Page 154 of Mistaken Intention

The other thing we’ll be doing in the spring is visiting Lexi’s grave for the first time. We decided to go on the weekend before Maisie’s birthday, in April, and we’ve invited Manuel Ortega to join us. Drew said it felt wrong for him to be left out, and although Manuel was surprised to hear from us, I think he was pleased to be invited.

Whether we’ll make it a regular thing, I don’t know yet… but time will tell.

Either way, we owe it to Lexi to raise her daughter in the best way we can, and knowing she gave Drew her approval feels like the cherry on the icing on the cake of our happiness… sealing our love.

Hearing him tell me about Lexi was a special moment. It was almost as special as the moment, a few nights later, when we were lying in bed together, relieved to have settled Maisie in the nursery, and he turned to me, pulling me into his arms.

“I—I wanted to talk to you,” he said, sounding nervous, which surprised me. It wasn’t normal for Drew to be unsure of himself.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” He studied my face for a second or two, then swallowed hard. “It’s about my past.”

“You’ve remembered something else?” I wasn’t sure what more he had to recall. It felt like we’d touched upon every aspect of his life over the previous weeks. But the look on his face told me there was more, and it wouldn’t be easy… for either of us.

“Yes.”

“Is it to do with the accident?” I couldn’t think what else would make him look so despondent.

“No. It’s to do with my relationships… or rather, the lack of them.”

“Oh.”

He held me tighter. “Hunter was right about that. I didn’t have relationships to speak of. I’ve been patching it all together over the last few days, and I don’t think I was a very nice guy.”

I smiled at him, raising my hand and cupping his face. “I didn’t hear Lexi complaining.”

He smiled back, although it was a half-hearted effort. “Maybe because she wasn’t looking for anything more out of it than I was. But there were others… women I wasn’t so kind to.Hunter had already told me about one, but I’ve remembered others.”

“What do you mean when you say you weren’t kind?”

“I wasn’t cruel,” he said, frowning. “Not deliberately. Most of the time, things ended naturally, like they did with Lexi. It was just that, with some of them, they were looking for something more serious than I was, and when that became obvious, I left.”

“Every time?”

He nodded his head. “Until I met you, the thought of settling down, and of only ever being with one woman, was… frankly, terrifying.”

I smiled. “And now?”

“I never wanna be with anyone else again.”

I leaned in, kissing his lips, just briefly. “Stop beating yourself up. You can’t change what happened.”

“I know. I just wish I’d been more considerate.”

“Well… look at this as a chance to be better.”

He nodded his head and kissed me, taking a little longer over it, his hands settling on my ass and pulling me on to his ever-present erection. I let out a sigh, and he pulled back.

“There’s something else.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve remembered quite a lot of detail about my sex life… and you said you wanted to know.”

I couldn’t deny I’d said that… but when faced with the reality, I wasn’t so sure. He rolled onto his back, bringing me with him, so I was straddling him, and I stared down at him, waiting until he smiled, and I felt my body relax. He must have felt it too, because he raised me up, lowering me over his arousal, penetrating me deeply, our bodies joined. Then he pulled me down, my breasts hard against his chest, and movedone hand behind me, finding my tightest hole and brushing over it, making me squirm against him.

“This is mine,” he said.

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