The Ending I Want Quotes

“He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. Everyone feels fear. But the day you let your fear control you is the day you stop living.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“It’s gorgeous. There’s a seating area to the left of me. To my right is a table with two chairs, all set up with plates and silverware, and champagne is in a bucket standing by the table. And fairy lights are hanging everywhere—literally everywhere you could put them. They’re entwined along the railings that edge the whole area. They’re draped over the small shrubs and trees that sit in planters. They’re hanging from the trellis. They’re just everywhere, and it looks so pretty. Music is softly playing in the background. London is receding into dusk. The sky is a soft dusty pink. And I’m in heaven. I walk further out, looking around in awe. “This is amazing.” I turn to face him. “I can’t believe you did this for me.” Well, I can. Because he’s done so much already. His hands are in his pants pockets, his head slightly tilted to the side, his eyes watching me. “There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you, Boston.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“I totally planned for it to rain,” he tells me. “I remembered that dance in the rain was on your list, and I thought, Well, what’s more romantic in a romantic movie moment than dancing in the rain?”

Soft laughter escapes me. “You control the weather now as well, Hunter?”

“Boston,” he deadpans, staring me in the eyes, but I see the twinkle in them, “I control everything. When will you realize this?”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“I’ve never felt such a sensation as the one I’m feeling right now. It’s like being hugged and slapped across the face at the same time”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Ready. So, where are we going?” I ask, taking his offered hand, letting the door close behind me.

He gives me a secret smile. “You’ll see.”

Liam and his secrets.

Taylor and her secrets.

Except Liam’s secrets always have me smiling.

Mine…not so much.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“And remember when I said that Liam doesn’t spend money to the excess? I take that back.

I might not be a car expert, but I know a Bugatti Veyron when I see one. And that’s what I’m looking at right now.

A sexy-as-hell Bugatti.

“This car is a total babe magnet.” I run my fingertips over the smooth, shiny black paintwork.

“Like its owner,” he says, shutting the trunk with a soft clunk.

“Ha!” I laugh. “Seriously though, you could look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and still score a supermodel if you had this car.”

Liam gives a mock-offended look. “I hope to fuck you’re not implying that chicks only dig me because of my car.”

I laugh again. “As if. This is the first time I’ve seen your car, and I totally dug you long before this.”

He comes around the car, toward me. Standing before me, he takes my face in his hands, tipping it back so that I’m looking up into his eyes.

Leaning in, he softly kisses me on the lips. “I kinda dig you, too, Boston.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Okay, so we’re in here. Now what?”

“Now, you hook a duck.” He grins and picks up a stick that has a wire hook on the end. He points to what can only be described as a fake pond in the middle of the stall with rubber duckies floating around it.

“So, that’s it? I just use this stick and hook a duck on it.”

“Well, yeah.” He gives me a stupid look. “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Sure it’s not.” I snatch the stick from him.

Liam leans against the edge of the fake pond and folds his arms, watching me. “Go on then. Hook a duck, Boston.”

I chuckle, shaking my head. I put my bag on the floor and set Squishy on top of it. Then, I hover my stick over the water.

I try to catch one of the little fuckers—I really do—but they’re moving a lot quicker than I realized, and they’re all bumping into each other, knocking the others away.

I nearly catch one, but another bumps into it and knocks the fucker away from my hook.

“Little bastard,” I hiss.

Liam laughs. “You can’t call a duck a bastard.”

“It’s not a real duck.” I give him a look. “Aha! Got one!” I proudly lift my stick with the duck hanging on the end of it. “So, now what?”

“What do you mean, now what?”

“I mean, now what happens?”

“Nothing. That’s it. Well, you win a prize, but considering that we broke in here, taking a prize would be stealing.”

“Oh.” I take the duck off the stick, stand the stick against the pond, and set the duck on the small ledge below. “Well, it just feels kind of…anticlimactic now.” I lean against the pond next to him.

“Anticlimactic, huh? How about I make you feel climactic?”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Any prize off this bottom row,” the guy tells us, walking away to a waiting customer.

“You did it!” I jump down off the counter and wrap my arms around his neck. “You won me a prize!”

