Page 41 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

I gave her a sharp, short nod. I didn’t trust myself to say anything more. The cracks inside me were spreading. My hands were fists at my sides. My throat was full of ash.

Before I could fall apart, I turned away. Behind me, Theo started speaking. He talked of legacies. Of building a better world. Of service and sacrifice. All the right words in the wrong man’s mouth.

Thalia’s hand brushed mine—quick, featherlight. A reminder that I wasn’t completely alone. “Hey,” she murmured. I turned just enough to see the shine in her eyes. “When you leave… Don’t forget me.”

I blinked, stunned for a second. Because Thalia never asked for anything. Not like that. “I couldn’t if I tried.” She gave me a smile. Small, broken at the edges. “You were the first person who ever saw me for more than what I could give.”

“Don’t ever change my Dark Prince.” She patted my cheek. “You’re perfect as you are Sin.”

“You’re the only friend I’ve ever had,” I said. The words came out too raw. Too real.

Thalia’s throat bobbed. “And you are the best friend I ever had.”

We stood in that strange, aching quiet. The kind that blooms when two people know they’ll never be the same after that moment. That even if they survive the fire, they’ll never come out clean.

Theo’s voice faded into applause behind us. But we didn’t clap. We were too busy guiding people to their assigned seats for the night.

The locker room was blessedly empty—the eye of the storm—humming with the flickering overhead light and lingering notes of distant music.

I was changing into my second uniform of the night after someone spilled red wine all over my shirt.

They’d looked down their nose at me like I owed them an apology for simply existing.

I didn’t hear the door open. But I heard it click closed. When I glanced over my shoulder, Theo stood in front of it, immaculate in his tux, red-rimmed eyes bloodshot but burning with something close to fury.

He kept his gaze locked on me and turned the lock behind him. The sound of the barrel engaging echoed, sucking the air out of the room.

“Sinclair.”

My breath caught. His voice hit me like a match to gasoline, and it took everything in me to keep an impassive look on my face. My skin buzzed, coated in electricity from his proximity.

I turned slowly, shirt unbuttoned, hair a mess, skin slick with sweat. “What?”

Theo looked… wrecked. Under the perfect tux, under the mask he wore so well, his eyes gave him away.

“I need to talk to you,” he pleaded.

I stepped back, bumping into the lockers behind me. “There’s nothing left to say.”

“Please—”

I shoved him, just once, away from me. “You don’t get to beg me anymore, Theo. You don’t get to want me. You can’t keep doing this to me,” I ground out, distraught.

His hands came up. “I don’t ?—”

“Save it.” My chest was heaving. “You made your choice. Remember?!”

His eyes searched mine, something wild and desperate living there. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

I laughed bitterly. “You didn’t want to get caught.”

Theo stepped toward me like a man possessed, his eyes glassy with regret and something more dangerous—need.

“I know you won’t believe a damn thing I say,” he whispered, his voice cracking like dry earth before a storm. His hands trembled as he reached for me, then curled into fists at his sides like he was holding himself back by sheer force of will. “But maybe...”

My breath caught. The world slowed, collapsed into a singular, breathless moment where nothing else existed but him and me and the ache wedged between us.

“Maybe my actions can speak for me,” he said, looking up at me with devastation in his eyes. “Maybe they’ll be enough.”

My chest tightened, a painful squeeze around something I’d tried too long to silence. I didn’t reach for him. But I didn’t stop him either.

Something snapped in both of us.

His mouth crashed into mine, all teeth and tongue and ruin, pulling me down with him like gravity had finally won. The world narrowed to a pinprick of light, and we were the only two that existed.

We didn’t speak again. Not with words. Only with desperation. With bruises. With the frantic drag of fingers down skin.

We tore at each other against the lockers like we were starving—like the only way to breathe was through the other’s mouth. I let him touch me. I let myself need him. Because I told myself it was goodbye. Because I had to believe this was the last time.

