You, Me, and the Crazy Ex: A Club Stigmata Novella Read online

  You, Me, and the Crazy Ex

  A Club Stigmata Novella

  Elle Luckett

  Contents

  A Note to the Reader:

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Suggested Playlist

  About the Author

  Also by Elle Luckett

  ©All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written consent from the author, except that of small quotations used in critical reviews and promotions via blogs.

  You, Me, and the Crazy Ex is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  You, Me, and the Crazy Ex ©2020 Elle Luckett

  Cover design by L.J. Stock, LJDesigns

  Book design by LJDesigns

  Editing by Victoria L. James, Claire Allmendinger

  Chapter Illustrations ©2020 L.J. Stock, LJDesigns

  Promotions: Wendy Shatwell & Claire Allmendinger of Bare Naked Words www.barenakedwords.co.uk

  Elle Luckett on Social Media:

  Twitter - @elleluckett

  Facebook www.facebook.com/elleluckett

  A Note to the Reader:

  I think everyone would like a love story that happens as quickly as it does in our favorite romances. Between the pages of a novel, love can blossom and develop in the beat of a heart.

  Unfortunately, the harsh reality is, real life doesn’t work that way. We have more space and time to play and develop bonds and trust than a couple of hundred pages. In the real world, we have more time to get to know the very bones of someone before we jump into something with them.

  That being said, no matter what you chose to do, please be safe. In life, and any lifestyle choice, you need to be sure of what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with, and always make sure there is trust there. Do the proper research, practice safety, and precaution, and keep yourself out of harm’s way.

  Much love to you all.

  Elle

  Acknowledgments

  The first thank you always goes to Victoria L. James, who suggested that I write these novellas when I wasn’t ready to leave Jared and Kit’s little universe. This woman deserves the title of wonder woman. A friend first and foremost, Vic is always the one to straighten other’s crowns. She’s honest, giving, open and loyal. She gives so much of herself to those she loves. I am constantly in awe of her. Not only does she beta read, she also edits, and is never afraid to wield her red sword and slash through the nonsense and fat that I often throw inside my manuscripts. The fact that she is also my guiding light in this book world is something I could never, ever, repay her for. Trust me when I say this lady needs a freaking award. She also puts up with my constant warbling when I get going… Love ya chick xx

  Claire Allmendinger of Bare Naked Words blog and editing. I have to thank this lovely lady for being so freaking amazing. I ask her for help and there she is. With everything she has going on, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate her! She is an amazing editor, and makes these words polished. Claire… I love you to absolute pieces.

  My Wonderland Sisters, Vic, Fran, Charlie, and Amy, these ladies are such a huge part of my world on a daily basis. I can’t tell you how much your support means to me.

  Sue, Coops, Kris, I don’t think I could ever tell you what these women mean to me. How much work they put into a release or how much support they offer behind the scenes from anything to reading chapter by chapter in order to hand hold to posting relentlessly to get the word out. This is a wonder team, and I love you all so damn much.

  My Wolfpack, Lili and Flora. These are my Texas girls, they keep me sane, hold my hand and make me laugh every day. We support one another, lend a hand and cheerlead as loud as we can. I love you ladies so much!! #PackLife

  My family is huge and every last one of them supports me, but none so much as my sister Emily and her husband, Kevin. These two get on the road with me, she designs my tables at signings and organizes me where I am otherwise unorganizable. The woman is a freaking lifesaver. I love you sis. Thank you for all you do, from reading to just asking me how it’s all going. It means the freaking world to me.

  Lastly, you the reader. You buy these books never quite knowing what’s inside. You take a chance on every one of us authors, and when you love our work, your loyalty is everything. Thank you for taking a chance, for spending your money on our stories, and for being on the other side of that book. You are loved, probably more than you could possibly know.

  Sending all my love out there to you all.

  My Wolfpack

  Thank you for always having my back.

  So glad I found you ladies xx

  Chapter One

  “So, what do you do for fun?”

  Glancing up from the once-frozen margarita I'd now stirred into a slushy mess, I smiled.

  Skylar, my darling younger sister, had set me up on yet another blind date, making this the sixth within three months. I didn't try and estimate how many I’d gone on over the year—the humiliation wasn't worth it. Skylar didn't know about my well-used red status membership at Stigmata. She had no idea how comfortable I was with my own sexuality. She only knew that I was single and assumed that meant I was lonely. For her, I suffered these dates with a smile on my face.

  “The usual, I suppose. Movies with friends. Casino. Reading. How about you?”

  “I skydive,” Brian said, smiling brightly to show his perfect teeth. He was too manicured for my tastes and had spent the better part of the hour admiring his reflection in the darkened window behind me. Constantly flexing his biceps before stealing a glance to see how impressed I was.

  I wasn't.

  I nodded enthusiastically. “Sounds thrilling.”

