That was…something, I suppose. Still invasive as hell, but at least they weren’t getting their rocks off watching me have a sad wank in someone else’s guest bedroom.
“The point is,” Gabriel continued, his voice growing serious again, “you’re getting emotionally involved with your protectee. That needs to stop. Now.”
“I’m doing my job,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Are you? Because it looks to me like you’re about thirty seconds away from breaking one of our most fundamental rules.” Gabriel stepped closer, invading my personal space. “You know the one I’m talking about.”
Of course I did. No romantic or sexual involvement with protectees. It was Angel Code 101, drilled into every guardian from day one. Getting involved compromised judgment, created emotional blind spots, and generally turned competent angels into lovesick idiots who put their feelings before their duties—or so Michael had told me repeatedly, though his lectures had never made much of an impression on me. Sleeping with a protectee had never been a problem for me. I could fuck someone one minute and protect them the next without any issues.
“I haven’t broken any rules.”
“Yet,” Gabriel added pointedly. “But we both know you’re thinking about it. Hell, you were about to do it twenty minutes ago if you hadn’t chickened out at the last second.”
I wanted to argue, to tell him he was wrong, but the words stuck in my throat. Because he wasn’t wrong, was he? I had been about to kiss Charles. More than that, I’d wanted to kiss him with an intensity that scared me.
“Let me be very clear,” Gabriel continued, his voice dropping to that low, dangerous tone that meant business. “Things are about to get very dangerous for your protectee.Carlo and his people are violent, creative, and they don’t leave witnesses. Charles is going to need you at your absolute best, which means you need to be thinking with your head instead of your dick.”
“I understand?—”
“Do you? Because if you start anything with him—if you so much as hold his hand inappropriately—I will pull you from this assignment so fast it’ll make your head spin. And then what happens to Charles while we scramble to find a replacement?”
The threat hit home like a punch to the gut. Gabriel was right, much as I hated to admit it. Charles’s life was in my hands, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted by feelings I had no business having in the first place.
“I read the ethics code, and I’m refamiliarizing myself with the manual.”
Gabriel quirked one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Refamiliarizing?”
Ugh, bloody wanker. “I’m studying it, okay? Give me another few days, and you can interrogate me about it.”
“Good.” Gabriel’s expression relaxed slightly. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
He turned to leave, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “For what it’s worth, Eamon, I don’t think you’re a bad angel. Unconventional, yes. Difficult to manage, absolutely. But not bad.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“You just need to learn that the job requires sacrifice. Personal desires, comfort, even happiness have to come second to duty.” Gabriel’s tone was almost gentle now. “That’s what separates the good angels from the great ones.”
And then he was gone, leaving me standing alone inCharles’s garden with my thoughts and a growing sense of dread.
Sacrifice. Right. Because that was what this was—sacrificing my own wants for Charles’s safety. It should’ve felt noble, honorable even. Instead, it felt like shit.
I stared up at the house, where warm light spilled from the kitchen windows. Charles was probably cleaning up the last of dinner, maybe making himself a cup of tea before bed. The image was so domestic, so perfectly normal, that it made my chest ache.
For a brief moment tonight, I’d let myself imagine what it would be like. Not the physical stuff—though Christ knew I wanted that—but the rest of it. Cooking dinner together every night. Talking about our days. Falling asleep next to someone who actually wanted me there.
But that wasn’t my life. That had never been my life, and apparently, it never would be.
I was a guardian angel, and Charles was my assignment. Nothing more, nothing less. No matter how much I might want it to be otherwise, no matter how right it felt when he smiled at me or how perfectly my hand fit against his face, it wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be real.
With a heavy sigh, I finished my perimeter check and headed back toward the house. Time to play the part of the professional bodyguard again. Time to pretend that sitting across from Charles at breakfast tomorrow morning wouldn’t be a special kind of torture. Time to do my fecking job, even if it killed me.
The worst part? Charles would never know what I was giving up. He’d probably think I lost interest, that whatever had been building between us was simply physical attraction that had burned itself out. Maybe that was for the best.Better to hurt his feelings a little now than to get him killed because I couldn’t keep my priorities straight.
As I reached for the door handle, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window glass. I looked tired, older somehow, like the weight of the last few days had finally caught up with me.
Three hundred and twenty-two years old, and I was finally learning what it meant to want something I couldn’t have.
