“That… Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“God, seeing all those angry red notifications would absolutely stress me out.”
Another careless shrug. “I don’t like email in the first place, so why bother?”
It wasn’t merely his email. Every single app had red numbers, including… I clicked on the settings. Oh. My. God. “When’s the last time you ran updates? Don’t you have automatic updates on?” One look at his face and I had my answer. “Never mind. I’ll fix that for you.”
I curled up on the couch, swiping and tapping until I had everything organized. Once I started the update, I looked up again to find him watching me. “What?”
He gave me a smile that somehow felt different from his usual ones. More…real. Like he’d removed a mask I hadn’t been aware he’d been wearing. “Thank you for helping me.”
It felt like he was saying more than that, but I had no idea what. “You’re welcome.”
The mask slid back in place as his smile transformed into a grin and a wink. “So, how about that live porn show now?”
EIGHT
EAMON
I hated modern technology with a passion that burned hotter than the fires of hell—which was a metaphorical expression since hell didn’t actually exist. Hell simply meant that in your next life, you’d end up at a call center for a health insurance company, at Macy’s in New York City during the holiday rush, or selling ice cream on the North Pole or something equally frustrating.
Anyway, some of my brothers, as we angels tended to call each other despite the obvious lack of family resemblance, had fully embraced all modern gadgets and the supposed conveniences. Take Julian, for example. Born in 1790 as the heir apparent to some fancy duke, complete with powdered wigs and probably a stick up his arse about proper etiquette, he was now our unofficial IT guy. The man who’d once needed servants to dress him could now hack into any system on the planet.
Anytime I had issues with my phone—which was basically every time I touched the bloody thing—Julian was the one I crawled to for help. He loved experimenting with newgadgets like a kid in a candy store, always showing up with the latest nonsense. He’d been trying to get me to put on these virtual reality glasses, whatever the fuck those were supposed to do, but that was a hard no from me. I had enough trouble with actual reality, thank you very much.
I could see the appeal of television as an invention—moving pictures in a box, brilliant concept—and sure, computers were handy for looking things up. It had taken me a while to get the hang of this Google thing though. Apparently, you didn’t need to use whole sentences or include please and thank you when asking questions, which was plain rude if you asked me. Where I came from, you showed proper respect when asking for information.
But I had to admit it was handy for research. It was how I’d learned as much as I could about the NYPD when I got this assignment, though clearly still not enough to avoid making a complete tit of myself in front of Charles.
When I first met him—and by “met” I mean watching him through the portal for a few days before the case officially started—I’d pegged him as super cute, super sweet, and super bubbly. I had not counted on him being this smart, which probably said a thousand times more about me than it did him.
I’d seen a cute guy with a perfect arse who I would’ve absolutely approached for a quick fuck if I’d met him in a club or bar or wherever. Just another pretty face and gorgeous body to add to my extensive collection of meaningless encounters. But he was so much more than that.
I’d gone from wanting to fuck that gorgeous arse of his—and Christ, it really was spectacular—to respecting the hell out of him. Not that I didn’t still want to bury myself inside him until he screamed my name, mind you, but that was beside the point now.
Alas, thanks to Gabriel and his tight-arse rules about “professional boundaries” and “appropriate conduct,” Charles was completely off-limits. I had zero desire to spend the next century getting the absolute shittiest assignments my boss could find. No thank you. I’d rather keep my sanity intact, which meant keeping my hands off Charles, no matter how much every fiber of my being screamed otherwise.
And now that I knew Gabriel could see what I did on my iPad… That was something they’d conveniently forgotten to mention when they handed us our shiny new devices with all the fanfare of Christmas morning. No, it had been all about how bloody great it was that we had our own special angel app and how much easier it would be to communicate with headquarters. “Revolutionary technology,” they’d called it. “Streamlined efficiency.”
What a load of bollocks.
All this time, they’d been able to see everything I did on there. Every single website, every video, every late-night browsing session when I was bored out of my skull. I shuddered at the thought of how many times I’d jacked off while watching porn, completely oblivious that I had an audience. Apparently, I’d been running my own personal OnlyFans—which was one newer invention I was familiar with and that I very much appreciated—for the entire celestial bureaucracy, except I was doing it for free like some kind of amateur exhibitionist.
Christ, no wonder Gabriel always looked at me with that smug expression. The bastard probably had a whole highlight reel of my most embarrassing moments. Gabriel and I were definitely gonna have a conversation about privacy invasion and proper disclosure when I was donewith this assignment, that was for bloody sure. And it wasn’t going to be a polite one.
But that wasn’t anytime soon. For now, I was on Charles’s case, which was only beginning. I’d been informed that Hartwell, the cop Carlo had threatened, had been taken to a safe location after a detailed, anonymous tip to the NYPD. The real NYPD. Carlo would find out about that news today or tomorrow…and then shit would get real.
Charles was asleep now, I hoped, having gone back upstairs after giving me a massive eyeroll about my admittedly dumb porn show joke. But I’d been so…unsettled after he’d been so sweet and helpful that I hadn’t known what else to say.
I hoped he’d get a good night’s sleep because things were about to get so much worse. Much, much worse.
I heardthe old floorboards upstairs creak around six-thirty, followed by the sound of running water and Charles moving around his bedroom. Twenty minutes later, he padded into the kitchen in fluffy socks, looking absolutely edible in a way that should’ve been illegal this early in the day.
He smelled like vanilla and something clean and masculine—his soap, probably—the scent drifting toward me as he moved past. His hair was still damp from his shower, darkened to a honey-gold color that made me want to run my fingers through it and see if it was as soft as it looked. Little droplets clung to the ends, occasionally dripping onto the collar of his simple white T-shirt, which clung just enough to hint at the lean muscle underneath. He was wearing worn jeans that hugged his arse perfectly, and I had to gripmy coffee mug tighter to keep from reaching out and touching him.
There was something ridiculously domestic about the whole scene—him shuffling sleepily into his kitchen, still warming up to the day, completely comfortable in his own space. It made my chest do something weird and tight that I didn’t want to examine too closely.
