"I love you, Jo. I love you."

All the wind is knocked out of my lungs and the sobs that crashed my body just moments ago have miraculously disappeared. My whole body is frozen, not even my eyelids blink as his words stand on replay in my head.

I love you, Jo. I love you.

I've never heard those words spoken to me, let alone as raw and directly as he's saying them now. There's not a trace of doubt behind his voice; if I didn't know any better, I'd even say he sounds determined and forceful.

I love you, Jo. I love you.

His arms keep the pressure on his embrace, and his nose is still buried in my hair. It is all signs that tell me he isn't backing out. That he is saying those words while he is fully aware of it. That he is not ashamed of saying these three words to me, and that he is aware of how huge and loaded they are.

I love you, Jo. I love you.

And even though the rational and sensible voice in my head questions if this isn't an emotional flap-out as a reaction to what I've just told him, my heart knows it's not. I feel that it's not. I know he means it.

I've never felt like this around anyone in my life before, not even during those early memories when everything was still normal. Not even when I was just a little Australian girl that loved making daisy-chains.

For the first time in my life, I feel loved. And maybe even more important; I feel worth to be loved. Somehow, he manages to get all the good, unbroken sides out of me. He sees more than the broken and scarred girl that I am. He digs deeper and breaks down my walls until he finds me; Josephine. And he makes me feel loved.

With every smile he gives me, with every touch he offers, he injects it. Love. It's a magical feeling, one that I -up until this very moment- have no idea how to react to, but is wholeheartedly nonetheless.

Right now, as I'm laying in his strong arms that have trapped me against his chest, the heavy feeling of telling him my story fades and is replaced by relief.

Relief, because he didn't lie and kept his promise to me. He promised he wouldn't look at me any differently, and he kept his promise. He loves me.

I want to tell him I love him too. I want to tell him I love how he is with Daisy. I want to tell him that I love how the three of us seem to become this unit more and more with each passing day, but as I open my mouth I can't seem to find my voice. Not a single tone comes out, while all I want is to tell him I feel it too.

"Breathe, Jo." His voice -soft and laced with patience- pulls me out of my thoughts, and on cue, I let out the breath I was holding. His lips press into my hair once more before he whispers a soothing, "there you go, in and out. Just breathe."

I nod my head which is still pressed against his chest, my nose buried in his -now tear-stained- shirt. I focus on his breathing and try to match mine to it. In and out. He takes bigger tugs of air, but eventually, I'm able to get my breathing under control and in sync with his.

He feels it because he moves one hand flat in between my shoulder blades to follow the movements. "That's it," he whispers, his voice relaxing me to the core.

It's remarkable how I -in such a short time- have connected his voice and tone to the feeling of safety. The moment he talks, my body seems to let go of the constant standby mode, as if I unconsciously know that he is there to take the reigns and watch over me.

Whenever he is close, I feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. Looking back on it now, I know I felt it from the very first moment I met him. I felt it when he helped me deliver Daisy. I felt it when I gave her to him because I slipt away. And I felt it when he came back with Daisy in his arms when I'd woken up.

From the first time I met him, he has not just been Daisy's silent lullaby, he's been mine too.

He's been patient, not asking me anything, not even about all the questions he must've had about where he found me. Not even about Daisy and how she was conceived or who is responsible for that. Nothing. He respected me from the very first day. Me, and my boundaries, limits, and all my baggage.

He's been more than patient with Daisy; acting as her guardian and being there for her every step along the way. He was there when she was hungry and I couldn't feed her, and he was able to calm her when she was having cramps.

He offered us shelter while he hardly knew us, and now he's making that shelter our home. A home where we love to be.

He is there. With us.

"You have no idea how in awe I am of you, Jo." He breaks the silence without moving. His hand still lies in between my shoulder blades, and his breathing hasn't changed.

The only thing that's suddenly changing drastically is my heartbeat. My heart is pumping my blood through my veins in full force, his words working as fuel.

