Page 58 of His Captive

“I didn’t have a choice.” Her voice comes out shaky, and I’m not sure if it’s from her struggle to hold back her tears, or from the cold bite in the air.

“There’s always a choice, I gave you a fucking choice right there, I sat watching, and waiting for you to turn around and say you’d made a mistake,” I remind her.

“It wasn’t that fucking simple,” she snaps back. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her swear, and it sounds so mighty coming from her sweet little lips.

“You know, I’d have taken care of you, I may not have had his money and all his power, but I would have made damn sure you had everything you wanted. And more importantly, Millie, I’d have loved you… So, don’t you dare come here and tell me you fucking miss me when we both know you and your choice is the reason we’re both fucking unhappy.” I don’t realize I’m shouting at her, until her lips started to tremble.

“It wasn’t that simple, Ethan. You left it till the night before my wedding to tell me how you felt. What did you expect me to do?” She looks ready to break, her voice only just holding out and all her fight rapidly fading to sadness.

I’m so angry at her, but I’m even angrier at myself, because all I want to do was comfort her from how harsh I’m being. I’ve told myself for the last five years that I hate her, hell I think I’d even started to believe it. But seeing her in front of me so beautifully helpless makes me realize that I never stopped loving her.

“I expected you not to marry a man you didn’t love,” I snarl.

“You know I couldn’t have done that.” Millie steps closer, unfazed by my anger. And as soon has her hand makes contact with my chest, my rage melts into weakness.

“Why?” I shake my head, sniffing back tears of my own.

“Just be honest. I didn’t have what he had. You didn’t marry for love, you married for money and now you have to fucking live with it.”

“Money had nothing to do with it, not for me anyway.” Her palms stretch over my shirt, and although all my instincts beg me to touch her back, I resist.

“The Sorrento’s and my parents had planned that wedding since we were kids. It made sense, for the two most successful families in town to be united by marriage. Ethan, I couldn’t ruin that for them. That’s not to say I didn’t think about it. That night when you told me how you felt, I swear I nearly came back.” I see the honesty in her eyes and if possible it hurts me even more.

I shake away any empathy.

“Yeah, but you didn’t Mil. And now here we are five years later, you call me up and I still come running for you. Is that what you needed assurance of, because you got it. Here I FUCKING AM.”

She doesn’t answer me… Not with words anyway. Instead, her body launches at mine, and I catch her without a second thought. Her hand touches the back of my head and her lips slam hard against my mouth. Shocked as I am, I instantly cling right back to her, lifting her off the ground and crushing her against me. Her lips against mine are the right to every wrong we’ve ever made. And I never want to have to give them up again.

Even as an eight-year-old boy, I’ve been convinced Millie is the other half of my soul, that without her I’ll never be complete. Now, having her in my arms with her lips pressing into mine its proof that I’ve been right all along.

She breaks away first, catching her breath and looking up at me with a little bit of life back in those ice blue eyes. The ones that always have a way of striking me right in the feels.

“I want you to show me what it’s like,” she whispers, her eyes wide and hopeful again, waiting for a reaction.

My mouth opens to speak, but it’s empty of words, I have nothing...

“Please, I know I made a mistake. I just need something to keep me going, I need to feel alive again,” her gaze drifts over the street to a battered looking building. The broken neon sign only half lit spelling M EL. Instead of Motel.

If I wasn’t sure before, I know what she wants now, and a crummy motel isn’t the place a girl like Millie deserves to be shown what eighteen years of being loved by someone feels like. It isn’t the place a girl like Millie should be at all. But, it’s the only place within miles, and the way she looks at me tells me she doesn’t want to wait any more than I do.

“Please,” she begs again.

“Ok, Mil, I’ll show you,” I agree, taking her hand and heading for the motel. It slams me right in the chest when I hear that light-hearted giggle that travels through the air as I drop all my defenses and drag her across the street. A sweet sound I’ve tried for years to forget, never expecting to hear it again. And it’s every bit as beautiful as I remember it.

She waits for me outside, while I throw some cash at the guy behind the desk, and check us in under a fake name.

Millie looks nervous when I come back out, but I can guarantee it’s nowhere close to the nerves that cripple me. I have no fucking clue how to do this. I’ve never made love to a woman before. There’s a very specific type of woman I fuck. Women who handle aggression. Women that you tie, strike, and spit at, then thank you after. Not women like her.

I open the door to the room and when we step inside, it smells as if no one has opened a window in months. I check the bathroom, half expecting to find a rotting corpse in the bath. No. Just a filthy shower curtain and a rust trail running from the faucet to the plug.

“Mill, this place is a shithole, I don’t know if we should... we can go back to my place,” I tell her, standing in the doorframe and looking at cigarette holes in the worn chair beside me.

“No.” Her head shakes.

“Here. Now.” She paces toward me, pushing the jacket from my shoulders, and her lips find mine again. Distracting me from our surroundings.

I work the zipper of her dress, sliding it all the way down her back then pushing it off from body. She flinches when my hands wrap around her arms, and I’m about to apologize for being too rough. I’m inexperienced when it comes to soft maneuvering.

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