Third Time Lucky (26 page)

You see, I made a big decision today – a huge one. I just hope they don’t think it’s all too hasty and impulsive, but now I’ve made my mind up, there’s no reason to wait. I hope they understand; Alexander too, though I don’t know why I’m worried about how he’ll feel. It has nothing to do with him any more. Nothing I do will ever have anything to do with him, ever again.

Maybe I should tell my parents
before
dinner and get it over with?

I get up and dive straight into the pool, hearing, feeling, smelling water, trying to blot out everything
but
water. My eyes sting when I open them. Everything is blurry and the shapes are distorted but the peace is profound. No one can get me; I’m free, safe. If I could only hold my breath long enough so I didn’t have to face the world again … My lungs are almost bursting as the blue of the tiles at the end of the pool come into sight. I stretch my arm out, fingers inches from the wall.

What the –?

My
mouth opens in shock as a shadowy figure appears and water rushes down my throat. I break the surface, spluttering, my nose burning with pain, eyes blinded by chlorine.

A hand reaches down to me. ‘Are you OK? I’m sorry.’

‘You … idiot. My God!’

I tread water, flailing while my eyes try to focus on the man crouching at the edge of the pool.

‘Do you need a hand to get out?’

His shadow shields me from the sun.

‘No … I … do … not!’

As my eyes start to focus properly, I catch my breath for a different reason because no photograph on my phone and no memory, however seared into my brain, can ever match up to having Alexander Hunt here in the flesh, those intense blue eyes looking down at me from that arrogant breathtaking face.

I
lean on the edge of the pool, glaring up at him. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I flew over to see you,’ he says simply.

‘What for?’

He looks down at me coolly. ‘Why do you think?’

‘Making an educated guess, I’d say it was to fuck up my life again.’

He gives a wry smile. ‘That’s about the size of it, and because you should know by now that no matter what I might have said to you, I never ever give up. Here, let me help.’

His muscular forearm is gilded by the sun and I don’t have to take it but I can’t help myself. I need to feel his flesh on mine again, if only to convince myself that he’s actually here in Washington, in my garden, invading my territory.

It’s an impulse of the moment, and I don’t know why I do it or why I’m so angry that he’s landed back in the middle of my life again but I really can’t help what happens next. Just as he rocks forward on his toes, I jerk my arm back and kick away from the poolside as if my life depends on it. My arm is almost wrenched out
of its socket but it’s worth it as he overbalances face-first into the deep end.

‘What – ?’

His shout is swallowed by a huge splash that has me spluttering. I know I’m for it and even before he’s surfaced, I’m striking out for the shallow end like Michael Phelps is after me. The pool’s not big but I can already hear Alexander carving through the water behind me. Heart bursting, I’m almost at the first step in the shallow end when his hand clamps around my ankle.

‘Get off!’

I barely have time to clamp my lips shut before I’m dragged under the surface, kicking and struggling. He has me round the waist now and seems to be underneath me, holding me against him but I’m thrashing and struggling. I open my eyes and think I can see his white shirt billowing, his face a blur a foot from mine. My lungs ache, I’m starting to panic and then, suddenly, I’m thrust upwards into the sunlight.

I gulp in air, water burning my eyes again. Alexander breaks the surface next to me, shaking droplets from his head, and grabs me.

‘How could you do this to me!’ I try to break away from him, but he holds me against his chest.

‘
Me?
Look at my bloody clothes!’

And, oh my word, I do. His shirt is moulded to every contour of his broad chest and abs, his nipples are tight dark shadows under the cotton.

‘Serves
you right. You scared me half to death. I thought you were an intruder! In fact, where’s my mother? Did she let you in?’ I say, knowing that the momentary thought that he was an intruder isn’t half so intimidating as him just being
him
.

He grimaces in apology – I think. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘You mean you broke in here?’

‘Not exactly. I was a little more discreet than that. By the way, your father really should rethink his home security.’

‘Discreet … Do you mind telling me what you want, Alexander?’

The moment he releases his hold on me, I wade towards the steps and climb out of the pool.

‘I suppose I should have called first,’ he says, following me up the steps.

‘
Suppose
you should have called?’ Water pools on the terracotta tiles around his feet. His shorts cling to his thighs like shrinkwrap.

‘I was afraid you might not want to see me, so I took a chance on you being in.’

‘You’re right, I don’t want to see you but as you’re here, a little notice so I could have prepared myself might have been nice.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I think you look pretty good as you are.’

His gaze licks my body, reminding me I’m still wearing only my bikini, and an itsy-bitsy one at that, and
instinctively I hug myself. This may be my territory but I feel utterly defenceless.

