My mouth drops open. ‘You … love me?’

‘Yes.’ He beams.

I shake my head in disbelief. ‘You love me?’

‘Yes, I love you, Ella Savage. I fucking love you.’

‘Since when?’ I ask, almost unable to believe what he is telling me.

‘I don’t know. All I know is that I love, love, love you.’ He picks me up and twirls me around. ‘And I’m never letting you go.’

I look down at him seriously. ‘Maybe you just think you love me because I look like Vivien?’

‘Oh, my darling, darling Ella. You’ve no idea. I’m so in love with you, I feel high, as if I’ve dropped an ecstasy tablet.’

‘But how do you know it’s really me you want and not her?’ I insist.

‘No two women could be more different than you and Vivien. It’s you I want to wake up to in the morning. It’s your skin I crave, and it’s your laughter I yearn to hear on the phone.’

‘Oh, Dom. I feel so confused. I don’t know what’s happening anymore. First, I find out about Vivien, then I get kidnapped, then I think I’m going to be sodomized and raped, and then I get rescued, and now you’re telling me you love me! I’m thinking I’m going to wake up soon!’

‘Want me to pinch you?’ His eyes light up. ‘Or, better still, I can fuck you awake? Did I see a chocolate arrow on your thigh just now?’

I have a sudden image of Rob, his long, hot tongue slowly licking the other chocolate arrow from my thigh. I shudder. ‘I need a shower.’

His face hardens. ‘Did he do anything to you?’

‘No,’ I deny immediately. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then how come there’s only one chocolate arrow?’ he demands aggressively.

Suddenly tears come back to my eyes. ‘Please, Dom. Leave him alone. If he is diseased, I infected him.’

‘Did he do anything to you? I’ll fucking kill the sick bastard if he did,’ he declares furiously.

I take both his hands in my palms and look deep into his eyes. ‘No, Dom. He didn’t do anything to me. After everything that’s happened, I just feel unclean. I need to wash my body and my hair.’

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Want me to come with you?’

‘No. Why don’t you pour yourself a drink? I’ll be out soon.’

I go into the bathroom and take all my clothes off and stand under the hot shower. I rub at the chocolate arrow vigorously. Then I see the watermelon pasties run pink into the plughole and I start to cry. I don’t know why I’m crying. Maybe it’s the tension. I hear a noise, and the door to the shower is open and one hot, fully erect alpha is standing there.

‘Don’t cry, Ella’ he says softly. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘I know,’ I sniff.

And he puts out a hand and touches my midriff where a huge bruise has formed. ‘He hurt you,’ he whispers in a shocked voice.

‘It actually doesn’t hurt.’ And it’s true.

He comes into the shower, and the cubicle is so small the practical solution is for me to climb onto his body and curl my legs around him while he holds on to my buttocks and fucks me. Hard. Oh, so hard. It’s what I need. I feel the tension, fear and doubt wash away. We come together under the cascading water. He kisses me gently and I cling on to my hero. God, he’s so gorgeous.

‘This weekend I’m taking you riding. You’ll love it.’

‘Why? Because Vivien loved it?’

He smiles, a beautiful, pure smile. ‘No, because it’s horses. You cannot not love my horses.’

‘OK.’ I grin.

‘Do you love me?’ he asks.

‘Oh, Hell!’ I say. ‘Isn’t that as obvious as fuck?’

‘Yeah, it is, but I just like to hear it rolling off your tongue,’ he says with a mischievous, awesome, sexy grin.

And we both laugh.

I can be your hero, baby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koJlIGDImiU

EPILOGUE

SIX MONTHS LATER

I lift the stick and see the thin blue line. And a bubble of laughter comes up and erupts in my mouth. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I put the stick on the edge of the sink, wash my hands, and walking on air, go back into the bedroom.

‘Come here, woman,’ Dom says from the bed.

I don’t go to him. I just stand there and admire him. His swarthy skin contrasting darkly against the white sheet. His chest and arms muscular. His smile white and beautiful. A thought. I can’t believe he is really mine. I wake up every morning and I just can’t believe my luck. Nobody gets this lucky, surely?

He raises his body up slightly, his smile disappearing. ‘What’s wrong?’

I smile happily. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

‘So what’re you standing there for? I’m hungry for pussy juice.’

I laugh and go forward. He reaches out and pulls me into bed and I tumble into his warm, hard body.

‘What’s this?’ I say with widened eyes.

‘That, Mrs. Eden is called your husband’s fucking erect cock.’

While I am still laughing, he rolls me over on my back. I feel a finger slide into me. I stop laughing. ‘Oh, Dom,’ I sigh.

A long time later, when we are both exhausted and lying on our side facing each other, he says, ‘I did warn you I was hungry.’

‘Mmmm,’ I say sleepily.

‘It’s Sunday. Let’s stay in bed and fuck and eat junk food all day.’

‘I can’t I promised my mother I’d help her pack.’

He is immediately on his elbow looking down at me, a frown line between his eyebrows. ‘Pack? Pack what?’

‘Her stuff. Remember they are moving in a week’s time.’

‘Fucking hell, Ella. My wife doesn’t pack. That’s what movers are for. Shit, you could ruin your back doing things like that.’

‘I have called the company you told me to call. They are packing all the big things. I’m just helping Mum to package some of her decorative items in bubble wrap.’

I touch his face wonderingly. ‘Thank you for taking care of my parents. My Mum thinks she died and went to heaven. Not even in her wildest dreams did she think she could ever own a house, let alone something so beautiful as the one you bought them. And my father is a whole different man. Who knew that all he needed was hormone therapy?’

‘I’m the one who has to thank them for giving you to me,’ he says lovingly.

‘Talking about that. You might be in a position of giving someone away too in about twenty odd years.’

He suddenly rolls me over and pins me under him. ‘You’re still speaking English, right?’

I burst out laughing. ‘Yes, I am.’

He frowns. ‘It’s not going to be able to crawl as fast as Tommy, or speak like Liliana is it?’

I laugh even more. ‘I don’t know it might.’

‘Oh shit,’ he curses.

‘Stop making a joke of everything, you big fucking hulk, you. Aren’t you happy?’

He looks down at me, blue eyes full of laughter. ‘Yes, I’m so happy I could fuck you all over again.’

I grin up happily at him.

‘I love you, Ella.’

A warm feeling of such love and joy gushes into me I have to gasp. ‘I love you too, Dominic Eden. I love you so much I could fuck you all over again.

‘Go on then,’ he challenges cheekily, as his mouth comes down to claim me.

EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER

I place Adam on the changing mat.

‘Right,’ I say confidently. ‘Let’s do this.’

He gurgles up at me. I take a deep breath and blow it out.

‘Right,’ I say again. ‘We’re doing it without Mummy.’

This time he blows a bubble. I look down on the changing mat.

Wipes. Check.

Fresh clean diaper. Check.

Diaper rash cream. Check.

Plastic bag for disposing of soiled diaper. Check.