Mr. Sugar: A disturbing psychological thriller with a twist of dark romance

by L. D. Fox

  But none of that would happen when Angel was holding anyone’s strings.

  He should have seen it coming. Whatever had happened in the kitchen had sent Kelly into a quiet, destructive mood. She’d come out of there with a confused frown that had dissolved as soon as she’d seen him standing by the fire. All she’d said was, “Outside,” before topping up her glass and heading out onto the deck.

  There, none of them had spoken.

  He’d thought they’d had a moment. That they were having a moment. And then Angel had called them for dinner, and Kelly had been too drunk for him to figure out anything from her vapid facial expressions.

  “What did you say to her?” He kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his jacket.

  “Who?” Angel gave him a brief, considering glance over her bare shoulder. “Kelly?” She turned back to whatever she was busy with and shrugged. “Just girl talk.”

  “You don’t speak to her unless I’m around, hear me?” He thumped down on the carpet behind Angel, but she didn’t turn to him. “Hear me?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Sugar, Sir.”

  “Look at me.”

  “Busy.”

  “I said look at me!” He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back.

  Her gasp sent a shiver through him. Those blue eyes flickered, opened wide. Stared upside down at him as she slowly smiled and held up a joint to him.

  “Let’s get high and fuck.”

  He used the grip on her hair to pull her against him, grinding his mouth against her lips until she moaned like an injured animal. When he’d had enough of her mouth and pulled away from her, she gaped at him like he’d stolen her breath.

  “You’re not calling the shots,” he said again, making his voice as low and rough as he could. “Hear me?”

  “Course, Mr. Sugar,” she murmured back. “Now can we smoke this already? I want you so bad I can taste it.”

  So they smoked. They fucked. And then he fell into a hard, deep sleep; cradling Angel in his arms as the fireplace crackled and popped a few feet away from their naked bodies.

  36

  So Wrong

  Kelly’s room was dark when Angel slipped inside. Angel pressed the door closed with her palms, wincing when the lock engaged with a loud click. She waited, breath trapped, until she was sure she hadn’t been heard.

  Then she padded over the carpet and sank down beside Kelly’s bed, putting her chin on her crossed arms.

  The woman still faced the door. There was no indication that she’d even moved in the three — or was it four? — hours since Drew had helped her into the bed.

  Angel peered at Kelly’s face from a few inches away.

  What did he find so fascinating about her? Granted, she looked good for the middle-aged nobody that she was. The only telltale sign of her age were the tiny lines at the corner of her eyes. The furrows beside her mouth where she smiled.

  “Hey, you awake?”

  The woman stirred, said something unintelligible, and turned over in her sleep.

  Angel smiled, laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder, and slowly drew the blanket down.

  Drew had left her bra on, reasons unknown. Angel undid the clasp and slipped the piece of frilly underwear off, giving her head a rueful shake.

  Didn’t Kelly know men didn’t appreciate underwear? There was nothing sexy about a woman lounging around in lingerie.

  But if you were naked…

  Her smile deepened. Poor Kelly. The woman knew nothing about men. How to keep them. How to make them happy. Maybe Drew wanted Kelly to be his trophy wife — the one he took to barbecues and work functions. Her, he’d keep at home. Locked in his dungeon. His plaything, to take out whenever he needed — wanted — her.

  But she didn’t want to be his plaything. She wanted him to take her out with him. Wouldn’t it be fun? She’d give his colleagues a boner every time she leaned over to whisper something in Drew’s ear.

  He’d love it; he just didn’t know it.

  “It’s so warm in here, Miss Prissy.” Angel’s hand slid under the blanket and over the woman’s jeans. “Aw, he didn’t even take your pants off?” She clucked her tongue. “Men. Can’t live with ‘em…”

  Her words trailed away as she slid into the bed behind Kelly.

  “Let’s get these off,” she whispered into the woman’s ear.

  Kelly stirred again. “Drew?”

  Angel laughed. “Sure.” She grappled with the buttons on Kelly’s jeans and gently tugged the fabric down the woman’s legs. “There, that’s better.”