He reaches out for me and all of a sudden the fight goes out of me. I look at him, I look at those eyes that devour me, and I know I am helpless. I’m so mad at myself I could weep but I know it’s something I can’t defeat, and wordlessly I move closer to him. He pulls my wet arms around his back, and presses my soaking half-naked body against his shirt, and I can do nothing but abandon myself to the molten slide of his mouth against mine.

He pushes away the strands of hair sticking to my cheeks. ‘You are very, very hot, Lauren.’

I look up at him, almost drunk with my need for him. I’m wet, he’s wet and I’m already virtually naked and I can’t help myself. I bunch the sodden folds of his shirt in my hands and press the fabric into the muscles of his spine. ‘We’d better seek some shade, then.’

He follows me into the pool house; I close the door. In the sultry shadows, our mouths meet again, devouring each other in a chlorine-scented kiss that’s one of the best I’ve ever tasted. Alexander pushes his hands down the back of my bikini bottoms, rests his hands on my bare butt and crushes my pelvis on to his erection. His shirt is dripping wet but I manage to drag it out of his waistband.

The door rattles on its hinges and my pulse skitters. ‘Oh God, Mom could come back at any moment.’

Alexander
pulls the little catch across. ‘Then we’d better get on with it.’

Thrumming with desire, I watch him unbutton his shorts. He strips them off and I toss them over the rickety Lloyd Loom chair in the corner of the hut while he deals with his shirt. Water drips off us both, tiny rivulets running down the grooves between the wooden floorboards.

I’m trembling with lust when he slips the strap of my bikini top over my head and lets it fall to my waist. I flatten myself against him, my breasts sticking to his damp skin.

‘I’ve missed this so much. I’ve missed you so much,’ he whispers.

I take refuge in the solidity of his chest because I don’t trust myself to reply. I’m afraid of showing how much I’ve missed him … I don’t want to admit it to myself or to him. His fingers fumble with the damp ties of my bikini bottoms and, muttering an oath, he pulls them down over my hips.

The wet bottoms fall on to my feet and we’re both naked. Heat beats down on the tiled roof; the place is like an oven, ramping up the sizzling heat from our bodies.

‘Oh …’

The first touch of his fingers on me sends me heavenwards. I grasp his back while he strokes and flicks at me.

‘You bad, bad girl.’

I
tighten around his finger, around both of his fingers.

‘Here.’ My voice is tight, raw, as I guide him to the discarded hammock mattress on the floor of the pool house. My mother still hasn’t got round to throwing it out. Oh my God, if she could see what we’re doing on it now!

I pull him on top of me, and feel his erection brush against the inside of my thighs before he enters me, quickly and smoothly. Stifling a whimper of ecstasy, I wrap my legs around his ass and dig my heels in hard. The friction of him inside me, against me, and the sheer physical presence of him drives me wild. With his hands planted either side of me, he looks right into my eyes, watching me gasp and writhe and try not to scream out loud. My fingers slip in the sheen of sweat and water on his back, as his thrusts speed up, harder and stronger. I can’t hold back any longer, I don’t want to – but I’m scared of letting go, of shouting, of my mother walking in on us.

He comes, gloriously hard inside me, and I lose it … crying out, coming so hard, every muscle tightens like wire.

I open my eyes, eventually, and the dusty dark roof of the pool house comes into focus. There are cobwebs in the corners and the air feels thick enough to stir with a spoon.

I turn my head towards Alexander. He’s on his back next to me, half on, half off the mattress, breathing hard, eyes closed.

‘Did
I make a noise?’

‘I … have … no idea.’

‘It’s so hot in here.’

He turns his head and looks at me, smiling and more at rest than I’ve ever seen him in my life before. ‘You can say that again …’

I touch his arm. ‘Alexander?’

‘Shh.’ He eases himself up on to his elbows, chin lifted. ‘Is that a car?’

My heart rate, only just returning to normal, speeds up again at the distant sound of an engine at the front of the house. ‘Oh God! It must be Mom.’

He holds up his hand. ‘Wait … I can’t hear anything now. They must have driven on.’

I scramble to my feet anyway. ‘I hope so, but she will be home soon. Jesus, how am I going to explain this to her?’

‘Why don’t you tell her the truth?’ Alexander gets up.

‘That we’ve been screwing each other in the pool house? She’d have a coronary.’

I begin a frantic search for my bikini.

‘Because we’d had sex in the pool house or because you’d had sex with me?’

‘Both.’

I knock over a plant pot while I’m trying to find my bikini top. ‘Shit.’

Alexander plucks the top from under the mattress and holds it out. ‘I know I’m not the American dream in your parents’ eyes, and I don’t blame them. I’m
trouble, I keep on hurting you and they must think I’m hell-bent on taking you halfway round the world.’

