Off the Grid Read online

  He sighed. “All the time.”

  “Good. You irritate me, too, when I’m not thinking about—”

  She stopped suddenly, her cheeks turning bright red.

  Now, that wasn’t just sexy; it was really damned cute. It made him want to make her blush like that all over. Maybe when he stripped her naked and told her exactly what he thought of her body. Part by part. Starting with the chest he was trying not to look at.

  It wasn’t his fault. It was the damned V-neck T-shirt, which had an opening that was practically right in his line of sight every time he looked down at her.

  They were still walking along the canal, but it wasn’t the touristy part. When he took her arm and turned her toward him, he realized no one else was around. “What?” he demanded. “When you aren’t thinking about what?”

  She tried to pull away with an embarrassed laugh. “Nothing. I’m drunk. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  Bullshit. She wasn’t that drunk. She had been about to say something revealing—that was the problem. And he wanted to hear it. He shouldn’t, but damn it, he did.

  “Tell me,” he said. It came out as more of an order, which she would typically ignore or countermand. But buzzed, she didn’t seem as indifferent as she usually did to him. He was beginning to think she might not have outgrown him as much as he thought. That maybe she was just as affected as before but had just grown better at hiding it.

  Her blush deepened, but she answered him. “When I’m not thinking about being with you.”

  “You’re with me right now.”

  She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her. He held her chin to face him. Those eyes. God, those eyes. He seemed to get lost in them.

  “Not like that,” she said in a soft, husky voice. “Being with you . . . intimately.”

  The last word was whispered so softly that he almost didn’t hear it. Or maybe that was just the freight train of desire that suddenly came roaring through his ears.

  Her mouth was right there. Tilted toward his so temptingly. He couldn’t help himself. He had to kiss her again. Just to see if it was as sweet as he remembered.

  He lowered his mouth to hers.

  She had time to react. Time to part her lips and give a little gasp of anticipation.

  A gasp that went straight to his cock. Everything about her went straight to his cock. But that wasn’t the only place that blood was rushing. His chest was feeling that tightness, too. It must be his lungs. Yeah, his lungs.

  But his lungs weren’t what was pounding.

  He stilled at the contact. The softness of her lips, the warmth, the sweet taste of strawberries coupled with the tangy edge of salt stopped him in his tracks. For a moment, he forgot what to do. He was too busy savoring every incredible sensation.

  His hand was still on her chin, tilting her mouth to his and holding her at a perfect angle to sink in his tongue deep and take a big sweeping drink of her. But he didn’t even want to take a breath, as if he could hold on to the moment forever. As if the connection afforded by a single kiss would be all that he needed.

  That was crazy. Wasn’t it?

  She made a sound. A whimper? A moan? He didn’t know, but the effect was the same. The lust that had been pounding in his blood came racing back full force. He knew exactly what to do.

  But when his mouth started to move over hers there was something different about it. His movements were slower. Softer. His lips were savoring and lingering with every gentle caress.

  It was as if every kiss, every soft circle and stroke of his tongue, were trying to elicit something.

  Or trying to say something.

  Never had a kiss felt so revealing, so expressive, so . . .

  Intimate. Just like she’d said.

  He pulled away almost as if he’d been zapped like a finger in a light socket.

  What the hell was he doing?

  She wobbled a little, which he attributed to the alcohol. Although the soft and hazy look in her eyes as she gazed up at him didn’t look anything like tequila. It looked like the wrong impression. It looked like emotions he didn’t want to see.

  “We should get back to the hotel,” he said, his tone abrupt. Or maybe it just seemed abrupt because of what had been happening a few moments before.

  She blinked up at him, obviously confused. A state he understood only too well.

  “All right,” she said, far too huskily for how hot he was right now.

  “I’m going to try to get a workout in before dinner,” he explained.

  Lifting weights and a good five-mile run on the treadmill should help. He was out of sorts because he hadn’t worked out in a few days. He needed to burn off some energy. Lots of energy.

  Maybe he’d better make that ten miles.

  He was so distracted he forgot that he was supposed to be distracting her and keeping her busy. Fortunately, she didn’t try to sneak off to the Internet café. She said she was going to lie down for a while and then take a bath.

  She was still in the bath when he returned—hot, sweaty, and on edge. He had to wait for his cold shower.

  She sure took long baths. When she finally came out, it seemed she’d taken most of her belongings in there with her.

  “Sorry,” she said, her cheeks still rosy from the steam. She’d put on some makeup and done her hair, but she was still wearing the hotel bathrobe. Which pissed him off. Didn’t she know how easy it was for him to take that thing off? “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

  He grumbled something and barely even looked at her as he took refuge in the icy-cold waters of his shower. After BUD/S, he swore he’d never take a cold shower again. That was before he’d met Brittany.

  He was more relaxed by the time he emerged, and he managed to make it through a pretty decent dinner at a local French-style café before some of that earlier tension returned. It wasn’t the long night ahead of him that confronted him when he looked at the two beds as they came back into the room—although that sure as hell bothered him; it was the turn their conversation took.

  At dinner, she’d been almost cautious in conversation topics. As if she knew something was bothering him. But as soon as they returned to their hotel room, all that restraint fled.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then why are you acting like this?”

  “Like what?”

  Brittany had never had a high tolerance for his or any other BS. He shouldn’t have been surprised when she cut right to the quick.

  “Like you didn’t kiss me earlier.”

  “It was only a kiss, Brittany. Don’t make one of your federal cases out of it, like you do everything else.”

  Five years ago she would have flushed with embarrassment, but not now. Now it was anger. “And what about me sleeping in your arms last night? I guess that didn’t mean anything either?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You cried out. You were having a nightmare. I went over to see if you were okay, and you pulled me into bed beside you. You held me cuddled against your chest all night long.”

  John was the one who was embarrassed now. It was like she’d just thrown a pitch and dropped him into the dunking booth of shame. It washed over him in a hot rush of anger. The nightmares and talking in his sleep were why he’d avoided overnight female companionship since the op in Russia.

  What had he said?

  He didn’t want to know. But most of all, he didn’t want her to know.

  “I was asleep, Brittany. I didn’t know what I was doing. You could have been anyone.”

  He’d said something like that to her once before, but this time she called him on it. “That’s crap, John, and you know it. You knew it was me. Just like you knew it was me when you kissed me like th