“Thank fuck.” His arms wrap around me. “I was starting to worry for a moment there. Felt like I was losing my man card.”

I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss his lips. “Never. And thank you.” I tip my head back to look into his face.

His hands slide down my back to my ass, and he gives it a squeeze. “Go pick your prize, Boston.”

Leaving Liam, I head back to the counter and lean over, looking at the bottom row of prizes. I see all kinds of crap here, including really cheap-looking stuffed animals and dolls.

I definitely do not want a doll. They freak me out.

Then, I spy this sad-looking odd toy. Reaching over, I grab it.

Liam comes up behind me as I right myself. His chest is pressed to my back. “Is that a…fucking knitted jellyfish?”

I turn my head to look up at him. He’s squinting at the toy I’ve picked up.

I look back down at it in my hands, and I think he’s right. It is a knitted jellyfish toy. “I think so.”

It’s white and pink and looks like a little princess jellyfish. And the more I look at it, the cuter it becomes…in a weird knitted jellyfish way.

“She looks like a jellyfish princess,” I say.

“It looks like a piece of shit.”

“Hey! You’ll hurt her feelings.” I jab him in the arm. Then, I hug her. “I shall call her Squishy, and she shall be mine.” I laugh, meeting Liam’s blank expression. “Finding Nemo? No?” I say.

Liam slowly shakes his head, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“Okay, makes sense. You were probably too old to watch it when it first came out—you know, when I was still in diapers and you were out serenading teenage girls with the Backstreet Boys—hey!” I squeal when he digs me in the ribs with his fingers. “We’ll watch Nemo later, and then you’ll get the reference.”

I turn to the guy. “I’ll take Squishy,” I tell him, holding the stuffed animal up.

“Okay, what’s next?” I hook my arm through Liam’s, holding Squishy to my chest.

“Hook a Duck.”

“Hook a what?” I give him a confused look.

“Duck.”

“And what’s Hook a Duck?”

“You don’t know what Hook a Duck is?” Liam looks appalled.

“No…but I feel like I should.”

“You should.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“Well, nothing special per se, but it’s like a rite of passage. Every kid plays Hook a Duck when they come to the fair.”

“Hate to break it to you, Hunter, but we’re not kids.”

“Maybe not. But it’s your first time at a fair in England, and you have to play.” Liam grabs my hand and sets off, I assume, in search of this Hook a Duck game.

We find one a few minutes later, and it’s closed. All shut up with the tarpaulin covering the booth.

“It’s closed. Never mind,” I say to him.

I start to walk away, but Liam tugs me back by the hand he’s holding.

“Like a little thing like it being closed is going to stop us from playing.”

He gives me a grin and drops my hand. I watch as he unhooks the tarpaulin at the bottom and lifts it just enough so that he can sneak in underneath it.

“Hunter, what are you doing?” I hiss.

He ducks his head back out. “Come on,” he whispers, holding the material up for me to go under.

“I’m not going in there.”

“Yes you are. Now hurry the fuck up, or you’ll get me arrested for breaking into a Hook a Duck tent,” he whispers.

“Ugh,” I complain.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“So, am I allowed to take you for dinner before I take you back to my place to fuck you?” he murmurs against my lips. “Show that pretty hair off that I got into trouble for paying for.”

My eyes flutter. “I could eat,” I say, still feeling breathless from his kiss. “But I’m paying for dinner.”

He tips his head back. “You are not paying for my dinner.” He looks appalled at the idea.

I let out a sigh. “Okay, Caveman, how about we go dutch?”

“How about I pay for it all, and you can just like it?”

“How about I don’t? You wanna pull my hair while you fuck me from behind? Then, I’m buying dinner.”

He laughs low and deep. “Fine. I won’t pull your hair. I’ll just fuck you the old-fashioned way and still buy you dinner.”

“Ugh,” I grumble. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m not impossible.” He chuckles. “I just know what I want. Okay, how about this? I’ll buy you dinner, and you can pay me back in sexual favors when we get back to my place.”

“Um, you want me to hooker myself out for dinner?” I glare at him.

A salacious look crosses his face, his lips tipping up into a grin. “I have always wanted to fuck a hooker.”

