✨️ Captive ✨️ Book 2

"Lila, please...baby, please don't do this.

Please just...just love me.

I'll take care of you forever. I'll marry you, give you the biggest fucking house...I'll...I'll give you a family, Lila. We can have kids, babies, anything you want, I swear, just...just stay."

Tyler's broken plea lingers in the salty ocean air, wrapping around me, sinking into my bones. My heart pounds, a frantic, unsteady rhythm that vibrates through my entire body.

I pull away, just enough to look up at him beneath the dark sky. The moonlight catches on his tears, stealing my breath, crushing my heart in a way I've never felt before.

This man, this beautiful, dangerous, confident man, is falling apart right in front of me. And for a moment, I can't breathe. I can't speak. Shame flickers across his face, as if he's regretting letting me see him like this. But before he can turn away, before he can gather himself, I lean in and crush my lips against his.

He hesitates, just for a second, exhaling a shaky breath, almost a laugh, before giving in. Before kissing me back.

It's reckless. Desperate. Untamed. But I don't care. I kiss him with everything I have, every ounce of affection, every unspoken promise. His hands shift from my shoulders to my face, cradling me as he deepens the kiss, pulling me closer, as if I might slip away.

I break away just enough to whisper against his lips, my voice trembling through the tears.

"It's okay... I'm sorry," I breathe, my lips brushing against his. "I'm right here, Tyler. I'm right here."

In this moment, I see everything, all of his pain, all of the trauma he's carried for so long. Every time someone abandoned him, let him down, made him feel like he wasn't enough. And now, it all crashes over him, raw and uncontrollable.

My heart breaks.

Without hesitation, I grab onto his shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric as I tug him toward me. I sink back onto the blanket, lying flat on my back, and guide him down with me. I expect him to resist, to try and pull himself together, but he doesn't.

He doesn't fight it.

I slip my arms beneath his, wrapping around him, pulling him against me. His body is rigid at first, so tense, so wound up, but then he exhales, shuddering against me, and melts into my hold. His cheek presses against my chest, right over my pounding heart, and I can feel the moment he lets go.

I nuzzle against the top of his head, tightening my arms around him, cradling him close.

"It's okay, shh... I'm here. I have you," I whisper, my voice trembling with emotion.

I squeeze my eyes shut, sliding one arm free, and gently press my palm against his cheek, stroking softly, holding him there, against me, against my warmth.

"Shh," I soothe, shifting just enough to tangle my legs with his, anchoring him to me, making sure he feels it, feels me.

I'm not letting go.

"I'm sorry, Lila... I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'm so sorry I was selfish, that I took you away from your family."

His voice is wrecked, every word unraveling with raw, unfiltered pain.

I squeeze him tighter, my throat closing up, choking on the words I want to say, but nothing comes out. I can only hold him, my body trembling as he lets out a shaky sob. He tries to swallow it down, tries to force it back inside, to bury it where no one can see. But I don't want him to.

"Tyler," I hiccup through the tears, my voice breaking. "You're safe. I have you. Please, just breathe."

I press desperate kisses into his hair, my lips brushing against the warmth of his skin, needing him to feel it, to know that I mean it. That I'm here, physically and emotionally.

I want to take his pain away. All of it.

I want to hold the child inside him, the one who never felt safe, never felt loved. I want to mend every fractured piece of his heart.

My fingers thread through his hair, stroking slowly, over and over, long and gentle, coaxing him to relax, to breathe with me. To feel the safety I'm trying so hard to give him.

"Breathe with me," I whisper against his temple, my lips barely moving.

I force my own tears to slow, my frantic heartbeat to steady. And he does. He follows my lead, dragging in a shaky breath, then another, until the last of his tears subside. His arms tighten around me.

It feels surreal, like a fever dream, like something slipping through my fingers.

This can't be real.

Tyler has never faltered. Never lost his confidence. But this, this is a man who has been pushed to his limits. A man fighting, clawing, desperate to hold on to someone who won't let him go.

To hold on to me.

For the first time since leaving home, a quiet calm settles deep in my soul. A feeling I can't explain, like maybe, maybe, this isn't something I need to run from. Like maybe this doesn't have to end in disaster.

Not for him.

Not for us.

I know it's reckless. Dangerous. Naïve. It's the kind of choice that people warn you about, the kind that makes no sense on paper.

My mom would never understand, could never understand. But something inside me, something buried in the deepest part of me, is begging me to stay. To choose him. To accept this.

Eventually, I feel him soften against me. The weight of his sorrow, his fear, slowly unraveling as his breathing evens out. The rigid tension in his body eases, and I let my fingers still in his hair, resting lightly against him as he drifts into sleep.

I don't move.

I just lay there, listening.

The distant crash of waves rolling onto the shore. The chirp of crickets somewhere in the darkness. The breeze whispering through the night air.

And beneath it all, the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

A sound I never expected to find comfort in. A sound I'm not sure I can live without.

I may be young, naïve, foolishly reckless. But I know this is only a moment in time, a crack in his armor I may never see again. A fleeting glimpse of the boy beneath the monster. And when the sun rises, when the weight of tonight settles into his bones, I know he won't be weak like this again.

But tonight?

Tonight, he's mine.

And I am his.

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