Satin skin, paper thin in its luminescence, taunts fingers as they dance their way across her warm cheek. Eyes study her beauty, taking every detail as though it were the first image to ever be seen, yet the last to grace the watcher's vision. The face of an angel is hers, that which sleeps amidst his attentions. She doesn't dream, her eyes are still; no ripples in her delicate eyelids betray her. An English Rose in all its beauty, its teasing scent drifts towards him, enveloping every sense while awe fills his heart and makes his soul soar.

If he could only slip beneath her skin, if he could only be truly hers forever in their absolute union, he would never need again. Slowly, tenderly, he lifts her hand to rest on his lips, and his eyes close as he tastes her sweet flesh. Nothing could taste more divine than that which lingers on his wanting lips. His head swims with her image and suddenly nothing exists but her. His skin tingles then numbs, but his fingers trace the line of her lips anyway - he won't let her go. He'll never let her go.

He carefully lays down beside her, taking care not to wake his beauty from her dreamless sleep. Dark, soft curls frame her face, and as he moves, he watches while they glide across her neck and fall to the white linen of the bed sheets. Such divinity rests beside him that it takes his breath away, and eyes and fingers dancing over her face again, he lets a tear fall. He knows, as he studies its path across her cheek, that she'll never feel the pain again. He vowed he'd take it away, and he has. He kept his promise, just as he said he would. He was always to keep his promise.

Resting his head beside hers, he lays his arm across her stomach, still holding her graceful hand as his breath washes over her. His lips brush her cheek tenderly, tasting the salty tear that fell just moments before, and his own eyes close. Her skin grows cold to his touch now, the only warmth being the rich redness that envelops them both where they lay, the clean, deep cut through to her heart no longer weeping its scarlet tears.

Her scent leaves him slowly, the sickly sweetness of the growing pool around them making him remember as he draws his own final breaths and pulls back his hand. Now he feels the pain as his memory returns; sharp and succinct is his recollection. His body sighs momentarily as the blade slips easily from his loosening grip and drops to the floor. He said he'd take the pain away.

Copyright © K Wakeman