  “It's a rush. Knowing the only thing between you and death is that 'chute. It's a high you can't touch.”

  It wasn't a high I would ever want to touch. Being faced with my own death sounded miserable. Not to mention the fact that my last serious relationship had been with an adrenaline junkie. I thought it would be fun and exhilarating. It turned out to be a lot of sitting around and waiting for a twenty-second event to happen. The sex after that rush had almost been worth it...

  Almost.

  “Is it just skydiving?” I asked politely.

  “Mostly, being that Louisiana is so flat, it's hard to do the rock climbing I really enjoy, but they have some amazing facilities in the area. I also like spelunking. Have you ever been?”

  I shuddered with delight just enough for him to notice. My mind had traveled to a place there was no way in hell his would follow, and I wasn't about to enlighten him about the memories which involved ropes and lots of knots.

  “Not for you?” he asked.

  He had no idea.

  “You should really try it. I know this chick who was super claustrophobic, and she went into a system of caves that were barely wide enough to let a cat through. She had a panic attack once, and then went, like, full immersion and beat the fear. It was something to see. Overcoming your fears is freeing.”

  I nodded again, picked up my stra
w, and sipped my drink as we both fell into another awkward silence. Brian smiled uncomfortably and glanced around the bar, his eyes lingering on a woman with a micro skirt and fuck me heels. I could see the look of interest as it passed his face only seconds before his gaze came back to me.

  I wasn't really a woman who liked to bullshit her way through life. My sister said I was brutally honest in the way lions were brutally savage.

  “Go say hi.”

  “What?” Brian almost sputtered.

  “Dude, we have nothing in common. You aren't really interested in me. You're doing Sky a solid. I will tell my sister you were a perfect gentleman in every way. You can consider yourself off the hook.”

  “Skylar said you were cool as shit.”

  “I'm a realist.”

  Brian stood and pulled his wallet from his back pocket, throwing two twenties on the table. “You want another before you go?”

  I shook my head and grabbed my bag from the stool next to me. “Go, before some other guy figures out she's here alone.”

  Brian leaned in and kissed my cheek, throwing me a casual smile and wink that made him look more handsome than he had any right to. Then he disappeared through the crowd toward the bar where the micro skirt threw him an appreciative glance. My duty was done for the night, and I felt relieved that our mutual reports to my kid sister would be that it was fun but didn't work out.

  Not that I got the chance to be the one to tell her that.

  I was halfway home when my phone rang with my sister's designated ringtone.

  “What happened?” she demanded, the sound of a social gathering muffled in the background. She and her fiancé Nate were always out on the town at some gathering or another. They even did things like couples’ game nights with their friends, which I was informed I could be a part of, if, you know, I was part of a couple.

  “Nothing happened, Sky. It just wasn't a good match.”

  “He checked himself out a lot, didn't he? I told him not to do that.”

  “Sky—”

  “He's really a good guy, Emerson. I wouldn't have set you up with him if he wasn't.”

  I laughed lightly and stopped as I waited for the next streetcar. “I never said any differently.”

  “So why is he with a chick called Sophia now?”

  “Because she had a fabulous ass, and he deserved to finish the night with someone he actually had a chance with.” I sighed and watched the streetcar rattle toward me. “Listen, Sky, you have to stop this. Brian is the last blind date. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm okay being home on a Monday night in my PJs watching Friends reruns.”

  “You're not.”

  “I really am. I always have been. You were the social butterfly dragging me out when we were teenagers.”

  “Yet, you're never home on the weekends.”

  “Because,” I said, stepping onto the streetcar as it stopped. “Though you refuse to acknowledge it, I actually do have a social life. Just because I don't spend the week chattering about what I did, doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it. I choose to live in the moment.”

  “You're an escort, aren’t you?”

  We both laughed as I slipped onto one of the benches. The only spare spot was next to a guy who owned a subtle smell, like sawdust, and was slouched in his seat with a ball-cap pulled down over his eyes. The only sign he’d noticed me at all was the movement of one leg to give me more space.

  “You wish. Those would be the stories you'd pay me for.”

  “I'm about to be an old married woman, sis. I have to live vicariously through someone.”

  “I'll see what I can do.”

  “Fine. Whatever,” she droned playfully. “Text me when you get home, please.”

  “You do the same. Love you.”

  “Love you back.”

  I ended the call and dropped my phone into my dress pocket as the streetcar slid neatly into the Garden District.

  As fancy as my destination sounded, I wasn't anywhere close to being independently wealthy. I lived above my parents’ ginormous garage in a space that was really too opulent and grand to be called something as prosaic as an apartment. My home boasted two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and had a dream kitchen my mother had insisted upon when they'd renovated. I'd lived there since I'd graduated from college, and for living in what was essentially their backyard, I never saw my parents unless I chose to wander to their house and bother them. The whole arrangement was a win-win situation for all of us, including my sister, who could kill two birds with one stone when she came to visit.

