Page 19 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

I didn’t remember getting in my car, didn’t remember the drive across town or how I scaled the walls surrounding Edelwood House like I belonged on the other side of them.

I’d overheard Sin once, telling Thalia he lived in the pool house because his aunt refused to let him stay in the main building—said she was afraid he’d taint it .

I’d laughed it off at the time, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

How a person could be made to feel like a stain just by existing.

I hadn’t given much thought to how criminals broke into homes, but as I crept through the gardens like a thief in the night, adrenaline buzzed beneath my skin.

For the first time in my life, I was taking control.

Not posing, not performing—just acting on something raw and real.

Desire I’d spent a lifetime burying deep enough to pretend it never lived inside me at all.

When I reached the door to the pool house, the air rushed out of my lungs so fast I staggered. My hand hovered above the handle. What the fuck am I doing? All the lights were off. I glanced at my watch. It was just past one in the morning.

This was insane. Breaking into someone’s home in the middle of the night like I was... what? Hoping he’d wake up and fall into my arms? Hope was the stupidest part of it all. I should have turned around. But my feet were rooted to the ground. This was reckless, irrational, possibly catastrophic.

And I’d never felt so alive.

I dragged in a breath, tried to center myself, but my hands were clammy, and my heart was beating like it wanted out. I pushed the door open.

And there he was.

Asleep. Sheets kicked off one leg, chest bare, rising slow and steady.

Moonlight spilled in through half-open blinds, painting his skin in silver and shadows.

His hair was a mess—wild and curling in a way that made my fingers itch to touch it.

He looked peaceful, almost vulnerable , like this version of him only existed in his sleep, when the world couldn’t see.

And that was when my knees buckled. I sank to the floor beside his bed, like the weight of everything finally collapsed me from the inside out.

“Sin,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

He stirred, eyelids fluttered. He blinked slowly, confusion giving way to sharp clarity. And when he saw me, really saw me—curled up on his floor, trembling and undone—he shot upright.

“Theo? Jesus—what the hell—are you okay? What happened?”

I crawled onto the bed without answering, arms reaching for him like gravity itself was pulling me into him. My body pressed against his before he could think to stop me. I needed to feel something solid. Something real.

“I can’t do it anymore,” I choked. “He’s arranging a... a deal. Like I’m a piece on a chessboard. A merger in human skin. And he said—he promised —he could take it all away. Everything. I believe him.”

Sinclair wrapped his arms around me like armor. One hand on the back of my head, the other holding me so close I could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

“You’re not a deal,” he said, low and sure. “You’re not his to trade.”

“My mother… he never loved her. She was a transaction. He used her. And now I’m just the next part of the plan.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I know what that’s like.”

I froze, pulled back just enough to see his face. “What?”

“My parents didn’t raise me. They placed me.

Used me as a headline. A great photo opp.

Then, when I didn’t meet their expectations, they cut me off and sent me to my aunt because I wasn’t good enough to keep around.

And she—” his jaw clenched, “—she reminds me of that every single day. Who I am not . What I’ll never be.

That no one wants anything to do with me. ”

The way he said it—flat, matter-of-fact, like he’d said it to himself a thousand times—hit something deep in my chest.

“I didn’t know,” I said softly.

“No one does. No one cares enough to ask.”

“I care.”

His eyes locked on mine. A silent conversation passed between us that I couldn’t decode. Eventually he nodded. “Then stay.”

I didn’t hesitate. I kissed him like I’d been starving for it. I needed his mouth just to remember I was alive. My hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer, dragging him down with me into something that wasn’t safe or rational—but it was ours.

We kissed for survival as if the walls around us might crumble at any moment, and if they did, we’d go down together.

His hands slipped beneath my shirt, fingers tracing up my sides like he was learning me by touch alone. Each movement sent a jolt through me—not just pleasure, but recognition. Like his hands knew something I hadn’t let myself admit. I couldn’t stop trembling.

When he pulled back, just enough to meet my eyes, I saw the hesitation in his expression. Not reluctance—care. Something that had never been directed at me before. Something that had never come from him in all our stolen moments.

“Are you sure?” he asked, voice low, trembling with restraint.

