CHAPTER 42
Jameson
France to Geneva
Day Twenty-Six Off Grid
We left the chalet before noon.
We stayed only long enough to eat, pack, and let Brynn rest her ankle before we started back toward Geneva.
The cold hit hard when we stepped outside. Brynn didn’t complain. She moved carefully but steadily, the limp still there whenever she forgot to compensate for it. The confusion from the day before was gone.
She claimed her ankle was fine.
I didn’t ask again.
She would’ve stabbed me.
We took the back roads, keeping to tree lines and forgotten routes. I swapped the vehicle once more outside a village that didn’t have a name on the map. Overly cautious, maybe. But I wasn’t driving into Geneva with anything that could be traced.
When we were back on the road, I said, “Once we get into the city, we’ll find a hotel. You can stay there while I…”
Brynn’s head snapped toward me. “While you what?”
“Handle the recon.”
She stared at me like I’d just suggested she wait in the car with the windows cracked. “You’re serious.”
“It’s safer.”
“For who?” she shot back. “Because it sure as hell isn’t safer for you.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point,” she said, her voice cutting. “Darrow was my lead before it was yours. Don’t sideline me because going back there scares you.”
“It doesn’t scare me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then what is it?”
I didn’t answer.
Darrow had already rejected her identity once. Someone had followed her home afterward. Now her name was buried in the same retrieval as mine, and neither of us knew who had put it there.
My hands tightened on the wheel.
She saw that too.
She exhaled hard and looked back out the window. “You don’t have to say it. I already heard it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” She turned toward the window before I could respond.
Anything I said next would’ve been wrong.
Or too honest.
We reached Geneva by late afternoon.
The city rose ahead of us like a memory I didn’t want. Brynn sat beside me, hood up, hair tucked away, her face angled toward the window. She didn’t speak.
Neither did I.
We found a hotel that took cash and didn’t ask for names. Not luxury, just anonymity with clean sheets and hot water.
The moment the door shut behind us, Brynn exhaled like she’d been holding her breath since France.
I understood the feeling.
She dropped her bag and went straight to the bathroom. The tub turned on a moment later, pipes groaning as water struck porcelain. Steam began to seep beneath the door.
I sat on the edge of the bed and let myself feel the weight of the last few days.
The explosion, the cabin, the cold. Our names buried in the retrieval. The symbol she’d drawn without knowing what it was.
Serpens Geminus.
I scrubbed a hand over my face.
The water shut off.
Steam drifted beneath the bathroom door. I should’ve been planning, mapping exits, checking sightlines, and running contingencies for the stakeout.
That was what my mind wanted: structure, sequence, a problem with edges.
Instead, everything kept splitting.
The tactical part of me counted the room again. Door. Window. Bathroom. Hallway. One entry, two viable exits, no clean sightline from the street.
The rest of me stayed fixed on the other side of the bathroom door, on her and the faint movement of water.
I stood before I could talk myself out of it.
The bathroom was warm when I stepped inside. The mirror had fogged, and the faint scent of her soap hung in the air. Brynn was in the tub with her knees bent and her arms resting along the porcelain edge. Her hair floated around her shoulders, dark and loose in the water.
She didn’t startle when she saw me. She blinked up at me through the steam, her eyes soft in a way that made something in my chest misfire.
“You look like you’re thinking too much,” she said.
“I am.”
Brynn’s gaze held mine. “About what?”
“Everything.”
She huffed a quiet breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “That’s not helpful.”
“No.”
I sat on the edge of the tub. Not close enough to touch her. Close enough to feel the heat rising from the water.
She reached for the shampoo bottle.
Before she could pick it up, I cleared my throat. “Do you…” The words stuck. I tried again. “Would it be all right if I…”
She didn’t make me finish.
She nodded once and turned slightly, lifting her hair from the water.
I took the bottle from her hand. My fingers brushed hers, barely, and she didn’t pull away.
I worked the shampoo through her hair slowly. Her eyes drifted shut, and her breathing evened out as I rinsed the suds away with my hands.
Brynn’s hair slipped through my fingers, the last traces of lather trailing down her back and disappearing into the water. My gaze followed before I could stop it.
Water moved over her skin in slow, uneven paths, catching along the curve of her breasts and the tightened peaks of her nipples before the bubbles concealed the rest. Steam softened the edges of her collarbones, her waist, the faint parting of her thighs beneath the surface.
My body responded with immediate, painful certainty.
She was relaxed and bare, and so beautiful I could barely think around it.
She let out a low, contented hum that pulsed through me.
Before I could pull back, her hand closed around my wrist, wet and firm.
“Join me,” she said, voice husky, eyes half-lidded and dark with want.
I didn’t hesitate. I stood, stripped off my shirt, then pushed my jeans and boxer briefs down in one smooth motion. I was already hard, my length heavy and throbbing for her.
