Chapter 2
TWO
EAMON
To his credit, Charles didn’t panic when he heard what Carlo had planned.
He also didn’t react impulsively and storm off to someone—anyone—to share what he’d overheard.
No, he stayed hidden until Carlo and Chan—Carlo’s right-hand man was nicknamed Chan because he resembled Jackie Chan—had walked away.
And even then, he stayed hidden for another few minutes, though that might also have been because it took that long for his heart rate to come down and his knees to stop shaking.
I could see that even on the surveillance cameras I was watching him through.
Poor lad.
But like I said, credit to him because he’d passed my first test. Not that I didn’t protect stupid people.
Trust me, I wished that were the case. Michael, my previous boss, had sicced me on the utterly moronic and-or incompetent on more than one occasion, like people who thought it was a grand idea to pet buffaloes, who decided that walking alone through dark alleys while flashing expensive jewelry was perfectly safe, or my personal favorite, the eejit who thought he could outrun an angry mama bear.
I’d never been able to figure out if the assignment of these disasters-waiting-to-happen had been punishment on their part for some transgression of mine, or if it was sheer coincidence that I kept getting landed with Darwin Award candidates.
I suspected the first, especially after that incident with the man who tried to take a selfie while hanging off the edge of the Empire State Building.
Michael definitely had a sense of humor, and apparently, it was at my expense.
Anyway, now that everything had been set in motion and Charles’s life would indeed be in danger, it was time for me to make my grand entrance into his life.
Gabriel, who was Michael’s boss and reported directly to El, gave us a lot of leeway in how we did our jobs.
Over the years, I’d learned to keep it simple.
Mainly because I couldn’t be bothered to learn all the ins and outs of whatever role I had to take. Too much effort, man.
Usually, the easiest way was to pick a profession or role that would allow me to stay close to my protectee.
Since Charles couldn’t know I was, you know, angelic, I only had one viable option.
Our powers as angels were limited in our human forms, but one thing we could do was create a make-believe, a sort of glamour, if you will.
It allowed us to take on a persona, and no one would be the wiser.
In this case, a cop.
So when Charles reached out to the NYPD—and credit to him for having the sense to skip past the local gobshites who fancied themselves real cops in his wee town—I was there to take the call and set up the meeting.
“Detective Eamon O’Rourke.” I introduced myself, offering Charles a firm but not too dominant handshake. I needed to build a rapport with him.
“Charles Garrity.” He sat gingerly across from me in the family room I had booked for our conversation.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Garrity?”
“Charles.” He bit his lip. “Charles is fine.”
“What can I do for you, Charles?”
Jesus, he was cute, even if he was abusing that plump bottom lip of his with his teeth.
Blue eyes the color of the Irish Sea on a stormy day, pale skin sprinkled with freckles like someone had dusted him with cinnamon, and blond hair that held just a touch of ginger.
A little button nose that crinkled when he was thinking, shoulders that spoke of honest work rather than gym posturing, and a compact body that filled out his clothes in all the right ways.
And sweet mother of god, that luscious, curvy arse that made me want to grab him by the hips and show him exactly what three hundred years of experience could do for a man. The kind of arse that was made for gripping, for—
Right. Professional. I was supposed to be professional here.
Charles raised his chin. “I want to report a possible attempted murder.”
“A possible attempted murder? Color me fascinated. Tell me more.”
I leaned back in my chair and sipped from the godawful excuse for coffee this precinct served—and immediately regretted it.
Holy Christ, that should be a crime in and of itself.
I’d tasted bog water in Ireland that had more flavor than this swill.
How a country that ran on caffeine could serve something this tragic was beyond me.
Sure, I’d lived through centuries of questionable beverages, but this was an insult to coffee beans everywhere.
Meanwhile, Charles adorably fumbled his way through the story, but he covered the main points, and by the time he was done, he’d confirmed what I’d already seen on the surveillance footage.
“Carlo Ricotta is a crime boss,” I told him. “And your bride Gia is the oldest daughter of Renzo Mangioni. He’s old school Italian mob.”
