Free Third Time Lucky by Pippa Croft

several times since I met him and each time I’m shocked by their intensity. Once, during one of his nightmares, after his father’s funeral, he’d gripped my wrist so hard the bruises lingered for days.
    ‘Uh-huh … Tell me I didn’t hurt you this time.’ There’s a desperate edge to his voice that I could almost describe as panic.
    ‘No, I’m fine.’ In truth, he did thrash about, but the moment I woke up I got out of bed and kept clear. ‘What about you?’ I ask.
    ‘I’m OK,’ he says gruffly, but he couldn’t hide the twist of pain as he pushed himself up from the lyingposition earlier. The way he was thrashing about can’t have done his injured arm any good.
    ‘Are you sure? You still have stitches in.’
    ‘Screw these bloody dreams.’
    ‘It’s hardly surprising you had another after all that’s happened …’
    ‘What happened on the op has nothing to do with it.’
    ‘OK, whatever you say.’ My sympathy is tempered by annoyance at his brusqueness but I try to be patient, and I think he knows he’s upset me.
    ‘Come here.’ He pulls me to him and his thighs are satisfyingly hard under me. ‘I’m sorry, Lauren. I agree that recent … ha … events … probably haven’t helped, and I’m still on a cocktail of drugs, but those nightmares started a long time ago. You know that.’
    I grin at him and let him kiss me. ‘Yes.’
    For some reason, I find myself thinking about the moment I discovered the letter he sent me before he went on the mission, tucked into a zipper pocket of my overnight bag.
    ‘I still haven’t worked out how you got the note to me, by the way.’
    He looks up, surprised. ‘Brandon delivered it.’
    ‘But … it was inside my overnight bag. You mean he broke into Immy’s apartment just to put it there?’
    ‘He was in and out without anyone noticing,’ he says, with some pride.
    I shake my head. ‘I cannot believe you – or he – did that.’
    ‘Isuppose I should apologize but I’m not sorry. I don’t just employ Brandon for his driving skills; that would be a waste. He served with my father in the Gulf War.’
    ‘So he’s some kind of ninja? What you asked him to do qualifies as breaking and entering.’
    Alexander smiles. ‘Actually, there was no breaking, only the entering. As I say, neither you nor Immy even noticed he’d been there.’
    ‘I cannot believe your nerve!’ I say, outraged but not really surprised.
    I start to get up, but even with one arm he’s strong enough to keep me down.
    ‘Do you have any idea how great it feels to have you naked in my lap? You keep squirming your bottom against me.’
    ‘Stop trying to change the subject. The letter was good. I’m glad you sent it.’
    He strokes my spine, leaving a trail of tingly goosebumps on my back. ‘I wrote some things in there I’ve never told anyone else.’
    Aware I’m treading on eggshells, I make my reply careful. ‘I’m very sorry for what you went through at school. I can see, now, why you were so dead against Emma seeing Henry.’
    We kiss again, a little more deeply. ‘I’m still sorry that I didn’t tell you she was sleeping with him, I say.’
    ‘You thought I’d hit the roof. You were right, I wouldhave done, and I know you were in an impossible situation but Emma is all I have left, in terms of close family anyway. I’d do anything to protect her.’
    Unexpectedly, he kisses my nipple, making me bear down on him. I feel his erection pushing against me, making me wet.
    ‘When I wrote that letter, and especially after I wrote it,’ he says, while dropping kisses on my breast, ‘there have been more than a few times’ – kiss – ‘when I didn’t think I would ever’ – kiss – ‘do this again’ – kiss. I tilt my head backwards and close my eyes, loving the gentle pressure of his warm mouth on my breasts.
    ‘Me too.’
    ‘I mean I really didn’t think I would do this,’ he says. ‘Or sleep in this room again. Or see Emma or Benny – or you