Page 10 of Guarded (Hopeless Blessed #3)

Noah

J eremiah sat back in his seat and pursed his lips. “That’s not an easy question to answer.”

“We have time.”

“Probably about forty-seven minutes of it, right?” He smiled, but the tightness of it told me how much it was bothering him. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t push me for more though. He’d respect the boundary I’d set and walk out of here when the hour was up.

I didn’t know what it was about Jeremiah’s words that had my guard lowering. Perhaps it was the intrigue. The need to know more.

Or perhaps it’d been the shadows in his eyes as he spoke. The ones that hid truths I was suddenly desperate to reveal.

Inhaling deeply and praying I wasn’t making a mistake, I pointedly unclasped my watch and slid it into my pocket. “No one’s counting now, Jeremiah.”

He brushed his thumb over his lips. “What made you change your mind?”

I shrugged. “Let’s call it curiosity. ”

Curiosity and perhaps an acknowledgement that I was being a dick. Sure, Jeremiah had fucked up, but he was trying to make up for it. Was I really behaving any better treating him this way?

No. I really wasn’t.

I’d said he could have an opportunity to plead his case, and I was going to do him the courtesy of listening. That was all.

Sure. Let’s just ignore the fact that you got close to him for less than a minute and almost kissed him.

I scowled internally. That had been bound to happen, even if there weren’t a physical pull in my chest, begging me to get closer to him. Jeremiah was fucking sexy. I didn’t know if he’d intentionally worn a shirt that was too small, but the horny side of me was fucking grateful.

Abs and nipple piercings? Just kill me now. Seriously. Being dead was likely the only thing that would stop me falling into bed with him.

Along with half of London, apparently.

That thought was enough to cool my libido.

“It’s hard to answer that question,” Jeremiah said slowly, “because I’m not even sure what I’ve missed out on.”

“What do you mean?”

He clasped his hands on the table. “I’m fifteen hundred years old. Up until I was freed from Hell, I’d spent nineteen days topside.”

No. Surely he didn’t mean… “As in, the longest you were on earth was nineteen consecutive days?”

I was clutching at straws and I knew it. I silently begged Jeremiah to tell me that I was wrong. That he hadn’t spent over a millennium trapped in the most horrific place possible .

“No. Nineteen days total. The longest consecutive period was forty-seven hours.” He stared down at his clasped hands. “Believe it or not, those hours were some of the worst I’ve lived through. For the first time, I was glad to escape back to Hell. Anything to get away from what happened.”

I opened my mouth, but Jeremiah silenced me with a pleading look. “Not here, Noah. Not that story.”

I forced the question down. Fuck. I was starting to get the sense I might have misjudged Jeremiah.

“When we walked out of Hell that day, I was almost crushed by the weight of it,” he said. “That first week was an adjustment. Being able to wake up whenever I wanted. Eat what I chose. Do what I fancied. It was…I’d never experienced anything like that before.”

The ice in my heart thawed a little. I’d figured Jeremiah and I must’ve led similar lives, what with both of us having other beings to answer to. I was quickly realising that hadn’t been the case.

“In some ways it was daunting,” Jeremiah mused. “There was no one handing me a list of orders every morning. No one to torture. No one to punish. Trying to decide what to do, how to spend my time…it was what I’d spent so long dreaming about. Actually doing it though? That was different.”

I knew how he’d spent those first weeks—in and out of bed with as many people as possible. Given what he’d just told me, could I blame him for it?

No. I couldn’t. I think I might’ve done the same thing.

“What did you dream of?” I found myself asking. “What were the fantasies that kept you going on the hard days?”

“Travelling.” His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Whenever I came topside, I’d never have time for anything aside from the mission I’d been given. Naturally, none of my targets were choosing to live anywhere particularly nice.”

“Targets?”

A shadow crossed his face. “Yes. My missions always involved the assassination of supes. The permanent kind.”

Shit. “So even when you came to earth, you weren’t really leaving Hell behind.”

“No.” He sighed. “The only escape I got was when other demons told me about their adventures here. Sometimes I even asked the souls I was torturing to tell me stories.”

“You did?”

He nodded once. “Yeah. I’d exchange an hour of no pain for every story they told me about life on earth. Lots of them took me up on it. I knew it was dangerous to do, but I couldn’t help myself.”

