Page 21 of Madness & Mercy (Deadly Sins #1)

His smile sharpens, feral and hungry.

“Good boy,” he murmurs.

The cold kiss of the blade slides up my inner thigh, slicing through fabric. He tilts it just enough to bite, not deep, but enough to make me suck in a breath.

Then he presses slowly.

A razor-fine sting.

A bead of blood blooms against my skin.

His gaze never leaves mine as he leans down… and licks it clean.

Hot tongue. Sharp teeth. The heat of his breath against the cut.

I shudder.

He groans low in his throat, like he’s tasting something rare.

Like he wants more.

My breath’s a fucking mess. My heart’s about to punch its way out of my chest.

He sets the knife down beside me, and I can finally breathe again. Then he leans forward, his mouth to my ear.

“I’m going to taste every inch of you, piccolino.”

He drags a dollop of whipped cream over the inside of my thigh, then bites into a strawberry and presses it between my lips, still half-chewed.

“Eat it.”

I do. And I swear I’ve never tasted anything this filthy or this perfect.

His voice is rough now, almost reverent.

“You’re my dessert, Julian. And I’m not done with you yet.”

By the time he drops to his knees, I’m shaking.

He pushes my legs further apart and grabs a packet of lube from his pocket. Of course he came prepared. The fucker probably planned this all along.

“Keep quiet,” he murmurs. “Or I’ll have to get creative.”

Then his mouth is on me, and I nearly fall apart right there.

His tongue is obscene, working me open with the kind of precision that makes me wonder how many poor souls he’s ruined before me.

But he doesn’t stop there. One slick finger slides inside me while his mouth stays wrapped around my cock, and I can’t hold back the sound I make, something between a gasp and a curse.

He groans like it turns him on.

“Too loud,” he mutters against my skin, sounding amused. “Didn’t I tell you to behave?”

I try. I fucking try, but the next moan rips out of me anyway, and that’s when he reaches up and grabs a cloth napkin off the table. He balls it in his fist and shoves it between my lips.

“Bite down,” he growls. “Or everyone in this house is gonna hear what a filthy little slut you are for me.”

I moan against the cloth, humiliated, wrecked, and harder than I’ve ever been in my life.

Another finger joins the first, stretching me open while his tongue teases the head of my cock like he’s worshipping it.

Tears sting my eyes, and I dig my nails into the edge of the table just to keep from falling apart.

And then, just as I think I can’t take anymore, he pulls back, rising to his feet.

“You want it?” he asks.

I nod, desperate.

He tears open a condom with his teeth, rolls it on, and positions himself at my entrance. The tip of his cock brushes against me, and I almost choke.

And then, without warning, he slides in slow, deep, and possessive. Like he owns me.

He pushes in deeper, inch by agonizing inch, until I’m filled completely, so full I can’t fucking breathe. My spine arches off the table, nails clawing at the linen like I’m trying to crawl out of my own skin.

“Fuck,” I whimper against the gag, tears prickling the corners of my eyes.

Nico leans over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my hip so tight I know I’ll bruise. His breath fans against my cheek, hot and heavy.

“You feel that?” he murmurs against my throat. “How fucking tight you are for me? Your body was made to take my cock.”

I try to glare, to say something smart through the napkin stuffed in my mouth, but all I manage is a pathetic noise as he grinds his hips in deeper, harder.

He chuckles, low and merciless.

“That’s it, piccolino. Show me how wrecked you can get.”

He pulls almost all the way out, just to slam back in again. I cry out, the sound strangled and wet against the gag, my whole body jerking beneath him.

“Look at you,” he groans, watching every twitch, every tremble. “Fighting so hard to stay in control. You don’t have to, not with me. I want to see you come undone.”

My chest heaves as he rocks into me again and again, dragging every raw, filthy, guttural sound out of my throat. It’s too much. It’s not enough. He’s everywhere—his scent, his heat, the brutal way he owns every inch of me like it’s owed to him.

And maybe it is.

Maybe it always has been.

He reaches between us, his hand wrapping around my cock with maddening slowness.

“You’re dripping,” he hisses in my ear. “So desperate. Say you want it. Say it, and I’ll let you fall apart.”

I shake my head, stubborn to the end. But then he thrusts deeper, hitting a spot that has me gasping, writhing, cursing into the gag like a man possessed.

He grins against my neck.

“Say it.”

I whimper.

“Say it, Julian.”

My name on his lips feels like a curse. Like a prayer.

I spit the gag out with a groan and snarl, “I want it. I want you. Please, Nico. Please.”

