Page 46 of The Lies Of Omission (Without Limits #3)

THEO

T he morning light crept in slow and golden, bleeding through the gauzy curtains in long streaks across the sheets tangled at our feet. It painted us in warmth, in silence, in something that felt too delicate to name.

Even though I was wide awake, I didn’t move.

Sin was half on top of me, his breath soft and steady against my collarbone, one leg thrown over mine like he’d meant to anchor me to the bed, to this moment, to him.

His arm was curled possessively around my waist, lips parted in sleep, hair wild from the night before.

My hand moved almost of its own accord—slow strokes down his spine, fingertips grazing over each vertebra like I was trying to memorize him, like if I just touched him long enough, everything else might stop spinning.

But it didn’t. Not really. Memories and flashbacks invaded my mind, trying to shatter the peaceful bubble I was in.

My father’s voice echoed in my head—cold and clipped, every syllable soaked in control. “ If you don’t do what you’re told. Honor your obligations, you’ll lose everything .”

For the first time, my father saw the man I wanted to be.

Not the broken boy who’d stood in front of a hundred polished strangers and told them the truth.

How the perfect Astor heir was sent away when he was fifteen because he kissed a boy.

Not the man who watched Sin fall apart in front of that room, rage and pain leaking out in broken, jagged edges.

The man who was finally strong enough to fight for what he wanted. For what really mattered after spending my life jumping through his hoops. It was exhilarating and equally terrifying.

And then I’d left. Walked away from the name. The inheritance. The cage they called legacy. I’d watch it all fall in the name of love.

Now… I had this. Sin, warm and tangled around me. The promise of a future within our grasp. I knew Sin had reservations about me, about us, but… My hands trembled. The echo of something terrifyingly close to freedom, pounding in my ribs like a second heartbeat.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Sin mumbled against my chest, voice thick with sleep.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Sorry.”

He shifted, propping his chin on my chest so he could look up at me with sleep-bleary eyes. “Don’t be. Just… don’t go anywhere, okay?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” I reached down, brushing my thumb across the line of his jaw. “You scared the shit out of me last night.”

He scoffed softly. “Join the club.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“You almost did.”

Silence stretched between us, long and heavy—the kind that carried a thousand unsaid things, all too raw to name.

I dipped my head, pressing my lips to his—tentative at first, a question hanging between us. But when he kissed me back, he wasn’t cautious. He was needy. Desperate. A collision of breath and hunger that tasted like longing and old wounds.

I kissed him deeper, greedy for more, like if I kissed him long enough, hard enough, maybe the ache in my chest would quiet. Maybe I could press our mouths together and erase the things we couldn’t speak aloud.

He kissed me like he felt it too. Like he wanted to disappear inside me just to escape the rest of the world. Because we both knew—outside that door, the world was waiting to destroy us.

So we didn’t move. We stayed tangled in each other, letting time bleed away as our hands learned each other again. Slow. Deliberate. Starved. Chasing a want that smoldered low in our bellies until it burned up the air between us and made words unnecessary.

It started with a breath, a brush of fingers, a meeting of mouths. And then—he moved. He slid around the bed, settling over me, his knees bracketing my shoulders, his cock heavy and flushed, brushing against my lips with a teasing insistence I’d felt in my bones.

The taste of him—bitter, salt-sweet, familiar—had me dizzy. Addicted. I opened my mouth and sucked him in, wrapping my lips around the head as he sank down my throat slowly. Savoring the weight of him on my tongue, the warmth of his skin, the helpless sounds he made above me.

Sin took my length in, his tongue swirling around the head before his mouth closed around me. Hot. Wet. Possessive. Like he wanted to consume me entirely.

I groaned around him, the vibrations dragging deep, broken moans from his throat. He rocked his hips, feeding himself to me in slow, controlled thrusts. He took his time wrecking my throat. I didn’t mind. I loved it, giving him pleasure.

I had my hands on his ass, fingers splayed across the firm curves, trailing down the crease between them. I toyed with the nerves around his hole, watching the way his thighs trembled, the way his moans stuttered every time I touched him there.

He rewarded me with every sound I craved—deep, sinful moans vibrating around my cock as he sucked me down with a kind of devotion that bordered on madness.

Then he slipped lower, mouth abandoning my cock in favor of licking and sucking at my balls, his hands still stroking me, coaxing me, owning me.

