Page 50 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

I just shake my head because I don’t trust my voice.

Don’t know if it’ll betray me along with my brain, bitch out and beg to leave instead, not when we’ve only just gotten here.

Fuck that . We paid good money to get in the fucking door—charged us an arm and a goddamn leg despite us being a couple because they didn’t want any more men in here tonight, single or otherwise—and the best way to get him to stop watching other people’s asses get whipped is for him to whip mine instead. It’s simple enough.

And, well, whatever. I like being the center of attention and I like being looked at under almost any other circumstances.

I like it when people acknowledge that I’m beautiful, attractive, and talented, lavishing me with praise and compliments.

I practically live for it, assuming it’s coming from the right people.

Hell, even the wrong people. Validation is validation.

True, I’ve never been ogled at completely naked before, let alone spread eagle on a rack while having the shit beaten out of me, but it can’t be that different from wearing a slutty outfit and drunkenly gyrating on the floor of one club or another. Surely .

And I’m not thinking, as we go in search of a free, clean room, about the time he made me kneel on the hotel carpet in Vermont, and how utterly vulnerable and alone it made me feel.

How even with only him as my audience it verged on a humiliation that was nearly unbearable, flaying me in ways that no whip ever could.

I’m not thinking about that.

We step inside an empty room that smells unsexily enough of disinfectant, but at least that means it’s been cleaned since the last time it was used.

It is a little quieter in here, somehow.

Either that, or the sound of my pulse and the rush of blood through my ears is now so loud it’s drowning out the music.

Luca’s looking at me, his head canted ever so slightly, hair falling across his face.

I can tell he’s unsure about this, or unsure about me, anyway.

Even through the insane, flash bang lighting I can tell.

“You know we don’t have to do this here,” he’s saying. “We could go to one of the private rooms.”

“What’s the point? Then we might as well just do it at home.”

“We don’t own a crop,” he points out dryly.

“Don’t you want to?” I challenge. “We’re here.”

He presses his lips together and I know I’ve won and I don’t know if I want to have won, but I have either way.

He isn’t about to bitch out when I am this game.

And I can sense that he does want to do this.

Wants me displayed and wants an audience for it, wants to claim me in front of whoever will watch.

Gone is the almost timid man who left a club at the very idea of being ghosted by a potential hookup.

This closed-off part of him that I have nurtured and coaxed into being has bloomed like a flower before my eyes.

Replaced by a dominant creature who doesn’t give a shit who would see him bury his cock inside me.

There is no shame in him, not here, not in this.

I should want that, too. I do want that. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be claimed this way, decisively and violently. So why do I feel like throwing up? Why is it all wrong, why am I all wrong?

Nerves. Just nerves.

It’s too late, anyway. I can’t back out now, die’s been cast and all that.

I’m already undressing myself without being told.

I hope he can’t see the way my hands are shaking.

“It’s fine,” I say. I’m all bravado and bared teeth as I dump my clothing to the floor.

“I want this, Luca. Really.” And I would, anywhere else.

At home. Or even in one of the private playrooms, like he suggested. So it’s not a complete lie.

Luca studies me for so long I think he’s about to see right through me. And then he says, “Turn around.”

I do. He nudges me forward and cuffs my wrists to the cross above my head first, and then he knees my thighs apart, wider and wider, so that he can do the same to my ankles.

I’m half hard now despite myself, pinned against my stomach, and I will myself to relax as I lay my cheek against the padding.

It’s more comfortable than I expect it to be.

I don’t look out toward the audience that is apparently gathering, but I can hear them, just barely, catching snippets of their conversation.

“That chick has no tits . . . great ass, though.”

“No, I think it’s a guy. I think I saw a dick. ”

“No shit?”

It?

Just like that, this isn’t sexy anymore.

The half-mast collapses. I am humiliated and I feel like crying or raging or both.

I whip my head towards them but Luca’s there, blocking my view of them.

He lowers his head and kisses my cheek. “You look so beautiful like this, stunt girl,” he murmurs against my ear. “Absolutely perfect.”

