Michael interrupts Becca's bath, a conversation ensues that leaves Becca hopeful for more. Rated T for reasons. Implied future Becca/Michael. Becca's POV.

Always Lusting

There was no knock before the door to my private bath opened. I turned in the water, expecting my mother and one of her tirades about the Senate. I stood up in the lavish white fiberglass tub, surrounded by the black granite tiles that encompassed much of the space was Michael. He stood framed in the doorway.

"Miss Thorne," he bowed his head a little in greeting before stepping into the room. I was stunned silent as he dismissed the two women that stood guard by me, "Wait outside."

I slipped back down into the water as my grip on the situation tightened, "Michael." I wasn't annoyed with him for coming at such a vulnerable moment for me as my exhilaration at seeing him was tainting every thought flowing into my head.

"I apologize for intruding," Michael's voice was just as it was when I heard it the last time: deep, husky, and void of intonation. It was a voice that often invaded my dreams and disturbed my sleep. He walked to stand in the center of the room directly in front of me. He kept what one might call an appropriate distance. If one even exists for such a situation.

"So why are you then?" I sounded more hostile than I meant. I always seemed to do that when speaking to Michael, he managed to get under my skin in a way no other man ever had. All without a single touch. Merely words.

He smirked, I swear that he did, if only for a split-second, "Your mother informed me that you were…displeased, with the appointment of your protection detail from the Archangel Corps."

"Annoyed is a better word for it," I said, leaning back into my soak, groaning a bit as the hot water washed over my shoulders again.

When I opened my eyes again Michael's face was decidedly blank, even for him. "May I inquire as to why?" he said.

"Only if I may inquire into your reasoning at assigning twice the amount of personal guards to me as you have everyone else." He seemed almost surprised at my outburst. Damn his eyebrow expressions. The entire point of a hot bath was to relieve tension in your body and I could feel my shoulders tightening with each second.

"Two guards seemed appropriate, given the risks that you take, a doctor, working around the lower castes at odd hours."

Are angels allowed to be that impertinent?

"And the blatantly obvious lack of men in the rotation?"

My annoyance appeared to have no effect on Michael's own state.

He was practically mocking me now, "I made the assumption that you would prefer the presence of women. For propriety."

"Do you have an answer for everything?" I questioned, standing once more in the heat of my anger. He ceased arguing with me, his eyes swept over my body before he turned his head to look away.

That was when it struck me. The possibility that Michael could see me in even close to the way I saw him. I had assumed he was above it all, above the temptations that plagued humans and now the lower angels. But his eyes had looked at me, piercing my body with a gaze that warmed me from the inside out. Fascinating.

Michael turned as if to leave, "I stand by my decision Miss Thorne, I do hope you understand." He was leaving.

My mind kicked started in to overdrive – thinking, plotting, praying – I wanted him to stay. I had questions. Curiosities.

"Do angels feel?" I spoke without hesitation, not really expecting an answer. He paused, this stone-like archangel in front of me, "Do they feel as we do? Like humans?"

Michael turned to face me again, tilting his head in the slightest expression of confusion, "Of course. In many ways we feel more strongly than humans, deeper even."

I smiled to myself, looking down at the water of my bath to hide my amusement, "A bit like Vulcans?" There was a twitch of his lips, the smallest of smiles.

"I suppose if a metaphor is necessary that would do," Michael nodded his head forward in my direction as he moved closer to the steps of the tub.

Rising in the water I folded my arms over the top step and laid my head there. Michael gracefully descended to sit beside me. I was looking up at him, "And what did you feel the most, when you were in heaven?"

"I was happy. Surrounded by my brothers and sisters, watching over mankind, listening to my father's words," Michael's voice held little implication to his thoughts or emotions, but it always lingered in my ear like a husky moan. He looked at me, "And like most angels I felt desire, a sort of lust, for a body. While I deplore their actions, I can understand the lower angels in their desperation."

"But you have a body, you didn't take one when you came, you had it before," I was pleased with myself, not even Riesen could keep Michael from leaving a room when he wanted to.

He looked almost sad as his gaze shifted from my face to the water behind me, "I have this body only because I fell from heaven. I disobeyed my father's orders."

I wanted to reach out, to comfort him, but I knew such an action would remind him of his earlier departure. So instead I swung our conversation back on course, "Why would they want a body? They were in Heaven, how could having a body compare to that?"

"Because despite experiencing emotions, we could not physically feel. We cannot touch in heaven, or be touched," He paused, gaze returning to my eyes, "Imagine being so close to a person, being able to know all of their movements, all of their thoughts, but never being able to touch them."

I couldn't imagine it. It sounded almost mocking, like a punishment. "Lonely," I said, and he nodded once more.

Michael's right hand moved to my cheek, brushing aside the strands of my hair that had escaped my bun. It cupped my face, fingers feathering across my skin. I gasped out when he pulled away. Practically whimpering at the lack of his warm palm.

Without realizing I had leaned closer to him, "Touch is one of the greatest pleasures of this world, Miss Thorne, and it was forbidden to angels of all levels." He made no mention of my blushing face before standing.

My breaths were oddly short and my breasts cold, now exposed to the air of the room. His eyes remained on me as he stepped away from the tub. There was a darkness in his gaze. I watched him as he watched me, neither of us speaking until I whispered. "And now?" His eyebrow perked up curiously, "What do you feel now, Michael?"

"Worry. Fear. Anger." Michael listed his emotions like he was reciting a grocery list. Then his eyes met mine implicitly, "And lust."

I smiled at him, "I guess you're always lusting after something. How human of you."

"I suppose that's true," Michael smiled back at me, looking openly amused for once, "Always after something that is forbidden to me."

He nodded, bowing almost, before turning to leave once more.

"Michael," he paused, but didn't turn around, "We're the way we are because we strive for the things that are forbidden to us. Fruits and all."

A turn of his head, an indecipherable look, and he was walking away again, "Have a nice bath, Miss Thorne."

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