The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2) Page 9

“Well, I’ve got bad news for you, Theatre Geek.” My hands feel twitchy for a different reason all of a sudden, my grip tightening on her. “You’re confessing your truths to Lucifer. Who knows what I’ll do with them.”

  Her eyes are so fucking blue I swear to God they glow, the tilt of her head exposing her neck as the wind catches her hair. I chew my bottom lip, silent, dirty thoughts creeping up the back of my spine.

  I’d like to leave that neck purple with marks. That skin blistering with the imprint of my hand. The inside of her quaking, filled, spent with me and only me. I’d make her come all the while she screamed for mercy, begging for the pleasure to stop because it was too much.

  “You believe them, don’t you? All the people who call you the devil?”

  Clever girl, trying to turn the tables onto me.

  “When you are told things so often, even if they aren’t true, you start to believe them.” I raise my hand, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. “Make no mistake, Sage. I’m not a good person. It’ll be good for you to remember that.”

  I’m no knight in shining armor or sweet shoulder to cry on.

  I could be her reckoning, help her seek revenge, even show her how pain mixed with pleasure feels, but I’m not the guy at the end of her happily ever after.

  Sage

  I can’t stop thinking about him.

  As I made breakfast, I burnt my finger on the toaster, thinking of his touch.

  In the shower, when I close my eyes, I see his face. Square jaw, half-mast, glassy eyes that looked lifeless to others, but to me, they hold so much more.

  When Easton slipped that diamond ring over my finger today, I thought of him ripping it off with a look of disgust.

  All I can think about is how terribly fucked I am because all I can think about is Rook Van Doren.

  I should be thinking of a plan of escape, a way to get myself out of this arranged marriage, one I hadn’t been privy to. One I didn’t get a say in, because I can’t let them do this to Rose.

  The only favor Easton or his family are willing to do for me is keeping it quiet until after graduation. The agreement is in place, but we’ll wait to announce it, buying me a bit more time.

  My fingers had itched to touch Rook’s hair two nights ago, curling my nails into the luscious brown locks and tugging a little, just to see if he liked it.

  I shouldn’t be thinking of him, not like this, not when I know I can’t give him a future. Hell, I won’t be able to give him anything with this rock on my finger.

  Thinking of him will only lead to bad things, I know that, but thinking is all I have.

  Imagining is all I can get.

  In real life, I have to continue ignoring him. Which is easy considering he doesn’t have my phone number, but at school, God, it’s hard to avoid him. When I feel their presence in the hall, I shove myself into the nearest classroom, sprint in the opposite direction, hide behind doors.

  I don’t want him to see me because I don’t want to tell him the truth.

  Shouts of joy ricochet outside the closed door of our home theatre room, and my head falls into the black leather reclining seats, hoping if I press hard enough, I will disappear inside of it.

  The last thing I want to be doing tonight is host a Halloween party. Luckily for me, Lizzie and Mary are making up for my absence. I hadn’t even wanted to throw this thing, but when my friends heard my parents would be out of town with Easton and his father, they begged to use my house.

  I stayed long enough to pose for pictures so they could be plastered all over Facebook and Instagram, but I quickly disappeared into this room in the back of the house. It’s mostly quiet, and I know no one will come looking for me in here.

  My tattered script of A Midsummer’s Night Dream is in serious need of some TLC, but I’ve flipped through these pages so much, there isn’t much I could do for them at this point.

  Happy Halloween to me.

  The lights in the room start to flicker, the sound of the switch being toyed with echoing. I squint as I look at the door, confused as to who would be coming in here.

  “You’ve been ignoring me, TG.”

  I almost scream at the sound of his voice, a part of me thinking it was a figment of my needy imagination, until my eyes see him leaning on the doorframe.

  Wasn’t sure when backwards flat bills and Thrasher t-shirts became something I was attracted to, but it’s happening. It’s less about the clothes and more about how he wears them.

  Pieces of his hair flip out from underneath the cap, arms exposed and showing off his impressive veins that probably make nurses faint.

