All the Little Truths: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers High School Romance (English Prep Book 3)

by S. J. Sylvis

I nodded, although he couldn’t see me.

  “Count the beats in your head, okay? Try to get yours to beat with mine. You’ve gotta calm down, Maddie.”

  My chest was lifting fast, but I concentrated on the beat of his heart. Thump, thump, thump, thump.

  I held my breath when I heard my mom pleading with my father. “Madeline isn’t home. I’ve already told you that.”

  Eric’s hands cupped my waist, keeping me steady as my hand still rested on his chest. “That’s it. Just focus on the beats.”

  I nodded again, slowly relaxing my shoulders and breathing. I felt myself falling into him, collapsing into his shoulder. My forehead landed on the hard plane, my middle pressing down on him as my body grew heavy.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  “That’s it,” he coaxed as one of his hands came and rested behind my head. “You’re safe with me.”

  I’m safe with him. Am I?

  My father’s voice boomed as I heard a door crashing into something. I shot straight up, my head swiveling to the light pouring underneath my closet door.

  A barely noticeable whimper crawled out of my throat.

  “Madeline!” My father’s voice felt like needles being pricked into my skin, over and over again. I was always afraid of shots when I was little, my mom having to hold me down at the doctor’s office. But now I’d take a million of them over hearing the rage in his voice. “Where is she? Do you even know where she is? Her car is parked outside.”

  Oh my god. He’s going to come looking for me.

  Eric cupped my face and brought my forehead down to his. His whisper eclipsed my fear for a moment. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “Madeline is out with friends. They picked her up as I was leaving. It’s just you and me here.” She’s covering for me. Does she know I’m in here? “Please just calm down. Let’s just go downstairs and talk this through like adults. I don’t understand why you’re so angry. It’s not like you aren’t having affairs when you’re gone.”

  I was coiled tightly; every last muscle in my body was locked. It felt like there was an anvil tied to my ankles, dragging me under.

  “You’ve known that for years! You knew that when you married me. But I never said it was okay for you to fuck other men. Maybe I should just fuck them out of your system. Is that what you need?”

  “What I need is for you to calm down, please.” My mom’s request was more of a beseech. The pleading was at an all-time high. That meant she noticed the look in his eye. That scary, causes-chills-down-your-spine look.

  “I’ll calm down when you say it.”

  I gulped, pushing myself even further onto Eric, as if he was going to make everything disappear.

  “Say what? Can we please go downstairs and talk? Or at least get out of our daughter’s bedroom.”

  “Maybe I’ll just fuck you in here.”

  Eric’s hands clamped down on my thighs, as if he couldn’t believe what my father had just said.

  “Tom. Stop—” Slap.

  I smashed my lips together, suddenly feeling very, very pissed. What was wrong with him?

  “Say it. Say it now.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “That you’re mine. You’re mine even when Madeline turns eighteen. That you know I’ll still ruin you, even if I can’t take custody. I’ll turn her against you so fucking fast you won’t know what to do.”

  Wait. What?

  Shock replaced the anger and fear I’d been feeling. It had me slowly rising from Eric’s shoulder. My hands somehow found their way to his as they sat splayed on my thighs. I sat back on my heels, still straddling his lap. I had absolutely no idea what my father was talking about, and I was too shocked to make any sense of it.

  “I’m yours, Tom. You know I’ll never leave you. I’m sorry I was out with another man. I just miss you.”

  I knew what my mother’s submission meant. It meant that their fight was almost over. It meant that she was backing down and letting him get his way, as usual, but had she been staying with him this entire time because of me?

  A choking sob was knocking at the back of my throat.

  “Good girl,” my father purred, and just like that, my bedroom light was shut off, turning the closet into an abyss of endless black again.

  And here I thought my mom was one of the most selfish people on this earth.

