50 Shades of Drake 5 and 6

More Life: Chapter Twenty-Eight

    It was somewhere in the middle of their kiss that Aubrey realized hiding in the closet was pointless. If the FBI did have the house bugged with mics or cameras, those devices would've already caught him sneaking into the house. Abruptly, he broke off the kiss and stared at Destiny in the dark.

    "What is it?" she asked, her voice so sweet and soft.

    After pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, he took her hand in his and with his free hand, pushed the closet door open. "There's no point in hiding. If they catch us, they catch us."

    She slid her arms around his waist and pressed herself to him.

    He moaned and pressed another chaste kiss to her forehead. "None of this feels real to me. I'm so certain that I'm dreaming you."

    "If you're dreaming me, then let's make sure this is a good dream," she said, tugging him towards the bed.

    Wearing a smirk, he allowed her to pull him. He wanted nothing more than to sink inside of her right now, but his curiosity nagged at him. "Has the FBI kept you stashed away this entire time?"

    "You want to talk about this now?" she asked, lowering onto the bed and tugging at the waistband of his pants.

    He covered her hands with his own. "We've seen each other twice before today and barely got to talk."

    She sighed and scooted back onto the bed, watching as he sat on the edge of it. "I was in a coma for a while," she said, bringing her knees up to her chest. 

    "Fuck," he murmured.

    "A long while, actually," she amended. "The FBI had a medical team that monitored me and helped me once I did wake up..." Her voice trailed off and she stared into space.

    He frowned and nudged her. "Where did you go?" he asked her quietly.

    Her eyes met his, and they were glistening with unshed tears.

    "Des, what is it?"

    "There's something that hasn't occurred to you, yet," she said, her voice shaky.

    His frown deepened, causing a crease in his forehead. "What do you mean?"

    A tear slid from one eye. "When the crash happened..."

   All of a sudden, it hit him. "You were pregnant." His voice sounded so hollow as he spoke the words. He leaned forward and covered his mouth with both hands. Because he had her image burned into his mind, he didn't have to cast a glance at her flat belly to know whether or not their baby had made it. "The baby was..."

    "I lost him," she wailed, burying her head between her knees.

    His chest grew tight and it felt like he couldn't breathe. Still, he shifted so he could wrap his arms around her. Not only did Palmer almost kill the love of my life...he did kill my child. A red haze filmed over his eyes, and he fought to keep himself composed. Every second that dragged on was a threat to that composure breaking. "Baby," he whispered. How the fuck could an entire child slip my mind like that? 

    "I'm...I'm sorry."

    Her apology broke his heart. "You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. If anyone should be apologizing, it's me. I feel like a neglectful, self-involved asshole. That should have been one of the first things I asked you about, but I couldn't get over the miracle of seeing you. I'm an idiot and I'm sorry."

    She wiped at her tears. "You don't blame me?"

    "Blame you?" he echoed. "What part of me made you think that I'd blame you for something like this?"

    She shook her head helplessly and leaned into him.

    He held her to him and rested his chin on top of her head. Tears formed in his own eyes and froze there. Sadness was quickly giving way to rage. "So...you came out of the coma and learned that you lost the baby." His throat started to close up, and his words sounded thick. "What about after that?"

    "They...kept me in this small room that looked something like a jail cell, and fed me. They gave me a choice of safehouses to choose from, gave me a dialect coach and makeup team that would help disguise me. What about you?"

    "What about me?" he repeated, chuckling dryly.

    Her eyes looked so sad that he regretted letting the sarcastic tone lace his words. 

    "I've been a mess ever since hearing about the accident," he replied. "I mourned you and our child. Losing you drove me crazy. For a while, I wasn't functional. Taking care of myself felt like a chore. Thinking about the loss of you filled me with an immeasurable amount of sadness, but thinking about our lost child was different. It filled me with a rage that scared me. So...thoughts and memories of you took over. Sometimes it was comforting, remembering you. Sometimes it just  intensified my sadness." 

    "It's easier for me to get through the day if I don't think about him," she admitted.

    Hearing "him" further broke Aubrey's heart, but he tried not to have a visible reaction to her words. Instead, he continued to hold her. "I felt guilty whenever I tried pushing you to the back of my mind, but felt too much when I remembered you. I didn't know how to deal. I was fainting in business meetings. Chubbs suggested that I go to therapy."

    "Why wouldn't you? You were dealing with so much."

    He shrugged, feeling that any reason he had for not attending now sounded silly.

    "With all of the loss you were dealing with, you should have considered going," she insisted. "I know I'm going to have to go." She ran a hand over her stomach.

    He kissed the top of her head. 

    "Can we just...lay together while you hold me?" she asked.

    "Of course." His arms loosened around her to give her the space to move.

    She stretched out on the bed and took a deep breath.

    He curled his body around her and rested his chin on her shoulder.