  I let myself fall into my thoughts as we rode through several stops. Outside of the usual sounds of the streetcar, it was quiet enough to hear the bare minimal of mumbled conversation at the back of the vehicle. The closer it got to my stop, the more the space emptied, but I stayed where I was, along with guy next to me who was slumped and utterly relaxed in his seat.

  When I rose to leave, a warm hand slipped into mine. I turned back to meet the palest set of piercing blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life. I was suddenly struck by the familiar feeling that ignited my natural inclination to drop my eyes to my feet. This man, whether he was aware or not, was an alpha male. Everything in him screamed authority, and the twinge of electricity that ran through our joined hands told me that he'd felt that in the second of connection between us, too.

  “You dropped your phone, ma'am,” he said, his deep voice liquid sex as he pushed my phone into my hand.

  I stared down at our hands, admiring the calloused tips of his fingers as he gripped the back of mine. Without thought, he stroked the heel of my palm before releasing me like I'd caused him physical pain, and he fell back in his seat, pulling his hat down over those dangerous blue eyes again.

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  His slight twitch at my emphasis on the word sir made me smile, but I backed away, feeling the break in that small force when he released my hand and let me go, allowing me to step off from the streetcar before it rattled away down the tracks away from me.

  Damn.

  Chapter Two

  My mystery stranger was the only thing on my mind when I finally crawled into bed that night. I wasn’t the type to dream with any real conviction. In fact, I could count on one hand how many I’d had with any kind of memory of it the next morning. But this one I had that night, and the lingering feeling it left me with, was high up on that list and left me nothing short of lustful. The mystery guy had been handsome. One small glance at him had been enough to clarify that for me, but in my dream, he was a veritable sex god. His hat had been removed, and that mop of unruly hair had my hands buried in the silky strands as I held his face between my thighs.

  I’d woken up with a start, my body damp with sweat, and an ache between my thighs. My hair was tangled, and I was breathing so heavily that I found myself unable to go back to sleep. Even after taking matters into my own hands and making myself sweatier than I had been, I was too awake, so I got up and took a long cold shower.

  The whole day was spent seeking out a distraction that would keep my mind away from the streetcar stranger, and the need to get to Stigmata was almost painful. Saturday night was always a busy night at the club, and there would be Dominants looking to play—something I definitely needed to partake in if I was going to get rid of this rawness that had lit me up.

  Unable to do anything about my renewed itch, I crossed my legs and squeezing my thighs together as I gazed out of the window of the streetcar as we pulled into the French Quarter. For the thousandth time that day, I hoped to hell someone at Stigmata would want to play. There were a couple of Doms who came to the city occasionally and invited me to scene with them, but tonight I was feeling needy, which took a whole other level of Dom to sate.

  Making my way to the club, I wound through the tourists and usual party crowd already filling up the area, before slipping into the courtyard and then the welcoming lobby of the club, where it was still blissfully quiet. Victor, who manned the front desk and doubled as a secu
rity guard, glanced up at me in surprise as I sidled up to the counter with a grin.

  “You’re early, Em,” he said, peeking down at his phone on the table after he’d poked at the screen to wake it up. “You can’t go into the club for another thirty minutes yet.”

  Taking a look at my watch, I frowned in consternation.

  “Damn.” I turned a slow circle on the balls of my feet, quickly finding inspiration. “Is Kammie still in her office?”

  “I don’t think she works in the office on Saturdays.”

  “We both know she does when Tristan’s out of town.” I grinned.

  Knowing he’d been caught, Victor smirked and nodded his ascent before dialing her extension on his phone, holding out the headset for me to take. This wasn’t our first rodeo.

  “Hey, Victor, what do you need?” Kammie sang down the line, the chatter in the background continuing behind her as she waited for an answer. I couldn’t make out the voices, but there were definitely men in the room.

  “It’s Emerson.”

  “Hey, Em! Did you take a new job you didn’t tell us about?”

  “Huh?”

  “Concierge for Stigmata?” The noise behind her quieted.

  “Oh, no, I’m just an idiot and got here early. I thought you might need some company.”

  “Sure. Come on down. It’s a party in here today.”

  Before I could ask if it was inconvenient, she’d hung up the phone, and Victor was buzzing me into the club, which seemed too quiet to be familiar.

  Kammie and I were relatively new friends, but we’d connected quickly once we’d started talking at the bar one night. Even faster still when she’d arranged for me to interview for a job with Tristan who was opening an office in New Orleans after they’d met. He’d offered her the job first, but Kammie had whispered conspiratorially that she knew better than to work for her Dom, especially when she was in love with the position she had here at the club. When Lane, the club manager, had told her that I was looking for a better situation, she’d come to find me, and we’d hit it off.