The Truths we Burn (The Hollow Boys Book 2)

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.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

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 door, 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 tee 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.

How is it that Rook has been the only man to ask me that question? To know by my body how badly I want him but still wants to hear the words.

How he is the villain to everyone else, but not a single man depicted as a hero had asked for permission? Only taking, taking, taking, until there was nothing left of the old Sage.

Rook didn’t realize it, but he is giving those pieces back to me one snarky comment at a time.

“Yes, God, yes,” I whisper without hesitation.

“I always knew there was a darker side to you, Sage, but not wearing panties?” he breathes onto my lips. “Who knew you were such a slut.”

All feminism has apparently left my body, because the way he grunts that crude name makes my thighs shudder with anticipation.

Sexual repression was something I had lived with for so long, but this?

It feels like more of a sexual awakening.

My legs open wider for him to get a better view of just how wet I am.

“I didn’t want lines in my dress,” I offer.

“Mmmhhh,” he hums as he leaves kisses along the valley of my breasts, his tongue sweeping down below the leather fabric—a warning before I feel the sharp bite through the material as he takes one of my pearled nipples into his mouth. “Admit it. You wanted someone to find you in here. All lonely, with nothing covering that pink cunt. You wanted someone to see just how exposed you were. You like it, don’t you?”

The room begins to spin, all my senses completely tethered to him. His hands grope at my ass, using it as leverage to rock his covered length into my center. The delicious friction builds as butterflies swarm my stomach.

God, it’s never felt this good.

Craving more, thirsty for more than foreplay, I drop my hands to his lap. My nimble fingers work on his button and zipper. I ghost past the shadows in his jeans, feeling him, knowing he wants this just as bad as I do, but he’s refusing to help me pull his jeans off, or at least down enough so he is exposed.

“Rook, some help?” I groan, hating how gutted I sound, how needy.

“I’m not doing shit until you tell me what I want to hear.” His mouth continues to assault my neck and chest, the cool air making goosebumps race across my body as it hits the warm places on my throat where his wet tongue had been.

“You want me to tell you—”

“Confess,” he butts in, grabbing a fistful of my hair. “I want you to tell me the truth. You wanted me to find you like this, didn’t you? That you like being my dirty, fucking secret, my dirty slut. Confess all your sins to your very own devil.”

That word again, rubbing me in all the places I never knew I needed. Being degraded, pushed beneath his metaphorical hold on me, while also chasing his approval, wanting to tell him to make him want me just as terribly as I want him.

It’s all so fucked. So hazy.

I would have said anything to have him inside me.

My breath shakes as I look up from his waist, diving into his hellfire eyes that spark and sizzle in the dim light. Such a unique version of hazel that you have to wonder if his mother really did conceive him with something otherworldly.

“I wanna be your slut, Rook,” I whisper, pressing my mouth into his for a kiss that feels like falling. My heart races inside my rib cage, thudding over and over again. “I like it.”

The sound of fabric ripping filters into the room, and I gasp as I look down at my torn tights, a slit in the center of the already holey material.

“My cock isn’t fitting inside those fishnet holes.” He grunts, raising his hips to shove his tight jeans down his waist enough to release himself.

I widen my eyes, looking down as his cock rests against his stomach. My shock doesn’t come from his obvious size or the veins that climb the shaft but the four shiny metal beads that surround the head: two barbells pierced through the tip, one running vertically and the other horizontally.

“Does that hurt?” I ask, looking up at him briefly.

I’ve only had sex with one other person, and he was certainly not pierced.

“Not for you.” He winks, smirking.

I palm his length, pumping up and down slowly, just thinking of all the ways this is going to feel.

“Tell me you’re clean.” I irresponsibly want him to say yes so that I can inform him I’m on the pill. I’ve never gone raw before, but I want to feel him.

All of him.

“Wouldn’t have my dick this close to your raw pussy if I wasn’t, Sage.”

It’s all I need to hear, my body tired of waiting.

I raise my hips, directing his cock to my entrance.

Lowering myself onto him gradually, I feel every single inch enter me at my own pace. I whimper as I feel him stretch me open, forcing his way into my dripping walls. I can’t help but look down, watching the process. Watching how fucking good we look coming together.

It’s almost an unbearable amount of pleasure that rides through me when I’m fully sitting on his lap. His entire length partially impales me, so deep, I can feel him in my stomach.

Sex has always been a means to an end. An action where I shut my mind off, waiting for it to be finished.

I never want this to stop. This is more than sex for me.

The sound of him groaning turns my attention back to him. I desperately want a camera for this so I could capture this moment and use it years later when I’m long forgotten from his memory. It’s better than porn.

His head and arms are thrown back over the cushion of the seat, all the veins in his tan throat bulging as he flexes his jaw, grunting out, “Goddamn.”

I’m a live wire of sensations in this ethereal moment that I can’t fathom happening with anyone else. Eager to please him and craving release, I start to lift my hips up and down.

