Page 26 of Strictly the Worst

His hand grips mine so tightly it hurts. But I don’t try to pull away. He starts to calm, but as he tries to roll over his legs get stuck in the sheets again. So with my free hand, I have to stretch hard to loosen them and my spine does a little crack.

Because he won’t let go of my hand.

Once it’s loose enough to pull away from his ankles, he calms down even more. Once he lets go of me, I’ll cover him up again. Not that it will help much. This sofa clearly isn’t made for a man his size. He dwarves it.

No wonder he got all caught up in the sheets.

I immediately feel bad, because I’m small enough to fit on the sofa without a problem. Sure, it wouldn’t be the most comfortable night’s sleep, but it would be better than the one Linc is having.

He turns onto his side, one leg on the sofa, kind of folded up, the other slung out toward me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. And for a moment I think he’s woken up. Startled, my eyes scan his face, but his own are still tightly closed.

“It’s okay,” I tell him again. I reach out to cup his jaw. The roughness of his beard growth tickles my palm. He leans into my touch, his breath warm against my skin.

“Go back to sleep,” I say. “It’s okay.”

It takes another ten minutes before he’s asleep deeply enough for me to untangle our fingers and stand up. There’s a crick in my neck, and my legs feel achy after crouching beside him for so long, but by some kind of miracle the hangover is gone.

I take the sheet and smooth it out over him, leaving it loose so he doesn’t get caught up, before I hurry to the bathroom, because things are getting desperate now.

He’s snoring softly when I come out, and I start to relax. I fill two glasses of water, leaving one on the table next to him before I take a long sip from the other. A wave of exhaustion washes over me, because it’s a stupidly early hour of the morning.

“I’m just going to bed,” I whisper, even though he can’t hear me. And then I walk back to the bedroom, taking one last glance back at him.

He’s still fast asleep. Looking calm, like the last twenty minutes never happened.

It doesn’t stop me from wondering about his nightmare, as I walk through the bedroom and put my glass by the bed. What was his dream about? Does he have nightmares often?

Or was it just induced by too many cocktails followed by having to fold his body on the too-small sofa.

As I climb under the covers and relax into the pillow, I find myself thinking about how strong his grip was. How his chest rose and fell rapidly as he screamed out.

In the day time he’s strong. Laid back. Attractive as hell if you’re into that kind of thing.

But right now he seemed like somebody completely different. Somebody vulnerable. And I hate that it makes me like him more. There’s a chink the sexy Salinger armor. But instead of making him weaker, it just makes him more interesting.

Linc doesn’t mention last night at all as we eat breakfast the next morning. William brought a continental selection down to the cottage, and we sit out on the deck at the little table with a view through the trees to the ocean, sipping on coffee and watching as the waves crash into the shore.

Reaching behind him, he uses his fingers to rub at what I assume is a knot in his shoulders.

“How was the sofa bed?” I finally ask him, desperate to see if he can remember his dream.

“Fine, I think.” He shrugs. “Apart from it being too little and me being too big.”

“You could still have the bed,” I say, shrugging. “I’m little and that’s too big.”

“No thanks, Goldilocks,” he says wryly. “I kind of like waking up and feeling like an old man.”

I rip off a piece of pastry and put it into my mouth. Okay then, neither of us are talking about last night. Which is fine, because I’m not nosy at all.

Okay, only a little bit.

“Do you want to go over the itinerary for the next few days?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Sure. What’s up first?”

“Today we’re exploring the hotel,” I tell him. “I’ve written down the videos I want to take.”

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