by TN King
Now, he watched Ellie pull up in her little, candy red car. The one she had threatened to give back. And he believed her, without hesitation. He’d never seen that look in her eyes before, this new determination and strength, even if it was through pain.
He’d, perversely, felt proud of her. She’d come a long way from the girl who had stammered and blushed at his every word. Like she wasn’t scared of life anymore, no matter what curveballs it threw at her. And he himself had thrown most of them recently.
She got out, slamming the door to the car and ignoring him entirely as she headed over to the elevator that led up to her apartment. The other thing she had threatened to give back.
Morgan knew that she had seen him, she’d made the briefest of eye contact before quickly closing those elevator doors and going up without him. Yes, she was still pissed. He could see that, and he knew he had hurt her. He’d seen it clearly, when he’d gone to the diner. What he didn’t know was what to tell her or how to explain things to her. If that was even a possibility left to him anymore.
Ellie somehow managed to barely hold herself together through the rest of her shift. She’d ignored the questioning looks, the outright questions, and even the air of carefulness with which everyone had handled her since his leaving after her initial outburst. Joanna had been very sure to try and occupy her with as many menial tasks as possible to keep her occupied and honestly, Ellie had never been so grateful to the woman as she had been upon realizing that.
God, how could she even look at the man without wanting him? Without wanting to hear him out? She felt so damned conflicted. The look in his eyes had pulled at her, begging her to listen. It was a look that had been foreign to her, she’d never seen anything even kind of like it on his features before. Like… desperation. But Morgan? Morgan desperate? If he really felt this strongly, felt that way about it, then why did he leave her again?
She’d felt terrified, honestly, through putting all of the things in her locker and driving back to her—no, his apartment. Scared that she wouldn’t be able to turn him away. Scared she would fall right back in the same trap and end up in the same scene all over again a few weeks down the road. Most of her didn’t even want to turn him away now. He had seemed to be everything she’d ever wanted in a man and then some. He’d been perfect. Treated her perfectly. Made her feel perfect, like they were two pieces in a puzzle that fit so nicely. But then he had the one flaw, the one that kept bringing her down to her lowest of lows.
He ran. Every time. Why?
It was the question that had been eating at her since she’d first discovered he wasn’t returning her calls. The question she intended to find out the answer to. She just had to hope she actually had made the right decision in giving him another chance to explain and that she wasn’t going to hurt herself more now because of it.
She knew he must’ve gotten the elevator next to her, both had been open when she’d gotten in hers. She’d just been sure to close her door, so she didn’t have to endure the ride up with him. Now she got to listen to it ding as she stepped out of hers, walking down the hall and to her apartment to put in the keycode and unlock the door while she pretended not to be overtly aware of just how close he suddenly now was to her.
Ellie stepped through the door and fought the urge to look back, going just off of her hearing to realize that he’d come in behind her and shut the door she had left open for him.
She just… didn’t care. Like she was operating in some sort of dream reality where she was a different person entirely. She began pulling at her clothes, disrobing as she walked and dropping them, as she went, knowing he was right behind her. Knowing he was watching her. It was only when all that was left on her was her underwear that she bent over, taking her shoes off and throwing them over by the hallway wall carelessly. The gasp behind her let her know just how avidly her audience was watching. Good, she thought savagely. She hoped he liked what he saw, knowing now that he can’t have it.
She didn’t even know what had gotten into her. She’d never acted or thought like this before. She’d never been so vindictive in her life—or so confident. But it felt empowering, even if it was slightly terrifying as well. As if her body knew what to do and was just going through the motions. As if she weren’t controlling herself at all. She could feel him approaching her, coming up behind her as she walked down the hallway in her underwear, but again she didn’t turn back to look over her shoulder and verify it.
She didn’t have to. She just knew. Just like she knew that the next stop was her bedroom, turning into it and leaving that door open as well.
Would he follow though?
“Ellie?” he asked, his words tight as they worked their way up out of his throat.
Apparently, he would.
She sighed, bolstering her confidence further, before turning to look at him, one hand on her hip and her eyebrow cocked in question. If he wanted something, he could ask for it. If he wanted to talk, he could talk. He was the one who’d asked for this chance. She was giving it to him that was all she’d agreed to.
His eyes blazed, taking in her form wrapped only in her bra and underwear, running over all of the bare skin she presented and breathing out heavily. As if he too were bolstering his confidence. “Are you going to get dressed so we can talk?” he asked, lifting his eyes to hers again and obviously working hard on not allowing his gaze to drift back down again.
Good. Suffer.
Ellie shrugged, one shoulder lifting just slightly higher than the other in response. Now that he was here, in her bedroom, and she stood nearly naked in front of him… some of that confidence began to wane, doubt creeping along the edges in the form of her questioning herself. Why had she entered her apartment like that in the first place? She hadn’t needed to get undressed, there had been no real point in her taking her clothes off and strutting down the hallway so obviously. It was dumb. She, even now, was still acting too impulsive. But in truth, you know why you’d done it, the little voice reminded her. I just wanted to let him see what he had dumped, wanted to strip down in front of him and make him realize what he had left behind so callously.
