Actual Stop (Agent O’Connor #1)(13)

“Ah. Of course.”

I gritted my teeth, grounding myself by concentrating on the throbbing ache in my jaw, and took extreme care to make my expression go blank, although I didn’t know whether I succeeded. Allison was the golden child. The superstar. She always had been. That had been true when she’d been here in New York, and I had no doubt the trend continued down in D.C. She got everything she asked for. It’s just the way it was. And, secretly, even still, the thought filled me with a kind of pride.

Well, normally. Now, not so much. I shoved my hands into my lap so they’d be hidden behind my desk and she wouldn’t see me clenching them into iron-tight fists. My fingernails dug deeply into the flesh of my palms, and hot little bursts at my temples felt like someone was setting off tiny dynamite charges. What about what I was comfortable with? Did she even care? Probably not. I suspected that my comfort level, or lack thereof, was most likely last on her very long list of considerations, which is why I didn’t bother to argue. So what if I was in a squad that didn’t do that kind of protection work? Who the hell cared that this would cause office gossip for months to come? Allison Reynolds had asked for something. Who was I to stand in her way?

Not that my opinion really mattered anyway. That Allison and I were even having this conversation indicated that the bosses had already given her their blessing. It’d been decided without requiring any input from me, apparently. Oh, I might be able get out of this if I really wanted to, but there was no guarantee. And my reticence would most likely cause more of a stir than just going along with what everyone else clearly wanted. Sometimes you had to pick your battles. Even I knew that.

Allison seemed to sense my acceptance of the situation even before I said anything, because when I looked back into her eyes, they were sparkling again, and she was grinning. “Come on. You know we’ve always made a great team.” The low, intimate tone slipped back into her voice as she spoke, and something I couldn’t quite place flickered briefly behind her eyes.

No comment.

“Can you give me an hour or so to tie up a few loose ends?” I asked finally, trying to convince myself that I didn’t sound as beaten to her as I did to me. How was I supposed to finish everything else when I’d be spending the next few days wrapped up with this assignment? I fought the urge to massage my forehead.

“Take the rest of the day,” Allison replied. “Pick me up at my hotel at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow morning. I’m staying at The W on Lex. We’ll grab a quick breakfast and get started.”

I nodded absently as she stood and exited my office. Only after she shut the door behind her and I knew I was completely alone did I put my head in my hands and squeeze my eyes shut.

Son of a bitch! I ran my fingers through my hair and let out a sigh. This was going to suck in so many ways, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. Just my luck. I took a deep breath and stared at the mess on my desk, marveling at its resemblance to my life all of a sudden.

This wasn’t helping. I needed a plan. No way was I just going to sit back and embrace the suck. That wasn’t my style. But in order to come up with a realistic coping mechanism, I’d need to stop lying to myself and start getting real. Okay, so not a single day had gone by that I hadn’t thought about Allison. Not one. I’d thought about her yesterday, as a matter of fact. But first love is like that, from what I’d heard, though that old adage never made me feel any better about it.

It’d been getting better though. Slowly. In the beginning, thoughts of her had been nearly constant and had made it impossible to concentrate more often than not. But they’d slowly tapered off as time had passed, and the agony that’d seemed permanent had eventually faded into a dull ache. Yet I’d be a fool to deny that I did still think about her. And not all my reflections were appropriate.

Almost immediately, my mind shifted gears, and I smiled wistfully as I drifted to memories of Allison back when we’d been happy and in love. The playful way she used to cock her head to the side when she’d been teasing me. The light in her beautiful eyes when she smiled. The naked desire on her face when she’d looked at me. The smell of her skin. The feel of her silken hair sliding between my fingers. The taste of her lips. The sound of her breathlessly moaning my name in my ear while I—

“Ryan?” A voice broke into my reverie.

“Huh?” My head shot up, and I balled my hands into fists in my lap, trying to banish the almost palpable memory of what it felt like to slide my hands over Allison’s flesh. That was not a good coping mechanism.

Meaghan stood framed in our doorway looking at me with a curious expression. “You okay?” Her voice was soft, her expression tinged with concern, which caused a heavy pang of guilt to resound deep in my gut.

“Yeah.” I rubbed at my eyes without thinking about what I was doing and then swore softly. I’d probably just smeared my makeup everywhere. Great. “Just tired.”

“You sure?” Meaghan stepped closer to my desk to peer at me intently.

I nodded, but my thoughts kept drifting elsewhere. I was trying, I really was. But Allison’s sudden and completely unexpected reappearance had stirred up a whole host of emotions I’d spent a considerable amount of effort burying. Unsuccessfully, it seemed. With barely a thought, she’d thrown my entire world into chaos. Again.

“Here.” Meaghan handed me a manila envelope. She was obviously choosing to accept my explanation, though not looking as if she really believed it.