Joachim lifted his left arm and leaned forward on the chair as Soleil instructed, a sigh of discomfort and impatience hissing through his teeth. She bandaged his ribs with all the gentle care of a tornado wrenching up trees.

“Easy,” he muttered, grimacing as she brought a third layer of bandage snugly and efficiently across his bruised side.

“I’m stronger than I look, am I not?” She shot him a smug grin, tucked in the tail of the bandage and straightened. “All done. Would you like a lollipop?”

His brows lowered. “You offer me candy?”

Soleil shrugged, repacking the first-aid kit spread across his desk. “I’ve seen doctors give squalling children lollipops after inoculation.”

“I’m not squalling.”

“But you want to.” She disappeared into his bedroom and reemerged with a fresh T-shirt. “Here. I won’t try to help you dress since you’re so edgy. Is there anything else you need?”

“Nothing. Thank you.” He took the T-shirt from her, then gritted his teeth and tried to ease it over his head, but even the slight brush of the material against his wounded temple was too much to bear. With a frustrated growl, he tossed the garment on the desk and eased back in his chair. “There are times when this body is more a hindrance than an effective vehicle.”

“I think it’s a wonderful body. Very pleasurable to look at. I hope you’ll keep it for the next mission. Would you like another painkiller?”

He considered it, but then shook his head. “I have to keep a clear mind. I haven’t debriefed with Michael yet.”

“And after? How will you rest tonight when you’re suffering as you are?”

“Your maternal tendencies are showing,” he said with a grin, knowing that such an observation would chafe her sensibilities.

“This body hasn’t a single maternal bone,” she retorted as she snapped the first-aid kit closed. “Get your own painkiller, you stubborn creature.”

As she swung open the door, Gia waited on the threshold, fist poised to knock.

Her cheeks heated at the sight of Soleil standing there. “Oh. I was just—” Her gaze shifted to Joachim, who lounged in his desk chair, bare-chested, the alabaster bandage standing in stark contrast against the warm tones of his skin.

The breath rushed from her lungs, and she uttered the only word she could think of. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, his expression inscrutable.

Soleil glanced from Gia’s heated face to Joachim’s shuttered features, and one tawny eyebrow shot nearly to her hairline. “Everyone is sleepless tonight, I see.”

“Yes,” Gia said faintly.

“I’ll just say goodnight to you both and hope you’ll soon rest.”

“Goodnight,” Gia responded, heart galloping, her attention fixed on the man behind the desk. “Joachim, do you have a moment?”

“For you always,” he said.

Gia edged by Soleil, then hesitated in the middle of the room and shot the blonde a restive look over her shoulder. Soleil had paused in the corridor, green eyes wide with curiosity, lingering without even attempting to appear inconspicuous.

“Close the door,” Joachim barked.

The click of the latch quickly followed, and then they were alone in the office.

“You should be asleep,” Gia said.

“Why are you still awake?” he spoke simultaneously, so their words tumbled together, indecipherable in every way except for the blazing awkwardness they both felt.

They paused, and Gia fought the urge to back up and run. There were so many reasons sleep evaded her, how could she begin? Starting with concern over her mother’s well-being, then the lingering image of the man she’d killed, then the Medallion…the Spear…Longinus. Too much to absorb. And why had she confessed her feelings for Joachim in the van? It was nothing more serious than a juvenile crush, wrought by trauma and gratitude and the extraordinary conditions of the past weeks.

Lying wide-eyed in her glass cell for the last two hours, she had finally determined the true triviality of her attraction to him—but it was too late. She’d gone and blabbed in a moment of runaway emotion and possibly ruined their friendship. The discomfort she felt just from being alone with him in this room was enough to send her fleeing the bunker and all protection, Therides be damned.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said finally, forcing herself to approach his desk. “For a lot of reasons. And the only one I can do something about is this one. I need to clear this whole thing up.”

He propped his elbow on an armrest, his brows knitted as he rubbed a single finger beneath his bottom lip. “This whole thing?”

“What I said in the van.”

