Oh true. I forgot about the behavior enforcing the max speed for you.
He said he was expecting an orbit, but real gravity would be similar.
To stop the orbit you could apply a brake to the tangent speed so it would fall straight down. The break could be just a velocity opposite the tangent velocity and you could make it inversely proportional to the distance. Basically that would make it brake faster the closer it is.
a = angle(sprite to target)+90
tanvel = vectorX*cos(a)+vectorY*sin(a)
d = distance(sprite to target)
If d>0
vectorX = vectorX - tanvel/d*cos(a)
VectorY = vectorY - tanvel/d*sin(a)