But he knew what he had left, didn’t he? He’d seen it all before, and more, and left her anyways. Twice. Once right after getting all of it to himself too… She winced, flinching internally at the direction her thoughts had taken. True as they were, they still hurt.
“Ellie?” he tried again, his gaze slipping and near looking pained as he took her form in again. He jerked his gaze back up once he realized she was paying attention to him again though, shifting and pushing his hand against the front of his jeans to readjust without being too obvious. But she knew that move now, she’d seen him do it often enough, so he couldn’t play it off any longer.
Oh…well, maybe she’d been onto something after all then. She pretended not to notice, even though she knew it was riling him up. Making his cock hard, just at the sight of her in her bra and panties. Well, if that did it… She lifted her arms, curling them behind her back to undo the clasp of her bra to slip off as well, shimmying her panties down her hips without removing her gaze from him. It was his turn to squirm, he certainly deserved it. And she’d been right in doing so then.
He gulped, eyes narrowing at her as he fought to keep his eyes centered, as he fought to keep from looking. “What are you doing Ellie?” he asked in a strained voice, gaze finally slipping only to hurriedly lift back to hers once more. Like he had no control over it, like he couldn’t help himself.
She straightened back up, stepping out of her panties and shrugging again, as if the answer should’ve been obvious. It was really, at least in terms of physicality. “Undressing,” she replied, the evident duh implied in her tone. “That’s what I’m doing.”
As if unintentional, he stumbled a half-step back, swallowing heavily and staring at her as if he were utterly mystified. His gaze slipped again, and lifted, confusion growing with each misstep. As if he couldn’t trust what his body or eyes we
re telling him. Versus what he knew.
Good. It’s now his turn. She reminded herself, cocking one hip out and putting her hand on it without the sneer that she could feel wanting to build on her face. “Are you confused?’ she asked, pleasantly, like fury wasn’t racing through her veins and making it difficult to keep her face and tone both neutral. Like his betrayal wasn’t still fueling everything about this conversation and the pain seizing her from it still.
He seemed to halt, raising his gaze from her body back to her face once more with very clear desire written into every line of his features. “I sure as hell am,” he admitted, voice dark with promise.
A promise he wasn’t going to be able to deliver.
“Good!” she whispered, hurt lancing through the one word and forcing his gaze to snap more attentively back to her. “Now you know how I feel, how I felt!” she told him, yelling the words despite her best intention not to, emotion getting the better of her as she stormed over from where he stood. “I would have given this to you,” she yelled, finger poking into his hard chest with each word, digging into the muscle beneath mercilessly. “I would have…” she trailed off, tears welling up in her eyes and clogging her throat senselessly. She hadn’t wanted to cry damn it. She shook her head, refusing to finish the rests of that. “... but you know what?” she asked instead, lifting her chin and staring defiantly at him.
She refused to acknowledge the desire he was staring at her with, the way his eyes had darkened just from her bare body being so near to his own. She refused all of it. Just like he had refused her, just like he had tossed her aside.
Her hands lifted, bare palms slapping against his chest hard. “You threw me away!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face relentlessly. “That’s what!” she snorted, hitting his chest hard again, wishing she could really impart just some of the pain he’d bestowed upon her… to him. That she could show him, physically, how much she had ached from him doing so. “I could see that maybe you did have business, the first day. It was fine. I waited!” She cried. “The second day, maybe something came up… but you could have called me. Even texted me again like you did the first time,” she accused derisively. “But no! I kept that phone waiting for you to!”
“I-I tried. You must have shut it off,” he whispered, acknowledging only half of what she said, staring at her as if he were unsure of what else to do. He took the hits to his chest though, didn’t even try to stop them or stay her wrists.
“When? When did you try?” she huffed as she swiped at her tears, disbelieving him entirely as she took a rapid step back from him, as if only just realizing how close she was to him physically.
“Ellie,” he whispered, shaking his head and tears welling in his eyes just from the sight of hers. She looked lost, defeated, and he had made her look like that... “I am sorry,” he swore, like he were making the oath on some sacred piece. “I ran. I got scared.” Again, but he left that off, trailing off and begging for her to look at him, to see the sincerity in his gaze.
Her head slowly rose, gaze lifting to his in question. She’d seen him look sincere before though, he’d fooled her both times previously just from that alone. “What?” she asked for clarification, head tilting and her fingers still working furiously to get rid of the tears on her face. A fruitless task seeing that they were still falling from her eyes.
“I. Got. Scared,” he repeated slowly, taking a half step back into her space. “I realized that I loved you. That I couldn’t live without you and I bolted,” he admitted, rushing the words out so he could be sure he actually said them. “It’s new to me!” He almost shouted before bringing his voice back down. “It hit me and I just… I ran from it, I ran from you.”
She blinked hard, her eyes widening as the words finally hit her. No. she must have misheard him, or maybe he had misspoken. “You love me?” she asked softly, disbelieving. This wasn’t going how she’d expected, how she’d planned for.
