CHAPTER 29
Brynn
Swiss Alps, Switzerland
Night Two Off Grid
By the time Jameson finally called the training done, my body had become a formal complaint.
My shoulders hurt. My thighs hurt. I was fairly certain my right hip was no longer attached.
Even my fingers ached, which felt dramatic considering all they’d done was grab his wrist repeatedly while he taught me how not to get murdered by someone larger, faster, and more professionally terrible than me.
He stood several feet away in the clearing, watching me. “You’re done.”
I bent forward, hands on my knees, breathing hard enough to fog the cold air between us. “That sounded less like an observation and more like a time of death ruling.”
“Your form is deteriorating,” he said.
“My soul is deteriorating.”
One corner of his mouth lifted, then disappeared just as quickly.
I narrowed my eyes at him through the loose hair sticking to my face. “Don’t you dare almost-smile at my suffering.”
His expression settled back into control. “I would never.”
He walked toward me with the calm, unbothered stride of a man whose muscles had not been personally betrayed by gravity.
His hair was damp at the temples from exertion, his sleeves pushed up, forearms still too distractingly competent for someone who had spent the last several hours correcting my stance like survival was a seminar and I was an underperforming student.
He stopped close enough that I had to tilt my head back. “That’s enough for today.”
“Probably wise,” I muttered.
I straightened too fast and immediately regretted it. A hot, ugly knot pulled under my shoulder blade, intense enough to steal the argument right out of my mouth.
His eyes narrowed in on my shoulder, then my neck, then my face.
“Shh,” I said.
Ugh, I hated his face. Not all of it. Not even most of it. Just the specific part where his eyes were already assessing me without needing to say a word.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Maybe something is a little tight. I just need a hot shower.”
I turned and headed for the cabin. “I’m stealing all the hot water,” I called over my shoulder.
“The tank is large enough,” he said.
“The man can’t even let me threaten him properly.” I groaned as I headed up the steps.
Inside felt warmer than it had that morning, though not by much. The fire still held in the hearth, low and orange, throwing soft light against the stone. The windows were shuttered now, locked down and ugly in their practicality.
I left my boots by the door and traipsed toward the bathroom, peeling off my clothes on the way and dropping them on the bathroom floor.
I heard him shut and lock the door behind us. Then another lock.
The hot water came on with a cough from the pipes, then steadied. I stepped under the spray as steam began filling the small bathroom.
The room was aggressively clean, all white tile, glass, and one narrow counter. Even the mirror seemed determined to reflect exactly what the day had done to me.
I’d kept meaning to ask him about that. How could a place he visited so seldom be this prepared and immaculate?
I slid the shower door open a few inches. “Jameson?”
“Do you need something?” His answer came from somewhere beyond the door.
I waited until he pushed it wider but stayed at the threshold, gaze fixed carefully above shoulder level. As if he hadn’t already enthusiastically sampled everything I had going on.
I blinked at him through the steam. “How is this murder cabin so clean if you haven’t been here recently?”
His gaze dropped past me to the pile of clothes I’d abandoned. A tiny crease formed between his brows.
He stepped farther into the bathroom and bent to pick them up. “It isn’t a murder cabin.”
“Safe house. Murder cabin. Tomato, trauma.” I reached for the shampoo and immediately regretted the angle when my shoulder pulled again. “It looks like it’s kept up.”
He folded my top over his arm with absurd precision. “It is. I retain a married couple out of Lausanne. They’re retired from private diplomatic security and understand the need for discretion. They don’t know my name. They don’t know what this place is used for.”
“I don’t know what I expected your answer to be, but it wasn’t that. Normal people have landscapers, maybe maids,” I said. “You have anonymous bunker elves.”
“They’re not anonymous.” He picked up my leggings and added them to the stack. “I know who they are. And they’re paid rather handsomely through a blind management account to clean, restock basics, check the generator, rotate perishables, and leave. No questions asked.”
I looked at him. “That feels wildly unfair.”
“It’s safer for them,” he said.
“If they’re not supposed to know who you are, what keeps them from showing up while you’re here? I haven’t seen you contact anyone since we arrived.”
He answered like this was all extremely normal. “They’re tied into a passive notice system. If the alarm is disarmed under my code, they get a blackout window and stay away until the system resets. If it’s disarmed under another code, I get notified.”
