Rent: Paid in Full (Bad Decisions, #1)

by Jesse H. Reign

Bet he’d make a pretty sweet sound if I sank my teeth into the meat where his neck and shoulder meet. Bet he’d groan softly and roll his eyes back, even if he meant to kill me later. Bet he’d taste so good it might almost be worth it.

“Why’d they fire you?” Ryan blinks and looks down his nose at her. “Something about an attitude problem.” Oh God, he’s not just hot. He’s complicated and rude.

Jesus. He has no idea how to behave. None whatsoever. That’s his thing. And fuck me, I’m into it.

The thought of so much as touching any part of Miller’s body without being paid for it leaves me dangerously inflamed. Dangerously afraid. Afraid for real because I don’t need to try it to know what it would be like. I know. It’ll be heaven and hell wrapped in smooth skin. Intoxicating. In fact, I’ve started trying hard not to breathe in when he’s close because I know what he is. A drug. A chemical reaction that causes a nuclear dopamine surge. A full-blown addiction waiting to take hold.

“You have girls dripping off you like sweat, you know that?” God, he’s exhausting. “What? You jealous?” “Yes, I’m jealous.” He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Of course I’m jealous. I told you. You’re mine.”

“Let me guess. You were a weedy little kid, and you didn’t get contacts till junior or senior year in high school.” It was senior year, but I don’t think he needs to know that. “What’s your point?” “My point, Ryan, is that you’re such a dumbass you missed your own glow-up.”

love tequila. Smelled it on your breath the first time you blew me. Now I think of you when I smell it.” He raises his glass to his nose and inhales, then looks at me. “Turns me on.”

“You’re good at reading people,” I say, stomach churning at the thought of what he sees when he reads me. “Have to be. You get real good at reading the room when you grow up in a warzone.”

“You know what, bud—” He cuts me off. “Don’t call me bud.” “Can I call you baby instead?” “Definitely not.”

I like how much he wants me, and I like the fact he doesn’t try to hide it. I like how he’s looking at me. Like I’m air, and he’s suffocating without me.

“You know these pieces of you?” he says softly, looking down at my lips. “The ones you sell to me? Well, they’re like anything else. Once I’ve bought them, I own them. They’re mine.”

I love how sweet he is when the lights are out, and I love how angry my existence makes him when they’re on. I love how he seems to expect me to run around helping him despite the fact he’s a nightmare, but most of all, I love how much he hates it that with every day that passes, he’s having a harder and harder time hating me with his whole chest. I mean, don’t get me wrong, when the sun’s up, he’d still push me from a moving vehicle the first chance he got, but I think there’s a chance he’d regret it. Not deeply or anything like that. But probably a little. And I think that’s called progress.

He’s one of those people who needs space now and then, and as the future love of his life, I think it’s important that I’m sensitive to that.

“Please, Miller. Show me the stars.”

“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, and you would be mine