“You ass!” I slap his chest with my hand.

Chuckling, he wraps his arms around me and presses his nose to mine, staring into my eyes. “I’m not an ass. I’m hot. And you want me bad.”

“That’s debatable since you just called me a hooker.”

“I didn’t call you a hooker.” He frowns.

“You asked me to pay for my dinner by giving you sexual favors.”

“Ah, now, you’re just twisting my words all up. I said I’d always wanted to fuck a hooker—”

“Not making me feel better.”

“And I didn’t call you a hooker. Babe…” He brushes his nose down the side of mine, kissing my cheek and then the corner of my mouth. “How about you let me buy you dinner, and I’ll go down on you in thanks? How does that sound?”

“You want to thank me with oral sex for you buying dinner? How does that make sense?”

“It makes sense because I get to pay for dinner and not have you mad at me.” A sexy smile slowly creeps onto his lips.

“You have a really weird idea about what constitutes winning, Hunter.”

“And that’s why I’m so successful in business, Boston.”

“Because you have no clue what winning means?”

“No. Because people would rather be fucked by me than fucked over by me.”

Laughing, I shake my head. “You are a strange man, Liam Hunter.”

“And aren’t you just glad you met me?”

I stare up into his face. “Oddly, yeah, I am.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Suit Guy takes the seat beside me and turns to me with a smile on his face. I take in that face for the first time and—

Holy effing shit!

Hotness incarnate is sitting next to me.

Actual pure male hotness. All men should have been made to look like this. Seriously.

He looks like Clark Kent without the glasses, which would mean he looks like Superman—the Henry Cavill version.

Superman in a suit.

Lord, help me.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“I’m totally unprepared for this level of hotness—well, any kind of hotness, to be honest. I’m dressed in yoga pants and a T-shirt. I wanted to be comfortable for traveling, and now, I want to slap myself.

I am not dressed to meet a man of his caliber, especially not now while I’m going to be seated next to said man for the next six and a half hours.

Honestly, I can’t even remember if I put on deodorant.

Oh God, please let me have put on deodorant.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Taylor. It’s that comes-out-of-nowhere-and-grabs-ahold-of-you love. The kind where you can’t remember how you ever felt anything before her. The all-consuming, nothing-else-matters-but-her love. That’s the love I feel”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“My heart leaps out of my chest and Saran Wraps herself to Liam.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“I might have been trying to give him my heart, but I forgot that he’s a guy. Guys don’t like hearts”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“I just start to hum a tune, and then I softly sing the words to the song that has been stuck in my head since I heard it in the car on the way back to his apartment after the tattooing was done—Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.”

When I think about what that song is about, I realize that maybe there is a reason it’s stuck in my head.

Because I am sorry. Sorry for every time I’ve lied to him. And how I still continue to do so.

“Babe, you’re rubbing cream onto my arse and singing Bieber’s ‘Sorry.’ Really not sure how to feel about that”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Well, you can call him Lord if you want, but I don’t think it’ll stick. It’s just not him. You’ll know what I mean when you meet him. Now, me, on the other hand? If you at any point want to call me Lord or Sir or…God, then feel free, babe.”

That earns him a jab in the arm.

“Hey!” He rubs the spot I just hit. “Easy there, Boston. I bruise like a fucking peach.”

“Sure you do.” Fighting a smile, I shake my head at his smirking face.

“Still, you pack a hell of a punch there for such a tiny person.”

“Yeah, well, make sure to remember that the next time you have a smart comment ready to roll off your tongue.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Aw, you were really cute when you were a kid.”

“Hot, I think is the word you’re looking for, Boston.”

I glance at him over my shoulder. He’s sitting on the arm of the sofa.

“Um, no, I definitely mean cute. Pedophilia isn’t my thing.”

“Ah, yeah, good point.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“No one eats before a roller coaster unless they intend on puking. So, it’s decision time, Boston. We either ditch the roller coaster and go get food—even though I know you’re not hungry because we only ate an hour ago and that you’re just stalling before making another excuse, and then we’ll never end up riding this roller coaster because you’ll let your fear talk you out of it—or you can pull your big-girl knickers on and ride the fuck out of this roller coaster.”