  But I was wrong. So very wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Eric

  The closet that Madeline had stuffed me inside was dark and stuffy, filled with a soft scent that shouldn’t belong to a girl like her. Everything suddenly made sense. The way that she was willfully closed off and fearful if anyone got too close to her. My chest was cracking as she trembled on my lap. It surprised me how badly I wanted to wrap my arms around her and take her out of this stupid fucking closet and put her in the crook of my arm for the rest of eternity.

  There was too much that was wrong with this entire situation.

  The anger directed toward her father was lying nice and still underneath the pain I felt for her. She was cut open, yet I was the one bleeding.

  The yells from earlier were gone now. We’d been cooped up in this small space for so long everything felt stagnant. Madeline hadn’t moved even an inch since her parents left her room. Not even a small twitch of her leg.

  “So, this is why?” My hands were resting on her thighs, my back hard against the wall behind me. “This is why you’ve never let anyone get close to you? Why there has never been a single friend at your house. Why there has never been a guy here. Not even Christian.”

  The admittance I was giving to her, the one that confessed how closely I’d watched her over the years, meant that I was calling a truce. I was done with my little charade of hating her. There were much bigger things at play than me blaming her for my parents’ rocky marriage. Fuck. Madeline said she was selfish, but she was the furthest thing from selfish.

  “You noticed that?” Her voice cracked in spots that had me recoiling.

  “Yes.” I paused. My hands were unmoving on her legs. I wished I could see her face, her expression. Was she still on the verge of breaking? Was she still afraid? “I know you much better than you think.”

  The parting of her mouth sounded out around us in the small space. You could hear every last breath the two of us took. “I painted you out to be the villain, Madeline.” I chuckled softly, my fingers clamping down on her thighs to garner her full attention. “You’re not a villain at all.”

  She was quick to rebut. “Yes, I am. I have done a lot of bad shit over the years. I’m vindictive and selfish.”

  “You’re the least selfish person I know. You gave up real friendships to protect your mom. How is that selfish?”

  She sighed, her warm breath mingling with mine. “Doesn’t explain why I was a bitch to everyone.” She paused for a second before whispering to herself, like she was coming to the realization for the first time. “Maybe Hayley was right. Maybe I was a bitch because someone made me feel inferior. I acted that way, tormented people, made them fear me instead of love me, because I wanted to feel superior. I wanted that power to hurt them first.” Her light laugh was sarcastic. “I’m no better than my father.”

  “No.” Now my fingers were digging into her skin. “That’s not true.”

  How could I make her see herself the way that I did? She wasn’t selfish; she was afraid. She didn’t want anyone to come close to her because she was protecting herself and her mother without even realizing it.

  Madeline pressed herself into me hard, and my dick basically convulsed underneath her warmth, but I was quick to ignore it. Her hands clenched onto my wrists as she lifted them off her legs. “Do I need to remind you of all the mean things I did? Do I need to remind you that I knew our parents were fucking for years? Do I need to remind you that everyone at school fucking hates me?”

  I flung her hands off my wrists harshly and pressed her closer to me with a force that awakened somet
hing buried inside my chest. “Stop trying to make me hate you.” The words gritted through my teeth like sandpaper across my tongue. “Not now.”

  “You need to hate me,” she gritted back, her hair surrounding us both, tickling the skin on my arms. Her breath was warm as it lingered in front of me like a juicy steak in front of a starving dog. My heart thumped; my blood pulsed all around me. My hands gripped her body like she was the only thing holding me to the ground.

  “You want me to hate you? You want me to leave you in here all alone after everything you just told me?” I gripped her hips, and her breath caught. “That’s too fucking bad. I will not let you push me away again.”

  Hot, heavy seconds passed between us. The closet was eerily silent except for our breathing as we both let the sentiment linger in the air. I finally heard her take an inhale of breath before she slowly started to move over me in a way that had me closing my eyes and holding back a groan. Madeline was a hot little grenade in my hands that was ready to combust. I could feel it. The electricity. The spark. The pull between us. The emotional downfall.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game right now with all these mixed rules.” My hands went to her face, my fingers getting lost in the silky stands of her hair. “One second you’re pushing me away, and the next you’re pulling me in. What do you want, Madeline? Do you want me to hate you? Or is it the opposite?”

