Free To Have and to Hold by Serena Bell Page A

the bookshelves slid, which had taken Hunter awhile to work out. It had to be sturdier than the average sliding doors because of the weight of the books. “The tree-house guy does. People pay him, like, $150,000 to build a room like this. And he does hotels, B&Bs, that kind of thing.”
    Hunter shook his head. “It’s just a hobby. A way to keep in touch with my skills.”
    “You planning to deploy again?”
    “Not sure. Medical discharge, maybe.”
    “You were talking about getting out, last I saw you,” Nate said. “You said eight years was enough for anyone.”
    There was that feeling again, like his life had branched at some point and there were two different Hunters, the one who’d done stuff in that year he didn’t know about and the one he was now. How was he supposed to make sense out of it? He didn’t connect with the stuff Nate was telling him about himself. It felt like a story about something that had happened to someone else.
    Nate didn’t press. They climbed back down from the tree and returned to drinking beers. They didn’t talk about Hunter’s life anymore. They talked about what was going on with R&R, Jake’s plans for expansion. Griff told some funny stories about bad jobs and bad dates. And then Nate said they still had 125 miles to go thanks to Jake’s ridiculously overambitious itinerary.
    “You got a bike?” he asked Hunter. “You could come with us.”
    It was tempting, for a moment. On a bike, on the road, he wouldn’t have to contemplate what had been lost in the branching of his life. He could just—go. Follow someone else’s plan for a few days.
    But he needed to stay here and get up to speed on things. Trina had agreed to stay till Friday—enough time to help him and Clara make a transition. He couldn’t leave now.
    “Thanks,” he said. “But I gotta stick around here for the time being. Maybe catch you guys on the next trip.”
    “Any time,” Jake said.
    And then they were gone, and Hunter turned toward the house, gathering the beer bottles up and heading inside to try to figure out what he was supposed to do next.

Chapter 8
    The definition of insanity, Trina thought, making her way up the stairs, was doing the same thing twice and expecting different results.
    Hunter was dreaming again, that same rough, broken cry piercing her sleep, and when she slipped through the door into his room, that same agonized expression contorting his chiseled features.
    “Hunter,” she whispered.
    She was playing it safer this time. She thought.
    “Hunter.”
    “No!”
    “Hunter!”
    But he was deep under, someplace she couldn’t reach him with whispers or words. She put a hand on his arm, which was warm, solid, and slick with sweat. Squeezed.
    Her body answered with a squeeze of its own. His skin was hot and smooth, the muscle underneath solid and shifting as he thrashed.
    “Hunter, you’re dreaming again. Wake up.”
    And then suddenly his hands were on her, grabbing her, pulling her down. For a split second she thought of a television show she’d seen—
Gray’s Anatomy,
maybe—in which the traumatized veteran had attacked his girlfriend in the night. But this wasn’t that. There was no threat in him, at least not
that
kind of threat. His hands were roaming,
roving
, finding the back of her head, the curve of her ass, drawing her down, in, and even though a shred of her dignified self kept insisting,
You can’t do this again
, she socked that smarter Trina in her self-righteous jaw and let Hunter tug her mouth down to his.
    Oh,
God
.
    She didn’t care. She didn’t care what a bad idea this was or that in half-sleep he probably didn’t know who she was or what the hell he was doing. She didn’t care that when he awoke fully he’d push her away, or that in the morning he’d pretend it hadn’t happened. She didn’t even care that it couldn’t be, couldn’t last.
    She just wanted more of him—the succulent swell of his mouth against hers, the slick contact echoing