I slid my hand across the table and rested it on his where they were clasped together. “I can imagine.”

“It was all that kept me going. When things got too tough, I’d imagine being up here. Visiting the sights they’d described. Experiencing the different cultures myself. It was a dream I never thought would come true, but one that saved me nonetheless.”

My heart swelled at the thought of him clinging to the idea of something he was so certain he’d never get. It was almost like me and my ludicrous hope for true love. “I’m sorry, Jeremiah.”

“Don’t pity me,” Jeremiah said roughly. “That’s not why I’m telling you this.”

“I know.” I squeezed his hands, trying to ignore how right it felt to touch him. “I’d feel this way about anyone who was in this situation, Jeremiah. Being trapped, feeling like you’ve got no escape…No one should feel that way.”

He unclasped his hands and flipped one so our palms touched. We weren’t holding hands, just resting them together. “Forgive me, but it sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

My mind flashed back to Juniper. To how my relationship with Lyle had warped everything connected with my former unit. “I’ve been in a situation where I felt trapped, but the reality was that I was the one keeping myself there. And when the day came when I couldn’t take it anymore, I walked away.”

“I’m sorry you went through that.” His fingers twitched against mine like he was going to lace them together but decided against it. “I’m glad you found the strength to leave. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t,” I admitted. It was one thing knowing the one you loved was bad for you, but it was another entirely to do something about it. “Some days it’s still hard.”

Jeremiah didn’t sprout trite bullshit about looking on the bright side or how things were bound to get better. Instead, he looked at me with understanding. “They are for me too.”

We both fell silent. I’d been wondering why fate had matched us, but was this why? Because we both had scars? Because we both understood what it was to be trapped?

“That’s why I ran from you,” Jeremiah said finally, breaking the silence. “It was selfish and stupid, but I’d spent centuries yearning for my freedom.”

I slid my hand from under his as I read into his words. “And being mated would take that freedom from you.”

A muscle jumped in Jeremiah’s jaw as he watched my retreat.

“Yes and no. I’m not enough of a twat to think that being in a relationship is like prison.

If you’re with the right person, it wouldn’t be like being trapped; it’d be an extension of that freedom.

All the more joyful because you’d be able to enjoy and experience it with the one you loved. ”

I closed my eyes as the true reason behind his abscondment hit me. “It’s because I’m an angel.”

“An angel in the Seraphim,” Jeremiah said hollowly. “Answerable to God and her councils.”

“Following their orders and whims. Not in full control of my life.”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.” I opened my eyes to see Jeremiah smiling at me sadly. “Okay. I can see why you ran.”

“You can?”

I picked up my coffee and drank, buying myself some extra seconds to organise my thoughts. To his credit, Jeremiah didn’t rush me, waiting patiently until I was ready to speak.

I tapped my fingers on the table, looking at this from Jeremiah’s point of view. He’d finally got his freedom after a lifetime of pain, only to find himself mated to someone who was in a similar situation to the one he’d just escaped.

“We do have a lot more freedom than you do in Hell,” I said finally.

“While we are a unit and treated as such, we do answer to higher powers. There are many times when we’re sent away on missions whether we want to go or not.

Our daily lives aren’t impacted in the same ways yours was.

We are free to come and go as we please, for the most part. ”

Jeremiah smiled sadly. “I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“But I can’t deny that my life isn’t fully my own.

” My chest was aching again, but not from betrayal.

No, this ache was deeper. An understanding of where my mate was coming from.

Of what it would cost him to bond with me.

“If we became mates, yours wouldn’t be your own either. You’d be tied into the Seraphim. ”

And me. Maybe he didn’t want that either. He’d said with the right person he wouldn’t see it as his freedom being compromised. Fate said I was his right person, but did he believe that? Did I?

Jeremiah sighed heavily. “That’s what I figured. It doesn’t justify why I ran?—”

“It does.”

“It doesn’t,” he reached over, like he was going to grab my hand, but hesitated. “It explains it, but it doesn’t make it okay. Not now I know that my actions hurt you. I’m sorry for that, Noah. I didn’t consider you when making my decision, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like you set out to hurt me intentionally. You didn’t even know who I was. It’s not as if you looked at me and decided I wasn’t good enough.”

Not the first time, anyway. But I was choosing to believe it was his fear that had sent him running the second time, not that he found me unattractive.