I stared at him as water ran down my neck and steam curled between us. “You have a cleaning lady protocol.”
“Several,” he said.
I slowly nodded.
He stood there fully dressed, sleeves still damp at the cuffs from washing up after training, hair in that unfairly touchable disarray, like he was politely waiting for the next round of interrogation.
In retrospect, I should have done literally anything except hook one wet finger through the front of his shirt and tug. “While you’re in here.”
He stepped forward out of instinct, dropping my clothes as he entered the spray. Water hit his chest, darkening the fabric instantly. For half a second, it was funny. His eyes widened behind speckled lenses, and I almost laughed.
Almost.
Then his whole body went still in a way that had nothing to do with focus or desire.
Every system in him seemed to lock down at once.
His hands lifted slightly away from his sides.
Not touching me. Not pushing me away. Just suspended there, tense and useless, while water continued to soak through his shirt and plaster the fabric to his skin.
My smile vanished.
“Jameson?” I asked.
His throat moved.
Water ran down his face, caught in his lashes, and slid under the collar of his shirt. His breathing had changed. Not loud. Not panicked exactly. But scarily measured, which was somehow worse.
“I need...” he started.
I released him instantly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think...”
His fingers flexed once at his sides. “I need to take these off.”
“Okay.” I stepped back as much as the shower allowed.
“Now.” His jaw tightened. “Need them off now.” He winced at his own tone and closed his eyes.
A hard little knot of guilt twisted low in my stomach.
I had meant to tease him. Pull him into something spontaneous. Maybe make him lose that brutal edge of control for a second.
Instead, I’d ambushed him with wet clothes and watched every part of him turn against the sensation.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Now.” I didn’t know why I felt like I needed to give him permission.
He opened his eyes.
I pushed the shower door wider and reached past him to turn the spray slightly away from his face. “It’s okay. Step out. Take them off.”
For one second, he just looked at me, like the sentence was still reaching him through the static.
Then he stepped out.
Water dripped from his clothes onto the tile. His shirt clung to every line of his chest and stomach, which would have been deeply unfair if the moment hadn’t still felt fragile.
He turned his back to me and stripped with quick, efficient movements. Glasses first. Shirt next. Then the rest. Not performative. Not seductive. A problem being solved.
I kept my eyes mostly on the fogged glass.
Mostly.
I was a decent person, not a saint.
“You good?” I asked.
His shoulders rose once with a controlled breath, then lowered. “Yes.”
That did something terrible to my heart.
He stood outside the shower for a few seconds longer, naked now, one hand braced against the counter. Water dripped from his hair onto his shoulder. His spine was too rigid, each muscle held taut.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His head turned slightly.
“I mean it.” I leaned against the tile, letting the water hit the sore line of my neck. “I was being impulsive. It backfired. We can pretend I didn’t try to seduce you into physical therapy with poor planning.”
“I wasn’t objecting to the physical therapy,” he said.
“Just the poor planning?”
His gaze dropped briefly. “The wet clothes.”
“Right.” My cheeks warmed, which was impressive considering the shower was already doing its best to boil me alive.
His gaze held mine, stripped of the distance he usually kept between us. Despite my nakedness, I suddenly felt too raw beneath that look. The water and steam had softened the edges of him, but not the attention. That stayed direct, almost unnervingly honest. “You noticed, and you stopped.”
“Well, I’m not a monster.”
“No,” he said. “I’m used to discomfort being treated as something I’m supposed to ignore.”
That thought made my chest hurt in a way I didn’t know what to do with. “Who taught you that?”
His gaze shifted away from mine. “Someone who wanted to make sure I knew how to survive this world.”
He looked down at the wet pile of clothes on the floor, then back at me. “May I come back in?”
“Of course.”
This time, he stepped into the shower by choice.
The glass door slid shut behind him with a soft click, and suddenly the shower felt much smaller than it had a minute ago.
He stood under the edge of the spray, water running over his shoulders and down the cut lines of his chest, his hair falling forward slightly.
Without his glasses, his face looked less shielded. Younger, maybe. More dangerous in a different way.
I looked at him for exactly one second too long.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, then lifted again. “You dragged me in here.”
“I did.”
His eyes remained locked with mine. “For physical therapy.”
“That was the official purpose.”
“What was the unofficial purpose?” he asked.
I rose on my toes and kissed him.