Making Her His

by Lucy Leroux

  Elynn swung again and he fell to the side. Not stopping to see if he would get back up, she turned and ran to the edge of the ridge, using a boulder to screen her from view.

  Praying that he was still down, she scrambled over the edge, using the overhanging roots she had seen from the ravine as ropes.

  Crawling into the space under the overhang, she pulled herself into a small ball. If she was right, Stephen wouldn’t be able to see her unless he climbed to the bottom of the ravine, and there was too much foliage at the bottom for him to be sure her body wasn’t down there from the ridge.

  She clung to the thickest roots in the space around her, desperately hoping Stephen was too hurt to move…but she wasn’t that lucky.

  He had started shouting again. She could barely make out the words over the rush of blood in her ears. The only thing she could hear clearly was her name. He was screaming it over and over. Loose dirt and stones fell from the top of the overhang.

  Please let him think I’m dead.

  “Elynn!” Stephen roared from just above her.

  He sounded like a wounded animal. When he burst into loud sobs, she realized her plan had worked. He thought she had jumped or had fallen off the cliff.

  Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she tried to press herself tighter against the back wall of the opening.

  Hurry, Alex, she begged silently as another one of Stephen’s roars filled the air.

  Chapter 24

  Alex was running with at least six security personnel at his side. The technician was relaying the location where sensors had been tripped to guide them.

  Fuck, Fuck, Fuck. Heart pounding, he realized Elynn must be leading Wainwright to the bluff near the edge of the estate property.

  Please let me be in time. Please let her be okay, Alex thought as ran up the hill as fast as he could. His heart nearly stopped when he heard Wainwright roar in the distance.

  He was screaming Elynn’s name.

  They burst up the hill in a group. Wainwright was on his hands and knees at the top of the bluff. His screams filled the air.

  “Elynn!”

  Her name was distorted as Wainwright sobbed. The sound was heartrending, but it didn’t compare to the blackness seeping into Alex’s head as the situation became clear.

  Elynn must have fallen off the edge of the bluff in her attempt to get away from him. There was no way she had survived the fall. The distance was too great, he thought as the bottom of his world dropped out.

  Not caring if Wainwright had a gun, he leaped on the smaller man with a strangled cry. Pulling him from the edge, he flipped Wainwright over so he could punch him over and over.

  Blind to anything else, he drove his fists into his face until the other man was swollen and unrecognizable. He would have kept going, but the asshole had collapsed to the ground, and Alex’s security men pulled him off.

  “Stop now or you’re going to kill him,” Andrea said, getting in his face.

  He blinked as he stared up into the hard planes of her face. He hadn’t even realized she was there.

  “Then he dies. Let go of me,” he said in a low harsh voice, struggling against the restraining arms of at least three of his men.

  “Elynn wouldn’t want you to spend your honeymoon in jail,” Andrea said gently. “Get him out of here,” she said, pointing to the unconscious man.

  “Elynn’s gone,” Alex said in a broken whisper, still on his knees on the ground. “There’s no way she could have survived the fall.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith. You forget I trained that girl myself,” Andrea returned. Her voice was confident, but Alex could detect the underlying anxiety in it. “Elynn?” she called out in a louder voice.

  “I’m here!” Elynn’s voice came from the ridge.

  “Holy fuck,” he groaned, relief coursing through him. Alex ran to the edge of the bluff where his men had gathered. Stunned, he looked down to see Elynn peeking up at him from underneath the lip of the edge. “Oh, thank God. Give me your hand,” he ordered as he lay down to reach over the edge.

  Holding on to a thick root, Elynn extended her upper body to reach out for his extended hand. There must be a ledge underneath her, one he couldn’t see. Her small hand took his with a wet, slippery grip. Behind him, Andrea and someone else grabbed hold of his waist and leg to brace him securely.

  “Wait,” Elynn said, letting go of his hand and nearly stopping his heart.

  She wiped her free hand on her shirt and tried again. Wrapping both of his hands around hers, he hauled her up to him, pulling her into his arms. Shaking from head to foot, he picked her up, carrying her away from the edge.

  He didn’t get far before he collapsed onto the ground, holding her tight in his arms. For a long moment, everyone else just stood there.

  “Take him away,” Andrea said, snapping to attention and pointing to Wainwright’s prone body. “We’ll call the authorities,” she told Alex before signaling to the assembled group.

  They melted away into the forest. Alone with her, he pressed Elynn to his chest as if he was trying to meld their two bodies together.

  “Alex you’re hurting me,” she said, poking him in the ribs.

  When he just squeezed her tighter, she put her arms around him and stroked his back until he finally relaxed his hold.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he whispered into her hair.

  “I won’t, I promise,” she whispered back, despite his request making no sense.

  Grateful that she knew well enough to humor him, she stayed quiet in his arms for a long time. Eventually, however, she pushed until he let her up enough so that she could look him in the face.

  “I’m okay,” she said, putting her hands on either side of his face. “I knew about the overhang. I saw it earlier from the bottom of the ravine. I also knew you would come,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she pressed her forehead to his. “Hey, do you think we could take turns?”

