Page 47 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

LUCA

The week goes by in a flash. That’s probably because I have Noel in my bed every single night—or rather, I’m in his bed, but either way, we’re together—and it’s so, so fucking good.

And not just when we make love, although we do do that and often.

The moment we see each other in the evenings, coming home from our respective work, discarding clothes as we make our way to the bedroom, if we even get that far.

Sometimes it’s just hard and fast against the wall, his arms pinned behind his back, and by morning there're new bruises on his knees and shoulders and a renewed smugness about him. He wears them with a certain pride.

There’s the quickies in the shower (it’s our new habit, taking one together every morning) with him on his knees and his eyes locked on mine and his beautiful mouth taking every inch of me.

I’ve quickly discovered he’s got absolutely no gag reflex whatsoever; not that I can tell, anyway.

Which is why they are quickies. I don’t last very long at all, the things he can do with his mouth without stopping.

Or late at night, when we’re both sleepy, and we’re touching and cuddling, but someone’s hands roam too far and wakes us both up enough and we find ourselves in some intimate and compromising position once more, the sex slow and languid.

These moments are sort of my favorite. As much as I love laying absolute waste to Noel and seeing how far he will bend without breaking, there’s just something about him during these indolent excursions in the early hours.

His softness that I only ever get to see now and then, the tender affection, the way he will sigh my name against my ear and hold me close.

When I get to hear, in all the many and myriad ways, how much he loves me.

And I get to give it back to him tenfold.

He is just so beautiful when he yields.

And I can watch him forever like that in that perfect, submissive space, when he is all give, pliable, putty in my hands.

When he is sweet. When I am inside him, my thumb tugging down his lower lip as he cries out my name.

Over and over, his long legs wrapped around my waist. We are in perfect accord.

“Do you ever feel bad?” Noel asks me Friday night after we make love in this way, and he’s so soft and sensual in my arms. Swollen lips, long lashes fluttering as he blinks up at me through the fall of his disheveled hair. The way I like him best.

“About what?”

“Hurting me.” His leg hitches over my hip, and I run my palm along the side of it briefly. His tattoo has mostly peeled, and it looks fucking glorious. It’s healing perfectly. “When we do it the other way.”

“Like, ethically?” I say, trying not to smile. “Morally?”

“No!” He pushes at my chest ineffectively. “I’m being serious, Luca.”

“So am I. I don’t know what way you think I should feel bad.”

“It’s not that I think you should. I’m just curious if you do. Because it’s so different from...” He gestures, encompassing us, what we just did. “This.”

“Not really,” I say. “I mean, I don’t feel bad. I know we both like it and I know that you’d communicate to me if you suddenly felt otherwise. In which case, we’d stop. Yeah?”

“And what if I did want to stop?”

“ Do you?” I ask, suddenly worried.

Noel laughs. “No. It’s a hypothetical question.” But the laughter dies away and so does the mirth in his face as he looks at me, suddenly very serious indeed. “You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

“It’s not that.” Though I’d miss it for sure. Oh yeah, I’d miss it. “I’d be worried if I hurt you. If it was something I did to make you want to stop. But I wouldn’t leave you or anything. It’s not a deal-breaker.”

He leans up and nuzzles me and I can feel him smile. “Good thing it’s just hypothetical, then. There’s so much stuff I want to try and none of it’s very nice or soft.”

“But do you like this?” I ask him. “When it is nice and soft? ”

“Yes.” He rubs his cheek against mine, and I rub back. “I like it any way with you. As long as it’s you.”

On Sunday morning Noel’s excited to meet my friends, no reservations or trepidation; it’s another excuse to get attention, after all, his favorite thing in the world, for which I don’t begrudge him one bit.

He deserves all of it and more. I want everyone to see him for the amazing and gorgeous person he is.

He asks me what he should wear and I tell him whatever he wants, which brings the risk of him over—or rather, under —dressing for the occasion.

He keeps it demure enough for him, appropriate for the warming weather and the venue we’re going to.

A mesh shirt under a black tank and tight black jeans, ripped in all the right places with his new tattoo peeking through.

His throat is adorned with my favorite choker, an affectation I suspect he picked out just for me.