  “What are you doing here?” I hiss, standing up abruptly to make sure no one had seen him come inside the room. I’d almost forgotten about my costume until his eyes eat me up in my costume.

  “Silas is out fucking your sister somewhere. I’ve got a few hours to kill before I meet up with Thatch and Alistair. I didn’t wanna miss your party. I’m sad I didn’t get an invitation.” He tilts his head, mocking me.

  “You can’t be in here. We can’t be seen together,” I insist, hoping he gets the hint and makes this easy.

  Leave, leave, leave, I silently beg. Leave before this gets worse.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” I can’t help but watch the way his match rolls across his dark red lips.

  “You know why, Rook. Listen.” I take the headdress off my head. “The other night I was upset and got really drunk. I said some things that—”

  “Nah.” He pushes off the doorframe. “You’re not doing that.”

  “Doing what? Telling you the truth? Isn’t that what you want? I can’t be seen with you—you have no idea the damage it will do. It’ll ruin everything.”

  “You’re not going to sit there and pretend you didn’t come to me the other night, crying, broken, searching for help. Not your boyfriend, not your friend, not even your fucking sister—you came looking for me. You don’t get to pretend you didn’t promise me all your truths. There is no putting the mask back on after I’ve already seen what’s underneath it.”

  My heart is in my throat, clogging my airway with violent throbs. I know he’s right, but God, if Easton finds out—if his father finds out? All hell would break loose.

  “That doesn’t matter. I know what I did! It was a onetime thing. If anyone found out—if Easton found out—it would not end well.”

  He grins wide, like I’m daring him to test Easton. Something I’m sure he’d do in a heartbeat, just for fun. “You think I’m scared of your boat-shoe-wearing boy toy?”

  “Not the point, Rook!”

  “If it was a onetime thing, tell me why wouldn’t you let me burn the lake house down? Why’d you back out of it? Come on, TG. Tell me what you said before we left.”

  Checkmate.

  He’s got me. He knows the answer already. I’d told him, and I know he remembers. He’d looked at me like he would never forget it after I said it.

  “I-I can’t remember. I was drunk.” My lying has always been impossible to see through, but it’s like everything I knew went out the window with him.

  “No, you remember.” He walks closer to me, staring down at me, and picks up a few locks of my hair. “What was it? Something like, you couldn’t do it because it was ours now. It’s your confessional—that’s what you said right before you puked all over my shoes.”

  Embarrassment heats my cheeks. Emotions I haven’t encountered in years bubble up when I’m around him, and I hate it because he knows it.

  “You rehearse lines in the dark at parties. You’re not the dull, rich girl everyone thinks you are. I’ve already seen what’s underneath, Sage.”

  And you’re the guy who believes he is evil. That he doesn’t deserve happiness, I think to myself but don’t say it out loud. He may not have said it out loud, but I see it on his face.

  Frustrated and annoyed, I run a hand through my hair. “Just, shut the damn door at least,” I mumble, stepping to the side and closing the theatre room do
or, encasing us with dim lighting.

  He makes himself at home, dropping down with a thud as he takes my original seat and picks up my script, thumbing through it.

  “So what are you supposed to be dressed up as? Hugh Hefner’s wife?”

  I look down at my outfit. The skintight black leather dress paired with the matching fishnets definitely gives off Playboy Bunny vibes, but the cross around my neck plus the headdress I’d taken off made it pretty obvious.

  “I’m a nun. Liz is a demon, and Mary is an angel.”

  “No priest to keep you in order?” He quirks an eyebrow, smirking as he looks away from the pages.

  “That was Easton’s gig, but he’s out of town with his father.” I walk in front of him, then take the adjacent seat, making sure there is plenty of space between us.

  “Why am I not surprised that he was playing the self-righteous?”

  I snort, trying not to laugh but agreeing without saying the words outright.

  “Let me guess, you’re dressed as an asshole?” I ask, matching his raised eyebrow with one of my own. I take a second to look his outfit up and down.