“M-mob?” He paled. “I didn’t… Did I do anything illegal by making her wedding cake?”
“Not unless you put poison in there.”
He looked almost offended. “Of course not. That cake was a masterpiece.”
Ah, he had some fire in him. I liked that. “Then no, you did nothing wrong. But you did overhear Carlo plan a murder. That’s not good.”
“For me? Or for the cop?”
Damn if that didn’t make me smile. “Well, primarily for the cop in question, but I’m more concerned with you.”
“Oh.” He let that sink in. “They don’t know I overheard them.”
“No, but they will once they discover the cop got a heads-up.”
His shoulders slumped. “Of course. You need to tell him.”
“Which means Carlo will know someone warned the cop. His first thought will be Chan, of course, but—”
“Chan? Who’s that?”
Aw, bollocks. This is why I never would’ve made it as a real cop. In my defense, my past life as a farmer hadn’t really prepared me for this job. “The guy Carlo was talking to.”
“I never mentioned a name because I didn’t know who he was. So how is it that you do?”
“Based on your description of his voice and age, Chan is the only candidate. He’s Carlo’s right-hand man.
Been with him since they were both kids growing up in Little Italy.
Real name’s Tony Chandler, but everyone calls him Chan because he somewhat resembles Jackie Chan.
Chan handles the day-to-day operations while Carlo plays the respectable businessman.
If Carlo’s planning something this big, Chan’s the only one he’d bring into the conversation. ”
Good save, right?
“Ah, okay.” Charles sank smaller before my eyes. “But when he finds out it’s not this Chan guy, he’ll discover it was me? Is that what you’re saying?”
“The mob takes betrayal very seriously, as evidenced by the threat on this cop. Once Carlo finds out someone talked, he won’t stop until he finds out who it was.”
“Oh.” The word came out barely above a whisper, and I watched as the full weight of his situation seemed to crash down on him all at once.
His face went pale, making those freckles stand out, and he swallowed thickly.
His hands, which had been gesturing animatedly throughout his story, now gripped the arms of his chair like anchors.
“So now what?” His voice cracked slightly on the question, and he cleared his throat. “I assume you guys have, like, a solution for this? Some kind of protocol or something?”
There was a desperate edge to his words now, the kind that came from a man who’d just realized his quiet, predictable life had been blown to smithereens in the span of a single overheard conversation.
Something twisted in my chest at the sight of him like this—this sweet, innocent man who’d done nothing except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I wanted to reach across that table and pull him into my arms, tell him everything would be grand.
The protective instinct hit me harder than it should have, harder than it ever had with any of my other charges.
This one was different, and in the back of my mind, a faint alarm bell went off.
But he had just given me the perfect in. Our make-believe was easiest to pull off when it aligned with what people were expecting, so I asked, “What solution were you thinking about?”
He seemed to think about it for a few beats. “Like, maybe protect me? Have a cop with me at all times?”
This was perfect. Now I had him exactly where I wanted him. “We can do that, yes, but this person would have to be with you at all times, twenty-four seven. And it would have to be in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.”
“Right.” Another few beats where he was thinking. “If it’s a male cop roughly my age, he could pose as my boyfriend.”
“Hmm, so you’re gay?”
His face transformed into an expression of utter disbelief, eyebrows raised and lips parted in that universal “are you serious right now?” look. “If you haven’t pegged me as gay, you can’t be that good of a detective.”
I could barely hold back a snort. He wasn’t wrong, but his sass cracked me up. “Just making sure, sweetheart. As cops, we’re trained to never assume anything.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” He still eyed me somewhat distrustfully, though, and I couldn’t blame him.
“I think that’s a solid suggestion though. Someone posing as your boyfriend. I mean, what’s your type?”
“My…my type?” He seemed taken aback.
“You said you live in a small town. In order to effectively pose as your boyfriend, the guy would have to be your type. Or don’t you date at all?”
His cheeks went the loveliest shade of pink. The kind that people paid a fortune for as a shade of blush. “I, erm, I do date. On occasion. And I, you know, h-hook up. Sexually. With guys.”
“More than one at a time?” I couldn’t resist teasing him a little.
