Page 73 of Endless Obsession

Ivan pulls back, the moment broken, his face confused. “Why are you laughing?” he asks, and I wince, thinking he’s going to be pissed at me for ruining the moment.

“Jaz said you might fuck me up against a tree,” I admit between giggles, and Ivan smirks, closing in on me again as he runs one hand down my waist to my hip.

“Would you like that, Charlotte?” he murmurs, brushing his lips over mine again. “Getting fucked out here in the open? I could pull those leggings down and bend you over, or strip you naked and wrap your legs around my waist, fuck you hard right here. You could walk back to the car full of my cum.” His hand drops lower, fingers sliding up my thigh. “Is that what you want?”

The fantasy is dangerously close to Venom’s promise to chase me through a dark orchard. I shouldn’t want it, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m wet, wet enough that I start to worry I might soak through my leggings. I want Ivan to move his hand a little to the left, to press against the spot where I so desperately need it, and I pull away from him instead, my heart racing as I duck under his arm and step back. “Maybe,” I whisper, my arms wrapped around myself, and his expression changes from lustful to gentle as he sees the apprehension in mine.

“Maybe a bed, first.” He smiles at me, breaking the tension, and laces his fingers through mine again as we keep walking, the normalcy of the afternoon restored.

Except for the part where he told me that I felt like home. It turns over in my head, again and again, and I can’t stop thinking about it, long after the moment has passed.

—

By the time we get back from the trail, it’s late afternoon, and we’re both starving. We find a little pub not far away and stop for an appetizer of fried cheese, with burgers and beer for our meal, and not once does Ivan say anything about how I should watch how much fried food I eat. Instead, we scarf it all down, and when he drives me back to my apartment, I hesitate as he opens my door.

“You should come up for dessert,” I tell him. “That apple pie is still in the kitchen. We could watch a movie.”

I shower and change as quickly as I can, and come out in my shorts and a long t-shirt to find him in the kitchen, cutting slices of the pie. He turns, and I swear I can see the heat flash in his eyes as they travel all the way down, down to my feet, and back up again.

“This isn’t very sexy,” I say jokingly, almost apologetically, and Ivan frowns.

“You’re sexy in anything you wear.” He holds out a plate to me. “Trust me, Charlotte, I’m having just as hard of a time keeping my hands off of you while you’re wearing that as I was when you wore that sexy dress on our first date.”

I find that hard to believe, even though he sounds sincere. But I can feel the weight of his eyes on me as we settle in on the couch with our apple pie and mugs of cider that we’d bought at the orchard, and I put on Beetlejuice in the background. There’s nothing sexy about any of this, and yet I can feel him looking at me as if he wants to devour me.

As if he wants the taste of me more than anything else.

It reminds me of that night at Masquerade, of the man that I allowed to go down on me, a man I’ll almost certainly never meet or see again. But Ivan is giving me that same feeling, and it makes me feel tight and hot all over, like my skin is suddenly too small for my body.

I wonder if I should have let him come up. I have a feeling that things are going to go further tonight, and I won’t have the willpower to stop it again. But that raises the question—why do I want to? Sex isn’t a promise of forever. It’s just pleasure.

And I want to find out what kind of pleasure Ivan has in store for me.

I swallow hard, taking another bite of the pie. “This is good,” I mumble around a mouthful of sugary apple and buttery crust, and Ivan nods.

“It is. Thanks to you,” he reminds me, and I laugh.

“We’ll have to try our hand at some other types. Some kind of berry for Christmas, maybe—” I break off, realizing that I’ve basically suggested we’ll still be seeing each other in the winter, but Ivan doesn’t look the slightest bit startled by it.

“I’m all in,” he says with a grin, but there’s something deeper under those words. I can hear it, the same way that he said that’ll be it for us both, at dinner that first night.

Too soon to be saying things like that, but I think he meant it, all the same.

“Thank you for—all of this,” I say softly. “I know this isn’t really your vibe. The hiking and silly movies and eating pie. It’s probably not the kind of thing you usually do at all. But it’s been a long time since I’ve had a date who would do this kind of thing with me, so—” I shrug lopsidedly, and Ivan sets his plate aside, his hand resting on my bare knee.

“You’re right,” he says, and the movie fades into the background as his gaze locks with mine. “It’s not my usual thing. Not at all. But with you—I want it to be. I’ve been happier these past couple of days with you than I have been in a long time, Charlotte. And I don’t want it to end anytime soon.”

“Why would it?” I bite my lip, wondering why I asked him that, me, who has run away from him, who keeps insisting that there can be no exclusivity between us, not yet. But I want to know what reasons he might have.

He hesitates. “There are things I can’t tell you yet, Charlotte.”

“About your work? I remember you said it was confidential.”

Ivan nods, almost looking relieved. “Yes. But I—I care about you, Charlotte. More than I thought I could, in such a short time. And I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to stop seeing you, and I want—I want to see where this can go.”

The admission sounds vulnerable. He looks younger for a moment as he says it, almost hopeful, and I reach out, brushing my fingers over the back of his hand. “Would you ever lie to me?” The question comes out before I can stop it, the memory of the woman at the gala still in the back of my head. I think I see something strange on Ivan’s face for a brief second as I ask it, a sudden tightening of his expression, as if the question has upset him. But it clears so quickly that I think I might have imagined it, and he shakes his head firmly.

“No,” he says, leaning forward. He takes my plate out of my hand, setting it on the coffee table as he spills me backwards onto the pile of throw pillows on the couch, a plush ghost that I bought a few days ago suddenly trapped beneath my back. “I never would.”

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