  Wickedly, he rolls his tongue across his upper teeth, lifting his pointer fingers to his head and wiggling them. “Born with horns, TG, born with horns.”

  I try not to stare too hard as he pulls the match from his mouth, grabbing the rolled blunt from behind his ear. Like magic, he lights the red end of the match with his fingers, something I’m sure he’d practiced for years in his bedroom before he got it right.

  Smoke rolls from the tip as he inhales, chest expanding as he fills his lungs, the orange glow burning bright.

  The smell of the weed permeates my senses, bold and strong. I’d always been told it smells bad, but it’s the opposite. It smells floral and full of citrus, making my nose tingle and my mouth water for a food that doesn’t exist.

  Thick clouds of smoke fall from his lips as he releases it, the white smog filtering up to the top of the room.

  “You ever smoked before? Or do you just limit yourself to strawberry vodka?” His voice is huskier, edgier, but it feels smooth against my skin.

  “Never tried it, but I’m not opposed to it. Just never had the opportunity.”

  With slow movements, he looks over at me, the blunt resting in his mouth as he crooks a finger at me. “Come here.”

  This is my ultimate transgression. The snake luring Eve into the Garden of Eden for a taste of the forbidden fruit. I just can’t tell if Rook is the snake or the fruit—maybe both.

  There’s a reason I was avoiding him. I knew it would be bad if we were around each other again. I’d let my guard down, all my walls, and now I have no defenses against him or his hazy eyes that seem to lure me in.

  I knew that being around him would make me feel good, just like it had at the lake house. That I wouldn’t want to be the Sage everyone else sees. I’d just want to be me.

  I blame my hormones, my curiosity, and whatever deity had blessed Rook Van Doren with the face of an angel and the body of a god.

  The leather whines as I scoot closer, our knees knocking together. Assuming this was close enough was a mistake. As soon as I’m within reach, he curls one arm behind my back, swinging me up and onto his lap.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I press my palms into his chest so I can remove myself from his body, but his arm stays locked around my waist, pressing down so my ass is digging into his lap.

  “Sit,” he orders. “When I blow, you open those pretty lips, okay, doll?”

  The grip loosens, and my hips relax. His hand draws a path up my body, fingertips scratching against my fishnets, raking up my side, ghosting over me. I keep my eyes locked on his while he presses his hand through my hair to grab the back of my neck.

  He takes a drag, holding the smoke inside of his chest and using his leverage to pull me closer to his face. I move gradually, a tiny grain of sand suspended in the hourglass.

  I catch a glimpse of a scar on his upper lip, my tongue licking the same place on my own mouth.

  His lips pucker, a stream of vapor passing them. My body acts of its own accord, opening like he told me to. We float above each other, so close that I can almost picture how his kiss would be. I’m so aware of how warm he is, how broad he feels beneath my hips.

  All the while, we watch each other move.

  Every shift, every shudder, we breathe each other in.

  Smoke starts to fill my mouth up, and my lungs sting at the intrusion as I inhale until he’s finished. I hold it inside until I can’t any longer, then release a cloud that wraps around his face like fog.

  There’s an intense urge to pull away and cough, but Rook’s lips are so close, his hand holding me steady like he knows I’ll try to move from him. A beat passes before he lifts the brown stick back to his lips with lazy movements.

  This is called shot-gunning. I’d watched it in movies and seen it once at a party, but I never knew it could feel this good.

  How an act so simple, something depicted as trashy, could be charged with so much tension.

  We sit there continuing the process, over and over again.

  And I can’t remember a single time I’d felt this unbothered. All I’m focused on is how he feels, how he smells, the way he looks. I’m enveloped in Rook’s little world, and I don’t want to leave.

  My entire life had been spent around fabricated relationships that barely scratched the outer level of who I am. I was existing in a superficial world, like Barbie trapped in her plastic box.

  Until this. Until him.

  Ten years down the road, I’d still never be able to find the words for it.