“No! Jeez, no. Why would you think that?”
“You said you hooked up with guys, plural, so again, just making sure. You do you, sweetheart. I’ve seen it all, and I don’t judge.”
No truer words had been spoken, and I meant every one of them. As long as it was between consenting adults—and consent to me did involve a little more than not being drunk or high off your arse—it was all fine with me.
Hell, I’d participated in my fair share of threesomes and even a few gang bangs over the years, and they’d been grand fun at the time.
I wasn’t picky as long as everyone involved was enthusiastic and of sound mind.
Three hundred years gives you plenty of opportunity to explore, and I’d taken advantage of most of them.
Though I had to admit, watching Charles blush like a virgin schoolboy was making me think I might prefer something a bit more… intimate these days.
“Oh, okay. No, just one guy at a time. I hook up with one guy at a time.”
“And your type?”
“Erm, my type would be…” The blush returned in full force. “I don’t think I really have a type. Small towns, you know? Not exactly a lot of options. So if a guy is willing and available, as in not married, I’m good.”
That was an awfully low bar. “So you’d hook up with an eighteen-year-old?”
He looked horrified, his eyes widening in shock, and he actually leaned back in his chair as if physically recoiling from the very idea. “Absolutely not! He’d have to be at least twenty-two. That’s ten years younger and about the max for me.”
“And you use the same gap the other way, so ten years older max?”
“Not really. I’ve had sex with older guys, and it has its benefits, you know. Maturity can be sexy, and there’s something to be said for staying power.”
Christ almighty, the lad had no idea what he was doing to me.
The way he said “staying power” with that innocent little blush made my cock twitch in a way that was highly inappropriate for a professional setting.
He had no clue he was sitting across from someone who could show him exactly what centuries of practice could accomplish.
My mind went straight to all the ways I could demonstrate my particular brand of maturity, and none of them involved keeping my hands to myself.
Focus. “So maybe twenty years older?”
He nodded.
“And you said he had to be unmarried.”
“Yes. Well, I mean single. You can be unmarried and not single, so let’s go with single.”
“Gotcha.” I was pleased to find he drew that line. El wasn’t a fan of adultery—and neither was I. “And does he need to have a certain kind of job?”
He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “Not really. I mean, I do appreciate a man who knows how to use his hands, you know? They’re often a little more…intense.”
Intense? “Rough. You mean rough.”
I didn’t think I’d ever grow tired of watching him blush. “I suppose so. Yes, I do prefer a more…vigorous lover.”
Vigorous. He was killing me here. The way he kept finding these polite, innocent words for what he clearly wanted—a good, hard fuck—was doing things to me that had nothing to do with professional duty.
I shifted in my chair, trying to ignore the way my cock was responding to the mental image of showing this sweet baker exactly how vigorous I could be.
Three hundred years, and I’d never wanted to corrupt someone quite this badly.
“So you do have a type. You like guys who are roughly between twenty-two and fifty-two who work with their hands. That’s a type, sweetheart.”
He looked surprised. “If you put it like that, I guess I do.”
“Well, the age shouldn’t be an issue, but unless you consider police work to be a blue-collar manual job. Although technically, our uniforms are blue, so we do have literal blue collars. And—”
“A cop is fine,” Charles said. “If he’s within that age group and single, he’s fine.”
“Single?” I quirked an eyebrow. “He’ll be pretending to be your boyfriend, not actually hooking up with you, so why would he need to be single?”
Strawberries had nothing on Charles’s cheeks now. “I meant… Of course I know that. I thought that, you know, his partner wouldn’t approve of him spending so much time with another guy while also pretending to be his boyfriend?”
I decided to let him off the hook. As much as I enjoyed watching him squirm, I needed to stay on his good side. “Sure, sure. All good. Well, I’d say it’s your lucky day because I have someone who fits the bill, but of course, the whole situation is anything but lucky.”
“Yes, lucky is not how I would describe it.” His eyes narrowed. “Who’s the cop?”
Right, so, time for the big reveal. “Me. I’ll be your protector, sweetheart.”
And not one word of that was a lie.