I couldn’t hold back.

Every muscle went taut, straining beneath the weight of sensation. I came into his hand, shuddering, head thrown back, stars bursting behind my eyes.

Sin didn’t waste a drop. The sounds of him licking me clean and softly moaning around me as if I was his favorite fucking meal, were enough to make me want to give him everything I had and then some.

Then it was my turn.

He pumped his hips once. Twice more. I swallowed him down, his release hot and sharp on my tongue. I took all of him, even as I gasped for breath and he trembled above me.

When he collapsed against me, I didn’t let him go.

I kissed whatever skin I could reach—his thigh, his hip, the soft, sweat-slicked curve of his stomach. And when I ran out of places, I hauled him up my body, flipped him beneath me, and worshiped him.

Every inch. Every scar. Every place that made him gasp or shudder or arch into me like I was the only thing keeping him from shattering. Because he wasn’t just something I wanted. He was sacred.

When we eventually managed to get out of bed, the shower steamed around us. Sin leaned into the spray, and I pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat, tasting salt and soap and something that still felt like survival.

“Your shirt’s huge,” he grumbled when he padded barefoot into the kitchen later, sleeves falling past his hands. “You’re huge,” he continued, stealing a strip of toast off my plate. “Jesus, what’s on there? It’s delicious.”

“Oh um, just some honey I got from a local farmers market?”

He raised a brow. “Really? You go to farmers’ markets.”

Winston meowed, demanding attention, tail wrapping around my legs, head nudging them too for good measure. I bent to feed him, grateful for something so ordinary.

We sat close at the counter, thighs brushing. We didn’t talk about forever—just now. What we should do. The little things. The stupid, human things that neither of us had really ever done.

“I’ve never made eggs with anyone before,” Sin said, suddenly.

“That can’t be true.”

“Nope. Usually I just fuck and ghost before the night is over.”

I grinned and rolled my eyes. “Charming.”

He smiled back, softer this time. “You’re not easy to ghost.”

“Good,” I said. “Because I’d chase you if you did that to me now.”

That earned me a kiss—quick, sure. And then we drifted into the library, curling up beneath a wool blanket like we’d been doing this for years. A movie played. I couldn’t even tell you what it was. I just held his hand and listened to him breathe.

And for a little while, it was enough. Until he sat up. His eyes flicked to the window. To his car parked outside on my drive.

“I need time,” he said, voice quiet. “Not because I’m running, but… if I don’t catch my breath, Theo, I’ll drown.”

I swallowed hard. “Are you coming back?”

He looked at me like that was the dumbest question in the world. “I’m not fucking leaving you.”

“I know. Just… needed to hear it.”

He leaned in and kissed my temple. “I just need to think. To feel like I’m choosing this… not clinging to it like a life raft.”

I nodded. “I get it.” And I did. I’d put him through so much over the last few months and now it appeared I’d done a complete one-eighty in the last twenty-four hours. I understood him needing time and space to process.

My gaze followed him out of the room, up the stairs to my room. The soft thudding sound of his steps above me as he slipped back into the clothes he wore last night.

Winston was curled up on my chest, sleeping by the time he made it back downstairs, so I gently placed him where I’d been sitting and trailed Sin to the door. His lips brushed mine in a soft fleeting kiss.

“I’ll call you later.”

He made a phone gesture out of his hands and slipped into his unlocked car. The engine roared to life, music blared. Sin saluted me, then left in a cloud of dust as he spun the wheels in the gravel.

I watched him go; the door clicking shut behind him. The space around me went cold faster than I was ready for. All the life he’d brought to my house was gone in an instant. Collapsing on my armchair, my eyes felt heavy, exhaustion weighing my lids down.

I didn’t move. Not for a while. Just dozed on and off until eventually, I pulled out my phone and stared at Rosalie’s name. My thumb hovered. Then I tapped Call .

Because we deserved that conversation. Not out of obligation or because it was expected. But because after everything, she’d become my friend, and I wanted to know if she was alright.

Rosalie picked up on the third ring, her voice quiet but steady. “Hey.”

I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, like her voice alone loosened something wound too tight in my chest. “Hey… I just wanted to check in. After last night. I didn’t make it back—are you okay?”

A pause. Then a sigh that sounded like it had scraped its way up from somewhere deep. “It’s been a long fucking day.”