  “Right now? I just want you.” She was breathless, barely getting the words out. Her chest pressed against mine, her tight nipples rubbing along my t-shirt. “This feels good, and I know it’s fucked up after everything we just heard between my parents, and after everything you know about me, but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this. You can go back to hating me in the morning.”

  I stifled a groan. Fuck me.

  My dick was instantly hard as she ran her hands up my chest and around my head. I gripped her harder, pressing her pussy onto my dick. “Madeline…” I warned. We shouldn’t be doing this. Her firm little body shook in my hands. and I was quickly losing a hold on all the rationality in my head. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Madeline

  This was so wrong on so many levels. Completely fucked up. I was grinding on Eric, moving my body in ways that I hadn't done in a very, very long time. and I couldn’t seem to find even a flicker of redemption inside my head.

  My emotions were running rampant. Fear, anger, embarrassment, anger again, and now desperation. Being shut away with Eric in my very dark closet was like an illicit potion being forced down my throat. I was turned on, my body taking hold of every ounce of reality and making it vanish completely. I just wanted to feel good, and I was turning to sin to make that happen.

  My mother just got man-handled by my father, and in the midst of that, I’d learned she’d been staying with him for me. Guilt was creeping around the corner, lurking like a predator in the shadows on a dark and gloomy night. But I was pushing it all away so I could just have one single second of bliss before everything came crumbling down.

  Maybe this was my body’s way of protecting me from the pain I was about to feel.

  Whatever.

  I didn’t care.

  All I could focus on was Eric’s rough fingers gripping my body like he was going to devour me.

  “Have you been with anyone since...?” Eric’s mouth grazed over mine in a hesitant way, and I felt like I was dying a slow, painful death. My entire body was strung tight. I ached.

  “Yes.”

  He groaned, and his teeth sunk into my lip. My core flamed. “Who?” he asked as he let go. His hands were roaming my body, one finger skimming down my spine, making me shudder.

  “None of your business.” I was panting as Eric’s nose rubbed along my cheek. He growled as his teeth scraped me. Oh my God. “I was desperate. I wanted to replace the bad with the good. So I used someone in haste. I’d hoped it would stop the nightmares.”

  He pulled back, and not only did I hate the dark for other reasons, but I also hated it because I couldn’t see him. I pictured his gray eyes, all hooded with ecstasy and lust. “And it didn’t work,” he stated.

  I moaned when his hips pushed upward, momentarily pausing the ache in between my legs. “No.”

  His hands stopped moving over my body, and I heard him take a rough swallow. “Maybe we shouldn’t…”

  My palms found his shoulders, and I pushed down onto him again and whispered, “Please don’t make me feel any more damaged than I already am.”

  He rubbed his hardness over my middle, as if he was unable to stop. “Madeline, I’m trying to be a good guy right now. I’ll make you feel good, if that’s what you want. But not if you’re going to regret it later.”

  “I’m sure we will both regret it later, but don’t make me beg, Eric.” My stomach dipped when I felt his warm breath linger over my mouth.

  “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

  I didn’t have a chance to tell him okay, because seconds later his mouth covered mine so roughly I lost my breath. His hands were on my hips, moving me back and forth over his hardness as his tongue assaulted my mouth. I moaned, the friction from below making me act downright desperate. He bit my lip hard, bringing me back down from my high before whispering, “If you’re not quiet, I can’t do what you need.”

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  “The last thing we need is your father to come looking.”

  I clenched my thighs around him. Jesus. What was wrong with me? That thought should have scared me to death. I should have climbed off Eric’s lap at the mere thought of my father being near, but it did the opposite. For some reason, the thought of getting caught made me burn even hotter—which was so fucked up.