  Kelly mumbled something that sounded like thanks, then shifted and lay a clumsy hand on Angel’s thigh. “Stay with me.”

  “On our first night?” Angel gasped softly. “You slutty little whore.”

  “Mmm?”

  “I said I’d love nothing more.” Angel put her lips to Kelly’s ear and made her voice deep. “Are you tired?”

  “Little,” Kelly mumbled. “Drunk.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Angel licked the woman’s ear. “That’s on me. See, I don’t like the way he looks at you, understand?”

  “Huh?” Kelly made as it to turn around, but Angel slid her hand over the woman’s hips and down the front of her silky panties.

  “Ssh. Go back to dreamland.”

  Kelly moaned when she touched the woman. “Yes,” she murmured, turning onto her back. “Yes, Drew.”

  “Idiot,” Angel muttered. “You really think some guy would know your shit this well?”

  But Kelly didn’t seem to hear her; the woman arched, letting out a low moan. Angel hurriedly put her hand over the woman’s mouth.

  “Quiet.”

  Kelly moaned in response. In the dark, Angel didn’t know if the woman’s eyes were open or closed; but even if they were, it was as black as the inside of a dead cat in this room with the shades drawn.

  She slid a finger inside Kelly, cocked her eyebrows when she felt how wet the woman was.

  “You’re really hard up on him, ain’t you?” she murmured. “I’m almost sorry I took him away. But you’ll find someone else, I promise. Sometime. Maybe in an old age home or something.”

  “Drew?” Kelly’s thighs snapped closed. “What… Who—”

  “Oh, relax, bitch.” Angel slid on top of the woman and bent down so their faces were close enough that she could feel the woman’s breath on her mouth. “I feel bad, okay? Drew’s stringing you along, you know that, right? So unless you brought a rabbit with you, this pussy isn’t seeing any action this weekend.”

  “Oh my God!” Kelly bucked. “What the—? Get off me!”

  She slapped her hand over the woman’s mouth again. “Do you want to wake him up?”

  Kelly’s hips thrust up, and the woman began clawing at Angel’s face.

  “Jesus, don’t get hysterical. I’m doing you a favor.”

  Kelly’s hips fell back, but then she bucked up again. When she touched her again, the moan that came out of Kelly’s mouth wasn’t in protest.

  “Yeah, that’s better.” Angel put her mouth down by Kelly’s ear. “Pretend it’s him if it’ll make this easier.”

  When she took her hand away from Kelly’s mouth, the woman took a long, unsteady breath.

  “You can’t—” but she interrupted herself with a moan and a breathless, “Oh God.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Angel straddled her, tweaking the woman’s nipple as she trailed her hand down to her own sex.

  “I can’t—this is wrong,” Kelly murmured, her hips bucking in blatant defiance of the statement. “So wrong.”

  “What makes it so hot, Miss Prissy.”

  “Miss what?” But her voice was as unsteady as her breath.

  “You’re almost there, aren’t you?” She began moving her fingers slower.

  Kelly moaned, bucked hard. A hand crashed into Angel’s stomach, slid down, tentatively touched her.

  Angel lifted herself slightly off the woman’s stomach. “Much obliged.”

  Kelly
stiffened, but her hips were still thrusting up and down like she really was imagining it was Drew on top of her. Her own efforts were a bit clumsy; she missed her clit more often than she found it — so Angel grabbed her wrist and helped her fingers find their way inside her.

  “Gosh, you’d swear you never fucked a girl before,” she murmured, shifting so Kelly’s fingernails wouldn’t scrape her.

  “Sorry,” the woman said.

  “Harder. There ya go. Now faster.” She tossed back her head, smiling in silent victory at the invisible ceiling.

  Oh God, if Drew could see them now. It’d probably give him wet dreams for months to come.

  Except he wouldn’t. Kelly wouldn’t breathe a word of this to him, probably because she’d think it was like cheating or some shit. Her own moan was soft, stifled by the muscles cording in her neck.

  She grabbed Kelly’s wrists, shoving them against the headboard as she leaned down.

