Page 36 of Stolen Vows

His words leave no room for interpretation. I nod slightly.

"I know. I’m… I’m sorry, Max. I never would have if I’d known."

I stumble over my words uselessly. I feel stupid. I feel as though I am making a fool of myself, but I don’t know how else to get it out. I just want to tell him that I am sorry, but I am not sure that will even come close to being enough compared to everything that my father has done, everything that he has inflicted on this world.

"If you’d known," he repeats, as he closes the distance between us even further, drawing himself just an inch or two from me. "What would you have done?”

I press my lips together for a moment as I gather myself.

"I wouldn’t have reached out to him," I confess. "I only did it because I thought there was some way to ensure that you would be safe. That if I got myself out of here alone, you wouldn’t have to deal with anything that my father tried to throw at you in the way of revenge."

He chuckles slightly, but it’s mirthless.

"You think your father would have spared me? After everything I’ve done?”

"I don’t know," I confess, my voice a little more barbed than I intended. "But I was willing to try. Because I… I don’t want to see you get hurt, Max. I don’t."

"Why not?” he shoots back, challenging me. "Why wouldn’t you want me to pay for dragging you into all of this shit in the first place? If I hadn’t kidnapped you from that wedding, you would have been happily married to that Mario fucker, and you’d never have had to find out about?—"

"Because if I’d married him, he would have been using me the way he used every other woman who has passed through this business," I fire back, my voice taut with fear. "That’s why I believe her, Veronica. That's why I know she’s telling the truth. Not just because I saw her all those years ago, but because… because I know what my father is capable of. I know that he expected me to give myself to Mario, every bit of myself, whether I liked it or not. And if it hadn’t been for you..."

I pause for a moment, my breath stuttering.

"Then that’s where I’d be right now. And there would be nothing I could do to change it. My body, my virginity, all of it would belong to him."

Anger flashes across his eyes at the sound of those words.

"You would never have belonged to him," he growls, as his fingers wrapped around mine. "You hear me, Cara? It doesn’t matter what he did to you, how he laid hands on you, you would never have belonged to him, never..."

I shake my head, my eyes starting to blur with tears.

"You don’t understand," I whisper. "What would have been expected of me as his wife, it would have given me no choice but to?—"

"Oh, I understand," he cuts me off. "I understand what he would have thought he was owed favors from you. But it doesn’t matter what he believes. You’re your own person, and you always will be. You choose who you give yourself to. You choose who you belong to."

"And... if I choose you?”

I blurt the words out before I can consider what I am saying. I know that it would be crazy to allow myself to be drawn into anything with him, given everything that has just happened, with everything I thought I knew about my life spiraling apart at the seams, faster than I can make sense of it.

"What do you mean?”

His fingers are still wound around mine. I half expect him to pull back, but he doesn’t. He stands there, so close to me the heat of our breath mingles between us. But I want more.

I want more than just his hand in mine. I want his touch all over my body, his mouth between my legs, I want to give myself to him completely. I want to belong to him in every way that it is possible to belong to someone. I need something to hang onto right now, and the way he makes me feel seems as good a place as any to start.

"I mean... what we did the other day," I confess. "It wasn’t enough. I want... I want all of you. I want you to have all ofme.I want..."

I gaze into his eyes, praying that my words are not falling on deaf ears even as I speak them. But there is nothing left to say, nothing left for me to stir up. I have told him everything. It’s on him whether or not he wants to do anything with the revelation of these feelings, especially with my father on our tail, more men likely being sent out to find us even as we speak. He would be crazy to want me, just as much as I would be crazy to want him...

And yet, as he lifts his hands to my face, I can feel a stutter of excitement starting to pick up the pace inside of me. My emotions are raw, and I realize that nobody has ever seen me like this before in my life. No one has ever laid me open like he has, physically, emotionally.

But I am ready. As an act of lust, of want, as much as it is an act of defying my father and giving away the one thing he has been forcing me to hold onto. Max draws me close to him, gliding his lips along the curve of my cheek, so close to my mouth that I can almost taste him—and God only knows how much I want to.

"You’re sure?”

"I’m sure," I reply, my voice almost hoarse as I wait for him to give me what I want.

I can hardly believe that he is willing to even consider this, given what he knows about my family, but when he holds me like this, I find it hard to care about anything but the way he is looking at me.

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