“Big-girl knickers? Seriously, Hunter? That might be the unsexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He tilts his head to the side. “Seriously? Because I think you’d look hot in big knickers.”

“Really?” I blink, trying to picture that.

Nope, not working for me at all.

“Really.” He gives me a sexy smile. The look in his eyes is like he’s actually imagining me in them right now.

And, now, I’m thinking about where I can find a store in London that sells big knickers.

“But we’re saving big knickers for later,” he says.

“We are?”

“Quit stalling, Boston.” He gives me a look.

He’s right. I’m totally stalling. Again.

“Now, are we riding the fuck out of this roller coaster or not?”

I take a breath and blow it out. “We’re riding the fuck out of it.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“My grandpa used to be in the Royal Air Force when he was younger,” Liam tells me. “He loved to fly. He had his own airplane. Still does. When I was twelve, he told me that he thought it was time that I learned how to fly a plane.”

“You flew a plane when you were twelve?” I give him a shocked look.

“My grandpa’s not exactly on the conventional side.” The fondness on his face tells me that his grandpa means a great deal to him. “And when I say ‘fly’”—he air quotes—“it was him flying and me being copilot. But twelve-year-old me thought that he meant literally fly the plane. So, I was shitting myself.”

“I can imagine. I’d shit if someone said that to me now, and I’m twenty-two.”

Liam laughs. “I think you’d probably surprise yourself.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I’d surprise the person sitting with me—you know, after I shit myself.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Pink,” I say, going with the first color on my list.

“Cool.” She smiles. “Pink, it is. Are we talking bright pink or light pink? Pastel, like candy-floss pink? That’s all the rage at the moment. That, and gray.”

“Candy floss?”

“Cotton candy,” Liam explains.

“Ah.” I nod. Dude talks my language.

“Well, I’m definitely not going gray. Candy-floss pink,” I tell her.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Talking of lists, we’re here.”

“What? Where?” I turn to look out the window as the car comes to a stop.

“Cam’s—my friend’s bar. We’re eating here, and then you’re going to cross another thing off your list.”

“I am?” I turn back to him, my brow raised in question.

“Yeah—sing in public. Cam has a resident band. Tonight is open mic night, so it’s the perfect opportunity for you to cross it off your list.”

“Oh…I don’t know. I was thinking that I’d maybe do one thing a day. And the hair constitutes as one thing.”

Liam laughs. “Stop being a chicken.”

“I’m not being a chicken. I was the one who put it on my list, wasn’t I?”

“So then, what’s the point in waiting? Do it now.”

He’s right. What’s the point in stalling? It’s not like I have the luxury of time.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

He smiles wide. “This is going to be epic.”

“It’s going to be terrible. I’m a really awful singer.”

“And that’s why it’s going to be epic.” He flashes a grin at me.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“But in my defense—yes, I’m defending myself against myself—fear is not rational. It doesn’t give you a choice. It just is. So, yeah, I’m afraid.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“So, Taylor, with the list from Boston—”

“I never told you I was from Boston.”

“You’re on a flight from Boston. Call it a wild guess.”

“Well, you’re on a flight from Boston, but you’re not from Boston.” I don’t know why I’m being so obtuse. But being this way with him is kinda fun.

“My English accent gave it away, huh?” He smirks. “Okay, so, Taylor, with the list, who isn’t from Boston—where are you from?”

“Boston.” I grin.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Curious? I don’t think so. An effing thief? Yes.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“I’m not going to your place with you,” I tell him. “I don’t know you. You’re a stranger. You might be a serial killer.”

“I might be. But isn’t fucking a stranger on your list?”

He’s got me there. “It is, but you’re not exactly selling me with the serial-killer shit.”

“I’m not a serial killer, I promise.”

“Said the serial killer before he slit my throat open.”

He throws his head back, laughing loudly.

A smile pushes onto my lips. His laugh is incredibly contagious.

Why am I so bothered if he is a serial killer? So I die a little early. At least I’d get to experience cunnilingus before I do.

I’m kidding. Sort of.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want

“Oh God,” I groan, covering my face with my hands. “I kiss-attacked the guy who owns this plane.”
― Samantha Towle, The Ending I Want