Page 48 of Endless Love

I can’t lie to him.

“I’m scared,” I whisper, and the look on Ivan’s face is like I just slapped him.

He pulls back, staring down at me with a look of abject hurt, of desperation, like he’s starving and I’ve just told him he can’t eat. His jaw clenches, and he lets out a long, shuddering breath before he wrenches around, yanking the tent flap open and stepping out into the night.

I hear it close behind him. I can see his silhouette, walking back towards the banked fire. I hear the sound of him groaning and see him turn his back—I know what he’s doing.

Something like jealousy rips through me.Iwant his pleasure.Iwant him to make those sounds with me, to come because ofme. But sex isn’t enough for him. One more night of giving and taking the unimaginable pleasure we seem to find with each other isn’t enough. He wants something I can’t give.

Something I’m afraid to give.

And why? I know the answer before I’m even done thinking the question. All my life, I’ve been the one who does the safe, rational, measured thing. I’ve checked off boxes and made lists, and always, always done what I was supposed to.

Letting a criminal love me, running away with him,loving him backisn’t what I’m supposed to do. It’s not on any checklist, not on anyone’s five-year plan. Fucking one is bad enough, but hearing him say that he’s obsessed with you, that you’re his home, that he can’t let you go, andbelieveit?Wantingit?

That’s so far removed from how I’ve always been that I don’t know how to let myself admit that it might be exactly how I feel. And if I can’t admit it to myself, I definitely can’t say it out loud to him.

My body is begging for release. I’m wound tight, still breathless, and it wouldn’t take much to tip myself over the edge. To give myself exactly what Ivan is doing right now, out in the cold.

But it isn’t my fingers that I want making me come. It won’t be good enough. And the emotions in my chest, knotted up and hurting, make me roll over instead, curling in on myself under the blankets as I close my eyes and wish for him to come back.

It feels cold without him.

And I have a feeling that it always will.

21

IVAN

I’ve rarely been angry with Charlotte. Even now, I don’t know if it’s her that I’m angry with, or myself. But when she whispers that she’s scared, that emotion rips through me, tightening my chest and making me want to scream.

I don’t know if she means that she’s scared of me, or of what she feels. Logically, I know it’s probably the latter. That by telling me that at all, she’s letting me know she feels what I want her to say.

But I need to hear it out loud. And until I do, I refuse to give her what we both so desperately need.

The only thing I can do is get away from her. If I don’t, I’ll give in, and I’ll hate myself afterward. I rip open the tent, stumbling out into the cold darkness, with only enough presence of mind to close the tent against the cold for her before I sink down next to the banked fire.

It doesn’t give off much heat, but it doesn’t really matter. The desire raging through me is hot enough to ward off the cold. My head is pounding, muscles wound tight as I yank down the front of my sweatpants, fisting my cock before it’s barely even out, before I even register the chill against the hot, straining flesh.

I moan when my palm connects with it, my fingers wrapping around my length. I’m slick with pre-cum, so wet from it dripping down my shaft that I wouldn’t even need lube if I had it. I run my hand down to the base and up over the head, gasping as the sensation curls my toes, the need to come, shoving every other thought out of my head.

There’s nothing slow or purposeful about how I get myself off. Just a frantic, desperate need to come before I give in, go back into that tent, and give Charlotte what she begged me for. My hips thrust into my fist, desperate for something softer, wetter, hotter. My cock throbs, desperate forher. No other woman will ever do, after this. I’ll never want anyone else like I want her. I feel certain of it, as I fuck my fist like I’m going mad, slamming my hand down my length again and again as I feel my balls tighten and that hot burst of pleasure unleash at the base of my spine.

I’m going to spend the rest of my fucking life thinking about her when I come. How she smells, how she tastes, how she feels around my fingers and around my cock, the sweet, whimpering sound she makes when she comes?—

“Fuck!”I snarl the curse as my cock erupts, throbbing in my fingers as my cum spills out onto the dirt, spurting from the tip as I thrust into my hand. I grab onto the log next to me to keep from tipping forward, squeezing my cock as I fist it roughly, spurt after spurt shooting out as I moan Charlotte’s name under my breath and pant wildly, the pleasure and the need prolonging my orgasm. I’m still throbbing when I let go, cum dripping from my cockhead as I gasp for breath, the cold air softening me as I reach down and tuck myself back in.

I wait for the desperation to recede. For the need to not feel as frantic. To remember that there will be other women, and other beds, that I’m going to Vegas, where there are more gorgeous women than I could run through in a year if I wantedto take one to bed every night. For the relief of the orgasm to clear my head, and for me to remember that Charlotte isn’t the only woman in the world I could want.

It doesn’t happen. I don’t care about what’s waiting for me in Vegas. I don’t care about taking anyone else to my bed. I don’t want anyone other than her, and that knowledge, coupled with what I said to her earlier tonight, slams into my chest like a fist.

I told her that she felt like home. Likemyhome.

I love her.

Sitting there on the log, my breath misting in front of me, I can’t pretend that isn’t the truth any longer. Out here, in the dark silence of the night, it’s unavoidable. I love her, and I want her to believe that the way we started isn’t the way things have to continue to be. That even if I can’t be sorry that I found a way to make her mine for a little while, I can’t regret the time we spent together—I do regret the way it turned out. I regret that I didn’t find some other way.

Even if there wasn’t one. Even if this is just regret for getting caught instead of regret for actually lying. I don’t know how to reconcile that—but I do know I’d spend the rest of my fucking life trying to make it better if she’d let me. Trying to show her that I’ll never lie to her again.

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