  “What?” he asked, confused.

  He felt numb, a million miles away.

  “I said I think we should take turns. I want you to console me now,” Elynn said, staring into his eyes with a steady expression.

  It worked. He gave a choked laugh that he quickly cut off before he grabbed her and kissed her softly.

  “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you,” he told her, his voice cracking. “You mean more to me than my own life. I love you, and I’ll never let you down again,”

  “What do you mean? You’ve never let me down,” she said, getting up and tugging him up after her.

  “I should have guessed that Wainwright might travel with fake documents. We monitor his movements. If he had used his own passport, we would have known he was here. I don’t know what set him off after all this time, but I let my guard down, and you paid the price,” he said, the agony in his voice clear.

  Elynn shook her head. “He must monitor the UK tabloids from home. He mentioned seeing them. But you can’t anticipate the actions of a crazy person. And Stephen is insane. There was no way to know that he would do this. You didn’t let me down. And you never will. I won’t let you,” she said forcefully.

  Alex stopped walking and pulled her into his arms. “You’re still marrying me. You may not want to go through with the ceremony so soon, but I need this. I know it won’t solve anything, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until my ring is on your finger.”

  He could feel her smile against his chest. “We are getting married in two days. There is no chance I’m going to back out just because of an uninvited guest,” she said.

  He stopped short. “An uninvited guest? That is how you’re characterizing that psycho?” he said in disbelief, too much testosterone and adrenaline pumping in his veins.

  Suddenly, he couldn’t seem to calm down.

  “I’m not going to let him win, Alex,” Elynn said quietly as they made it to the house.

  Alex passed a hand over his face and looked up at the windows before they went
inside. “I’m going to fire everyone on that security team.”

  She frowned. “No, you’re not. It wasn’t their fault.”

  “Elynn, someone has to pay.”

  “Then let it be Stephen. I don’t want you to fire anyone just before our wedding day,” she said.

  He kept arguing with her for a good hour after that, and she let him, saying that he needed to get it out of his system. Once he had tired himself out, Elynn ordered dinner sent to their room and told everyone to leave them alone.

  In their bedroom, she calmly picked up the shredded wedding gown and shoved it into the trash bin. Then she led him into the shower and goaded him into making love—was insistent on it, in fact. He couldn’t help but suspect that she wanted his touch so she could forget that Wainwright had laid hands on her.

  If she did feel that way, she knew better than to tell him that.

  Chapter 25

  Their wedding day was fun and festive. Elynn didn’t let anything spoil it, choosing to let the events of the previous days roll by her. Stephen was in the past—and in jail—and Alex was her future.

  Their friends had been kept in the dark about the attempted kidnapping, although their parents had been informed. Mary had nervously agreed on the need to keep their plans on schedule, while Costas had shouted at all of the security staff for the breach that had allowed Wainwright access to his beloved stepdaughter.

  Stephen was locked away somewhere. She didn’t want to know where. It didn’t matter as long as it was far away.

  Alex wasn’t so sanguine. He was happy, but still a little shaken. As she requested, he didn’t fire anyone, but he didn’t leave her side the entire day, not even before the ceremony.

  “I don’t care if it is bad luck,” he had argued when she complained that he was breaking tradition. “I’m not letting you out of my sight now or in the near future. Maybe the whole of next year.”

  Elynn stopped arguing, choosing to concede the battle in favor of winning the war. And honestly, she didn’t care. She didn’t want to leave his side, either.

  Eric and Fred shouted with delight when they realized they were attending their wedding. Alex had also managed to keep his university friends in the dark about the real purpose of the event until they arrived. There was a lot of back-slapping from the rowdy bunch of bachelors, none of which she had ever met.

  “No wonder you didn’t want to introduce any of them,” Elynn teased when Alex pointed out his friends as they arrived. “You were afraid of the competition,” she said.

  His friends were gorgeous, almost as handsome as Alex.

  He growled. “None of those ugly bastards compares to me, and you know it,” he said, reaching to hug her from behind as he finally introduced her to Sergei, Calen, and Gio.

  The men were pleased to meet her—a little too pleased if she could judge by the tightness of Alex’s grip on her waist.

  She smiled at them. They smiled back, their forceful personalities pressing in on her like a wall of testosterone. All that masculinity should have intimidated her, but she felt secure at Alex’s side.

  Sergei, who turned out to be a tall, dark-haired Russian with the same kind of build as her husband, gave her a long searing appraisal.

  “No wonder Alex never let any of us near you. He was obviously determined to keep you all to himself,” he said in a slightly slurred voice, waving a glass of vodka in her direction.

  “As well he should have,” Calen added, giving her a suggestive wink.

  Their Italian friend, Gio, laughed aloud at the look on Alex’s face, causing her new husband to shoot all of his dear friends a dirty look.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Alex said with a scowl as he led her away with a possessive hand on her back.

  The men’s loud booming laughter followed them as they mixed and mingled with their other guests.