“Oh,” he said. “That whole thing.”

She averted her attention from his bare, muscled chest, where it seemed to want to settle again and again, and studied his face, wishing she could read what was happening behind his eyes. They appeared iridescent, a strange light burning behind them. His head was unbandaged, and the blow he’d suffered to his temple had spread vibrant shades of maroon and indigo halfway across his forehead and down to the corner of his left eye.

He was exquisite.

Gia peered at him. “I think you’re bleeding again.”

Touching fingertips to his temple, he glanced at them and sighed. “The human head is too—”

“I know. Fragile. Weak. Delicate. It must be so frustrating to be a superhero locked in a mortal shell.” She reached for the first-aid kit and opened it, rummaging through it for gauze. “Maybe you need stitches.”

“Medical told me no.”

Humor curved her mouth and diluted some of the unease between them. “Really? Or was it you who told Medical no?”

He shrugged. “It all ends the same. No needles.”

Gia nearly laughed. Maybe angels didn’t experience animal fear, but something about needles definitely made Joachim squirm. She eased around the desk with a wad of gauze in her hand. “Could I…?”

He tilted his head to accommodate her, and she held her breath as she dabbed the slight shine of blood from his temple. His hair was still damp from the shower, and the scent of soap and clean skin had assailed her the minute she walked into the office. The last thing she needed was his unique and delectable fragrance playing on her senses as she tried to explain away her bumbling outburst.

“It’s almost dry.” She lifted his chin with a single finger to examine the wound, exhilarated at the chance to touch him, even with just one fingertip. “A few centimeters difference, and you could have been killed.”

“But here I am, alive and well. Gia…” He caught her finger and swiveled in his desk chair to meet her eyes. “If I’ve misled you, forgive me.”

“You haven’t.” A fresh wave of humiliation burned her face and she tugged from his gentle grasp. “You haven’t misled me at all. Really, you don’t have to say anything about this. I just wanted to clear up the fact that I spoke out of turn earlier—that it was simply one of those moments. I lost my head, and truly, I’m just so amazed at how you’ve protected me, and sometimes I get carried away, you know, by emotion, by gratitude—”

“If I were here to stay, born into a mortal body, this conversation would be entirely different. Do you understand?”

Did she? Was he saying that if he were here to stay, he might want her? Love her? Touch her the way she so desperately desired?

The distant possibility weakened her knees, and she leaned against the edge of the desk. “How did I get myself in this position? I don’t even know what this thing is with you. When I look at you, all I feel is confusion.”

“And I the same.” He gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes too blue to bear. Then he swiveled slightly away, folding his hands across his bare abdomen. “You’re not at fault. From the first moment at the estate when I saw you as a woman, and me, in this impossible body…” He swallowed his words, shook his head. “Let us be friends, Gia. You and I, we are the principal players. There must be peace between us for this mission to move forward.”

Releasing a slow breath of disappointment edged with relief, she nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good.”

“Friends, then?”

“Always, Gia.”

Silence hovered between them, galvanized by faint electricity in the air. Reluctant to leave him, she reached for the first-aid kit again. “You should let me at least stick a small bandage on that cut. No needles,” she added when he cast her a wary glance.

Joachim sat in obligatory stillness while she tore the tabs off a bandage and covered the abrasion on his temple. The beard shadowing his jaw had grown darker, and the clean scent of his bare skin rose to her nostrils, despite every effort she made not to breathe it in.

She glanced at the muscled curve of his shoulder. Faint freckles spattered a path to his collarbone. His chest was smooth, sculpted from years of weight training and athletics. Golden-brown hair feathered down his abdomen and grew denser around his navel before disappearing behind the waistband of his pajamas.

Gia’s heart palpitated and her mouth went dry. When she snapped out of her trance, he was staring at her lips, his face upturned in her direction, the sweep of his lashes like feathers on his cheeks.

Waiting for her to make the mistake of all mistakes.

“God—someone—forgive me,” she muttered. “I’ll probably go to Hell for this.”

Then she bent and covered his mouth with hers.