Page 47 of The Truths We Burn

However, I can’t deny how fun it is sneaking around. The stolen touches and heated glances. Everything is always so charged when we’re around each other, even if we’re an entire classroom apart.

“Baby, come dance with me,” Easton coos, grabbing my waist. “You’re going to have to work on those two left feet before our first dance anyway.”

My eyebrows make a V as I shove my phone into my back pocket, looking around to make sure no one was close enough to hear him. I glare towards him, my eyes watching the way his pupils expand by the second.

“Will you keep it down? You told me you would wait to say anything, Easton.”

He encircles my body, pulling me into his heavily cologned scent. I hadn’t minded it before until I became fond of natural musk, of smoke and sweat.

“It doesn’t even matter, Sage. There’s two months until graduation. They’ll be finding out soon anyways.”

My stomach rolls, vomit begging to release from my throat.

My deadline is approaching faster than I can comprehend. I want more days with Rook, but at the same time, I wish everything would freeze just how it is. My selfishness is about to come to light.

My choice to lie to his face is not going to be taken lightly.

I’m terrified of what his face will look like. How it’ll twist and contort with anger, with more hatred than any person has the right to have. There will be no explaining, no talking to him. He will throw me to the wolves.

The thought alone takes the breath out of my lungs.

I don’t want to give him another reason to hate the world and the people in it.

“Don’t wanna argue, babe. Come dance,” he mutters in my ear, pressing his lips to my neck, making me recoil from him.

“I’m not in the mood. I’m just going to go sit down.” My hands press into his chest, putting space between us even though his hands refuse to move from around my waist.

This all feels wrong.

He feels wrong.

Those baby blues everyone always compliments are so dark in this light, you’d think he was a different person. He stares down at me looking just like his father, acting like him too.

“You want me to keep my mouth shut about the engagement? Then you’re going to dance with me.”

He has the upper hand against me now. He’ll always have the upper hand. This is only a peek at what our future would look like. Every single time I refuse to do something he wants, he would use his power against me.

Easton had finally moved into a place of power, somewhere I can’t reach him.

I let him pull me to the dance floor, and he pushes through people, pulling me into the pit. Once he finds the space he likes, he tugs me into his chest, my back plastered into his front.

Some house music playlist guides our bodies, mostly his, and I allow the movements of his hips to lull mine. I put in the least amount of work I can without pissing him off. I’m not sure if it’s the fog or if I really just feel like crying, but my eyes burn watching all the other couples barely able to keep their hands off each other.

“You will submit to me, Sage,” he whispers above the music, “I will break you until you’re the perfect domesticated wife who stands by me and follows my every step. Do you understand? You will submit.”

I try to block out his voice, inhaling through my nose and releasing it out of my mouth. I ignore him completely and force myself to go to a different place.

This would be my life, closing my eyes and remembering all the memories of Rook because that would be all I would have. Memories. I just hope these months I’ve spent with him would last me a lifetime of misery.

A song rings with familiarity in my ears.

My body runs cold with chills. A breath falls from my lips as I remember the last time I’d heard it.

It was something Rook had played over the speakers in the house while I was spread on the kitchen island, his hand buried between my naked thighs. Your mind can be a dangerous thing sometimes, and mine is no different.

The vision feels so real, I can feel him, his entire body practically absorbing my own.

When my eyes open as the beat drops, heavy and striking between my legs, I see a man a few feet away watching me.

---