That was an excellent question, and one I didn’t have an answer to. “Oh, you know. It was…a favor. They did it as a favor to me.”
“A favor.” He didn’t look convinced at all, and I couldn’t blame him. “I would’ve thought that was an abuse of the system, but okay.”
Feck, I loved that he was sassy and unafraid to call me out. “It is,” I said sheepishly. “Kind of. I won’t do it again.”
Funny, but the disappointment in his eyes hit me much harder than any stern lecture from Gabriel ever had. And Gabriel could deliver some truly epic bollockings—I’d been on the receiving end of enough of them to know. He had this way of making you feel like you’d personally let down the entire heavenly host with your stupidity.
But this? This quiet disappointment from Charles, this little flicker of hurt that he tried to hide behind those blue eyes? It twisted something in my chest that I didn’t entirely recognize. I wanted him to think well of me, wanted to see approval in those expressive eyes instead of the growing skepticism that told me he was starting to figure out I was full of shite.
We were quiet for a while as I navigated to his house, acute little cottage on the outskirts of the town. I parked my car in his driveway.
“Oh crap,” Charles said, and I whipped my head around.
“What’s wrong?”
“I left my car in Poughkeepsie. You should’ve dropped me off there, but we both forgot.”
“I’ll take care of it tomorrow,” I said quickly, wanting to get in his good graces again. “Just give me your keys, and I’ll get it delivered.”
“By your…assistant?”
“Yes? I mean, yes, obviously.”
I had no clue how I was gonna pull that off without another lecture from Gabriel. Guess I’d better start actually reading his four-hundred-page training manual instead of using it as a doorstop. Either that, or I’d better get a lot better at thinking on my feet without putting my foot in my mouth every five minutes.
“Okay,” Charles said with a shocking lack of conviction. “I trust you.”
Maybe he was trying to convince himself because he sure as fuck didn’t sound confident to me. Then again, I couldn’t blame him, considering all the stupid blunders I’d made. “I promise you won’t regret that choice. I’ll keep you safe.”
At least that part of my job I excelled at. I’d never lost a client, and I had zero intention of starting now.
We got out of the car, and he walked up to the front door, fumbling with the keys for a moment before he managed to open it. “Welcome to my house. I have to warn you that?—”
I caught movement from the corner of my eye. “Your neighbor is watching.”
Charles looked in the direction of my gaze. “Oh, that’s Edna. She’s ninety-two years old and lives there with her six cats.”
Six cats? Damn. “She seems awfully curious.”
Charles rolled his eyes. “She’s the biggest gossip in town.”
Ah, perfect. “I’m gonna kiss you.”
He froze. “What?”
“If she sees us kissing, it’ll sell our cover story.”
“R-right.” He swallowed thickly, and our eyes met. “O-okay.”
His baby blues filled with something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. That was all the encouragement I needed. I wrapped my hand around his neck, angled my head, and kissed him. Charles’s plump lips were as soft and luscious as I had imagined, tasting faintly of vanilla. With a low growl in the back of my throat, I dove deeper, and he opened for me.
The second our tongues met, collided, sparks of heat exploded all through my body. He made a soft noise, almost like a whimper, pressing himself against me. I pushed him against the doorframe, pinning him with my body. Jesus feck, he fit so perfectly against me, that soft, smaller body filling all the dips and lines of my much harder one.
I delved into his mouth, hungry for more of him. Everything else disappeared into the background. All I could see, feel, and taste was him.
And fuck, he could kiss. I’d kissed on the job before, but never like this. Those kisses had been polite, perfunctory performances. This? This was anything but polite. This was sinful, sensual. He sucked on my tongue, and when he let go, I did the same to him. That bottom lip was too damnperfect to ignore. The sound he made when I scraped it with my teeth shot straight to my cock.
When I was finally able to let go of his mouth, we were both panting. His eyes were glassy, darker than before, and the outline of his cock was on perfect display in his tight jeans. He was as hard as I was. That realization brought a grin to my face.