"The way you managed to keep going while he did all those things..." I feel him tense, and although I wouldn't want him to react like this because of what happened, I do understand. He is mad. I am too.

"I never thought about not keeping going," I mumble, my voice hoarse. It's the truth; I never thought about doing something to make it stop.

I don't know why. I hated it there, but somehow the idea of being dead was scarier. Although, during times when it was the five of them, the idea of being gone was alluring.

"I have thought about harming him," I confess. "I used to think about what I would do if I was able to get a hold of a knife. Or what would happen if I'd wrap the chains that kept me in place around his neck. I know that are sick thoughts, but they somehow made me happy."

Saying those words out loud makes me wonder if I'm not just as sick as him. Thinking about killing someone can't be normal, not even if he's a horrible person.

"Jo, that's not sick. Of course, you thought about that." He pulls his nose out of my hair and then pushes me back so we can look at each other. His eyes are slightly red, and all the emotions that he feels are written across his face. I see anger, hate, shock. But also pride and love.

"Yeah, but at the same time, I'm happy I didn't."

Hero frowns, and I can see the confusion from miles away. "You're happy you didn't?" He asks, almost to check if he heard me correctly.

I nod. "I am. Outside of the fact that there's never been an opportunity for me to kill him because by the time I got those ideas in my head I was never leaving that room, but if I'd killed him, I wouldn't have Daisy. And Daisy is just..." I search for the words that describe what she means to me, but before I've found them, Hero completes my sentence.

"Dais is your life."

Tears fill my eyes as I nod, this time because what he is saying is true. Little Daisy. The way she was given to me is horrible, but she saved me. "She is. Every time I felt her kick, she gave me strength. She kept me sane."

Hero smiles and leans forward to kiss my forehead. It's something that he's been doing quite a few times, and I'm enjoying it immensely. It makes me feel special.

"You are an amazing mother. Daisy's lucky to have you," he says, his hand rubbing up and down my back once more.

"Thank you. It means a lot that you think so." I smile, and he returns it with one of his. His full lips shape into a smile that feels so familiar and calms me to the bone.

He leans down to kiss my forehead once again, followed by one on my nose. Immediately I feel the shift in my belly; it's like nerves, but different and I feel it every time he's close. I felt it when we kissed.

It's weird. After a loaded and emotional moment in which I told him something that I've never spoken about before, he still manages to push my dark thoughts away by just being this close to me. By just small gestures like kissing my forehead.

After he's pulled his lips from my nose, he doesn't lay his head back against the headboard. He keeps looking at me, his eyes moving over my face and eventually lingering on my lips before he catches my eyes once more.

His eyes are full of questions. It's a question that I hear without him saying the words out loud. Questions that I'm having too.

Can I kiss him? Is it crazy that I want him to kiss me after what I've just told him? Is it even healthy that I'm craving contact with him the way I do given what happened to me?

"Jo?" His low voice asks, his eyes never leaving mine.

"Mmhm?" I'm not even able to respond with words. The way his breath fans my face and his hand still moves steadily up and down my back, along with how he looks at me with heavy eyes, leave me speechless.

He takes a deep breath and moves his hand -the one who was just rubbing up and down my back moments ago- up underneath my hair, where he folds it around my neck. It's a simple touch, but it sends shivers through me that I've never felt before. "You're doing things to me."

"What do I do?" I ask with slightly wide eyes. The words are out before I thought them through. I want him to keep talking, and I want to know what he means. Does he mean this a good or a bad way? Are the things good things or bad ones?

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Nothing bad. I promise," he reassures before moving his other hand to my cheek where his thumb slides over my cheekbone. "I just want things with you that are not appropriate right now. It confuses me."

"What things?" I ask, engulfing the trail of heat his touch leaves behind on my skin. It's an addictive feeling. One that I'm desperately trying to hold onto since I've never reacted like this to anyone's touch. I've never known that someone's touch can be like this, that it can bring out this feeling. His touch seems to heal me, even though I know there are scars too deep for him to reach.

