Actual Stop (Agent O’Connor #1)(28)
Allison was pursing her lips and annoyance flickered across her features, but I could tell it wasn’t directed at me, which made me nearly dizzy with relief. I must have hidden my emotions better than I’d thought. Either that or she was more distracted than I’d realized.
Allison let out an irritated sigh and punched the keys on her BlackBerry with a little more force than she’d been using. “What’d they give us?” Her tone was borderline resigned but with a touch of exasperation.
“Fifteen.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Why are you worried about this, again? You have coworkers up here with you getting paid to work out those details. You don’t have to do everything yourself. We have enough to concentrate on without getting involved in things that aren’t our job. Trust your peers to do theirs.”
“I do trust them. But I want to know everything about every single, solitary part of this visit. Right down to the smallest detail.”
I tried hard not to smile because showing any mirth would only irritate her. But it was tough. She was too cute when she was all anal retentive. “Of course. When we get to the room, I’ll go over the diagrams for each site with you one by one. Then you can work it out with the site agents how you want it structured. Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine.”
“You have working copies of the diagrams already?”
I nodded, piloting through the traffic on the surface streets with care, keeping a particularly wary eye on the yellow cabs zipping around. “Yeah. I sketched them while we did the initial walkthroughs.” That made me as much of a control freak as she was.
“Fantastic.” Allison sounded relieved.
“You asked the boss if you could work with me and then expected a half-assed job?”
“Do you really think I’d stake my reputation on anything less than stellar?”
“Then why do you sound so surprised that I made diagrams?”
“I don’t know. I just wasn’t thinking that far ahead. This whole thing sort of took me by surprise. And then there was the shock of actually seeing you.” Her words made me inhale sharply, but I didn’t have time to follow up on them. She held up her BlackBerry and wiggled it at me as she rushed on. “The boss wants to do preliminary walkthroughs tomorrow afternoon. I want to have everything squared away by then.”
“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.
Chapter Ten
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.