Page 13 of End Game

I didn’t want to stop.

I didn’t want this feeling to ever go away.

But I also couldn’t let myself tip into the undercurrent of whatever this was—couldn’t justify the ruination of everything I’d worked so hard to build. All the things that kept me safe.

So after he made me come again, after he found his own hard release inside of me while his mouth was fastened to my sweat-slicked shoulder and his hand was pressed against my heart, I finally forced myself out of his bed.

Leo was silent as he watched me pull my shorts over my legs and wrap myself back into my hoodie. I stuffed my work shirt in the front pocket and looked around for my socks, increasingly aware of the ongoing silence and the weight of his gaze. After I found them underneath the bed, I stood up to face him.

He looked devastating, the sheets mussed from our transgressions in a tangle all around him. I watched his mouth form a relaxed grin, but his eyes gave him away. Twin edges of disappointment.

“I stayed way too long,” I breathed. At least it was honest.

He shook his head once, firmly. “You haven’t stayed long enough.” I sighed, and his eyes moved to my mouth. “Please let me see you again. Let me take you out somewhere. Properly, this time. Whatever you want—wherever you want.”

My heart raced in my chest as it screamed at me to say yes, but I shoved the word down. Locked it up tight. “Leo,” I groaned, suddenly feeling defensive. “I said this would be it.” The words came out colder than I’d meant.

“So, say you’ve changed your mind,” he countered, his expression growing harder. The line etched between his brows almost cracked through my restraint.

I felt the hot sting in the corner of my eyes that told me I needed to get out of here and quick. “I can’t.” It came out in a whisper. “I’m sorry.” I turned around and walked out of his room, out of his orbit. Out of this haven that had soothed my fears all night.

Dolly and Swift were both lounging in the golden sun-filled living room, draped over opposite ends of a black leather couch. They looked at me like the imposter that I was. Just as I rounded the corner and caught sight of the elevator that would bring me back down to earth, I heard Leo’s voice call out from his bedroom. “Mara, wait!” Something banged, followed by a muffled “Shit!” and I hurried my steps, pressing the single, opaque button to call for the elevator. “Mara,” Leo bellowed, footsteps sounding closer, “Jesus, just give me a second to walk you downstairs.”

My heart was in my throat as the elevator chimed. The doors opened and I quickly jumped through them, pressing the button with force to take me out of here. As the doors began to slide shut, Leo’s striking form came into view, and the last thing I saw before they snicked together was the wreckage on his face.

It took me hours to calm my racing heart. After finally making it to my quiet and lonely studio apartment—a stark difference from the sparkling penthouse I’d just left—I carved a narrow path into the old hardwood floor with my pacing. My skin was bursting with anxious energy, my chest ached with a loss I didn’t quite understand, and my mind was caught on repeat with visions of teeth and tongues and the kind of magic that could only be made in the dark.

By ten o’clock, I’d decided to shift that energy into a six-mile run around the city so I didn’t implode from the inside out. I hadn’t been running as much as I used to these last few years—I preferred to run in the early morning, but the hours I kept at Larkspur made that near impossible. Lately, I spent time moving my body with a daily yoga practice and twice-weekly Muay Thai training at a gym a couple of blocks away. But today I just needed to run. I needed to lay everything out on the pavement, to pound it out of my heart.

After changing into cropped leggings and an oversized T-shirt, I pushed myself out the door and into the busy streets of downtown Denver. Autumn had firmly set in in Colorado and the air had a bite to it that would soon lead to bitterly cold days. But for now, it was still warm enough to get by without a jacket during the afternoons—especially while running—and the changing leaves and early festive lights were the perfect setting to submerge myself into. A few miles in, my lungs burned from the effort, so I forced a deep breath all the way down into my belly while I stayed focused on the world around me and the pace of my steps.

And finally, I found some relief.

I circled around the city and hit six miles about a block away from my building. Instead of going straight home, I stopped at a local coffee shop for the largest Americano they had and a bagel to-go, carrying both back to my apartment where I was now stuffing my face with carbs like the world was ending. Between the sexy all-nighter and this morning’s exertion, my body was quite literally starving for sustenance. I finished off the bagel in record time before stripping off my sweaty clothes for a scalding hot shower.

Though it hurt somewhere deep inside of my chest to do so, I spent my shower scrubbing away all the evidence of last night. I could still feel Leo everywhere on my skin, still felt his presence around the corner of every thought, and knew that it wouldn’t be easy to fully wrestle him away. Knowing he lived just down the street didn’t help—I was terrified of bumping into him again. What would I even say?

I’m sorry for running after spending what might have been the best night of my entire life with you, but the feelings that came with it were way too intense for me to face?

I scoffed. God, I sounded like a lunatic. So what if the sex was mind-blowing? So what if a perfect stranger was able to cut right through my defenses and look at me in such a way that he might have actually seen me? I couldn’t explain the sadness I felt, couldn’t explain the anxious trembling in my fingers. How did I justify the wild thoughts that Leo was someone I could fall for if only I allowed myself to get to know him? I wasn’t ready for anything like that. But walking away from him had been harder than anticipated.

Though I hated to admit it—hated to even let myself think it—I knew I was lonely. The iron walls I’d built so fiercely around myself had created a wide chasm between me and the rest of the world. I kept everyone in my life at a safe distance because I had to, not because I liked it. I never imagined this life for myself, but everything I did was out of necessity. I would never put myself in a position that could lead me down that dark path again. I’d been too weak to stop it from happening the first time, and I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to be strong enough now—so better to avoid it altogether.

As I ducked my head beneath the hot stream of water to rinse out the silky conditioner coating my hair, I heard my phone ring from somewhere in the apartment. Frowning, I tried to think of who would be calling me. I spoke to my parents every Sunday afternoon before work but today was only Thursday. The staff at Larkspur would text me before they’d ever call, and it wasn’t like I had many friends.

The phone eventually stopped and I finished my shower, turning off the faucet when it ran cold and pulling a towel around my body. I dried myself off roughly, noting the places that were sore from Leo’s urgent and desperate touches.

Not that I minded. I loved the way he’d been just as unmoored as I was, just as caught up in the moment and aching for more than soft and tender. Except now the small bites of pain were reminders that the whole thing wasn’t just a fever dream. It made my chest squeeze again.

Shoving down the emotion, I pulled on my green bathrobe and padded out to the main room of my apartment. My bed rested in the far corner of the rectangular space, pushed against the wall with the biggest window. Closer to the bathroom was a small pastel pink couch I’d purchased as soon as I moved in. It was plush and velvet and felt feminine in a way I’d never known furniture could be, and I loved it.

Laying on the glass coffee table in front of the couch was my phone. I picked it up and saw the missed call was from Robert Thatcher, the owner of Larkspur. After reading his name on the screen for the third time, I frowned. Why would Robert call me? I hadn’t seen him in almost three months—he’d spent the summer on the Amalfi Coast with his husband, Alessandro, and decided to stay a little longer. Maybe he was back in Denver?

I plopped down on the couch and swiped my thumb to call him. He answered after two rings. “Mara, darling! There you are!”

His voice was loud and bright, and there was no indication that anything was wrong. I let my shoulders relax. “Hi, Robert! How’s it going?” I quickly calculated the time in Italy—it would be around dinner time right now. If he had an important update, he would have called hours ago. Which meant?—

“It’s good, sweetheart. We got back to the city a couple of days ago, though I don’t expect we’ll stay long. Ale is already trying to whisk me off to the Maldives.” He chuckled, and I could hear the rasp from his expensive cigar indulgence. “Listen, I was hoping you could meet me at the club in an hour? I have something important I’d like to discuss with you.”

---