He takes a big gulp of air and trails his thumb to my mouth. There, he moves it over my lower lip until he reaches the middle, and then pulls it down just slightly. His eyes focus on the movement, his pupils bigger and his lips snapping inside his mouth to wet them for just a second before they pop out again.

He then makes eye contact with me again. "I want to kiss you. But I don't want you to think I take anything you've just told me lightly because I'm not."

"I know you're not," I breathe against his thumb. It's true; I know he's not taking any of it lightly. He's just searching for a way to deal with all the information, just like I am every day.

He nods once and then casts his eyes down so he's looking at my mouth again. And then, torturously slow, he leans down and replaces his thumb with his lips. His lips are parted

slightly when he plants them on mine, and therefore he traps my lower lip in between them.

He shifts a little, dragging me down so his head hits his pillow. I'm laying half on top of him, my hands clutching his shirt once again while I wait for him to take the lead, expecting a movement of his mouth just like last time he kissed me before we were rudely interrupted.

But he doesn't make that move. Instead, he pulls back just a little so there is room for him to speak. "This okay?" He breathes, clearly affected by our short kiss.

I nod my head, my nose bumping against his in the process because he is so close. "It is."

A small smile forms his lips for just a second before he pushes them on mine once more, much more determined this time. His hand in my neck makes sure I can't move away from him while the one on my cheek slowly caresses my skin.

I move my hand to his neck too, wanting to reassure him that this is okay once more. His skin feels hot, and when he feels my touch, a soft grunt comes from within his throat.

He overwhelms me. There is no way to describe what I'm feeling now in any other way than that. From the beginning, he's been showing me what good men are like, and right now, he lets me feel it too.

He's gentle. With him, there is no force or violence. He's kissing me in the way that he's been treating me from the very beginning; with a choice. He gives me the choice. An option. He waits for me to make a decision and then acts on that decision while making sure I'm okay.

Just like now. He is waiting, his lips pressed against me, firmly yet with care. He's asking me what it's going to be, all the while making sure that I know everything I'll choose is fine with him. It feels liberating to be kissed like this.

Finally, I have a choice. I don't even know how long I've been waiting to have a choice.

I open my mouth carefully, mimicking his movements that I felt last time our lips touched. For a moment the caresses of his hand on my cheek stop, but he quickly recovers and then finally also moves his mouth.

He begins by taking my lower lip a little more between his lips, and then he carefully sucks. It's nothing big I think, but it's unexpected and sends a full shiver straight through me.

Before I have time to recover though, I feel his tongue against my lower lip. He's moving it from left to right, only touching my lip with the tip. His actions are very guarded and soft but it feels amazing.

When I begin to move my lips against him a little as well, I feel him relax underneath me. I hadn't noticed how tense he was, but now that he feels my response, he seems to let go of his thoughts.

And I want more of him. It's confusing me a little since I'm once again wondering if it's normal for someone like me to react to him this way, but I can't help it. I want to know what kissing is like without being forced to do it. I want to kiss without being choked on someone's tongue while people are making sure I don't pull away.

I push my tongue through my lips so it makes contact with his. It's a fast and unexpected action, and therefore Hero's hand on my neck loosens its grip slightly. "Jo," he mumbles against my mouth, probably to ask something in the lines of if I'm sure, but I shake my head while I keep my eyes shut.

I pull him to me by his neck so our mouths collide once more, and again I push my tongue through his lips. The moment I feel his tongue rub against mine, I'm almost not able to ignore the rush of excitement that shoots through me. It feels new, forbidden even in a way, but I'm most of all surprised by how good it feels.

I feel his thumb trail underneath my chin, and after he's lifted my head a little by pushing my chin up slightly, he runs his tongue around mine once.

