Men

Lucien pounded on the door.

’Woman, open up. Are you all right?’ he thundered.

I sighed.

“I am fine,’ I whispered as I opened the door.

He studied me, his grey gaze narrowed in concern.

After I had taken a warm bath to clear my head, I returned to the room. Lucien had guessed that I needed to be alone and he was standing in the middle of the room with a towel wrapped around his middle. He had stepped out of the shower in the adjoining bathroom and he whirled around to look at me.

‘Woman,’ he grunted as he strode over and gathered me in his arms.

We stayed like that for a while, as I buried my face in his chest, inhaling the clean, spicy smell of my lover, the Mafia Don.

We had come such a long way. From a starry-eyed romantic teenager of eighteen, I had matured into a woman of thirty, with seven children. And I had been kidnapped, and almost sold along the way, into the sex trade.

Our love had grown over the years. For all his brusque exterior, I knew that Lucien Delano was a man who