Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89074 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
My chest aches for him.
Weston really has always wanted that.
Since we were kids, he’s talked about how he will run the Knox Corporation differently. How he’ll put millions and millions of company funds into research, rather than just lining his own pockets.
“You can get your grades up. Promise,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “Hunter’s always been better than me. He barely studies, and he still gets an A on every exam. His college in London wasn’t as cutthroat, and Dad didn’t compare us as directly. Now… now he’s just going to make it a sick game.”
Hunter walks in a moment later, wearing his cape.
He looks untouchable.
Stunningly handsome, cold, and like some sort of goddamn ethereal being rather than a human like the rest of us.
As he walks by, he glances down at me, looking me over, and it hurts how badly I want him.
I’ve been trying so hard to hold back. To stay away from him.
To treat him how I know he wants to be treated.
But every time I’m near him I want to fucking pounce. And since the night at the fair, it’s been growing inside me each night, like a balloon that’s threatening to pop.
I need him in bed tonight.
Like a habit I badly need to quit.
“We begin,” Noah says finally, walking over to the edge of the room by the fireplace, looking out at all of us. “Say it with me, brothers. Nocte onychina nigra, cor meum adhuc igne coccineo ardet. Honestas ante omnia.”
As we repeat it in English, I look over at Hunter, then back at Weston, feeling like I’m being tugged between two worlds.
“On an onyx black night, my heart still burns a crimson flame. Honesty before everything.”
“Tonight, we have our Confessional,” Noah continues, the flames of all the candles lighting up his face. “For our new members, I think it will be an illuminating experience. We will pass around this box to each member, and you will randomly reach in, grab a secret, and read it out loud. As if it were your own soul, baring your own truth.”
That’s another thing I like about the confessional.
Writing down my own secrets felt vulnerable.
But reading other people’s secrets, as if they were my own… it feels like sharing a burden. Sharing something deep and dark, with the people I’m closest to.
“I’ll begin,” Noah says.
He reaches into the black box, feels around, and pulls out a piece of paper. “I want my professor, Elizabeth Mayfield, more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman. I can’t stop thinking about her. And the sick truth is that I want to break college rules and fuck her senseless.”
No one ever comments after each secret is read.
We’re silent as we pass the box from one person to another, and each secret is accepted, just like the others.
No judgement.
Nothing but honesty.
A sophomore named Andy reads the next secret. “There is a freshman member of Onyx who gave me the best night of my life. He is shy, but that all changes in bed, and I quietly say his name now, each time I come.”
Interesting. So Oliver’s a good fuck, and someone in here has had a taste.
I let the thought slip through my mind, knowing that I should stay unbiased.
The box passes to Hunter next, and as he reads it out loud, I watch the way his lips move, wishing they were on my skin instead.
“I cheated on my final exams last year, and I’m afraid that I’ll have to do it again this year. I know I’m fucked. I don’t know what else to do.”
I idly wonder if that secret may have been written by Weston.
But that’s the thing about the Confessional.
I’ll never truly know.
Hunter passes the box along.
A dozen more secrets are read out loud. Some of them are sweet. Apparently someone in Onyx can’t sleep without hugging a little teddy bear at night, another cries every time he hears a song that reminds him of his mother, and another has deep impostor syndrome.
Some are darker.
One person says that he secretly fucks girls from different sororities, but can’t ever develop feelings for any of them.
Another says that he has a secret love of touching himself outdoors, but he never wants to freak anyone out with it. Deep down, he just wants to find someone to go camping with and fuck wildly on a blanket in the grass.
And then there’s a second secret that sounds like it’s about Ollie.
This time, it’s someone who describes catching a “awkward but adorable freshman” in the act of giving a Luros girl oral sex while being fucked by a Double Daggers guy at the same time.
The secret that Roman reads catches me by surprise, though.
“I know that my best friend falls for men who aren’t good enough for him, and it kills me to see him self-sabotage.”