sweat and tears. “I hurt you…”