Chapter 9: Post-coital confession
The words hung in the humid air, a grenade whose pin had been pulled by exhaustion. Micah went rigid inside her, his breath catching in a way that had nothing to do with pleasure. Rue’s own body clenched around him, a visceral recoil. “Shit,” she whispered, the sound sharp against his shoulder. She pushed at his chest, a sudden, frantic motion. He slid out of her, wet and softening, the physical separation a relief and a new kind of agony. The cooling sweat on his skin turned icy. He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling’s textured plaster, seeing nothing. The silence was a living thing, swollen with the ghost of Chloe’s moans and the click of camera shutters. Rue sat up, the silk sheets sticking to her thighs. “Don’t,” she said, her voice low and strained. “Don’t fucking say anything.” She swung her legs off the bed, presenting him with the tense line of her naked back, the marks his hands had left already fading. He watched a single trickle of his own release trace a path down her inner thigh. She grabbed a discarded robe, wrapping it around herself like armor. “It was just the heat of the moment,” she said, not turning around. “A slip. It doesn’t mean anything.” Micah finally looked at her, the cheap phrase curdling in his gut. He remembered the raw, broken sound of it, so unlike her calculated purrs. “Right,” he managed, the word sandpaper in his throat. The distance between them on the rumpled bed felt continental.
The distance between them on the rumpled bed felt continental. That gulf, and the terrifyingly unscripted words that created it, demanded an action, any action, to shatter it. His hand shot out, fingers biting into the soft flesh of her hip through the silk robe, and he wrenched her back toward him with a strength that surprised them both. “Get back on it,” he growled, his voice rough with a confusion that felt like anger. She stumbled against him, her robe falling open, her wide brown eyes searching his face for the gentle TA she knew. What she saw made her breath catch. He guided his cock, already hardening again with a brutal urgency, to her wet entrance. “You wanted a show,” he muttered, his gaze locked on hers, “so fucking ride me.” She sank down onto him with a sharp cry, her body accepting him in one slow, deliberate slide until he was buried to the hilt inside her. “Watch,” he commanded, his hands anchored on her hips, forcing her to meet his stare. She began to move, a slow, grinding roll of her pelvis that made his eyes flutter shut for a second. “Eyes on me, Micah,” she snarled, regaining a shred of her persona, her fingers digging into his chest. He obeyed, watching the flush spread across her skin, watching her teeth sink into her lower lip. Her rhythm built, each lift and drop a slick, punishing stroke, her cunt gripping him like a furious fist. “Is this what you want?” she panted, her sweat dripping onto his stomach. “This is all you want, right?” He thrust upwards to meet her, a hard, jarring snap of his hips that stole her words. “Just this,” he grunted, the lie tasting bitter, even as his whole world narrowed to the raw, wet friction of their bodies.
The raw, wet friction was the only truth he could grasp. He surged up, capturing her mouth in a kiss that was all teeth and shared, acrid breath, a violent contradiction to the tenderness she’d uttered. His hand came down hard on the curve of her ass, a sharp, stinging crack that echoed in the quiet room. “Say it again,” he demanded against her lips, his voice a ragged whisper. He spanked her once more, the flesh of her cheek blooming red under his palm. “Say you love me like you fucking mean it.” He didn’t wait for an answer. In one brutal motion, he flipped her off him and onto her belly, the silk sheets slithering beneath her. He dragged her hips back, her face pressed into the mattress where Chloe’s scent still lingered. He drove into her from behind, a deep, punishing entry that forced a choked gasp from her lungs. “Now say it,” he grunted, each thrust a punctuation mark. Her body jolted forward with every slam of his hips. “I love you,” she moaned into the bedding, the words muffled. “Louder.” He fucked her harder, his balls slapping against her wetness. “I love you!” she cried out, a raw, shredded sound. He wrapped a hand in her long brunette hair, pulling her head back. “Again.” His rhythm was relentless, the bedframe knocking a frantic tempo against the wall. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she sobbed, each declaration a surrender to the brutal, physical truth of him filling her. He buried himself to the hilt, grinding deep, as her words dissolved into meaningless, breathless sounds.
He collapsed beside her, his breath sawing in the dark, the taste of salt and her perfume sharp on his tongue. The room held only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant hum of her laptop, its screen still glowing with the paused footage of their performance. Her whispered mistake seemed to echo louder now in the quiet. He stared at the ceiling, the adrenaline draining away to leave a hollow, aching truth. “It meant something,” he said, the words barely audible. He turned his head on the pillow to look at her profile, at the tear track cutting through the shimmer on her temple. “When you said it.” Rue didn’t move, her eyes fixed on the far wall. “Micah, don’t,” she whispered, but the command had no force. He pushed himself up on one elbow, his shadow falling over her. “I’m in love with you.” The confession left him like a physical purge, leaving him empty and terrifyingly light. “I have been for months.” She finally looked at him, her brown eyes wide and unguarded, reflecting the faint screen light. For a second, he saw not the performer, but the lonely girl hiding behind the camera. Then she blinked, and a wall slid down. “Fuck,” she breathed, sitting up and pulling the sheet around her. “You can’t be.”