get close to Colin through having sex with him…
I felt like it diminished everything we shared.
Fuck Ashton.
He could die at this point for all I cared. I was done saving people. From now on, I needed to save myself. Millie was number one.
I scooped the buttercream into the piping bag with excess force, adding a dollop of yellow, purple, blue and pink. I was about to scoop in the orange and green for a full poop emoji rainbow, when the doorbell rang.
Eager Sabrina, I told her not to come by until two p.m. It was only noon. With a sigh, I crossed the space and wrenched the door open, prepared to entertain a nine-year-old for the next two hours. But when I saw a pale Ashton standing on my parents’ porch, the air blew from my lungs in shock.
He leaned against the doorframe, panting a little. Peering past him, I took in the rental car in the driveway.
“Umm, hi?” My voice betrayed me; it sounded hopeful and vulnerable and I hated it.
He just looked at me, shaking his head in disappointment. “Dammit, woman, I’ve had more orders for fucking nine-dollar avocado toast than for whiskey.”
I wanted to smile, but I didn’t. Instead I just crossed my arms and glared at him.
Ashton sighed. “I technically wasn’t cleared for flying yet. Mind if I come in?”
That got me moving. I opened the door wider as he crossed the space slowly. He looked weak, taking slow, deliberate steps, and it made tears well in my eyes to see him like that. We both took a seat on the couch, far away from each other, and he eyed the rainbow piping bag in my hands.
“Cooking?” he asked, like this was some fucking casual Friday afternoon chat.
“Ashton, why are you here?”
He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Finally he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny, folded letter. “I’m sorry for calling you a psycho and kicking you out like that.” I flinched at the word psycho; it was still fresh in my wounded heart.
At first I thought he wrote me a letter and I was really impressed, but as he opened it, I recognized my own writing. It was one of my very personal letters to Colin. The one I just now realized that I’d left on the bar. My mouth went bone dry as I watched him unfold it and stroke a delicate finger over the letters. My eyes bugged when he then refolded it and placed it in my lap.
“I’ve read that letter about fifty times.”
My heart hammered so loudly in my ears that I barely heard him speak.
“Okay,” I whimpered, unsure where to go from there.
Ashton looked me dead in the eyes, peering into my fucking soul in that moment, “and I’ve come to save you, Millie … if you’ll let me.”
My bottom lip quivered as the three hundred Band-Aids I’d placed over all of my internal emotional wounds ripped off in that moment.
And I’ve come to save you, if you’ll let me.
Each word filled a hole inside of me. I couldn’t control the tears that streamed down my face, the relief that washed over me. Ashton leaned in, the couch dipping as he did and causing me to bump closer to him. “I need you. I need all of you and I won’t let you go without a fight. The truth is, Millie, if some girl were out there walking around with Jenna’s heart, I would have gone a little psycho too.”
I glared at him playfully, holding the piping bag tip right in his face. “Call me psycho one more time…”
He grinned, pushing up off the couch with surprising strength, and then his lips pressed onto mine. I leaned backward, letting him lie on top of me, moaning when the weight of his body fell onto mine.
God, how I missed his touch. We didn’t have enough time together, we needed more time, more kisses, more of this. I parted my lips to deepen the kiss and our tongues met with a feverish need. My tears were still falling, forming a salty seal around our lips. I sucked his bottom lip into my mouth as he groaned, his hand slipping under my shirt to tweak my nipple. My back arched into his touch as I felt the length of his hardness grow between us. I’d never wanted him more than I wanted him right now on my mother’s brand-new sofa. Yes, that was the weirdest thought I’d ever