Actual Stop (Agent O’Connor #1)(90)

“I haven’t called,” Allison said.

I looked away, hoping my hurt feelings didn’t show on my face. “Yeah.”

She stepped up to the side of my bed and placed her hands on the railing. “Hey,” she said softly.

I glanced up at her, all bated breath and nervous hope.

“I’m sorry.” It came out as a whisper, but her face was sadder and more serious than I’d ever seen it.

We continued to stare at one another until the pointed clearing of a throat broke the spell.

“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Dad said, sounding amused. “Hello, Allison. Nice to see you again.”

Allison blinked once, startled, as if just now noticing I had company. “I’m sorry, sir. You don’t have to go anywhere. I can come back later.”

“Please stay. I have a meeting to prepare for, so I was about to leave anyway.” He shifted his focus to me. “Call if you need anything.”

“Of course. Thank you, sir.”

Dad grinned at me, then walked out and shut the door behind him.





Chapter Twenty-eight


Now that Allison and I were alone, the atmosphere in the room suddenly threatened to choke me. The pressure gathering in my chest was acutely painful. Each one of the scenarios I’d imagined for our reunion rushed in on me at once. I was overwhelmed and couldn’t decide what to say.

Allison’s eyes raked over me, and she appeared to be assessing my condition. All of her usual swagger had disappeared, and a tension and uncertainty hovering around her now filled me with dread. She gazed at me for an eternity, but finally she reached out to tentatively caress my cheek with her fingertips. My skin sparked where she touched me, and my heart threatened to beat its way out of my body. I closed my eyes and sighed.

“Ryan,” Allison whispered.

I opened my eyes, and her bare emotions frightened me. I gently covered her hand with my own.

The in-control, put-together fa?ade she’d strolled in here with had completely cracked, and I doubted she’d recover it. With her other hand, she followed the line of the stitches on my forehead with a feather-light touch. Her eyes reflected back to me such a myriad of ever-changing emotions I scarcely had the energy to keep up.

When she finished exploring my wound, she let her hand ghost across my brow and down the other side of my face and caressed the tender spot on the other side of my jaw.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to break the weighty silence between us, but Allison ignored my attempt and leaned down oh-so-slowly to retrace the path her fingers had just blazed across my stitches with her lips. My eyes fluttered closed, and a small moan slipped past my lips.

Allison took her time lavishing my cut with attention before depositing small kisses on each of my eyes and the tip of my nose. My heart pounded, and my lungs seized when she barely brushed my lips as she turned my head in order to pay attention to the aching spot on my chin. I smiled when she finally finished and made her way back to my lips. She rewarded me with a long, lingering kiss that kindled sparks in every single nerve ending in my body.

When we finally broke apart, I was breathing heavily, and my head felt like I’d just jumped off one of those spinning carnival rides. But underneath everything I was so overwhelmed with love for her that it actually hurt. That love silenced the voices clamoring in the back of my head reminding me that things between us were still unsettled. And it almost carried me through my guilt and despair over the death of Lucia that violently sucker punched me at the oddest times. Like now.

Allison rested her forehead against mine. Her breath tickled my lips, making me want to kiss her again. Her fingers wound their way around the back of my neck to tangle in my hair. I used my free left hand to cup her cheek, surprised to discover it was wet. I tried to pull back so I could look into her eyes, but she tightened her grip on me, forcing me to remain where I was.

“Don’t cry,” I murmured.

She let out a strangled half-laugh, half-sob. “Easy for you to say.”

I wiped all traces of moisture from her cheeks, then kissed the tracks her tears had made. And when fresh tears took their place, I repeated the process.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re undoing all my hard work.”

That did get a laugh. Well, sort of. A halfhearted chuckle, at any rate. “Stop trying to make me feel better. That’s my job.”

“You already have, just by showing up here.” I paused. Did I want to add the next part? Was I ready to make myself vulnerable with the admission? “I’m happy to see you.”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t come?” She drew back from me just enough to look into my eyes. Her hands were still threaded through the hair tumbling down across my neck. Her expression was dark, almost morose, and a nervous flutter tickled up and down my spinal column before landing directly on top of my diaphragm.

I shrugged and hissed at the pain in my shoulder. Damn it! Would I ever remember not to do that? “When you didn’t call…”

“You’re right. I should’ve called. I’m sorry. But you should know I have never, ever, in my entire life been as terrified as I was when I heard what happened to you.” She held my gaze as she said that, her voice low and teeming with raw emotion. She slid her hands around my face and cradled it tenderly between them, skating her thumbs across my cheeks. “I couldn’t book a flight home fast enough.”