The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,404

stick my head inside, slowly, and look around the room.

The first thing I notice is the map that takes up one entire wall. It’s dotted with different color push pins and sticky notes. I step into the huge space and close the door quietly behind me. It’s part office, part situation room.

Regan is sitting propped up, lengthwise, on a small bright blue sofa. Her laptop is on her thighs. Her head lolls to rest on the back of the sofa and her hand dangles off the edge. A soft snore punctuates her exhales.

I walk over and gaze down at her. She looks as wrung out as I feel.

But even exhaustion can’t tame the beautiful synergy of her bold cheekbones, her wide-set heavily lashed eyes, or her generously full lips and the soft set of them made even more so by sleep. I would have fought any war by her side, or at her front, if she’d have let me.

I trace the lines of her body with my eyes. Each one on prominent display, beneath her light grey calf length pencil skirt, topped by a form fitting white t-shirt. Her feet are bare; her toes are painted candy apple red. God; I want to taste them.

She is a whole eight course meal, and I’m a man who’s been living on beans and toast for months.

My entire body responds with what I can only describe as a full-body hunger pang. My mouth waters. My fingers twitch, and my cock stirs. My gut rumbles, the way it does when I’m hungry.

Her eyes pop open as if she heard it. She gasps and covers her chest with her hand. “You scared me.” She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths.

“Sorry, I knocked.” I step back from my hovering stance and shove my hands in my pockets.

“I was only closing my eyes for a minute… Let me just shut down, really quick,” she says, groggily, and taps her mouse to wake her laptop. She lowers her feet to the floor and starts to type in earnest.

Something falls from beneath her skirt and lands on the floor with a thud, and then rolls a few times, before it stops halfway between us. She’s immersed in whatever she’s doing and doesn’t seem to notice.

I stoop to pick it up and smile when I realize it’s a vibrator. And it’s warm and sticky. I lift it to my nose and inhale. The smell of her, citrus and fucking heaven, fills my nostrils, and I go from disinterested to full on rock hard in seconds.

“Okay, all done,” she announces, and reaches over and puts her laptop on the small side table next to the couch.

“Did Rob not tell you I was…” Her words die on her tongue, as her vision clears, and she sees the toy in my hand. Her face blooms with color.

“You dropped this,” I say, and smile innocently.

Her lips compress, and she clears her throat.

“Here.” I drop it into her outstretched palm.

“Thank you,” she says stiffly, and tucks it between the cushions of the couch.

I rub the wetness on my fingers together. Her eyes widen briefly, before she starts looking around, like she can’t find something.

“You lose something else?”

“Have you seen my shoes?” she asks, a tinge of panic in her voice.

“What do you need those for?”

Her head snaps up, and she narrows her eyes. “I’m leaving.”

I laugh. “Fuck if you are. You owe me at least more information about this reckless thing you dragged me into. If anything had gone wrong, Regan…I don’t even want to think about it. Robert Hirsch is a great pediatrician. But I want her to come to my office, tomorrow, if she’s up to it, and she should be. She needs a proper exam and blood work. She’s healthy, young, and in good shape, so everything went smoothly, but Regan, the hospital is where all of this should have happened.”

Her jaw tenses, and her words are clipped. “I know that, Stone. I’ve explained that this was extraordinary, and she might have been in danger. You’re a doctor. And, I trust you.”

I snort in disbelief. “As if you know the meaning of that word. I think you called me because you think I’m so pussy whipped that I’d risk my career for you. You needed a chump, and you called the biggest one you knew.”

She rears back like I slapped her. “No, how can you say that?”

I take a sweeping survey of the room in an effort to escape