Page 23 of Endless Love

Still, I can feel his eyes on me as I turn around and start to unbutton them, and the warmth that slides over my skin, banishing the chill I felt a moment ago, makes me wonder if I should have anyway. I start to tell him to look away, but that seems like it would make it worse, by acknowledging the fact that I can feel him watching me.

A tingle runs down my spine as I push my jeans over my hips, and a different feeling replaces the discomfort, a petty feeling that I let myself relish for just a second. I bend over a little as I slide my jeans off, letting his t-shirt that I’m still wearing ride up my waist, so he can see the curves of my hips and ass in my cotton panties as I kick off the jeans and bend down, reaching to pick them up off of the floor.

Behind me, Ivan is silent and unmoving, until I think I can hear him audibly swallow. I straighten, his shirt falling back down around my thighs, and I can imagine what he’s thinking. How badly he wants to cross the room right now and grab me, bending me over the bed with a hand on the back of my neck as he pulls my panties to one side. As he?—

I hear the sound of him shuffling, shaking out the blanket, and the fantasy breaks. Not a moment too soon, because I can feel the hot throb of arousal between my thighs, the dampness there as I yank back the covers the rest of the way and slide quickly into bed. The sheets are cold, chilling my heated skin, and I drag them all the way up to my chin, looking away from Ivan as I roll onto my side towards the window.

My face feels hot. I’m embarrassed that I let myself think about it. That I wanted that petty moment of power over him, and instead ended up just as turned on. Just as painfully awareof the fact that he’s going to be sleeping inches away from me on the floor.

I feel a different kind of throb at that thought, one of guilt. Ivan is the one who is going to be driving us across several states, and he’s sleeping on the floor. He shouldn’t be, but I don’t want to sleep on the floor either, and after this morning, there’s no way we’re sleeping in the same bed.

I know exactly what would happen, if we did.

11

CHARLOTTE

The thin morning light filtering between the drapes, still pale enough to let me know that it’s barely late enough to actuallybemorning, comes so quickly that I wonder if I actually fell asleep. I can hear Ivan moving quietly around the room, folding up the blanket, and I wish to the depths of my soul that I could just fall back to sleep.

Better yet, that I could do that in my own bed, in my own apartment, at home where I’m safe. Where in another few hours, I’ll wake up again and get dressed for work and meet Jaz before going about the same, boring day that I lamented not all that long ago.

“Charlotte.” Ivan’s voice is soft, but it scratches over my skin. “We have to go.”

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut for a minute. The bed is uncomfortable, the duvet is stiff, and the room got cold at some point during the night, but I still don’t want to get up. Somewhere behind me, though, Ivan is waiting patiently, and I force myself to roll over and sit up.

“I left out another shirt for you.” Ivan points to a black t-shirt at the end of the bed. “We can stop and get different clothes soon. Once we cross over into Minnesota, anyway.”

“Great. I can’t wait to stop at the first TJ Maxx we come across.” I know I sound like a diva, which I’ve never been, but apparently, not getting enough sleep isn’t good for my mood. Along with the sort of abduction, being on the run from the law, threats, and car theft that I’ve experienced over the last twenty-four hours. “Can I at least take a shower?”

Ivan glances at the window, letting out a heavy breath. “Ten minutes.”

I want to argue, but I decide to take what I can get. I head into the bathroom, locking the thin door behind me—as if Ivan couldn’t come right through it if he wanted to—and turn on the hot water. The steam that the small, closet-sized bathroom quickly fills with is soothing, at least, and I strip down, eager to wash off the last day.

A little over ten minutes later, with my hair wet and all of me smelling like cheap motel soap, I put my old jeans back on and slide Ivan’s t-shirt over my head. I don’t bother trying to tie it up at the waist or do anything cute with it this time. I can already feel my urge to care slipping away. It’s not as if anyone is going to see me except for Ivan, and he?—

I swallow hard, biting my lip as I grab the small tube of travel toothpaste next to the sink and squirt some onto my finger. I don’t think it matters what I wear, when it comes to Ivan. He’s going to want me no matter what.

Unfortunately for me, the feeling is far too mutual.

Ivan’s arms are crossed over his broad chest as I walk out of the bathroom. “That was?—”

“More than ten minutes. I know.” I push past him, going to shove the armchair away from the door, just for something to do.“It was fifteen, tops. I needed to do some semblance of brushing my teeth.”

“We’ll get some toiletries and stuff when we stop in Minnesota, too.” Ivan is right behind me as I walk out into the crisp, grey morning, following me down the rusty steps out to where the Corolla is waiting. In the daylight, the color looks even worse. But it looks like a hundred other sedans being driven around to errands and school drop-offs by moms and students and other people whoaren’tin the Bratva or on the run, and I’m sure that’s why Ivan picked it.

Ivan doesn’t say anything as he starts the car. He’s been quiet since we had to run from the hotel last night, and I can imagine why. The part I can’t imagine is how it must feel to have a family that hates you so much that they try to hurt you. A family that wants to hurt Ivan in ways worse than shooting him. That want to usemeto hurt him.

It doesn’t seem like it’s something new or surprising to him. He seems to be taking it in stride, but I can’t help feeling that there’s got to be some deeper hurt underneath it. I don’t see my family all that often, and there are certainly some old wounds from things my parents did wrong as I was growing up—but I can’t imagine them ever wanting to hurt me. The idea of it is unthinkable.

Ivan pulls into a fast-food place that serves breakfast, and after looking at the options, I decide a chicken biscuit seems like the least terrible of the greasy options. I ask for some strawberry jam to put on it, and I see Ivan looking at me with interest as I spread it on the inside of the biscuit, while we sit in the car in the parking lot. He’s parked at the back, facing forward so we can see the entire lot, a level of paranoia that I would never have even considered until now. Now, it seems like the smart thing to do.

“What?” I ask him, a little bit crossly, as I take a bite of the biscuit. It’s better than it has any right to be, and I hate thata little, after a lifetime of avoiding fast food. The coffee, on the other hand, is terrible, and I feel a wave of longing for the little coffee shop near my work that I used to stop by as a treat once or twice a week. I’ll probably never go there again, if everything Ivan has told me is true, and that longing turns into that feeling that’s very much like grief.

It’s followed by guilt, because so many other people in the world have worse things to grieve than the loss of their favorite coffee place, and there are hundreds of coffee shops all over the world I could visit even after my life is wiped and rebooted. But that was a part of my life, my little corner of the world, and it’s been ripped away from me.

Some of my anger at Ivan comes back with that thought.

He shrugs at my question. “I’ve just never thought of putting that on that particular food before.”

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