That’s when I feel the full effects of his piercing.

It rubs every inch of me on the inside, tickling that sensitive spot along with every other spot. It’s touching everywhere all at once, so many places, it’s overwhelming. I feel myself drowning his length in my juices. My limbs feel light and heavy at the same time as I roll my hips against him.

With practiced ease, he plucks the blunt up, positioning it between his fingers and enjoying another drag while I ride him. A groan rumbles in his chest, letting me know what I’m doing is working for him just as much as it is me.

“Little whore looks so good ridin’ my cock,” he mumbles, full of rasp, low eyes watching me through the smoke.

My mind is horrified at my body’s betrayal. The new word of humiliation crashes over me like lava.

Some steady R&B plays outside, my body moving to its rhythm. The beat thumps inside my stomach as I shift up, then back down his dick, taking every painfully delish inch all over again.

Flipping the blunt between his fingers, he holds it to my lips, letting me take a hit for myself. It’s all slow motion as I inhale, letting the smoke glorify this moment even more.

Keeping it in my chest, I lean into him, pressing my mouth onto his. Kissing each other as the smoke passes through our bodies, we share more than just vapor, more than just sex.

We are breathing each other.

We finish the blunt until it’s out, tossed onto the floor. My pussy is soaked, thoroughly stretched and perfected for his cock.

Even though his movements feel hazy, my pace isn’t enough for him anymore. He let me play, but now it’s his turn. He encircles my waist, forcing me down his shaft. Our bodies scoot to the edge of the seat so that he can piston his hips into my tight hole.

With vicious rage, he rips the front of my dress down, exposing my breasts. He doesn’t give me a moment to settle because soon my nipple is between his teeth, his soft tongue spinning circles around the pebbled bead.

“Rook, oh my God,” I pant, sweat already sticking to my forehead.

We move together in sync, rocking our bodies into one another. I feel every single thrust, letting our bodies slam together over and over again. My head lolls back while my fingers bury themselves into his shoulder blades.

“Harder,” he growls, my grip pushing him to hammer into me at a much faster speed.

White, blinding heat sears my mind, so far gone that all I can do is follow his direction. I bore my nails into his skin, knowing soon I’ll bring blood—I have to be.

“I’m going to come. Make me come, please,” I cry wildly, suddenly not caring if anyone walks in or hears us.

“Beg for it. Beg me for it, whore.”

I nod eagerly. “Please, please, Rook. God, please.”

His hand grabs for my throat, squeezing. “God doesn’t exist here. Just me.”

I’m aching all over. Liquid fire has been poured directly into my bloodstream, and my entire body is an all-consuming inferno as I climb higher towards my orgasm. Stars start spinning in the corner of my vision.

I quiver, the air taken out of my lungs as ecstasy pumps in my veins. All that comes from me are shrill, broken cries as he continues to plunge, flutters and spasms racking through me. Pleasure thrums through my body, toes curling as I drift through the most intense orgasm of my life.

“Beautiful,” he utters huskily. I’m not even sure that’s what I actually heard, too numb from bliss to truly comprehend.

My limbs are Jell-O, my eyes shut tight as he races after his own release, pumping with ruthless thrusts that make my core tighten with indescribable pleasure. I’m in desperate need of a drink, but I can’t bring myself to stop.

Not when he’s watching my ass bounce against his pelvis as his cock slides into my depths so fiercely. Rook’s fingers delve between my thighs, finding my clit and immediately applying pressure.

“Wait, wait, I can’t. S-so sensitive,” I whimper, my hand shooting down to his wrist, gripping it to try and prevent him from making my entire body combust. It’s so intense that I can feel my eyes start to water.

His fingers don’t stop, and neither do his hips, “One more. Be my good little slut, baby. One more.” He moans, his thumb speeding up to match his thrusts.

That familiar build hits my core, a long whine falling from my lips. “Fuck, I can’t,” I mewl, but my body says otherwise, pussy tightening around him once again.

“You can. You can because I said so.”

And I do.

I come again, sucking him in like a vise, so snugly he can barely push back inside of me.

My cries are strangled as I sink into euphoria for the second time. Rook’s broken growl mixed with a moan rips from his lungs as he pushes into me farther, staying buried while he empties himself entirely.

I’m sluggish, the high from the orgasm still clouding my brain as I drop my head onto his shoulder, feeling his breath on my moist, flushed skin. Those long eyelashes tickle the side of my face.

I can barely feel his fingers when they start playing with my hair, twirling around the already curled strands. Each breath is full of his scent, locking me into this moment.

I so badly want to stay in this state of elation for just a bit longer, wanting to lock that door forever and stay safely inside where Ponderosa Springs and its monsters can’t reach us.

Instead, all there is is the gripping feeling of dread.

Knowing I’ll have to lie to Rook about one very, crucial detail.

We can never, be together.

And when he finds out why?

This secret we created is going to end in unmitigated catastrophe.