Page 29 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

His tongue darts out and wets his lips in a quick, nervous gesture. “I just...” His throat works elaborately as he swallows. “I just want to please you.” He sounds uncharacteristically meek. Submissive, but not in a sensual way. He just sounds small. “Let me.”

“And are you going to let me reciprocate?” I ask. “Am I going to get to touch you after? Do I get to suck your cock too, or are you going to run off again?”

Noel recoils as if I’ve slapped him, and the pain is written large across his contorted face.

He savages his lower lip between his teeth so badly I can see the blood welling to the surface and I reach for him even as he pulls away, tries to get up off the couch.

“Stop,” he’s crying, “stop, I get it, you don’t want me, stop. ”

I’ve got him now, pulling him against my body. “That’s not even remotely true, Noel. You know that. Or you should, anyway. This isn’t about wanting and not wanting.”

“Then why won’t you just let me ?” He almost snarls it, right into my face. “Why won’t you just let me do this? Just let me do this thing and make us even ?—”

“Because I want to make you feel good, too,” I tell him frankly.

“There is nothing more gratifying to me.” Exploring his body and listening to the sounds he makes and watch him shake and contort as I get him closer and closer.

I love that and I refuse to compromise on that.

“Is that what you really want me to do? Use you like a fuck toy and walk away?”

“No, it’s—” He buries his face in my shoulder. “That’s not it. You don’t get it. You don’t get it .”

“So explain it to me.”

But of course he doesn’t. It is the same shit as before, whatever this is. Whatever it was. I wish I did know what it was that he wanted, so I ask him again: “What do you want, Noel?”

“You,” he says, muffled. “I want you.”

It’s as good as no answer at all.

I tug the throw off the back of the couch and tuck it around us both.

I am, after all, still naked, and it’s winter, and it’s cold even though he turned up the heat.

I would like my clothes back but I know it will only inflame things.

He’s already hurting from the rejection and it’ll be a million times worse if I get up and leave him now.

The thing is, I would be more than happy to have sex with him here and now—but not like this.

Not in this way where he wants to be degraded and used without any reciprocation and aftercare.

“Most guys,” he says after a moment, sniffling, “would just be happy to have their dick sucked. They wouldn’t care about the rest.”

“I’m not the moronic menchildren you’ve been fucking.”

He ignores that. He turns his tear stricken face to mine, cheek pillowed on my shoulder. “But do you want me, though?”

“How is this a real question?” I stroke his silky, fine hair, so dark it can’t decide whether it’s black or brown. “I’ve shown you that I do on multiple occasions. Two minutes ago, I was trying to impress upon you how much I want to reciprocate with you.”

“You don’t have to, though. That’s the point. You don’t have to.”

“I want to. That’s the fun part. ”

Noel goes quiet after that.

But at least he’s still in my lap. He hasn’t squirmed away and escaped.

His head is still on my shoulder and he’s rubbing his wrists in a way that is all too familiar; the persistent, overworked ache.

So I take one, gently, and he only freezes up for a split-second before relaxing and letting me have it.

I press my thumb into the rope-like tendons beneath and rub in a circular motion.

“Oh.” He sighs. “That feels nice.”

“Don’t want to give yourself carpal tunnel,” I say. “You work too hard, you know that?”

He doesn’t concede. He rubs his cheek against the crook of my neck as I do the same for the opposite wrist, and he relaxes degree by degree in my arms. I feel his lips brush one edge of the moth’s wings and I hope, very much, that I am doing right by him.

I hope he can get it through his head that I didn’t stop him because I don’t want him, but because the opposite is true.

“Do you want to keep doing this, Noel?” I ask him softly. “Because we don’t have to.”

He raises his head to look at me with reproachful eyes. “I thought you liked having sex with me.”

“I do like it. I don’t like what it does to you. This...person you turn into, sometimes.”

“But I’m doing well,” he whispers. “I’m doing so much better than I was. I told you already, it’s not the sex.”

But he doesn’t tell me what it really is.

So I go back to massaging his wrists and he snuggles up with me, and I reflect that this is aftercare without a fight, without tears, though no sex really happened.

It’s progress, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

He’s quiet and nuzzling my neck, wearing more clothes than I’d like him to be—because the feel of his skin against mine is one of the best in the world—but he’s not ripping himself out of my grasp to skitter across the carpet in hysterical tears.

He’s not melting down over my rejection.

It’s a start.

I kiss his forehead. “You never did answer me about Killington.”

“You still want me to go?” He is incredulous.

“Why on earth wouldn’t I?”

His arms slide around my neck. “You really want me there, Luca? This isn’t something you’re offering ‘cause you feel bad for me, or something. Making me a charity case.”

I have to laugh. “You are no one’s charity case.” But I see that he’s serious, so I add, “I just want you there, Noel. I wouldn’t ask if that wasn’t true.”

He lowers his head to mine and I capture his lips in a quick kiss. “Okay, I’ll go,” he murmurs, and I can feel him smiling a little.