Page 81 of Rent: Paid in Full

I watch, almost removed, as my hands glide over his skin. He’s paler than me, his ass milky beneath my hands. My fingers sink into his flesh, kneading it, kissing it, tasting it until it pinkens under my touch. I taste him too. I spread him and suck him and taste him until he’s tensing and moaning into the mattress. One finger sinks into him, pressing glistening lube into his hole. I watch in amazement as it disappears. His ass suckles on my finger, swallowing it sweetly, tugging at it until I give him another.

For once, Miller is quiet. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t need to. He communicates with sounds, with hands that rake thebedding and hard muscles that cord in his back. I understand every word.

Despite what our bodies have been through, both of us are wired. We’re live. Rock-hard and charged. He shifts his hips, lifting his hole to accommodate me, as I open his legs and kneel between them. He’s warm and tight, strangling the life out of my cock as I ease my head into him. It drowns me. It flows up my cock and through my balls. It beats in my chest and radiates outward. It’s pure pleasure. Pleasure with no hint of pain. And yet I ache. I ache from the beauty of him. From the beauty of what we’re doing. And mostly, I ache from the fact it’s ending.

He cries out beneath me, eyes slamming shut, teeth gritted hard, grunting and groaning as he takes the very thing he’s given me time after time.

When we’ve both come, he rolls over, eyes damp and unfocused as they find me. His chest is still heaving, lines and indents casting shadows with each spasmodic exhale. He lets his hands drop back in surrender, offering me swathes of smooth skin.

This, too, I understand. I choose with care, fully aware that while my body is covered with more marks than I can count, this will be the only one I ever give him.

A silky spot near his navel calls to me. There’s a light freckle above it. The North Star to my planet. I stroke the spot gently, kissing it lightly, rubbing my lips back and forth until his ribs rise up to greet me.

When it’s done, when he’s screamed and his skin has turned pink and purple and red like mine, he looks up at me and smiles drunkenly. I hear my own words in his voice, worn and beaten, better and worse than usual, as they distantly echo the same words I’ve heard myself saying the last few times he marked me.

“Thank you, baby.”

I lean over him, licking into his mouth until the fog lifts.

He senses the change and tries to stop it, holding on to my arms to trap me. “Ryan.” He pulls himself up as I start moving away. “Ryan, I lo—”

“Don’t,” I snap, covering his mouth with my hand. “Don’t say that.”

When I’m able, and I’m sure I’ve extinguished his words completely, I go to the bathroom. On the way back, I riffle through my bag to find a pair of sweatpants. Miller’s face is unlike anything I’ve seen as he watches me pulling them on. Impassive and helpless. Frightened. Steel-gray wide, nostrils flaring.

I hate it. It upsets me and enrages me more than I can say. It unsettles me badly. It turns me upside down, shaking whatever it is in me that acts as my very foundation.

I get into bed and roll onto my side, away from him, careful to ensure I stay on my side of the bed. Miller moves closer, reaching out and putting a hand around my waist. That enrages me too. It makes me so angry it hurts. I take his hand in mine, holding it for a second because, for once, I don’t want to be rude, and then I place it gently on the bed away from me.

Instead of taking the hint and giving me space, Miller moves closer, all but crushing me with the weight of his body.

“It’s midnight, Miller. It’s done.”

His voice is thin and feels like it finds me through a thick wall of brick and mortar. “It isn’t over. It doesn’t have to be.”

The rage that insights in me is instant and explosive. It propels me out of bed and onto my feet. My heart is thudding with fury, my hands hot, and spittle flies as I speak. “Of course it’s over. Andof courseithasto be.”

A bank of sadness ripples in his eyes and his bottom lip trembles as it starts overflowing. “You could stay. You could, you could choose to stay. You could stay because you want to. Or, or, I could buy you again.”

Red hot turns white and then blue. Blood sizzles and runs cold.

“You can’t actually buy people. You know that, right?”

There’s a pause. “Yeah, I know.”

“You say that, but I’m not sure you do ‘cause you act like…”

“I do know that!” Miller says with more heat than I was expecting. “Of course I fucking know that! I know because if it was possible, I wouldn’t have a cent to my name, andyou would be mine.”

His words rattle my brain, cracking concrete footing and solid steel beams. I move fast, almost running, crashing into the doorway in my rush to get away from him.

“Ryan, stay! We can try. Stay, and we can make something of this. Something good. We can make something good out of this.”

“Nothing goodevercomes from one person paying to fuck another!” I bellow so loudly the roof of the cabin creaks.

I lock myself in the bathroom and sit on the floor, leaning against the tub as Miller bangs on the door.

“Open the door, Ryan! For fuck’s sake, open the door.” I don’t move, and for a long time, neither does he. I hear his breathing through the door, raspy and heaving until it slows. At last, he says, “I’ve put a blanket out here for you. Use it if you want to sleep in the bathroom like a dumbass. I’ll be in bed waiting for you if you get your head out of your ass and decide to let yourself be happy.”

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