Page 99 of Radar

Elyssa clamped her mouth shut and sent Xander a look of fury. “Goddammit. I don’t want to fall in love with you until later.” Elyssa scowled. “Stop it. Stop it right now.”

“I … Okay.” Confusion and laughter fought for dominance in his expression. “Could you be just a little more explicit?”

She gestured up and down Xander’s body. “You’re doing it right now, stop.”

“Now?” Xander pointed a finger toward the floor. “I’m doing it now.” He looked at Radar, then back at Elyssa. “Right now, I’m doing something that makes you feel like you’re falling in love with me?” He wrinkled his brow. “I walked in the door after Radar’s run. I’m covered in sweat.”

She licked her lips. “Yes!”

“Covered in sweat makes you fall in love with me?”

“Obviously.” She held her palms up and vibrated her hands at him. “Yes, sweat with the gorgeous dog looking like he would eat a bear for you.”

“Eat a bear to protect you, yes.” Xander pulled the towel from the neck of his sweatshirt, balled it up, and held it to his chest. “For me? He might leave me some leftovers, once he was full.”

“Stop it!”

He lifted his brow. “Doing it again?”

“Self-deprecating humor. Glint of joy in your eyes.”

“No joy then.” He canted his head. “Some joy?” He held his finger and his thumb to show an amount. “A smidge of joy?” His smile was delicious.

Elyssa couldn’t fight against a smile like that. The stress that she’d turned into, whatever this scene was, melted in the light of his smile. “Fine, a smidge of joy,” she relented. “But this cannot be combined with sweat and an adoring dog. One component at a time is acceptable. Three is just mean.” She wandered over and put her forehead on his chest.

And he wrapped her in his arms and dropped a kiss onto her hair. “Because you falling in love with me would be me being mean?” He rocked her back and forth.

“Thank you for understanding.” And after standing there like that for a long minute, she lifted to her toes to kiss him. “Shower, please.”

He released her and started toward the bathroom.

“Wait,” she called. “First, I need to borrow a shirt.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Xander

Monday

Paris, France

“You ready?” Xander asked, bringing his pack into the room.

They both turned as Xander’s phone rang.

“Hiro, I’m putting you on speaker. I’m here with Elyssa. We’re in a private space.”

“The electrical outage is spreading into France.”

“Do you have a local safe house for us, or should we follow the earlier plan to get to Portsmouth?”

“Let’s see if you can get to the ferry before the lights go out,” Hiro said. “Question, why Morocco, Greenland, most of England, Portugal, Spain, and now France, and not the rest of Europe? I’ll answer that. If it were me, I’d want to see what happened. What safety measures were in place? How do people respond? Why would the Zorics take it in stages? I’m working under the theory that this is stage one, and it escalates from here.”

“Agreed,” Xander said. “They had to be careful about how they spread the attack. They couldn’t be too close to Russia, so it couldn't include Poland. And not Germany because of U.S. installations and their military and weaponry,” Xander said. “No need to put NATO on high alert. Just enough to test the theory. Nothing that would cause a societal meltdown. It’s the same reason they chose Newark.”

“Go on with that thought,” Hiro said.

“Newark is close, they could budge over a bit and hit Manhattan. 9-11 is still a fresh trauma in many New Yorkers’ minds.” Xander was looking at Elyssa when he asked, “What would happen if New York’s towers went dark like Newark’s did?”