He nodded slowly, reaching out to take both of her limp hands within his own, thumbs brushing over the backs of them. “I flew to Japan on business, just like my text said,” he explained, his face contorted with emotion. “Then the entire time I was there, all I could think about was you,” he admitted in an agonized tone, as if it explained everything.
But it didn’t! It didn’t explain anything at all! She blinked hard, shaking her head, because that didn’t make sense. It didn’t add up. Not rationally. “Then you dumped me?” she breathed out, both eyebrows raised as if to show him how insane that sounded.
He shook his head, tightening his fingers around hers as if to keep her grounded. “No, and technically, I never dumped you,” he informed her solemnly. “Then I came back to the states, worrying about how out of control my emotions were… and I holed up in my house to drink. One drunken day turned into two, and then more, I don’t even know how many. I was drinking myself to death, trying to forget you at first, and then when I realized I couldn’t, trying to forget how epically I had screwed up… again.”
“You…?” she asked on a half gasp. “Holed up, drinking yourself to death?”
His gaze fell, head lowering even as he shook it. “Yes, me. After a couple of days, I knew I’d blown it.”
Her laugh echoed around them, a thing of pain rather than of pleasure. “Yes!” she screamed, pulling her hands from his with a hard yank. “Yes, you did blow it!” She cried, taking several steps back away from him in horror, pacing the small length of the room and throwing her hands up over her head. “Here I was wondering, worrying, thinking all kinds of craziness about your absence at first. You were sick, your family could be in trouble, something awful had happened. I scoured the news Morgan! I checked headlines, I checked on your business!” she kept on yelling at him, stomping back and forth across the same line. “And then I had to realize the hard truth. That you dumped me! Again!”
She breathed out hard, her chest rising and falling with all of the emotion fraught in the air around them.
“No,” he said quickly, disagreeing entirely as he strode over to her, grabbing her arms and going to pull her into him. “I can’t dump you Ellie, don’t you get that?”
She laughed her angry laugh again, pushing at his hands and struggling to get him to remove them. She didn’t want him touching her, she didn’t want him trying to trick her with his closeness. “Well, you did!” She kept trying to lurch her shoulders out of his grasp. “I don’t know what the fuck you call not calling for days on end in your world, but in mine we call it dumping!”
He laughed, one that actually sounded like he found something funny, not the angry or sad ones that had been being bandied about the room. He didn’t even bother to acknowledge her struggling, moving his hands so that his arms were wrapped about her instead, hugging her tight against his chest. “Goddamnit Ellie, you’re so fucking hot when you get mad.” He laughed again, hand brushing down the small of her bare back. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
She shivered, defying the heat that spread through her at his hand and pulling back far enough to look at him, irritation filling her features. “Oh, so you think this is funny?” she shouted, wriggling her arms again, as if she could get them free.
His laughter died down, gray eyes boring into hers seriously. “No,” he admitted softly, “it isn’t. Just like it isn’t funny that I felt like dying when I knew that I’d lost you,” he told her, a grim, sad smile pulling at his lips.
She stilled, the struggling to get free of him stopping entirely as she stared at him for a moment, processing the words. “What?”
He sighed, wrapping one arm tighter around her waist even as the other released her. “You’re inside of me now Ellie. A part of me, of who I am. I can’t ever just leave you. If I do… I won’t be living anymore,” he said seriously, lifting his free hand up to her face and cupping her cheek softly. “I love you Ellie White,” he declared hotly, lowering his face to hers until his lips were hovering just on the outside of hers. “I won’t ever, ever lea
ve you again,” he swore.
He dropped his head the rest of the way, lips closing over own and claiming them. It was the searing, possessive claiming of before though. It was soft and sweet, with an apology laced inside of each flutter of his lips against hers. Binding her to him.
Her body was melting into his, outside of her control. Like it had a will all its own. He loves me? It sounded too good to be true, but when he touched her like this… it certainly felt true. His lips moving over hers, and hers pressing back into his excitedly. And when he talked to her like this… it almost always made her wet. The daze he leaves me in just from a kiss… She fell further into him, pressing herself up against him before her own thoughts hit her like a freight train. Her eyes snapped open, body leaping back from his with a cry. Of course, the daze she fell in, the one that always made her believe him—the one that had landed with her hurt, more than once now.
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” she demanded, throwing more space between the two of them, lest he try fooling her with his nearness again. “I mean, for all I know, you could have gone to Tahiti with some blonde, gotten drunk, and fucked her until you were out of bodily fluids! Or maybe it was Japan where you did that! How would I know? Then you come back to me and expect me to just ignore it?” Even as she was accusing him she didn’t believe it rightly herself, but that didn’t stop her from putting distance between them. Even if that was the truth, what he told her, then she still couldn’t be certain his intentions were true… that he wouldn’t do it again.
Morgan was sadly shaking his head, looking at her for all of the world as if he wasn’t even offended by her words, like he knew he deserved whatever she threw out at him. “No,” he told her carefully. “I can’t even get it up for anyone but you Ellie,” he explained, gesturing down at the very real proof that he could for her, at least.