I let out a weird high noise, one that I didn't see coming and couldn't stop, and in response, he moans.

I had no idea he could sound like that.

His tongue trails around mine again, and this time he nudges me with his thumb, silently telling me to move my tongue as well. And so I do. I make the same movement: twirling my tongue around his carefully.

I can't believe how good it feels.

His hand leaves my cheek while our tongues keep circling around each other, and just a moment later I feel his arm wrap around my waist. He first pulls me up a little, so I don't have to bend my neck anymore, and then he pulls me against him hard.

He then retreats his tongue from my mouth and starts to nip with his lips again. First on my upper lip, then my lower lip. It feels like he is teasing me, testing me even. Challenging me to mimick his movements. When I do what his lips ask me, I feel him smile against my lips, and his hand on my back rubs up and down two times as if to say that I'm doing good.

I feel the heat spread through my body. I'm warm, and by the heat that's radiating from him, I do not doubt that he feels it too. The fact that we are both covered by his duvet isn't helping the matter, and while my breathing and heartbeat spike up, I feel that my shirt is starting to stick to my skin.

I'm panting and it's hard to get my breathing under control while our mouths are still tangled. I feel his chest moving up and down rapidly too, but he seems much more controlled than I am. I'm all over the place; my feelings, my movements, my body, everything is on high alert. It's almost too much.

And as if he senses this, he slowly closes his mouth, places a soft peck on my sensitive lips, and then pulls back. When I open my eyes, he is already looking at me. He has a drowsy look in his eyes, and with his pink cheeks and lazy smile that shows one dimple, he looks utterly happy.

"Fuck," he breathes, his breath fanning my face. Somehow he smells just like the tastes, and my cheeks heat up at the realization that I can say that. Because I know what he tastes like now.

Minty, fresh, and a hint of something that comes close to cinnamon. I don't even know for sure if it's cinnamon; it could very well just be Hero.

"You're killing me," he says, pulling me out of my thoughts, and on cue, my eyes widen while I try to move back. "Sorry," I mumble.

He won't let me though, his arm holding me against him. "No. Don't move. It's not a bad thing."

I frown, not sure how a statement like that isn't a bad thing, and he softly chuckles while he moves my hair behind my ear and shoulder.

"Give me your hand," he then says, his hand already reaching for mine that's still clutching onto his shirt. He then places my hand flat on his chest with his hand on top of it, and immediately I feel his heart hammering underneath his skin. "That's what I mean."

"It's beating fast," I whisper, telling him exactly what I think. It's not even a conscious decision to do that; like so many thoughts, it just comes out.

"It is," he mumbles as he bumps his nose against mine which makes me smile too. "It's what you're doing to me." He lets go of my hand that's on his chest before dragging his thumb over my lips. "And not just because that kiss was lit. It's what you do. You. It's how brave you are and how strong. It's because you share your story with me and because you trust me. It's because of who you are, Jo. I love who you are."

On cue, tears fill my eyes once more as I ask myself again how I get to be this lucky. Even now, after telling me he loves me twice, he's not thinking about how I didn't say it back. He is just smiling at me, his eyes scanning me to make sure I'm okay, and his arms safely engulfing me. He is overwhelming.

I open my mouth, determined to tell him exactly how I feel. I want him to know that I love him too. I want to tell him everything I feel, but he stops me by putting his thumb on my mouth again while he shakes his head.

"I didn't tell you I love you just to hear it back. I'm telling you I love you because I mean it. Please, don't feel pressured. I only want to hear those words from you when you're ready and when you mean them."

I'm pretty sure that he is what perfection means.

I smile through my tears and press my mouth on his briefly, giving him a kiss that surprises him. When I pull back, I shake my head. "I've never said those words to anyone."

His face falls slightly but he tries to hide it by nodding and keeping his mouth formed in a smile. He completely mistakes my statement for something bad, and therefore I add the next words as fast as I can to take away his doubt.

"I love you too."