Page 67 of Endless Obsession

We both order coffee—another pumpkin spice latte for me and an apple pie latte for her—and start to walk the few blocks to my car. “I’m sorry for just assuming you were being a dick,” Charlotte says again as we walk, clutching her coffee as the crisp fall breeze blows her hair around her face. “I should have texted you back. Jaz said I was overreacting.”

That guilt stabs into my chest again. “Not overreacting.” I look ahead of us, taking a sip of my coffee as I school my features. There’s a heavy, hard knot of anger in my chest now—not at her, but at the circumstances. In my life, I was born into the world that I was, one of violence and dog-eat-dog survival, and because of it, I can’t be with Charlotte the way I want to. I can’t have met her as a normal man, one who could woo her and fall for her and be loved in return the way it should be. Instead, I need lies and deceit to be with her, and it can only ever be temporary. “I really do understand. But now we have another shot at it. Let’s make the most of it, yeah?”

I glance over at her, and she’s smiling as she takes another sip of her coffee. “I’d like that,” she says softly. “I still can’t believe you agreed to an apple-picking date.”

“I can’t believe I agreed to help bake a pie.” I return her smile. “It’s going to be terrible.”

“Fortunately, I know how to bake.” Charlotte sips at her coffee as we turn the corner to the parking garage. “I’ll teach you.”

I feel the sharp bite of desire, my cock twitching at the thought of all of the things I want to teach her. But today isn’t about that.

Today is about something more dangerous than lust.

“Oh wow,” Charlotte breathes as we walk up to my car. “That’s beautiful.”

“It’s a ‘69 Boss 429. Very rare.” Very expensive, too, but I’m not about to brag. Charlotte doesn’t seem to be the type to be impressed by how much I spent on a car, and it’s one of the things I like about her. How much money I have isn’t what’s important to her. “It took me a while to track it down,” I add, smoothing a hand over the glossy black hood. “But it’s my pride and joy. Favorite car I own.”

“I think I like it better than the one you picked me up in for dinner,” Charlotte says, her gaze drifting over the car. “It’s more—badass, I guess?” She laughs softly. “I don’t know. The other one was gorgeous, but this one is—” She drifts off as I open her door for her. “Are you a car guy?”

It takes me a moment to register her question. She’s standing between me and the car, her back to the open door, and she’s so close that I can smell not only the sweet honey scent of her perfume but also the warmth of her skin. A warmth that I want to reach out and touch, to bury myself in, to wrap around me until it sinks down to the cold depths of my soul. I want her, and standing so close to her, it’s difficult to not reach out and try to take.

It makes me wonder what she would do, if I tried to kiss her right now. If I urged her into the backseat of the car instead, ate her out right here in the parking garage, in the back of my car. If I pulled her onto my lap, fucked her hard until she screamed for me.

“Ivan?” Charlotte is looking up at me, and there’s a quiver of nervousness in her voice. It’s as if that prey instinct has slipped out again, warning her away from me instinctively, even as she leans into me, her chin tipped up as if she wants me to steal that kiss.

“I want to kiss you right now,” I murmur, reaching up to run my finger along the edge of her jaw. I feel her shiver, and I know she’s remembering, the same way I am, that kiss in the stairwell. “But I don’t want to miss our date a second time.”

I take a step back, putting a small amount of distance between us. I see the movement in her throat as she swallows hard, taking a step back as she slides into the car.

I’m hard as hell as I walk around to my side of the car, stiff and uncomfortable in my jeans, and I have to fight the urge to reach down and adjust myself. I slide into the car, turning the key, and as it roars to life, I glance over at Charlotte. “Ready?” I ask, and she nods, the movement a little jerky, as if she’s feeling some of the same things I am.

The actual drive is beautiful. I turn the radio to a station playing old bluegrass and country as we drive out of the city, down streets fringed with changing leaves, out to the orchard that Charlotte gave me directions to. It’s a Saturday at the peak of fall, so the parking lot is almost full, and Charlotte gives me a guilty look.

“It’s going to be really busy,” she says apologetically. “Probably a lot of kids. I hope that’s okay, and you don’t mind?—”

“It’s fine,” I assure her, killing the engine and sliding out to come around and open her door. “All that matters to me is that we’re finally getting our day together.”

It’s the truth. The families and their kids swarming all over the place don’t bother me the slightest bit, not when I’m here with Charlotte, doing the thing that she so badly wanted me to come out and do with her. And I realize, as we get our baskets and head out down the path winding through the grass into the trees, that I’m having fun.

I’d agreed to this because she wanted it, not because I really wanted to, and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. Plenty of people did things just because the person they were with wanted them to. But as Charlotte and I start picking apples, trying to figure out what constituted the best ones for picking versus eating, each of us taking turns climbing up to pluck them off and tossing them down to the other, I can feel myself relaxing more and more.

It’s the most normal, fun, innocent thing I’ve ever done. And as out of place as I feel among these other normal couples and families, knowing the darker side to my relationship with Charlotte, knowing all that I’m hiding from her—I find myself more and more able to pretend that it’s not there. That we’re normal.

The smile on her face, the sound of her laughter, the way she gasps when she tosses me an apple, and it almost hits me—all of it makes me feel soft and warm in a way that I’ve never experienced before. It makes me feel happy.

She plucks one last apple, scurrying down and dropping it in the basket. And then, before I can say anything, she leans down, biting into one as she looks up at me, eyes sparkling with laughter, the apple held clenched between her teeth.

I know what she wants me to do. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but I find myself leaning forward, taking a bite out of the apple as she does. It drops between us, and I catch it reflexively in my palm, the juice cool and sticky against my hand as I chew the sweet flesh between my teeth.

Knowledge. Sin. Her. Everything I want, sweet on my tongue, and I drop the half-eaten apple into the grass between us, one hand cupping her chin as I bring her mouth to mine. She tastes like the apple juice, and I sweep my tongue over her lower lip, pushing it into her mouth the instant her lips part, not caring who else might see us kissing like this.

The feeling of her mouth, soft and wanting against mine, ripples through me with an intensity that’s almost painful. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want her, never wanted anything so much that I’m willing to do and sacrifice anything to keep it. I know I’m teetering on a dangerous edge, but I can’t bring myself to care.

I want to fall with her.

I pull back before the kiss can get too heated, looking down into her widened, desire-glazed eyes as I reach down to take her hand in mine. “Let’s go try to bake a pie,” I tell her, a smirk on my mouth, and I see her eyes rest there, her gaze so full of need that it takes everything in me not to kiss her again.

“Okay,” she says softly, her fingers linking with mine. “Let’s go.”

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