Page 22 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

“Straight.” I smirked. “Make it burn.”

She laughed, but obliged. I knocked the first one back without flinching. Let it scorch a path down my throat. Took another. Then a third. The edge didn’t dull. It sharpened.

He was still watching. I knew it. Even if I couldn’t see him. So I gave him something to follow. If he thought he could play games with me. I’d play them right back.

I peeled off from the firelight, slipping into the trees like a shadow, following a narrow footpath that curved along the lake’s edge. The sounds of the party faded behind me—bass and laughter turning into distant echoes.

And I waited. Waited like bait.

The air was cooler out here, damp from the lake, quiet enough to hear the soft lapping of the water and the pounding of my own heart. I leaned against a tree, lit a joint I didn’t even want, and stared out across the inky surface.

I didn’t turn when I heard the leaves crunch behind me. Didn’t flinch when I felt the heat of him close in. At some point over the last few months, my body had become perfectly attuned to Theo. I could sense his presence in any room the moment he entered, and I felt its loss the moment he left.

He grabbed my arm and spun me around hard enough to make my back slam against the rough bark of a different tree, disorienting me. One hand pinning my wrist above my head, the other braced flat across my chest.

Theo’s eyes were wild. Not the polished, perfectly presented vision I was treated to day in day out at work. Just fire and fury and something darker. Something real . Like the night he begged me to make him feel and he broke apart in my arms.

“You think that was funny?” he growled, lips brushing against my throat. “Dancing with them like that?”

My breath caught. “Why? Did it bother you?”

His jaw clenched. “Don’t play with me, Sinclair.”

“Or what? You’ll ignore me harder?”

He pressed his arm tighter across my chest, forcing me fully against the tree. His body practically caging mine. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what , Theo?” I spat, defiant, hurt, drunk on tequila and adrenaline and him. “That I’m your dirty little secret? That you can fuck me, disappear, and still expect me to sit around like some sad little shadow waiting for you to look at me again?”

His face twisted. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?”

Silence—thick, electric—stretched between us.

Neither of us willing to break first.

His hand moved—up my chest, around my throat, gentle but claiming. His thumb pressed just under my jaw, forcing me to look at him.

His voice dropped, raw and cracked open. “No one touches you but me.”

The words hit me like a thunderclap. My breath stuttered.

“That’s not fair,” I whispered.

“I don’t care,” his lips brushed mine. “You’re mine.”

And then we were kissing. No— crashing. Mouths colliding. Teeth, tongue, breath stolen and given back again.

I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, like I wanted to crawl inside him. His hands were everywhere—my waist, my jaw, my hair. He kissed me like he hated himself for needing it, and I kissed him like I was trying to burn the pain out of both of us.

“God, I hate you,” I gasped against his mouth.

“You don’t,” he muttered. “You never could.”

His mouth found my neck and he sucked hard, marking my skin. My hands dragged down his back. We moved like a storm—desperate, chaotic, fucking possessed .

This wasn’t gentle. This wasn’t sweet. It was punishment and confession. Anger and want crashing into each other until there was nothing left but need.

“I’m not yours to claim,” I breathed, even as I tilted my head to give him more skin.

“You were the second I met you in the bar,” he said, biting down gently at my pulse. “You know it. I know it.”

I shivered. Because he was right. I fucking hated that he was right. And because no matter how many shots I took or how many people I danced with, there was only ever him .

He pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes dark and blown wide, chest heaving.

“You drive me insane.”

“Good,” I whispered, pulling him back in.

And we kissed again—deeper this time. Less war, more surrender. But it still burned like a battle. He kissed like a man on the edge of ruin. Like he wanted to punish me for the way I made him feel.

I let him.

Because I wanted the same. I wanted to feel anything but forgotten. I wanted to be claimed like I mattered.

His grip tightened in my hair, the kiss turning bruising, feral. His mouth was hot and unforgiving against mine, all tongue and teeth and breath torn between us.

“You think you can just use me and walk away?” I bit out, voice hoarse, gasping when he shoved me harder into the tree and pushed his thigh between mine.

