Actual Stop (12 page)

“No problem.”

I forced myself to focus on the parking situation and tear my mind away from her cryptic comments. I’d spotted a space just up the block that would put us less than thirty steps from the front door of Allison’s hotel and had convinced myself if I didn’t take my eyes off it, I’d be able to save the space through willpower alone.

I effortlessly slid the Impala into the spot, pleased with my luck. Throwing the car into park, I leaned back between the seats to retrieve my parking placard, unsure how it’d ended up there in the first place.

The resulting position put my face in very close proximity to Allison. When she turned to look at me, her lips mere inches from mine, and I again had the disconcerting notion she was staring directly into my soul. She leaned toward me, causing my head to swim; the scent of her was intoxicating.

Allison’s near-black eyes flicked to my lips for an instant, and she shifted just a fraction of an inch closer, her lips quirked in a small smile. I was pretty sure my heart would give out at that point.

“I thought I told you not to get me sick,” she whispered. Her breath ghosted gently across my cheek, and I had to fight not to close my eyes.

“I thought I told you not to kiss me,” I whispered back. I flashed her a small smile of my own, amazed I had the presence of mind to form coherent words, let alone attempt wit.

“I wasn’t planning to.” She tried to make her protest sound haughty, but the heat in her voice fizzled and died. She didn’t make any move to increase the distance between us.

“Uh-huh.”

My heart lurched. I’d seen that expression before and wasn’t liable to forget it. She might not have planned to actually do it, but she’d definitely thought about it. If only for the briefest of instants.

In the end, the loud honking of a car horn on the corner shattered the moment. I folded my fingers around the police placard but took my time returning to a completely upright position.

“Come on, supercop,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Allison smiled back at me as she gathered her belongings and followed me out of the car.

The New York Field Office of the United States Secret Service leads the entire agency in arrest stats as well as protection visits, surpassing even the Washington Field Office. The guys in WFO like to argue that we’re only on top due to a technicality because our stats are bolstered every year by the United Nations General Assembly, which usually attracts upward of two hundred protectees to the NYFO district. In response to those allegations, I normally choose to respond with a well-timed raspberry. I find that tends to end most arguments rather quickly.

In addition to the yearly meeting of the UNGA, New York has numerous visiting dignitaries in and out of the city throughout the year. Because of that, we tend to have a close working relationship with the many hotel chains scattered in and around here. Most hotels have housed either agents or visiting foreign delegations.

The W Hotel on Lexington Avenue is located near both the Waldorf Astoria and Intercontinental, two favorite hotels of our own president and of foreign heads of state. As such, it’s the perfect location to house our agents when necessary. The agency has a very good working relationship with the hotel staff, and I’d personally made some friends there over the years.

That fact would explain the loud, “Well, well, well” that carried across the entire lobby upon my arrival.

I turned toward the greeting, both unwilling and unable to hold back my grin. “Well, yourself,” I shot back. “Looking pretty good.” I allowed my eyes to sweep up and down the curvaceous form of my personal welcoming committee, lingering very obviously on specific parts of her anatomy.

Allison’s eyes shot from me to the woman heckling me, but the ringing of her cell phone spared me any commentary. She walked a few paces away to take the call in relative privacy while I rested my hands on my hips and waited.

The blond woman headed my way snorted as she approached and rolled her hazel eyes theatrically. She made a show of fluffing her hair and sweeping nonexistent lint off her impeccably pressed uniform. Her general manager’s nametag gleamed brightly under the lobby lights.

“Pretty good? Please. I look fabulous, as usual. And stop trying to butter me up. I got your text.” Her tone was dry, but her eyes were shining, so I knew she wasn’t really as annoyed as she pretended. “That’s always the way with you agents. We don’t hear from you for months, and when we finally do, it’s only because you want something.”

“Oh, come on, Stace. That is so not true. I asked you out to dinner just last week.” I paused as I rethought that statement. “Or maybe it was two weeks ago? I think last week I was on Trinidad. Anyway, whenever it was, I didn’t want anything from you then aside from the pleasure of your company.”

“Really?”

“Of course, really. What else would I want?”