  “Let’s get something straight.” She found the woman’s mouth, bit her lip hard enough to bruise. “Mr. Sugar is mine. Signed, sealed, delivered. I don’t need you — or anyone — interfering with that. Got it?”

  Kelly was quiet for so long, she almost didn’t think the woman would speak again. Was she that traumatized that a girl had just given her such a fantastic orgasm?

  Probably.

  “He told me you were over.”

  “Over?” What the hell was the woman on about?

  “Well—” Kelly exhaled softly. “Actually — he said there was nothing to get over because you’d never been anything to him.”

  She released the woman’s hands and slid off her, using the edge of the bed sheet to wipe herself dry. “You’re talking shit, lady.”

  “Why would I lie?” came Kelly’s voice. There were sounds of shifting linen as if she was sitting up. “What would that—”

  “So you can have him to yourself.”

  “He said you were going back to NYU as soon as the term started. That you were just staying here a few days longer because you had nowhere else to go.”

  Angel laughed, but it didn’t sound right in her ears. She fumbled for the nightstand and found the bedside lamp. Switched it on. Kelly blinked in the light, holding up a hand to shield herself. The other was gripping the sheet to her throat.

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  “That’s what he said, Angel.” Kelly shrugged. “I wouldn’t—”

  “You’re lying!” she yelled. “You fucking bitch; now that you can’t have him, now no-one can?”

  She heard her words — so childlike, so pitiful — and clamped her lips closed.

  Kelly sat forward, stretching out a hand. “Oh, honey—”

  “Don’t you fucking—” Angel slapped away her hand and reared from the bed, stabbing a finger at the woman. “You fucking whore, don’t you dare—” but then her voice became too tight to speak.

  What the fuck was wrong with her? Why did she feel like her body was about to turn on the Niagra falls of waterworks?

  “Angel, it’s okay. It’s better—”

  “We’re getting married!” she yelled.

  Her heart pounded against her ribs like it wanted to escape. She backed up to the door, fumbling behind her for the handle, trying to force Kelly’s pitying gaze from her mind.

  “Ask him. You ask him tomorrow.” Her voice trembled, on the point of breaking. “Then we’ll see who’s lying, you fucking bitch.”

  37

  A Hungry Man

  The living room was cold; a thin throw blanket didn’t do a good job of keeping a man sleeping on a living room carpet warm. Drew sat up, bundling the blanket over his shoulders and ran a hand over the carpet beside him. The fire still cast a small bit of illumination — enough that he could see Angel wasn’t beside him anymore.

  She could at least have woken him when she’d gone to bed.

  He gave his head a shake, rubbing the heels of his palms over his arms. After hunting through the clothes piled beside him, he found his cellphone.

  It was just past two in the morning.

  Everyone had to be asleep by now. He yawned, swiped his hand through his hair, and tugged on his clothes. Slipping the blanket over his shoulders for an extra layer of protection against the cold, he moved into the kitchen.

  He opened a drawer, cursed quietly, and opened another. Eventually, he found what he was looking for. His breath was trying to move through lungs and a throat that had shrunk to nothing. He crept back through the living room and carefully opened the front door, trying not to let the keys jangle against each other when he turned them in the lock.

  Outside, he walked into his own ghostly breath.

  The blanket wasn’t enough; it was blisteringly cold out here in the small hours of the morning. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he moved up the steps, meat mallet in one hand, a carving fork in the other.

  Just scouting for a tasty bit of turkey, is all. Nothing to see here, anyone who happened to be looking, anyone who happened to be out of bed at two in the morning and trespassing on his property.

  Just a hungry, insomniac man.

  Two cars loomed from the darkness, lit by the incandescent stars and sliver of a moon above. Frost sparkled on the glass and metal exteriors — it would be gone when the first rays of light touched them, but for now, those glittering formations seemed as permanent as the cars’s paint jobs.

  He crouched, steadying himself against the wheel arch of Kelly’s car.

  Shit, but this was going to be cold.