I’m turning toward him as much as I can, seeking him, his strength and his reassurance.

And he lets me, giving me the kiss that I so desperately need.

His stomach is pressed up against my back, his hands braced against the wall before me.

He lays a thorough claim to my mouth, his tongue sweeping mine, his groan soft against my lips, and I can feel just how hard he is against my ass. He wants this, he does.

The problem is that I don’t.

Not here, not like this.

Not for these people who can’t even decide what I am, beyond a fucking it.

Luca breaks the kiss and nudges my forehead with his, his hair curtaining our faces.

I don’t know if he can tell that I am falling apart here, fracturing like brittle glass under the scrutiny of the small crowd who are waiting for something to happen.

Who I almost expect to starting throwing fucking tomatoes or something, booing and jeering for us to get on with the fucking show.

I’m some court jester who just can’t perform, can’t tell the right joke or do the right dance or jingle the right jangle—fucking whatever. I am a mess. I’m ugly. I’m nothing .

He says, “We don’t have to do this, Noel. It’s okay.”

There are tears on my face and I don’t know when they got there and I fucking hate them as much as I hate any weakness in myself—and I do see this as weakness, my inability to stand here and just let myself enjoy this, to experience something that I do want to experience.

It’s ruined, I’ve ruined it for myself. I’m just a coward who cannot walk the fucking walk.

“Noel,” he says again, and then, softly, so softly, “baby.”

I can’t take that. I finally shatter. “Black,” I say, and it’s a sob.

Game over.

Luca has me uncuffed in the blink of an eye and he makes sure I’m completely blocked from view with his body.

Something I am distantly grateful for but I’m crying or dissociating or both because I also can’t grasp what’s happening, exactly, what’s being said.

The music is muffled, the words muted. He makes hasty work of dressing me and it’s probably all wrong but I don’t care about that.

I’m somewhere else, in a corner of the club, watching the dancers bump and grind.

Watching trysts in all the little rooms, couples and throuples and quads enthusiastically explore.

Watching that beautiful domme whip yet another man to ecstatic completion, a confident smile on her lips.

When he picks me up, I bury my face in his neck.

Someone asks “ what’s wrong with him,” actually a lot of someones keep asking that, and Luca says “ nothing, just give us space.” Over and over.

I can sense the oppressive press of bodies all around us.

A hand grazes my thigh and I flinch and try to shrink myself smaller.

I hear a familiar contralto—it’s the domme in the catsuit—snapping at people to back up and give us room.

Luca walks again. There’s a brisk click of heels beside us as we make it to the corridor where it is much, much quieter and I relax a fraction, though I still don’t lift my head.

I can’t face her or him or anyone. I want to disappear.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the aftercare area?” she asks Luca. “It’s quieter there. You won’t be bothered.”

“No. He needs to go home.” He shifts my weight in his arms. “Thank you for that, um...”

“Emori.”

“Thanks, Emori. I’m Luca. And I’d shake your hand, but?—”

“No need, honey.” She tuts sympathetically. “I guess I wish I could say I’m surprised you had a bad experience, but this club is a bit—well, there are better lifestyle clubs around. Ecstasy Social Club has a membership fee, but they do some pretty thorough vetting. Check it out sometime.”

“Maybe we will.”

I simply despair.

Luca bundles me into the truck with a slightly musty blanket he retrieves from the backseat, because I’ve shivered before he turns the key in the ignition and gets the heat blasting.

It takes entirely too long for the truck to warm up but it doesn’t even matter because my teeth are still chattering anyway.

I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me, why I’m reacting so viscerally to the absolute nothing that just happened.

I don’t have a reason to be upset, and that’s even more upsetting.

All I can do is close my eyes as the tears leak beneath my lids and down a face that’s half-numb and chastise myself for yet another fucking failure.

It, it, it. Why the fuck am I an it? Because of how I look? Or is it something else? Because Mom has been doing that since forever. Am I broken in that way, too? Is there any part of me that isn’t broken?