‘No, you aren’t. I make my own choices. I don’t stay here for their sakes.’

‘Or Scott’s?’

Suddenly, and without warning, I burst into tears. I snatch my top from him and wipe my hand over my eyes, ashamed of how quickly I’ve rushed back into his arms and how emotional I feel. ‘Just get right back on the plane to London and leave me alone. This isn’t going to help either of us.’

‘There are no flights until tonight,’ he says with a patience that makes me want to hit him.

‘I don’t care. You can’t parachute in here and lob a grenade into my plans. You can’t.’ I pull my top over my head, getting tangled up in the strings.

‘All I’ve done is call in to say hello.’

I almost trip over while trying to put on my bikini bottoms. Alexander smiles at me.

‘It’s not funny!’

‘I’m simply enjoying the view of your delectable arse, Ms Cusack.’

‘I don’t care! Aren’t you going to get dressed?’

‘What’s the point? My clothes are soaking.’

‘And my mother could be home any time. You
have
to get dressed and leave.’

He holds my shoulders. ‘Not until you listen to me.’

‘There’s nothing to listen to. I asked you to walk away from me at the ball and you did. That was the end of it.
I have a new life now …’ I stare at him, tears pouring down my cheeks. He picks up his shirt and offers it to me to wipe my face. ‘That’s not much use, is it?’ I mumble.

‘It’s the thought that counts.’

‘Please, don’t do this to me again. I can’t stand it after the last time. Just leave?’

He puts his fingers on my lips. ‘Shh.’

My heart pounds and I strain my ears while Alexander cracks open the door of the pool house.

This time, the engine note is unmistakeable and my hand flies to my mouth. ‘Oh my God, it’s the Cayenne.’

A rattle from the front of the house tells me that the gates are opening. ‘You have to leave
now
!’

‘How? Climb back over the wall? I nearly broke my neck getting in here.’

‘Good. Now go!’

‘Like this?’

I pick up his shorts and throw them at him. ‘Yes. My mother can’t find you here.’

He holds on to the shorts. ‘Lauren, it’s too late.’

I hear the engine rev as the car drives up the short slope through the gates. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘You’re naked!’

‘Wait.’ Alexander pulls his wet shirt over his arms as the gates grind shut behind the car.

‘What
are you
doing
?’

‘Stay calm.’

‘Calm? She’ll be out here by the pool in two minutes tops.’

From the driveway, the engine noise grows louder and then, finally, there’s silence.

Alexander buttons up his sodden shirt. ‘Go outside. Quickly.’

Pushing open the door, I screw up my eyes against the sunlight. A car door slams shut.

Alexander walks out behind me, still buttoning his shorts.

‘How do we explain this?’

He puts his finger to his lips and slips on his Havaianas.

‘Look shocked and horrified,’ he hisses, jogging over to the pool steps.

‘That won’t be hard!’

Half a minute later, I’m still holding my theatrical pose, hands over my mouth, eyes wide, as my mother appears in the French windows.

‘Alexander!’

At my shout, her first reaction is to freeze, and then her jaw drops. She hurries out to the poolside.

‘Lauren? Alexander? What’s going on? Why is Alexander in our pool?’

‘He tripped over the hose and fell in …’

My mother glances from the pool hose snaking its way across the tiles to Alexander, then back at me.
Shaking water from his head, he wades to the shallow end, where my mother waits, still looking like someone dropped a bomb in the pool.

He walks up the steps and holds out a dripping hand. ‘Good afternoon, Blythe. How lovely to meet you again.’

A short while later, Alexander emerges from the house, in dry shorts and T-shirt, rubbing his hair with one of my mother’s guest towels.

‘Is there anything you need?’ she asks.

‘No, thank you, and I’m sorry for soaking your carpet.’

‘It’s no problem. I loaded your wet things into the machine while you showered.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Blythe, and I must apologize. It’s incredibly rude of me to simply drop in on you like this, and I really should have called first, but I was sort of passing by, so I thought I’d pop in.’

No matter how shocked my mother is to see him, the full hostess training kicks in. ‘Are you on business in Washington?’

‘Of sorts.’ He gives her a mysterious smile.

‘I see. When did you fly in?’

‘Not that long ago,’ I say. ‘Alexander decided to call round on his way to his hotel.’

‘As soon as he landed? Well, it’s such a shame he had a damp start to his visit …’ She directs this comment at me; while she can’t possibly know what we’ve been up to, she knows something weird is going on. ‘Where
exactly are you planning on staying while you’re here?’ she adds.

‘One of the big hotels in the centre,’ he says.

My mother eyes him sharply, then looks at me suspiciously. I hope she puts my flushed face down to the sun. ‘So have you fixed our visitor a drink yet, honey?’