  Grimacing in expectation, Drew got to his knees. Then sank onto his ass. And slowly, wincing as cold immediately began seeping through his clothes, lay on his back.

  There was nothing to be done about the noise. But, then again, maybe it would sound alien and utterly unidentifiable in the night. Less like metal banging on metal, and more like the lonely call of a nocturnal bird hiding somewhere deep in the lake’s forested borders.

  38

  Spoiler Alert

  When Bryce pulled up to the lakehouse at the crack of dawn that Saturday, a fine mist still threaded through the pines and firs hugging the shores of that impressive body of water. He stepped from his car, glanced at the two cars parked in the graveled cul-de-sac, and hoisted his bag from the seat beside him.

  Drew’d invited someone else? This was the closest thing to a party he’d probably ever had without Juliet being involved.

  God, but he remembered it being warmer all those weekends he’d spent out here.

  It never ceased to amaze him how Drew had never connected the dots; Juliet retreating to the lake the same time he put in a day’s leave at the office, back when they still had to work weekends. Strangely enough, Juliet’s unexpected death had brought him and his brother closer — though they’d never be BFF’s, not in anyone’s book.

  His footsteps were loud but sullen as he crunched through layers of pine needles and gravel and thumped down the wooden staircase.

  The front door was open. The living room smelled of stale wood smoke, cigarettes, and sex. Bryce wrinkled his nose, hesitating before setting his bag down by the door. A quick scan revealed an empty pitcher, two wine glasses, an ashtray, and a discarded blanket.

  Fireplace sex. How fucking romantic.

  So the girl was here. Was that her car? His mouth quirked to the side. What was Drew up to, throwing a kitten into a lion’s den like this?

  He’d been in two minds to accept the invitation here. He loved the lakehouse — it was one of the two places in the world he actually felt at peace. And it had so many pleasant, erotic memories of Juliet that he’d have to be sick or dying to have declined.

  Except… spending time with Drew in such close-knit quarters was like leaving a popcorn kernel too close to the fire. The longer it stayed there, so close to that inferno, the sooner it would explode. And then there was that matter of the trust, and whatever the hell Drew planned with that. It would fail, of course; Drew’s misguided attempts at revenge alw
ays did.

  But fuck it; this week had been taxing. Stuffed with meetings and memos and minutes for the meetings that the memos didn’t cover. He’d forgotten just how much Drew’d taken off his shoulders when he’d been able to coerce the man into doing his paperwork.

  He needed a break. Nay; he deserved one.

  And seeing Drew explode would just be the cherry on top of the motherfucking delicious sundae that would be this weekend.

  The girl didn’t change anything. In fact, she was more like an extra helping of whipped cream. Who knew? Drew might even go off on a sulk and he could have another serving of Angel. Maybe even two.

  Footsteps padded down the stairs. The upstairs door opened, and Angel stepped through as if his lewd thoughts had summoned her.

  He stayed still, watching her, his smile growing as he waited for her to spot him. She wiped a hand over her eyes and yawned widely as she fluffed out that pitch black hair of hers. She wore white leggings, sheepskin slippers, and a retro sweater with a faded, smiling cherry on it. There wasn’t a touch of the sex-appeal she’d had when she’d been kneeling naked at the door waiting for him.

  Waiting for Drew.

  His smile slid, but he forced it back into place when she turned and narrowed her eyes in his direction.

  Her spine snapped straight, and she froze in her tracks.

  “You came.” Her voice was soft, her eyes blinking furiously as if she was trying to will him out of existence.

  “Good to see you too, baby girl.”

  She tightened the grip on her robe at that and cast a furtive glance upstairs. Then she squared her shoulders, gave him a frigid smile, and stalked across the living room to the kitchen.

  “Coffee? I’m putting on a pot.”

  “Sure thing.”

  When she disappeared into the kitchen, his smile slid off like snow melting in the sun.

  Not quite the reaction he’d been expecting, but nothing he couldn’t work with. He tugged off his gloves, laying them on the top of his bag as he hoisted it to his side and made for the stairs. Movement made him turn to the kitchen’s doorway.