“I never used you,” he snapped, eyes flashing. “You’re the one who flaunted yourself like a fucking toy tonight.”

“Maybe I was just giving you a reason to remember I exist.”

He growled—actually growled —and the sound did something wicked to my blood. Before I could blink, he pulled me away from the tree, and shoved me down to my knees. Not hard just enough to feel the dominance behind it. Enough to make me stay .

My knees hit the mossy ground. Cold. Wet. Earth biting at my skin. I didn’t care because he was still holding me. Still choosing me.

“I hate you,” I muttered, breath trembling.

He stepped closer, looming above me, one hand fisting in my hair, angling my head so I had no choice but to look up.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “You just want to know if this means something.”

He shoved his hips forward slightly, his other hand moving to unbuckle his belt. My breath caught. And suddenly, it wasn’t about anger anymore.

It was about need . Desperate. Unforgiving. Honest in the way words never were.

“You came out here to drive me crazy,” he muttered, fingers trailing along my cheekbone. “Now you’re going to face the consequences.”

I didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away. Just smirked and licked my lips. My hands reached for his waist, finding the warmth of his smooth skin beneath his untucked shirt.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Make me pay for it.”

The air between us turned molten. His touch wasn’t cruel—but it wasn’t gentle, either. It was ownership. It was permission .

Saliva pooled in my mouth and I yanked his slacks and boxer-briefs down, freeing his erection that slapped against his abs, leaving a sticky trail of precum.

I sat back on my heels and opened for him the way I always did—mouth, body, all breaking open under the weight of how much I hated needing him.

That was the real truth of it. I didn’t want anyone else touching me because no one could . No one else made me burn the way he did. No one else saw me this clearly—stripped-down, messy, mouthy, desperate and his .

Theo wrapped my hair around his fist, holding my head in the position he wanted and thrust straight into my throat until my nose was buried in the thick thatch of hair at the root.

My hands braced on his thighs, as he fucked into my throat like it was his personal cocksleeve.

Chest heaving around moans I couldn’t contain. I forgot how we’d even gotten here.

All I knew was the hand in my hair, the low sounds he made every time I hollowed my cheeks, the sweet, broken curses he muttered above me like prayer.

“You ruin me,” he groaned. “Every fucking time.”

I swallowed every word. Every promise unspoken.

Precum burst across my tongue and I swallowed it down, dipping my tongue into his slit, desperate for more of this musky, salty taste.

“Fuck, yes.”

His head tipped back on his shoulders, eyes closed as he lost himself in the heat of my mouth. He thickened on my tongue, growing impossibly harder. I swallowed around him every time he bottomed out.

“I’m not going to last,” he moaned, eyes springing open and locking on mine. A bolt of electricity shot through me, igniting in my veins.

My cock pulsed with need. I unzipped and pulled it out, stroking with one hand in time with his thrusts, my balls full and heavy.

“Hand.”

I blinked up at him in confusion. Theo never lost his punishing rhythm when he pulled my hand off my dick and pinned it above my head.

“I want you to use my cum to get yourself off.”

With his words ringing in my head, I sucked harder, rolling his heavy balls in the palm of my other hand, fingers teasing along his taint until I felt his rhythm falter. Hips stuttering, he held me against him and flooded my mouth with his cum.

“Don’t swallow,” he ordered and slowly pulled out of my mouth. “Tongue out, I want to see it.

Doing as I was told, I stuck my tongue out, feeling the weight of his load on it. Theo groaned, swiping two fingers through his release before ordering me to spit it into his hand.

“Up.”

Like he pulled my strings, I was standing before his words registered in my lust-addled mind. Theo pushed me towards the tree and I had to brace my arms against it to avoid disaster.

“Holy-fucking-shit,” I shouted when he wrapped his hand tightly around my shaft, working me over so hard and fast I came in seconds, painting my release all over the tree holding me up.

And when it was over, he licked his hand clean, grabbed my jaw, and pulled my head backward, crashing our mouths together like he needed to taste himself on my tongue. After, he held me against the tree, his forehead pressed to my temple, eyes closed, breathing me in.

And I willingly let him.

Because I didn’t know how not to.