I didn’t even have to think. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

His breath hitched, and something in his gaze softened.

His fingers found the hem of my shirt again, slower this time, reverent.

He lifted it over my head like he was unwrapping something fragile, something he didn’t want to break.

He kissed my shoulder first, then the hollow beneath my throat, his lips warm and careful, like they were asking permission.

Piece by piece, my clothes came off. Every inch of exposed skin felt like it mattered. He didn’t rush. It wasn’t just undressing—it was unveiling. His hands moved like he was committing every part of me to memory. When he reached my belt, he paused again, eyes flicking up to mine.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

I nodded, unable to speak. My chest ached with something sharp and full. Not fear exactly—just the weight of being truly seen for the first time.

When his boxers slid to the floor, and we were bare together, I felt my breath catch in my throat. There was nothing left to hide behind. Just skin and heat and years of hunger I didn’t know how to name.

He kissed me again—slow, deep, grounding.

I clung to him, fingers digging into his back as we shifted positions, tangled in sheets that smelled like him.

He didn’t take. He gave. His hands guided, his mouth worshipped.

We moved in sync, a language all of our own that we were inventing in real time.

His thigh pressed between mine, and I arched into him instinctively, gasping against his mouth as my length brushed against his skin.

“Tell me if anything’s too much,” he murmured against my jaw, his breath warm, his lips brushing down to my collarbone. “We stop the second you need to.”

“I don’t want to stop,” I breathed. “I just want you .”

And I meant it—every raw, cracked-open word. I wanted him .

The way Sin looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I wasn’t a burden, or a mistake made flesh. The way his touch rewrote everything I thought I knew about myself, what I deserved.

He smiled at that, soft and devastating, like it was the first time he had been chosen too. And maybe it was. There was pain in his eyes—old, familiar—and I knew it because I wore it too. We recognized each other’s ruin.

“I’ll take it slow,” he murmured, his voice rough velvet as he moved down my body. Open-mouthed kisses trailed across my stomach, his stubble scraping sensitive skin, igniting nerve endings I didn’t know existed. “Work you open with my tongue and fingers before I sink inside of you.”

I shivered as he buried his face in my groin and breathed me in— really breathed me in—groaning like he was already drunk on the scent of my desire.

He wrapped a hand around my cock and licked —slow and deliberate—from root to tip, tracing the vein with his tongue before teasing the head.

He dipped his tongue under the foreskin and circled the slit, collecting the precum there with a flick that made my spine arch and my toes curl.

A moan ripped out of my throat, sharp and helpless.

It was different this time.

Not one of those frantic, stolen encounters where we clung to each other like addicts in withdrawal. This wasn’t just sex. It was a claiming . Like Sin was peeling me apart and putting me back together with every touch of his mouth.

“Hold your legs,” he said, barely above a whisper.

I obeyed before I even thought about it, my hands slotting behind my knees, thighs pulled to my chest. Completely exposed. I should’ve panicked. Should’ve pulled away. But all I felt was… right . Like maybe, for once, I didn’t have to wear armor. Didn’t have to be in control.

Sin moved lower, pressing kisses along my inner thigh that set my skin alight. I watched through lidded eyes as his lips ghosted over my sac, his tongue tracing the seam before he took one ball into his mouth, then the other, rolling them gently with his tongue.

My head slammed back into the pillow. “Fuck. Sin?—”

Saliva slicked the skin beneath, warm trails dripping down to my taint. He followed it, dragging his tongue lower, until it flirted at the edges of my entrance.

My whole body bucked when I felt his finger—just one—circle there, teasing. Testing.

Then he was sucking me again, wet heat swallowing me whole as his finger breached me slowly, gently. My muscles resisted for a split second before melting around the intrusion, softened by the trust he never asked for but always somehow earned.

Sin pulled off with a wet pop, grinning up at me, eyes dark and wicked. “It’s okay, baby,” he said, his voice a low rumble that shattered something inside me. “I’ve got you.”

And God help me , I melted.

His tongue replaced his finger, licking and pressing with unholy skill, making me feel more open, more alive than I ever had in my life. The wet, obscene sounds of him working me open were drowned out by the thunder in my chest.