Page 76 of Click

Mak scoffs. “We’re not a pair of socks. We match perfectly as is.”

She’s right on the first, but not the second statement. “Look at me.” I smack my stomach, and it jiggles.

“Look at me!” she screams right back and smacks her belly too. “What the hell are you expecting, Carson? Six-pack abs?”

For all the work I put in at the gym? Damn right, I do. But all I have are flabs that mock me every time I do sit-ups. “You don’t get it.”

“Try me.” She’s fuming and I swear even our tempers match. Mak crosses her arms over her chest, just like me. “Go ahead. Let’s hear it.”

Fine. Here it comes, pretty girl. She’s going to run out my door by the time I’m done trauma dumping on her.

“I’m going to wager a guess and say you don’t know what it’s like to be a fat kid. I used to have people poke my belly and call me the Pillsbury Doughboy all the time. Instead of crying, I’d laugh like that stupid commercial character and let them poke me all the time because I thought I’d win them over with my humor. Spoiler Alert: I didn’t.”

Her brows knit together.

“Bet you didn’t get picked last for teams at gym either.” I can’t believe I’m dragging all this history up. It’s stupid and unfair and not okay. “Bet you didn’t get shot down by every girl in the school. Bet you didn’t get trays of nachos and French fries thrown at you in the cafeteria while they made pig noises. Bet you weren’t called a fat ass, and blubber flubber, and a whale during swim class.”

Tears fill her eyes and her chin trembles. I fucking hate it.

“Bet no one made you believe you were going to prom with the only girl who would talk to you in Chemistry, only to find out it was on a dare and she was paid to say yes and then when you showed up with the limo you rented, and the perfect corsage you spent hours agonizing over, she was standing in her living room taking pictures with her real date. And when they opened the door to leave, they walked right by you like you didn’t fucking exist.”

Mak’s hands drop to her sides as the air rushes out of her.

“Bet you didn’t get into the Dom lifestyle because it was the only way to have control over someone touching you intimately.”

Her face turns red.

“Bet you…” Fuck. “Bet you didn’t…” My heart’s slamming in my chest and I feel like I’m sinking into the floor. “Bet you didn’t fall in love and have her scream in your face that you weren’t enough. That you’ll never be enough. And then, while you’re on your knees begging her to stay, she cuts off the symbol of your relationship and throws it in your face like trash. Like you’re trash. Like you’re not worth being in love with because you’re… not… you’re not enough. When the reality is… I’m too much.”

My head falls and I can’t believe I just fucking did this.

Mak should run out my front door and never look back.

I just broke my number one rule: I cracked open and let someone see the real, no good, pathetic, messed up me.

Rage and embarrassment swarm me. My cheeks grow numb and I can’t feel my fucking feet. “I know you didn’t mean anything bad when you asked me to do a couples shoot today. But…” I shake my head and blow out a long, shaky breath. “All I see is how perfect you are, and how I’m not built to deserve you.”

“Oh, Carson.” Tears fall down her cheeks. It’s my fault. I’m a deranged fuck with no self-esteem, and I’ve let my insecurities affect her. Before I have the sense to stop myself, I’m taking steps to close the gap between us and swipe the tears from her cheeks. I hate that I’ve made her cry. I hate that she’s staring at me with pity.

I hate everything about myself.

All my life, I’ve had to mask my feelings and fit into some socially acceptable box. I turned into the funny one. The loud one. The obnoxious one, if the occasion called for it. That’s how I survived high school and college. Then I grew the fuck up and got help and worked out all the time to lose weight and what’s left just won’t go away. I was forced to admit that I’ll never be like the men on the covers of romance novels. I’ll never be perfect.

Maybe that makes me sound like a little whiny bitch, but I don’t give a fuck. It’s how I feel. I’ve always felt bad about myself. All my friends were cut and didn’t have an ounce of body fat on them. It’s hard to get a date when your buddies are stacked and jacked while you look like a teddy bear.

I’ve always been friend-zoned.

Whenever I did manage to get a girl to be with me—which wasn’t until college—I’d spoiled her rotten in fear of her kicking me to the curb for someone better looking than I was. I got taken advantage of time and time again until I learned to stop breaking myself just so a woman would welcome me to her bed.

That day when I took pictures of my girlfriend—who three weeks later dumped my ass and said we were better as friends, by the way—and she’d seen what I was able to capture and fell in love with herself? Fuck, I was so envious. I wanted to be able to look at myself like that too. But it hasn’t happened. I can’t look in the mirror and see anything other than my flaws. Pictures make it worse. I have no good angles.

Being a photographer was my greatest gift, and biggest curse. I may have found my calling, but there’s always a barrier between me and everyone else. It’s awful.

I have needs like every other hot-blooded person out there and I love women. All sizes. All shapes. All flavors. Becoming a Dom let me call the shots and also gave me a false sense of control. Keeping the dynamic strictly “business” was how I’ve survived with my heart intact.

Until Lauren.

After her, things changed. For better, for worse, I don’t have a clue. But I refuse to tailor myself to fit someone else’s mold like I used to. And I promised myself to never get my heart caught in a woman’s claws again.