Page 48 of Agent Zero
When she finally went limp, tears sliding down and soaking into her tangled hair against the twisted pillow crammed sideways under her head, it got a little easier to exert self-control.
Only a little.
He peeled his hand away from her mouth, cautiously.Hopefully he hadn’t suffocated her.“Let it out,” he managed, his voice a husk of itself.“Let it out, Holl.Go ahead and cry.”
“I w-want to go home,” she whispered.
It was enough to break a man’s heart, if he had one.Was that why his chest felt so tight?The exhaustion made it difficult to think, and Christ help him, if she moved the wrong way he might add another goddamn reason for her to want to do something stupid to escape.
“I know.”His throat, dry as the Sahara, all but clicked as he swallowed hard.“I know, baby.I’ll make you a home.A nice one, whatever you want.We just have to get through this, and I’ll give you everything you’ve ever wanted.I know I can.”I’d better.It’s the only way to make up for all this.
Will I feel human then?
Her eyes flew open, and she stared up at him through that welling screen of tears.Her lips, reddened by the pressure—oh, fuck it all, had he bruised her?—parted just slightly, and she twitched as if to try to throw him off.
Reese lost the engagement, the battle, the entire damn war.His hand tightened around her wrists, his entire body threatened to explode...and his mouth met hers.
THIRTY
She couldn’t breathe.Somehow the air must have been getting in, though, because Holly didn’t pass out.He kissed her like he was drowning, as if he wanted to crawl inside her, and the confusion added to everything else inside her skull, turning it into a whirlpool.
It had been so long since she’d done this—well, at least she hadn’t forgotten how.Reese was heavy, way heavier than he looked, but braced on knees and elbows he didn’t crush her.A weird, undeniable feeling of safety swamped her, utterly crazy, but her body wouldn’t listen.Heat spreading through every limb, concentrating way down low in her belly, but it was Reese who tore himself away, sliding to her left, landing on the bed and going completely still.He kept hold of her right wrist, though, his fingers gentle but undeniable.
That slight contact sent buzzing electricity down her arm.Holly gasped.The ceiling sparkled in places, acoustic tile full of sprayed-on glitter.
Slowly, her breathing evened out.The tears kept trickling down her temples, hot and shameful.
“I’m sorry,” Reese whispered.Hoarse, rough, as if he’d just finished running a marathon.
Maybe he had.
Her mouth felt full.Ripe.It had been forever since she’d kissed anyone.Why did it have to happen now?
“Why...”She couldn’t even find a reasonable question to ask.“Why do you...”
“Do you really not know?”A bitterness scraping in his tone, and it took all Holly’s courage to turn her head against the pillow.
He stared at the ceiling, too, a high flush along his stubbled cheeks, and he looked...
Well, tired.That was some of it.But underneath the exhaustion and the usual set expression, there was something else.
He looked sad.
Oh, dammit, Holly, you already have a bad track record and no time for this, don’t do it.She’d survived Phillip, but only just, right?And only delayed the inevitable.The desire to leave this room had all but evaporated.
She had thought it over, all in one taffy-stretching second as she bent over the bed.Down to the front desk, ask politely for the shuttle to a bus station or if all else failed start walking, somehow beg enough change for a ticket, go home to her shattered apartment and sleep for a week.
As a plan it absolutely sucked, but it had seemed reasonable at the moment.
“This is messed up.”Reese swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, a strangely vulnerable little movement above the shirt collar.“I thought, you know, maybe I could get you into a nice apartment.Money isn’t an issue, but keeping you secret would be.Coming to see you whenever it was safe.Even if...even if nothing happened.”
That is really bizarre.“So, sort of like a kept woman?”
“No.Maybe, I don’t know.So you didn’t have to worry.You worried too much, I could see it.And you were too good for that diner.I wanted to—look, I was institutionalized growing up, okay?I never had a girlfriend.Never.”
“Institutionalized?”Girlfriend?Is that what he wants?I thought I was just baggage.
“Slow.Developmentally delayed.”A pause.“A moron, that’s what the kids might call it these days.That’s the nicest thing they call you when you just stand there and smile.”
