Off the Grid Read online

  The desperation in her voice sent a knife through his ribs. Home wasn’t him anymore. Home was to someone else.

  Colt didn’t say anything. He just nodded and returned to the elevator panel. In a few seconds it was going again.

  He hit the button for the lobby, and a few moments later he was watching her walk away from him. After what had just happened, it probably should be for the last time. But somehow he knew it wasn’t. There was unfinished business between them, whether either of them wanted to admit it or not. That kiss had just ripped open a scar that wasn’t fully closed.

  Twenty-two

  Brittany heard the mutter of curses and a few angry huffs behind her as she clambered up the fire escape stairwell to her fifth-floor apartment the next morning. She waited at the top, holding the door open as John rounded the last turn below her with the bulky suitcase they’d retrieved from her building manager.

  She smiled. “Everything okay?”

  “Peachy,” he said with a grunt, dropping the wheeled duffel to the floor. It landed with a heavy thud, which wasn’t surprising, as it must have weighed about seventy-five pounds, thanks to the stack of yellow pages that had been sitting in the mailroom. She’d jammed in as many as she could when he wasn’t looking. “How long did you say that elevator has been on the blitz?”

  She shrugged. “A couple weeks. I told you I didn’t mind carrying it. I hope it wasn’t too heavy for you.” She smiled sweetly as he shot her a disgusted glare. “I thought you guys carried big packs when you go . . .” Seeing his warning glare, she modified her comment to, “To work.”

  “Sometimes, but on our backs. But this thing is a pain in the—”

  The sound of the elevator chime stopped him. The door opened, and her manager walked out. “I forgot to give you the new key I had made after the break-in,” he said, frowning at the suitcase at the top of the stairs. “Why didn’t you take the elevator?”

  “It’s broken,” John replied, although his gaze had slid to hers.

  Busted.

  “Broken?” the manager repeated with a frown. “I had it replaced last year. It’s practically brand-new.”

  Brittany fought a smile—pretty unsuccessfully. “Is that right? I would have sworn it was down last week. But Joe doesn’t mind a little exercise. Do you, Joe?”

  Brittany might have had her fun—she hadn’t forgotten his comments about the rocks in her bag—but from the look on John’s face, he was already planning his payback. Wait until he saw the phone books.

  Bring it on, Johnny. She could take whatever he dished out. And when his gaze slid hotly and possessively down her body as her manager unlocked the door, she was looking forward to it. A lot.

  She’d taken him in her mouth again this morning, waking him slowly and gently with the sensual kiss until he was as big and hard as a spike and straining against the urge to push deeper into her mouth. She’d tortured him with the long, slow sucks and pulls until his body was shaking with need and he started to beg with small pumps of his hips. Only then did she suck him hard and deep, pumping him as fast as he wanted.

  Nope, no lessons needed.

  But he gave her one anyway in the shower. A lesson in how not to slip when a man had his tongue buried between your legs and you were coming until your legs gave out. Or when he bent you over to brace against the wall while he took you from behind.

  But all thoughts of their morning sex-fest fell by the wayside when her manager opened the door and she walked into her apartment.

  Or what had been her apartment. There wasn’t much left of the place she remembered. The few pieces of furniture she’d had—mostly IKEA remainders—had been torn apart, with the stuffing pulled out and strewn across the floor or, in the case of the wood, broken into pieces. It was as if a cyclone had hit it.

  But from the level of destruction, it was more than that. It felt almost malevolent. As if someone hadn’t been just looking for something but had wanted to destroy.

  John swore.

  Brittany felt oddly numb. It hadn’t been much of a home, but it had been the only one she had.

  The manager, an older man who’d lost his wife a few years ago and seemed pretty checked out most of the time, seemed to suddenly see it as well. He turned a chair upright. “I didn’t want to disturb anything,” he apologized defensively.

  “I understand completely, Mr. Polonsky. I’m sure the police had their investigation and you didn’t want to throw out anything that might be important.”

  The old man was obviously relieved at the out she’d given him. “That’s right.”

  “We can take it from here,” she said. “Joe is going to help me clean up.”

  The manager took in the big, strong-looking SEAL, obviously concluded that she was in capable hands, and gave her a nod. “Good. Let me know if you need anything.”

  He shut the door behind him, and Brittany looked around. “Lots of trash bags,” she said to herself.

  Glancing up, she saw John watching her. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Or I will be as soon as I get some new furniture.”

  He must have picked up on the malevolent aspect of the destruction as well. “You’re safe, Brit. I won’t let anything happen to you. And there are a half-dozen guys watching this building right now. No one is getting in or out of here without us knowing it.”

  She nodded, the reminder definitely making her feel better. But it wasn’t the half-dozen guys posted around the building that steadied her; it was John’s presence.

  He swore again. “I never should have agreed to this. I’m going to call my guy and tell him it’s all off.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” she said, putting her hand on his chest. She wasn’t the only one who needed steadying. “It was just a little bit of a shock. I’m fine—or will be when we get some of this cleaned up. Okay?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to answer and went to work. They spent the next hour clearing the worst of it, filling a few trash bags and salvaging what they could. A couch with one cushion, a couple wooden chairs, and her breakfast table. Fortunately, her dishes were mostly melamine and she only had a few broken coffee mugs that she had to toss, including a SAVE A REPORTER: BUY A NEWSPAPER gag gift that Mac had given her for her birthday last year.

  There was only one time the tears that she’d kept tight in her throat threatened to spill, and that was when she saw her clothes all over the floor of her bedroom and realized someone had gone through her underwear, socks, pajamas, and everything else in her drawers. That made it personal. Violating.

  Fortunately, John was still in the living room and didn’t witness the moment of weakness or he might have called it off for good this time.

  She threw all the clothes in a laundry bag to be washed, but she wondered if she’d wear any of them again.

  Once the worst of it was straightened, John asked her to see if she could find anything missing. What limited jewelry she had—a few necklaces and earrings that had belonged to her mother—had been tossed on the floor, but thankfully appeared undamaged. This hadn’t been a robbery; it had been a hunt.

  She didn’t have much by way of electronics, but the TV and the alarm clock that served triple purpose by functioning as a phone dock and stereo speaker had been knocked over but seemed okay.

  Her desk mostly served as a place to rest her laptop. She didn’t store files at home, so nothing important would have been taken. Her personal papers consisted of bank and credit card statements and tax documents. Nothing worthwhile there. The would-be thief must have agreed because those appeared to be opened and strewn across her desk—the only pieces of upright furniture in her apartment aside from the bed—but intact.

  She panicked for a minute when she couldn’t find the silver frame with the photo of her parents that she kept on the desk, but it was on the floor by her bed. The glass was broken, b