Stacey shrugged, but I recognized the mischievous gleam in her eye all too well. It always meant trouble. “Oh, come on, Ryan. We both know you’re hopelessly attracted to me. Why deny it any longer?”

I scoffed. “We do, huh?”

“We do. And I’m flattered. Really. But you know I’m happily married. Besides, I just don’t think I could get on board with the whole woman scene.”

“The hearts of lesbian and bi-curious women everywhere are breaking.” She was such a trip.

She went on airily, almost as if I hadn’t spoken. “Even if I were inclined to make all your wildest dreams come true and give the girl-on-girl thing a shot, Jeff would be devastated. You know he called first dibs on you. And I don’t think he’d want to share you, even with me.”

I bit back a laugh, unsure, as I always was, whether Stacey really was that cocky or whether she was just messing with me. I really hoped it was the latter. “That’s a damn shame. And as attractive as I think your husband is—you know, for a guy—he just doesn’t do it for me. But don’t tell him that, okay?”

She laughed at my joke, and her gaze slid over to Allison, who had her back to us and was giving no sign of paying any attention to our banter. “Speaking of attractive.”

My chest was suddenly tight, and my face burned as my eyes flicked to the woman in question. I clenched my teeth together for an instant before making a conscious effort to dispel the tension from my body. It helped. Well, a bit.

“What happened to Lucia?” Stacey wanted to know. “Did you finally break up with her? Because it’s about damn time.”

I blinked, startled, and returned my attention to Stacey, who was eying Allison speculatively. After a moment, her focus shifted back to me. “Not that Lucia isn’t very sweet and completely gorgeous if you go for that Michelle Rodriguez type, but you know…” She sketched a wave in the air, as if she’d made her point.

“Lucia and I didn’t break up.” I had trouble getting the words out, and I didn’t even want to think about why the air in the lobby had just become stifling.

Stacey’s eyes widened, and she put one hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God, Ryan. I’m so sorry. I just assumed, well, I mean, I never really thought you and Lucia clicked all that well, and now here you are with this walking wet dream—”

“Stacey,” I barked, a little louder than necessary, which caused Allison to turn her head in my direction and examine me briefly with her hawk-like gaze. Two things were bothering me about Stacey’s statement, and I still wasn’t sure which affected me more.

First was her opinion that Lucia and I had never really clicked. I’d thought we actually clicked pretty well. And what the hell would she know about it anyway? She’d seen us together on maybe three occasions and only long enough for us to grab dinner. That was hardly time enough to accurately assess an entire relationship.

Second, something about her categorization of Allison irritated me. A lot. Not that it wasn’t accurate. Not by a long shot. Hell, I’d been teetering unsteadily on the razor edge of arousal all freaking day because Allison Reynolds and I were occupying the same space, but still, to hear someone else say it out loud…

Stacey’s features softened, and her expression became a cross between sympathetic and incredulous. “Oh, wow. You’ve got it bad.” Her voice was hushed, almost a whisper, her tone colored with quiet wonder.

“I do not!” I’d have done better to pretend not to know what she was talking about. My fervent denial pretty much confirmed her suspicions. For both of us.

Shit.

“Come on, Ryan.” Stacey placed a tender hand on my shoulder, and the gesture touched yet aggravated me. “I see the way you look at her. It’s obvious that—”

I held up my hand to stop her, positive I was better off not knowing what she intended to say. I believed in plausible deniability. Oh, and plain old denial. I was a definite fan of that, too. At least in this instance.

“Stace, we really gotta go.” I turned abruptly and walked away from the conversation, trying to sweep the entire conversation—revelations and all—to the back of my mind. I brushed the palm of my hand along Allison’s back briefly to get her attention on my way to the elevators but averted my eyes. Stacey’s words had resonated within me on several levels, and I was sure Allison would immediately know something was up.

“Ryan.” Stacey’s voice carried after me and sounded a touch upset.

I got into the elevator with Allison following closely behind and turned back to face the now-closing doors. “I’ll call you later.”

I suffered a brief stab of remorse at Stacey’s forlorn expression. Like I needed that on top of everything else. I sighed and roughly removed the hair tie keeping my tresses pulled back, twisting it around and around my index finger until it hurt.

