‘Hey, baby,’ I say into the phone. And there is nothing but love in my voice.
TWENTY-NINE
Dom opens the passenger door to a blue Mercedes-Benz sedan and I slide in. I want to ask whose car it is, but I don’t. I feel too numb and cold to actually care. Some part of me is still in that disgusting flat, still with Rob. Yes, I was so afraid of him.
I turn to Dom urgently.
‘What will Jake do to Rob?’
‘I hope he kills that miserable fucking coward,’ he rages.
‘I don’t want him to be killed,’ I whisper.
He turns on me. ‘Why do you care so much? Fucking hell, Ella, he had a knife to your throat and he’d already torn your skirt.’ He clenches his jaw. ‘God knows what he would have done if we’d not come when we did!’
‘I don’t want his blood on my conscience, Dom. Please,’ I say with a sob.
His face softens. He grabs my forearms and pulls me toward him. ‘Listen. Jake is honorable in the old-fashioned way. In the gypsy way. But he’ll arrange it so that pathetic pussy never comes near you again.’
I start to cry softly. ‘Just take me home, please.’
‘Hey. Don’t cry, baby. You’re safe now,’ he cajoles, and pulls me tight against his chest, careful not to hurt my throbbing jaw.
‘Just take me home,’ I whisper tearfully into the hollow of his throat.
He takes me home and parks outside the entrance.
‘You’ll get a ticket,’ I warn automatically.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, and, getting out of the car, helps me out. Together we walk up the three flights of stairs. When we get upstairs, I realize that I have no keys. I look up at him. My head is spinning, my jaw is throbbing and I can’t think properly.
‘I don’t have my keys,’ I wail as if it’s the end of the world.
‘It’s OK, Ella. I have mine,’ he says gently.
He lets me in. I stand in the hallway of my little home. The first thing I see is the phone book on the floor. I can’t understand why it is there. I look around me. Everything is the same, and yet everything is different. It has been invaded by a man who hates me. The thought makes me feel almost ill. I press my lips together to stop from breaking into tears again.
‘I need to take a shower,’ I say in a trembling voice, and start walking toward the bathroom. Dom catches me and tugs me back so I’m pressed up against his body.
He takes my chin in his hand.
‘I feel so dirty,’ I say.
‘You’re not dirty, Ella. We got to you before anything really bad could happen.’
I frown. ‘How did you find me so quickly?’
He curls his hand around my wrist and lifts it up to my eye level.
‘What?’ I ask, confused.
‘This is a chipped bracelet.’
‘What?’ I say, confused.
‘Told you I was a paranoid motherfucker.’
‘You gave me a bracelet with a tracking chip and you never told me about it?’ I ask incredulously.
‘Yeah,’ he says, totally unfazed.
I pull slightly away from him. ‘And you’ve been tracking me all this time?’
‘Not really. The chip is in there, but while you were safe there was no need to track you.’
‘I can’t believe you gave me a chipped bracelet, like I’m your pet or something.’
‘You’re my woman. I protect what’s mine,’ he says forcefully.
I shake my head in disbelief. I want to be angry, but I’m all emotioned out. I look at the bracelet that he gave me two weeks ago. Gold with little square pieces of sapphire set into it. It’s a bloody tracking device. Still, I can’t complain, it certainly came in handy today.
‘I know about Vivien,’ I say softly. My heart feels as if it’s a heavy rock.
‘I know. Jake told me.’
I sniff and look at the pulse beating steadily in his throat. ‘I saw a picture of her,’ I say, trying to be casual, and failing miserably.
He puts his finger under my chin and lifts it until I’m forced to look into his gorgeous eyes. They are filled with soft lights, the pupils so large they are almost the size of his irises. ‘Yeah, you look like her. And yeah, I admit, in the beginning I confused my lust for you with a love lost tragically. I thought you’d make the pain go away for a while. I thought I was temporarily re-creating an old magic. I didn’t know you were a thief. That you’d steal my heart, weave yourself into my soul, and make me fall deeper in love with you than I’ve ever done with anyone else.’
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.