Off the Grid Read online

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “Who says?”

  She smiled back at him. “Me.” She paused, sobering. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He looked like he wanted to run for the door, but instead he shuffled his feet. “There isn’t much to talk about. Men died. Good men died by the luck of the draw. I didn’t.” He forced a laugh. “It pays to be a winner.”

  She’d heard the saying a few times when they were together in San Diego. It was usually meant motivationally in a competitive situation—work hard to be a winner—but he was using it more ironically.

  Brittany suspected there was a lot more in what he’d said than he realized. She wasn’t a psychiatrist or a therapist, but it sounded as if he was experiencing not just the loss but also a good old-fashioned case of survivor’s guilt.

  “Could you have done anything to change what happened?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless I figured out how to see the future.”

  “Did you do everything you could to help them?”

  He seemed taken aback even by the question. “There was nothing anyone could have done.”

  She feigned shock. “Not even you? You mean you aren’t Superman?”

  He realized what she was doing and got the point. “I hate to disappoint you—I know how superhero big I loom in your mind—but unfortunately, no leotards and phone booths for me.”

  She wrinkled her nose. Even John Donovan might have a hard time pulling off a leotard. But a leather Thor suit? She may have shuddered a little. He could definitely pull that off. Big-time. Move over, Chris Hemsworth. And for her that was saying a lot.

  “You aren’t to blame for not dying, John.”

  “I know that.”

  “What if the draw had come out another way? Would you want Brandon to be feeling guilty because you were the one to die?”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Of course not. That’s not how it works.”

  She gave a sharp nod. “Good. Then remember that.”

  Somehow her head was back on his chest and his hand was caressing her back. She could feel him chuckle when he responded, “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  She looked at him sideways. “I like the sound of that.”

  “Well, don’t get used to it. We’ve already established the command structure around here, and I’m not always so accommodating.”

  She snorted at the command-structure comment. Right. “You are never accommodating. You pretty much do what you want.”

  “Not always.”

  It took her a moment to figure out what he meant. But when she felt something hard jutting against her stomach just as he let her go, she understood. He wanted her, but he still wasn’t going to act on it.

  And she’d be willing to wager everything she had in the bank—which admittedly was about a hundred dollars—that it was more than wanting. Which brought her back to their earlier subject.

  He’d taken a step away from her, but she closed the distance quickly. The bed was behind him, so there was no place for him to move. He might not like to be cornered, but too bad. She wasn’t going to let this go. “Why didn’t it feel right at the bar tonight?”

  He had that pained look on his face again. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about that.”

  “I never said that.” She leaned into him a little so their bodies were barely touching. “Does it feel wrong with me?”

  He definitely wasn’t liking the turn the conversation was taking because he bit back a curse before he responded. “It should.”

  “But it doesn’t because you care about me, don’t you?”

  “You already know that.”

  “And you know that’s not the kind of caring I meant.” She slid her hand between them until her palm was lying flat on his chest. Pretty much right over his heart, where she could feel the heavy beating. “You feel something for me.”

  He shot her an angry glare. “I think that’s obvious. I feel like I’m going to explode, I want to fuck you so badly.”

  She might have been annoyed by the bluntness if she weren’t feeling the same thing herself. It was more than that, but how much more she didn’t know herself.

  But tonight had proved that she wasn’t quite as over him as she wanted to think, and maybe he wasn’t as incapable of feelings as he appeared. But could she let herself care about him again?

  Did she have a choice?

  She didn’t know. But something told her she couldn’t let this moment go. She had to hold on to the closeness.

  He’d turned to her last night in his sleep and kissed her today as if she were the most important thing in the world to him. He couldn’t make himself go through with what he had planned tonight, and then he’d confided in her about something she was sure he didn’t even want to acknowledge to himself. That had to mean something.

  It meant she was going to do something potentially really stupid or really wonderful again.

  Or maybe both.

  She stood on her tiptoes to whisper softly in his ear, “Then why don’t you?”

  The hand resting on her hip and back gripped a little harder. She could feel the restraint in each press of his fingers, and when he spoke, his voice came out just as hard and tense as his body. “I’m not going to do this, Brit.”

  She let her mouth roam near his ear and down his neck, pressing soft little kisses everywhere she went. God, he smelled good. She could still catch the hint of the soap he’d used earlier. He didn’t smell like smoke or alcohol, which made her wonder where he’d been for so many hours. But that was a question for another time.

  Now all she wanted to ask was, “Why not?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Good question. One John didn’t have the answer for right now. Not when those soft, warm lips were pressing against his skin and sure as hell not when the tight little body that seemed to meld right into him started to press provocatively against an erection that was definitely all in.

  It just felt too damned good. Too damned right.

  But he wasn’t going to think about that either.

  How could he when he was suddenly kissing her and she was curling in his arms with little sounds of delight as his tongue delved and circled deeper and deeper into her mouth?

  He was consumed by kissing. Savoring every stroke, every taste, every response. He loved how her body slid into his. How her breasts crushed against his chest, how her arms wrapped around his neck, how her soft body stretched out against his.

  How they felt together.

  He loved it even better when she pushed him back on the bed and she was on top of him. Their mouths never separated. They didn’t stop kissing even as their limited clothes started to land in a heap on the floor.

  He didn’t want to let her go. Even to lift off her T-shirt. He might have torn it off her if she hadn’t pushed herself away with a laugh.

  She was sitting upright, straddled over him. “You aren’t going to ruin my favorite T-shirt.”

  Once she lifted the seen-better-days Georgetown ringer over her head, any response he might have had fell aside. He was too busy trying to contain himself at the feast before his eyes. To hell with the Playboy underwear; the bare breasts in front of him were infinitely more enticing.

  He couldn’t hold back a second longer. He slid his hands up the smooth skin of her stomach to cup the heavy mounds of sweet flesh in his hands.

  He gave a low groan of pleasure. He’d died and entered man heaven. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart, but if Playboy ever does an annoying-reporter issue, you could have the centerfold.”

  Just to make sure the annoying-reporter remark didn’t get his hands removed, he started to squeeze and rub his thumbs over the perfect pink tips.

  She must have liked it because she arched a little deeper into his hand