Her gaze dropped, and the corner of her mouth curved in a slow, hungry smile.
I stepped into the tub. The water was hot, enveloping me as I sank down.
She moved immediately, shifting forward before turning to straddle my lap face-to-face.
Her slick, soapy thighs squeezed my hips, her core hovering just above me.
Bubbles clung to her breasts and slid down her stomach as she settled against me.
Our mouths met in a deep, unhurried kiss, wet and hungry.
I cupped her breasts, thumbs brushing her nipples, feeling them harden further under my touch while the water made everything slippery and smooth.
She rocked against me, grinding herself along my length without taking me inside yet, teasing us both with every slow movement.
I groaned against her lips. My hands slid down to the curve of her ass, helping her move, the suds foaming between our bodies with every roll of her hips.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes gleaming. “I want you inside me.”
I lifted her just enough to position myself at her entrance, easing in only an inch before pulling back. I did it again, shallow and deliberate, until she gave a frustrated whimper and tightened her legs around me.
Then I lowered her onto me completely, my breath breaking as her body closed around mine.
The water made every movement almost frictionless as she started moving, slow and deep at first, while it sloshed gently around us.
The rhythm built quickly. Her breasts bounced with every thrust, her nipples brushing my chest, her skin slippery and flushed. I gripped her hips harder, meeting her movements.
She leaned back, bracing her hands on my thighs, giving me an unobstructed view of her body, the suds glistening across her skin, her warmth enveloping me as she took every inch.
“Touch yourself.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and a slow, knowing smile curved across her mouth.
“I want to watch,” I said, tightening my hold on her hips.
She kept her gaze locked on mine as one hand rose to cup her breast, her fingers closing around the tightened peak. The other slipped between our bodies and began moving in tight, slippery circles.
The sight dismantled me.
Every controlled part of my mind gave way at once: the careful distance, the rules, the lie that I could keep touching her without eventually needing everything she had.
“Brynn, I…”
My rhythm faltered.
The rest of the words disappeared before they could follow, but the space they left behind was enough.
My heart began pounding harder than exertion could explain, each beat striking high against my ribs until the pressure became almost painful.
The feeling was too immediate, too complete.
I had no framework for wanting someone so badly that my body could no longer distinguish desire from fear. No way to account for the pressure building behind my ribs or the certainty that if I let the words come, they would alter something I could never restore.
This was how it happened. Not all at once or with a decision. A person became necessary by degrees until losing them could take something vital with them.
She felt the change.
Her hands left her body and closed around my face as she leaned forward. “Look at me.”
I tried.
My gaze caught near her mouth before dropping between us. Meeting her eyes felt too much like letting her see the thing I had barely stopped myself from saying.
Her fingers tightened against my jaw until I finally looked up.
My jaw had locked. I could feel the strain of it, the effort it took to keep breathing evenly, to keep from pulling away from something I had no name for and understood too well.
Her eyes searched mine. “Hey, stay with me.”
Not a question or a demand for an explanation. Just an answer to whatever she had seen.
Her thumbs moved once along my jaw. “I’m still here.”
I drew in a breath that hurt.
“Do you want to stop?” she asked.
“No.”
Her eyes held mine for another second, making sure.
Then I started moving again, and she kissed me.
Slowly at first.
Her hands slid from my face to my shoulders as I found the rhythm we had lost, each movement deeper than the last.
The kiss broke, but neither of us looked away.
Her eyes stayed locked on mine, open and unguarded in a way that felt more intimate than anything else we had done. She lifted one hand to my face again, her fingertips tracing my jaw before her thumb brushed across my lower lip.
I caught it lightly between my teeth.
Her breath hitched.
Still, she did not look away.
Neither did I.
Something in her expression shifted as the pleasure began to take her apart. I felt the first tremor move through her, then another, her thumb slipping free as pleasure broke through her in a breathless cry and she shattered against me in the water.
The sight and feel of her pulled me under. I drove deep and held her there as release tore through me.
She smiled, lazy and satisfied, and rolled her hips once more just to tease. “We’re definitely flooding the floor.”
Bubbles still popped softly around us, water lapping at our skin.
“I’m aware.”
She studied my face. “You don’t sound concerned.”
“I’m not.”
Then I kissed her again.
Later, Brynn lay against me in the narrow hotel bed, her damp hair spread across my chest. One of my hands rested at the back of her neck, my thumb moving along the edge of her jaw without conscious instruction.
She had fallen asleep quickly.
I had not.
The moment in the bath returned every time I closed my eyes. The words that had nearly formed. The panic when I understood where they were leading.
I should have moved away.
Distance had always been easier to maintain than recover.
Instead, I tightened my arm around her.
Tomorrow, we would begin watching Darrow.
Tonight, I let her stay exactly where she was.