Page 53 of Pelvic Flaws

“Nothing was happening,” Dex continued. “It was just that – a hug – but I think Isaac thought it was somethin’ it wasn’t when he walked in. She came to ask me to give things another go, but I ain’t interested in that with her anymore, Katie.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “That’s fine, Dex. We’ve had one date. I wouldn’t expect you to…”

I had no idea how to finish that sentence. I wouldn’t expect him to what?

Not speak to her ever again.

Stop having sex with her.

Tell her to bugger off because you’re with me now.

I wouldn’t say any of those things, because we weren’t anything. We’d had one date that had ended with my youngest child vomiting all over his lovely shirt. I was reading much more into this than he was, and I was doing that because I was a forty-five-year-old woman who’d started to feel a smidge attractive because a devastatingly hot man had shown me some attention. I really didn’t want to go back to being that woman who felt old, past it, and undesirable – I hated being that woman.

“I want you to expect me to, Katie,” Dex answered, his soft and gentle tone breaking through my inner voice of turmoil. “I want you to expect that I won’t hug her ever again. I want you to expect me to never contact her again.”

“But, I don’t. I wouldn’t.”

“But you should, Katie,” he replied. “Because if we’re dating, I would expect that you’re not doing those things with any other guy.”

“We’re dating?” I asked, my voice squeaking with surprise.

Dex laughed and followed it up with a sigh. “Yeah darlin, we are.”

“We are?”

Another laugh, rich and deep. “I would say so. I know you were thinking too much the other night, but I thought I’d cleared that up with my text messages.”

“Your text messages,” I repeated, realising I was starting to sound a little bit moronic.

Thankfully, Dex evidently thought my idiocy and repetition of everything he said wasn’t so bad, because he laughed again.

“Yeah, the late night ones I sent. The ones that were supposed to calm your nerves about us.”

“But I have so much baggage, I wonder why you’d actually want to go out with me.”

“Like I said on my text,” he replied. “I like you and everything that you bring with you. It ain’t baggage, Katie, it’s your life and I want to be a part of it. Yeah it’s early, but I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”

I couldn’t speak because my breath had been taken away by his words.

What the hell was happening to me?

How the hell had this man dropped into my life?

Had I landed in an episode of Dr Who?

“You okay?” Dex asked. “Have I said too much?”

“No,” I whispered. “I just wish you were in front of me so I could kiss you.”

As my brain registered what I’d just said, I let out a strangled groan.

“You do eh?” Dex chuckled. “Well maybe I can see you later and you can do it then. How does that sound?”

With the noise of my heart pounding in my ears, I nodded. “That would be nice.”

“Oh, it’ll be more than nice, darlin’.”

I let out a long exhale as Dex’s words wrapped around me and I pushed my thighs together. He was the sexiest man I’d ever met, and he didn’t even need to try. All he had to do was speak to me in that sexy accent of his and look at me with his sparkling eyes and I was like jelly.

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