It was messy. Breathless. Clothes shoved aside with no care. My hands fisted in his hair, dragging him closer. His mouth found my neck, my jaw, my ribs—branding me in silence.

This wasn’t love, it was feral hunger. We tore each other open. A final confession written in skin and spit and everything we couldn’t say out loud.

Theo dropped to his knees like a man possessed. There was no hesitation—no patience—as he yanked my pants and boxers down in one frantic motion. My cock sprang free, flushed and aching, slapping hard against my abs.

He licked his lips, pupils blown wide, devouring me with his eyes like he’d been starving for years and only just now remembered what hunger felt like.

Thick fingers wrapped around my shaft, squeezing just tight enough to make me gasp.

A desperate whimper slipped past my lips as the hot tip of his tongue flicked over my slit, collecting precum before dipping into the opening with maddening slowness.

He moaned—fucking moaned—as the taste of me exploded across his tongue like it was everything he’d ever wanted.

“Oh—fuck, Theo…” I choked. I didn’t know if I was about to beg him to stop or beg him to swallow me whole.

Then he wrapped his lips around me and devoured me to the base, his throat swallowing around my head like he was trying to drag me inside him.

The vibrations of his moan sent a lightning bolt straight up my spine. My fingers tangled in his hair, yanking him down until his nose was buried in the thick patch of hair at the base of my cock.

“Jesus Christ, baby—just like that. You’re so good. So tight. So fucking hot,” I groaned, my voice cracking under the weight of the overwhelming pleasure. Tears gathered on my lashes, threatening to spill. “That’s it. That’s it. You’re taking it so well. Relax your throat for me. Swallow me down.”

He looked up at me with glassy, tear-bright eyes, his cheeks flushed, throat flexing. He nodded—barely—and it shattered something in me.

I snapped.

I thrust my hips forward, fucking into the wet heat of his throat like I could drown every hurt he ever gave me in the back of his mouth. Like I could purge it out of my body with each brutal flex of my hips.

Drool and precum slicked his chin. Tears streamed down his face. He was a mess. My mess. And he looked up at me like he wanted nothing more.

He was beautiful—ruined, gasping, and offered up like some perfect sacrificial sin.

“I—I’m close,” I ground out. “So fucking close…”

Then his hand came up, rolling my balls between his fingers with practiced cruelty, and I shattered.

Heat coiled through my gut like liquid fire, my cock thickened in his mouth, pulsing as I came hard and fast, spilling deep inside him. He took it. All of it. So much it spilled from the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin, painting him in me.

“FUCK!” I collapsed back, my elbows digging into cold metal, gasping, trembling—my body sated, but my mind was screaming.

This was wrong. This was so fucking wrong.

I stared down at him, and the sight nearly broke me—Theo, still kneeling, still hard, his zipper straining against his cock, but he didn’t touch it. Didn’t try to get off. Didn’t dare.

“This was a mistake,” I hissed, venom spitting from my tongue before I could leash it.

He froze. His lips parted like he was going to say something, but nothing came out. Just silence. His beautiful mouth was still wet with my release, chest heaving.

God, he looked like something holy—broken and kneeling in reverence. And I hated that it still pulled at something deep in me.

He stayed close after, forehead pressed to my thigh, both of us breathless—his panting ragged, like he was trying to memorize the shape of me with every shallow inhale.

And when I finally looked into his eyes, the clarity there was terrifying. Not peaceful. Not safe. It was ruined. Hollow. Final. Like he’d just lost something he didn’t know how to live without. Like he thought I was the only thing that had ever made sense in his world of chains.

And I couldn’t give it back. I wouldn’t.

I didn’t return the look.

“Don’t follow me,” I whispered, my voice brittle, breaking with every word. My fingers shook as I buttoned my shirt, and pulled up my pants, each motion like cutting myself open again and again. “Not tonight.”

I turned and I walked out.

His silence followed me like a brand on my skin, carving itself between my shoulder blades as I stepped into the night. A bone-deep shudder wracked through me as I followed the path back up to the marquee.