  Despite what everyone said, what they will continue to say, despite the anarchy he raises, Rook Van Doren is what truly living feels like. This substantial, nebulous force that could never be watered down or put out.

  “The fire which never goes out,” I whisper out loud, without thinking fully.

  My head feels light, buzzing on a different wavelength than normal. Everything feels more intense—the music from the party thudding in my ears, the way Rook’s thighs shift beneath me, the smell of the weed.

  He sets the half-smoked blunt right side up in the cup holder, the cherry still burning bright.

  “Are you going to be the person who gets philosophical when they’re high?” His mouth tilts up in the corner, giving me a sharp grin.

  “No, no.” I shake my head, my hair falling in front of me. “Homer, he wrote in The Iliad about the natural gases that sprout from the cracks of limestone in the mountains near Olympus. He called them ‘the fire which never goes out.’ I think that’s you.”

  I recline from him, letting my head hang back, my hands still resting on his chest as I roll my body, experiencing something that feels out of my control. I’m flying, soaring above the clouds.

  My skin feels like Pop Rocks, humming. A pressure settles on my hips, and my eyes drop to Rook’s hands that strain against me, holding me dangerously still. This spot has me feeling how much this position affects him.

  Throbbing spreads to my core as I felt the heat from his erection pressed into me. Butterflies flutter in my center, my heartbeat falling straight down from my chest.

  Intensity builds inside of me, and my lust begins to chase more pleasure, my hips moving despite his death hold on me, rocking forward, then back.

  Once, twice.

  “Sage,” he grits out between clenched teeth, “either stop moving or get fucked.”

  In any other normal situation, I would have stopped. I would have snapped back to reality and told myself this was only going to make things terribly worse.

  But it’s not normal.

  It’s him.

  So I grind into him once more. I trace the outline of his lips with the tip of my tongue. Just the little taste of him already has my blood pumping.

  “I really want to kiss you right now,” I mumble, my tone veiled and deep. Without my mind’s consent, my hands clutch his Thrasher t
ee between my nimble fingers.

  “Then kiss me.”

  Grappling with the last pieces of my resolve, I reply, “We aren’t right for each other. This is going to end tragically. We don’t end up together in the end.”

  I shiver when his rough palms rub up and down my thighs, his pointer finger desperately close to heading up my dress. I hadn’t even noticed how much the leather had ridden up my body, my ass practically hanging out.

  “I can show you just how right we can feel together.”

  “We can’t tell—oh!” I fall into a gasp as he discovers how exposed I really am. I hadn’t wanted panty lines in this dress, so I’d skipped them tonight. Now, I can feel his thumb rubbing up and down, smearing my wetness.

  My nails dig into his shirt. “We can’t tell anyone,” I finish, trying to lift my hips towards his touch.

  “Then it’ll be our dirty little secret,” he breathes against me as his teeth grab at my bottom lip.

  I’m giving up, giving in. I can feel my body heating with need, wanting more than his skilled fingers. My throat constricts as his thumb presses into my sensitive bud, lazy circles that make my toes girl.

  I press my hands up past his shoulders, holding his neck. “Can you do that, Rook? Can you keep your mouth shut and be my dirty little secret?”

  Forcefully, he grabs the back of my head, molding our lips together, sealing this deal for however long it may last. The feeling of his velvet tongue tangling with mine makes me moan. Everything feels hot, like I’m attached to a heater. I scramble to move my mouth at the same pace, matching his hunger.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  You are going to hurt yourself, hurt him. You know there is no light at the end of this tunnel. No way out from underneath your parents’ thumb without them taking Rose.

  Except I’m selfish.

  I’m so fucking selfish to give in to this, but everything just feels so…

  Right.

  He forcefully pulls my lips off his, staring at me with a heated glare. His pink lips glisten, making me want more.

  “You okay with this?”

  And it’s this—this exact reason—why I can’t keep my heart safe from him. The reason I’m not able to separate it from this situation. Sure, I could make this only about sex, but not when he asks me things like that.