For my part, I just wear jeans and a long-sleeved shirt because somehow, despite all the tattoos, I’m the boring one. I could never wear half the shit he does and look even remotely as good, but I don’t particularly want to. I’ve got no desire to dull his shine, even a little.

And I’m not worried, as I guide him through the crowded cafe with my hand on the small of his back, of how he’s going to act when we meet my friends. I fucked him so thoroughly when we woke up this morning that I know he will be on his best behavior. He’s sated and secure.

Killian spots us first, standing and waving his hand and yelping boisterously. “Hey!” he calls out. “Over here!” As if he was impossible to miss either way, yelling in the middle of a restaurant while flanked by his quiet mountain of a boyfriend.

But I’m all smiles as my friends turn and welcome me back into the fold.

There’s Jacob, another friend from high school who had a crush on me for years that I never knew about until it had long fizzled out.

Beside him sits his curly-haired partner Dorian, who I remember from the tattoo shop; he’s only a little older than Noel.

Lael, the self-proclaimed lipstick lesbian of the group and her wife Tommy, with whom she’s just celebrated her tenth anniversary.

I lean down and give hugs to the ones who offer them. There are tears in my eyes, I realize, as I step back, but they’re good ones. There is a warmth suffusing my entire body, the kind I haven’t felt in god knows how long, of belonging, of finding or re-finding your tribe.

“I missed you guys so much,” I’m saying. “It’s good to be back.”

Noel, for his part, lets me have this moment. I am aware of him, hanging back and waiting, but it’s not uncomfortable or awkward the way it was with Killian. When I turn back to him he is giving me a faint smile, a sincere one, and I know he’s happy for me.

I reach for him and bring him in close, presenting him to the group. “And this is Noel,” I say. “My boyfriend. ”

“I totally knew, by the way,” Killian says as we sit down. “It was so obvious at the Lock ’n Stock.”

Noel raises an eyebrow as I pour him some water from the jug.

“Really? Because I seem to remember you stealing him away.” I nudge him with my knee beneath the table, reminding him to behave.

But he’s wearing a mischievous half-smile on his face and there’s no bite to his words.

It’s not a serious barb; he’s not spoiling for a fight.

Killian grins back. “Good looking guy like Luca? Well, he’s hard to resist.” He claps a hand on my shoulder hard enough I nearly spit out my water. “He just needs a beard and another twenty pounds and then he’d be absolutely perfect.”

Noel makes a face. “ God , no. Uh, no offense,” he adds, glancing at Max, who assures him in his gravelly voice that none is taken.

“So how did you two meet?” Lael wants to know. “Love at first sight over an ear piercing session at InkLab?”

“Actually, I have Dorian to thank for that.” I raise my glass to him, and the man in question blinks in surprise. “You told me about Anathema the day you came in for that tattoo,” I remind him. “You made it sound so good I decided to check it out.”

He smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah. That’s where I happened to stumble across Noel.”

“Stumble?” Noel’s scoffing. “I seem to recall that I approached you.”

“Well, yes. ”

“And then I had to hunt you down after you ran off because you thought I wasn’t into you!”

“They don’t need to know all that.” I flush at the memory.

“Oh my god.” Killian’s laughing, along with everyone else. “That’s so Luca. He’s like the most oblivious guy in existence.”

“I literally went to the bathroom,” Noel explains. “I said I’d be right back, but he actually thought I was ghosting him and left the whole ass club. Like...”

“You were gone fifteen entire minutes,” I argue good-naturedly. “ And it turned out you were on the phone with your ex the whole time. I think I was totally justified.”

Gasps and mock shock from around the table. “The plot thickens,” remarks Lael.

“You can’t leave out a detail like that,” Jacob scolds Noel. “Trying to make yourself look good.”

“No, I can explain ?—”

Noel practically holds court the entire brunch.

And I’m not surprised, either. He is engaging, funny, all charisma where I’ve got fuck-all.

He knows how to talk to people and he doesn’t have a single shy bone in his body.

He’s not the kind of person to overthink a single interaction he’s ever had after the fact.

He loves the attention, revels in it without coming off as narcissistic.

And when it’s someone else’s turn to speak he actively listens and asks all the right follow-up questions at precisely the right times.

They love him. I can tell they do.