  He was right. I was playing a dangerous game. Eric made me feel invincible. And he was causing my body to react in ways that I’d never ever be able to replicate. I was begging for him to touch me, for him to make the ache disappear, and that was a welcome thought because I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel like that again.

  Eric’s hand left my waist, and the disappointment was like getting hit by a truck, but when his fingers skimmed the skin above my hip, the disappointment evaporated. I lost focus. I felt dizzy. His lips were back on mine, and they were so soft and plump that I had a hard time not sinking my teeth into them. He was driving me wild.

  When his hand crept underneath my bra and the pad of his thumb brushed over my nipple, my eyes shot open. “Eric.” My whisper turned into a breathy moan.

  “Shh,” he hushed. “Just enjoy the ride. I know what you need. Let me give it to you.”

  I ground my hips over him, needing to feel that rough sensation. I threw my head back and gasped as he pinched my nipple. Warmth washed over me, and my toes began to tingle.

  “Please,” I begged, not caring how desperate I sounded. I’d get on my hands and knees if I had to. “Mmhm.” His teeth grazed my ear, and goosebumps covered my body. His other hand, the one moving me back and forth over his jeans, went into the front of my leggings and underneath my lacy underwear.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  I lifted my body up, needing his fingers to do their magic. His thumb flicked over my clit, and I pushed my hips forward. “This…this is good.”

  “I know, baby. Fuck my hand, Madeline. Make yourself feel good. You said you were selfish. Show me how much.”

  Death by Eric’s dirty mouth sounded like a great way to go. I sunk down when his finger entered me and pressed my forehead to his. “Oh my God,” I croaked, moving my hips back and forth. “Eric.”

  “Shh. That’s it, baby. Find that spot.”

  He needed to stop. He had to stop talking like that. I was on the urge of professing my love to him. I was high. Eric was a drug. His fingers, his mouth, his voice. His heart. All of it.

  “It feels too…” My hips were moving; his fingers were pumping in and out, his thumb brushing over my sensitive clit.

  “Good. It’s to
o fucking good.”

  Eric's mouth was on mine, and it only made things that much hotter. I felt the tightening down below and the spark of warmth start on my scalp.

  “Come for me, Maddie.”

  My hips moved faster, chasing a high that I was absolutely and irrevocably in love with. My entire body went into shock as I came. Eric’s lips sealed my mouth shut, drowning out any possible noise that wanted to come out.

  A heavy breath left me as I collapsed on him, my entire mind and body sated.

  I wasn’t sure how long it took, but eventually, my chest stopped heaving, and my eyes grew heavy. Eric pulled his finger out of me slowly, and I whimpered as the sensation rippled through me. Suddenly, I wanted more. I wanted more before it was morning and we went back to our fucked-up version of us. I started to move, but he stopped me. “No more tonight; you need to sleep.”

  I could barely form words. “Nuh-uh.”

  His lips brushed my forehead in a sweet way, and a tiny piece of my damaged heart mended. “You’ve been through hell emotionally, Maddie. Go to sleep. I’ll stay with you until daylight, and then I’ll sneak out. Just sleep, okay? I’ll chase away the nightmares.”

  Somehow, Eric had maneuvered my body without me even knowing it, and I was curled up on top of him with our legs intertwined. It was a small space, but I didn’t care because that meant I was closer to him. His arms were wrapped around me, and it felt so good.

  I knew in the morning things would be ugly, but right now, they were beautiful. I felt beautiful and worshiped. Whole.

  So I did exactly what he said. I went to sleep and pretended like everything was fine.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Eric

  Kissing Madeline was like having one hand in hell and the other in heaven. Her lips were as sweet as an angel’s, but her tongue was as seductive as Eden’s. At some point through the night, I’d carried her over to her bed and laid her down. Her hair was a wild mess, the strands tangled from my hands. Her clothes were disheveled, her bra halfway off underneath her shirt, but fuck, she was still somehow tattooing her name in thick black ink on my heart.