Allison terminated her call and returned the phone to its place on her belt, turning to study me intently. Silence reigned, and my face grew hotter the longer she stared at me. I resolutely kept my eyes on the doors in front of me and wrenched the rubber band around my finger so hard I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from crying out.

“You okay?”

“I’m good.” I didn’t meet her stare, preferring instead to step off the elevator the second the doors opened and stride with purpose down the hall to her room. I released my now-purple fingertip from the hair tie and shoved it in my pocket.

Allison kept pace with me. “Did that woman say something to you?”

“Nah.” I kept my attention focused on the room numbers as we passed.

“You sure?” She sounded skeptical.

I glanced at her and decided to change the subject. “You know what I am sure about?” Allison shook her head, and I threw one arm companionably around her shoulders. “I’m sure someone promised me a whole lot of beer.” I gave her a final squeeze and let her go as we stopped in front of her door.

Allison chuckled and slid her key card into the lock, shaking her head, and a few stray locks of her thick black hair tumbled across her forehead and into her eyes. The longing to brush them back was almost painful, and I thrust my hand into my pocket to finger its contents in an effort to have something else to occupy me.

“You Irish girls are so easy.” She gave me a sly grin as she opened the door and led the way into her hotel room. “Give you a beer, and you’re thrilled.”

“Hey, that’s not always true. Sometimes we require whiskey.”

Allison laughed again and deposited her bag on the floor in the corner. She shrugged out of her suit jacket and hung it carelessly over the back of the chair at the desk. I started to set up my computer while she methodically removed her equipment and laid it out neatly across the dresser.

“You don’t mind if I take a shower, do you?”

I glanced up at the question. She’d turned to face me, and her fingers were poised over the buttons of her dress shirt as though she were awaiting my permission to take it off. I ducked my head to continue scrutinizing the diagram I’d sketched for the LZ site while I waited for my laptop to boot up.

“Knock yourself out,” I managed to say, pleased that I didn’t sound too shaky. Peripherally, I could see her unbuttoning her blouse. She was clearly trying to kill me. I took a shuddering breath and deliberately concentrated elsewhere, although, admittedly, I wasn’t really seeing anything at all.

Once Allison finally tired of trying to incite an aneurysm by prancing around the room in her underwear, she disappeared into the bathroom, and I could finally breathe somewhat normally and use my scrambled brain.

Sure, occasionally my thoughts strayed back to Allison and what I knew her lean, taut body looked like as she stood under the scalding hot spray, rivulets of water running down her silky smooth skin. And, okay, maybe I entertained a few images of joining her and licking all those stray droplets off, making her moan with pleasure. But mostly I just concentrated on work. More or less.

“Hungry?” Allison asked softly from behind me.

I jumped and hastily shot to my feet, then spun around. For the briefest second, we stood face to face. Our eyes were locked, and our lips were far too close to touching for my comfort. The clean scent of her shampoo intoxicated me, and I had to fight not to lean into her.

Fortunately, a knock sounded at the door before I could fall too far into her midnight gaze. I could only hope my jumbled emotions hadn’t been too clearly on display for the length of time she’d held me prisoner. Fat chance. But at least I hadn’t made an idiot of myself. That was something.

“Stay here.” My voice was barely louder than a whisper. I was aware of how breathy and desire-laden I sounded but was unable to disguise my tone. I ran one hand over the soft skin of Allison’s bare upper arm as I went to answer the door, marveling at the tingles along my own skin.

A quick peek confirmed it was the room service I’d ordered, so I paid for the meal and assured the puzzled waiter I could take the cart in by myself. That was probably best, considering Allison’s state of undress.

My heart started to thud within the suddenly-too-small confines of my chest. I took a deep breath and quickly swiped my hand across the side of the ice bucket, then rubbed the moisture onto my hot cheeks.
Stop acting like a complete dolt.

While I was at the door, Allison had donned her pajamas. She was now wearing a light-gray T-shirt we’re all issued in the academy with the initials of our training center—JJRTC—stenciled across the left breast and a pair of faded red flannel pants with tiny, white lips printed all over them. The vision of how sexy she was in her casual nighttime attire, her dark hair carelessly finger combed back off her forehead and leaving wet spots on the shoulders of her shirt, struck me dumb.