Millie stepped into the pitch black of her house, feeling across the wall for the light switch. When she found it, the sudden flood of brightness was jarring and she hesitated in the hallway. The Keanes lived down at the end of the street and sometimes went for evening walks…Anyone passing by outside would now be able to see in through the front window, and the last thing either of them needed was gossip.

She leaned backwards and flipped the separate switch for the porch light, hoping it would shine uncomfortably into any prying eyes. Then she took a few steps to the side table, turned on the little lamp there, and then back again to the hallway to switch the main light off. The end result left them in a cozy, intimate glow.

John had been watching her little light switch dance in silence from the doorway. His dark brows were scrunched into a concerned expression and those beautiful eyes closely followed her every movement. He probably thought she'd gone mad.

"Come in, sorry! Can I take your coat?"

"Oh, sure. Thank you."

He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her. She hung it up for him, then started to untie the belt of her own sweater…but her fingers fumbled as she suddenly remembered she wasn't wearing a bra. It was the fashion to go without, but she usually made the effort to put one on when she was going to church. Today, she had been running late and didn't want to miss the window of time designated for confession. She'd added the sweater on her way out the door and belted it securely, confident that her nipples wouldn't show through the thick fabric.

Now she was in a predicament. She had already made enough of a fuss about the lights, she couldn't falter halfway through this simple task as well without things becoming even more awkward. She took a breath for courage, and allowed her fingers to continue untying the belt…Then she removed the sweater, shimmying her arms out of the sleeves as quickly as possible, before she could lose her nerve. As she hung it up on the peg, she saw with embarrassment that her nipples were indeed prominent from the chilly nighttime air they'd just left behind…or was it from the state of arousal his hand hovering over hers had produced in her body? God, what could he do to her if he were to actually touch…

Entertaining the guilty thought for a very small moment, her eyelids involuntarily fluttered closed—then flew back open as she remembered how closely he'd been watching her. Sure enough, his gaze met hers, instantly. But something about his own guilty expression told her that he'd quickly brought his eyes up to her face from…elsewhere. She felt herself blushing, and turned away to hide the little smile she knew was showing on her face. Well then, they were on equal footing.

Carefully regulating her expression, she led him through the next hallway into the kitchen. She turned on one more small light when she got there and gestured to the little table, "Go ahead and have a seat while I make the tea. Do you have a preference?"

"Hmmm, Earl Grey?"

"Ok! No problem."

As she went about the kitchen, preparing the tea, she knew his eyes would be following her, and she found herself moving more sensually than she normally would for such an everyday task—arching her back or bending over more than necessary. Her breath came slightly faster, causing her breasts to lift and strain against her shirt...

To hide her shortness of breath, she chose a topic of conversation that would require John to do most of the talking. "So, where did you grow up? I don't think you've ever mentioned it before."

"My family moved around a lot, actually. My father was an officer in the navy so we never got to settle. It was just one military base after another."

She could tell he was making an effort to control his voice and keep his eyes on respectable places, but she could hear the tension in his speech and instinctively knew whenever his gaze drifted…

"I guess it was good practice for my life as a priest. You have to go where you're sent and most priests don't stay in one parish for very long. Although, your Father McLaughlin was here for many years, so maybe that'll be the case for me as well."

She set two full teacups down on the table then went back to get milk and sugar…

His expression had turned serious, almost sad. His eyes met hers as she settled into her seat next to him at the table. Then he looked down, thoughtfully stirring a spoonful of sugar into his tea. "I feel like I could be at home here. The one constant of being a navy brat was always being somewhere near the ocean."

She smiled a polite smile, and took a sip of her tea. But as his last words drifted into silence, the idea of home continued to niggle at her mind…She fidgeted nervously as the word began chase itself around in circles in her head: home, home, home, until she found herself feeling too many emotions, all at once…

At some point, in all these months alone, the dissonance between her newfound independence and natural loneliness had begun to produce a wild, pent-up reserve of restless energy in her body. And nothing—not church, not confession, not masturbation—nothing had been able to soothe it, nor tame it. So, whenever it tried to rise up inside her, it had become an automatic response to push it down, somewhere far enough away from her conscious mind that she could pretend it wasn't there at all…

But now, as the ache and urgency of it came over her full-force and her stomach began to churn with the rising intensity…she started to fear she would be sick, and suddenly, she knew that what she wanted—needed—was to let it out…here…with him…Defiantly, she caught his eye.

"Oh, but you're as alone, there in that rectory, as I am here…Have you ever spoken horrible things out loud to an empty room, just out of spite—because you can feel the walls closing in on you? Do you lie awake at night, aching to be held, just as tightly as possible…afraid because…there's no one there to keep you from flying apart, or shattering into a thousand pieces? And then, do you…touch yourself…even though you know that it won't help? It never does…"

He met her challenging gaze, his eyes wide with shock and dark with arousal. But, still he held back.

"Be careful…"

At his quiet admonishment, her eyes filled with bitter tears and her face heated with shame. She stood up, abruptly, and fled from the kitchen.

In the hallway, she stumbled, falling out of one of her wooden clogs. She kicked the other one off angrily, and continued on, barefoot. But there was nowhere to go, really. She stopped in the living room, her back to the kitchen and hunched over sobbing, holding herself tightly around the middle.

She felt him come up behind her, then around until he was very close. Saying nothing, he gently took her in his arms and held her against him as she heaved out all the intensity of her repressed emotions into his chest…

When her sobs were mostly spent, she lifted her face and looked up with tearful eyes, silently pleading with him not to turn her away. His only response was to squeeze his own eyes shut, refusing to either encourage or reject her.

She took a small step back, and he let her go, probably glad to have some space between them. But she had only wanted to free her arms so that she could touch him.

She watched his face contort in agonized emotion, as she skimmed her right hand across his chest, stopping to feel his heartbeat, for a moment. Then she slowly moved it up to cup his cheek. Her left hand passed along the side of his belly, then around to his lower back and pressed so that their hips were firmly together. She knew, now: it wasn't her imagination, it never had been. She could feel his hardness, his desire. She rose up on her toes and strained toward his mouth for a kiss…

Just a little aside, I loosely based Millie's tantrum on Grima's speech to Eowyn when he's trying to seduce her in The Two Towers. Grima is not a good looking guy (no offense to Brad Dourif, it was just the makeup that made him look gross!) and I'm guessing that he wouldn't smell very good either…but that speech!