  Elynn danced in Alex’s arms under fairy lights hidden in the shrubbery and the trees above them, content in the knowledge that she was his wife. They ate the savory appetizers Mary had requested and drank fine wine, occasionally trying to remember that they had guests long enough to stop to talk to them. Their friends and parents excused their self-involvement with indulgent smiles and whispers.

  No one blamed them for only having eyes for each other.

  Epilogue

  Elynn was decorating a raspberry and almond cake with sweet cream in the kitchen. It was Alex’s favorite, and she wanted to surprise him with it on their first wedding anniversary.

  The kitchen on the Oxford estate was her favorite, mostly because it was empty on the weekends. Unless they specifically requested otherwise, their chef only worked during the week because Elynn enjoyed cooking meals herself on the weekends unless she had to work in the lab. She finished decorating the cake and had started to clean up when she heard cooing.

  Smiling, she grabbed the baby monitor and went upstairs to play with her son before Alex got home.

  Alexandros Hanas Jr. was flailing his adorably chubby baby arms in the air when she entered the nursery. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant before she finished her doctorate, but a particularly adventurous sex-filled honeymoon on Alex’s yacht and her own absentmindedness had led to their joyful little accident.

  Elynn soon discovered from her female mentors that having young children during her graduate studies was, in the opinion of some, actually more manageable than at a later point in her career. She didn’t know if she agreed, but her husband had a plan for everything, and she didn’t have a lot of misgivings about it once she told him she was expecting. It might take her longer to get her degree, but she would get it. Elynn was determined.

  Alex had been so happy about her pregnancy he had run out and started buying baby clothes and toys the same day. And he had promised to hire whatever help they needed. He even managed to convince her that hiring multiple nannies was perfectly acceptable. A wonderful matronly woman watched baby Alex during the week and a night nurse took care of him on weeknights when Elynn had to work early the next day.

  But she loved the weekends best because she had her two men all to herself. Her husband had cut back on his heavy travel schedule as much as possible. He had finally learned to delegate now that their son had been born, but occasionally a deal still required his personal attention. This time he had been away for two days.

  Even when he was forced away on business, Alex kept a close eye on his new family. Stephen Wainwright was in prison. After his arrest, a number of other women had come forward to add their own charges of stalking and assault.

  Alex had never intended to tell her that all the women had had black hair and green eyes, but Elynn found out that disturbing detail from the news. The idea that Stephen had sought out other women who reminded him of her—had hurt them when he’d been unable to get his hands on her—made her feel responsible in a twisted way.

  When she’d confessed that to him, Alex had reminded her of what she’d once told him. Stephen was crazy, and trying to take responsibility for what he had done was pointless.

  And he told her to stop reading the Internet, because there were things she was better off not knowing. Deciding this was a better philosophy, she agreed and moved on.

  ****

  Alex ran up the stairs to the nursery, taking the stairs two at a time. The helicopter had just landed. Its blades were still spinning, but he was already upstairs looking for Elynn.

  He could usually find her in the nursery when he came home on the weekends. Struggling to loosen his tie as he went, he burst into the nursery, a miniature tornado of impatient energy.

  His beautiful wife was sitting on the carpet playing with their son, but the instant she saw him, she leapt up to kiss him hello. He gathered Elynn into his arms for a rib-squeezing hug.

  “God, I missed you. I hate going out of town. I wish I could take you guys with me,” he said as he swung her in his arms a safe distance from where the baby was lying and kicking his feet.

  Elynn hugged him back.
“I hate it, too, but I’m glad that you were able to make it home for our anniversary.”

  Already starting to get aroused, Alex hugged her tighter. He had no intention of letting go—until the baby started fussing for their attention. Smiling, he set his wife down on the couch before scooping up his son so he could sit next to her while holding him.

  “This right here, this is my favorite place in the world,” he said as he put an arm out to include her in his embrace. Elynn nestled against him, and the baby chortled. It sounded like he was laughing. Alex sighed. “He’s such a perfect little miracle. I hope you know how blessed I feel that I have the two of you,” he whispered, nuzzling his wife’s neck.

  “I’m glad you feel that way. Because our blessings are about to multiply. I’m pregnant again.”

  The End

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  About the Author

  Lucy Leroux chose love.

  Lucy moved to France for a one-year research contract. Six months later she was living with a handsome Frenchman and six years later is happily married to him…and still in France.

  When her last employment contract ended Lucy turned to writing. Frustrated by the lack of quality romance erotica she enjoyed reading she set out to create her own. Her stories feature heroines who are smart, brave, and resourceful. She enjoys writing men who are thoughtful and slightly obsessive alpha males.

  Her ‘A Singular Obsession’ series is a combination of romance erotica and suspense that feature intertwining characters in their own stand-alone novels. Three are completed and additional four books are planned. Follow her on twitter @lucythenovelistor www.facebook.com/lucythenovelist

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  Coming Attractions

  Confiscating Charlie, A Singular Obsession Novelette