Sucker

by Natalie Ashee

Lawton wasn’t gone for the day—the office would be locked if he was—but lucky me, he’d stepped out. Probably for a smoke break. Or maybe to go collect the tears of small children. I didn’t judge.

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but I couldn’t draw enough oxygen to produce much more than a weird noise that was some amalgamation of a snort and a snarl—a snart if you will.

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She licked her mouth so nervously I wondered if she knew she made this office a less safe place for herself every time she did it.

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She was so… strange. In an amusing way. It was like she was giving an open look inside her brain every time she spoke, and I couldn’t help but urge her along.

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He tasted like warmth. Pure warmth. The kind you felt after a cup of tea or a hot bath. He wrapped my entire body in it and soaked me with it.

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There were certified idiots in the world. I’d even met a few. But no idiot had ever idioted the way I had just now.

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“Why did you kiss me?” I didn’t expect him to answer. After all, he was the king of cryptic responses or no responses at all. But he surprised me. “You let me.”

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He responded by reaching for my waist and lifting me onto the counter like I was a doll he was putting on a shelf. “Wait.” I licked my lips and disappointed the feminists in the same move.

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Two seconds inside her and I’d already lost my goddamn mind. I wanted to tell her that, but too many years of experience had taught me that you didn’t alert your captive until you already had them in your hands. So instead, I spoke to her in what I hoped were consolations in every language I knew. I’m sorry, in Mandarin. You’re crazy for this, in Russian. Give me another inch, and I’ll never ask you for anything, in French.

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“You feel wonderful.” She laughed, the vibration touching my balls, and I slid a little deeper, her gasp nearly making this a very short night. “You feel like punishment,” she murmured. “Let this be your lesson.”

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I’d stupidly believed that his pain unleashed on my skin would distract me from my emotions, and instead they’d been knocked over. All of them scattered like marbles, rolling away faster than I could pick them back up. Under this belt, my skin was fine, but my soul was ripped open and exposed.

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When a woman you were on a date with said she missed you, you answered. If not with I missed you too, then at least a get away, you co-dependent stranger.

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He slammed into me like I was his birthright.

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He wasn’t fucking me. He was lost in me. The things he told me with his body said the things he never had out loud. And I heard them clear as day over the sounds of my own screams.

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I could admit that of every person I’d met, this woman was my favorite.

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“I wanted to touch your beauty. Lick it. Swallow it whole. Until it changed every ugly thing I’d seen and felt. I didn’t just want you. I wanted a reality where I could own you, and carrying that kind of want around for months wasn’t tragic. It was impossible.”

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I needed love, yes. But I also needed my heart to be safe in the hands of the person who held it.

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“I loved you before you entertained the idea of me.”

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Because while I know you’re scared, I have full faith that you’ll realize that I don’t want to take things from you. I only want to give you more.”

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