His eyes darken.

And then he gives me exactly what I begged for.

He clamps a hand over my mouth and drives into me like he owns my goddamn soul.

I clutch at his arms, nails digging into muscle like he’s the only thing tethering me to this world.

I don’t care how filthy this is. I don’t care that it’s happening on a goddamn dining table. I just need him—every ruthless inch.

Then he flips me over in one cruel motion.

My cheek slams against the cool wood, my body stretched out, face down, ass up.

I barely register the gag sliding back between my lips before he’s gripping me again, hard enough to bruise.

My pulse is thundering. My body’s burning.

And his hand finds me again, stroking just slow enough to drive me out of my mind.

I buck against him before I even realize I’m moving. Like instinct. Like addiction.

And I’m not just letting this happen. I want it. I want him.

“You wanna come for me, cagniolo?” he growls.

I nod, desperate, half-feral. He pauses.

Then stills.

He stills, the bastard.

He pulls the gag from my mouth and leans in close, lips grazing the shell of my ear.

“Beg.”

That single word scrapes down my spine like a blade. I want to bite back, but I’m too far gone.

“Please,” I pant, shame be damned. “Please let me come.”

He hums, pleased.

Then his fingers slide into my mouth while his other hand strokes my cock with a relentless rhythm. I choke, moan, shudder around him, wrecked from three points of contact with not a shred of control left in my body.

When I finally fall apart, it’s like an explosion behind my eyes. Heat and lightning and the most humiliating, euphoric sound tearing out of my throat as everything breaks inside me.

He doesn’t stop until he’s taken every last bit of it, smearing my spit across my cheek with his fingers, grabbing a fistful of my hair, and yanking my head back so he can whisper filth into the ear of what’s left of me.

“Look at you,” he breathes. “Can you even take any more, or have I already ruined you?”

“Fuck you,” I manage to groan. But it comes out as a gasp. A plea.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He grins against my skin, smug and starving.

I try to breathe. Try to find ground again, but it’s gone. I’m gone.

“What do you want me to do to you?” he murmurs. “Tell me, and I’ll make you forget your fucking name. I’ll hollow you out until you don’t remember who you are unless you’re under me. I’ll ruin you for anyone else. Is that what you want, Julian?”

My voice doesn’t work, but I nod.

He kisses the back of my neck.

“Good boy.”

He straightens. I hear something move; glass clinking, a soft scraping of ceramic. Then the low flicker of a candle.

“You ever try wax play?” he asks.

“What the fuck is that?” I croak, trying to glance back.

He’s smiling. I can feel it in the air.

“Wanna find out?”

Against my better judgement, I hesitate, then nod once.

The first drop of wax lands on my back like a whisper of fire. My body arches. My lungs seize. I moan, biting down hard on my lip to keep from crying out.

Another drop. This one lands on my ass. More heat. More ache.

“Yeah?” Nico purrs. “You like that, don’t you?”

“Fuck—”

Another drop silences me. My whole body jolts.

“You’re insane—”

More wax. My back is a canvas now, painted in heat.

I reach for my cock, but his hand snaps around my wrist before I can make contact. He twists my arm behind my back and pins it there, his grip firm enough to bruise.

“Did I say you could touch yourself?” he mutters.

Before I can answer, before I can even breathe, another drop of hot wax lands on my spine.

I jolt, gasping, my body arching under the sharp lick of heat. More follows. Each drop sends a shock through me, blurring the line between pain and pleasure until I don’t know what I’m moaning for anymore.

My chest is heaving. My legs are shaking. I’m completely at his mercy, and he knows it.

He leans down, his lips brushing my ear as another drop trails fire across my skin.

“You don’t get to take anything,” he whispers, his breath hot against my ear. “Not without my permission.”

Finally, mercifully, he sets the candle down.

I don’t even get a second to breathe before he grabs my hips and drags me back to the edge of the table.

His hands are everywhere now—possessive, greedy, rough in all the right ways—and I’m shaking with need, with anticipation, with the electric jolt of finally getting what I’ve been begging for without saying a word.

Then he gives it to me.

My vision whites out the second he fills me, slowly at first, like he wants to savor how wrecked I already am. A low, broken sound slips from my throat, but he just presses a hand between my shoulder blades and pushes me down flat.

“Stay right there,” he growls. “Take it.”

And I do. God, I do, because I need it. Every sharp thrust, every bruise his fingers leave on my skin, every filthy word he drips into my ear like poison. My body rocks with his rhythm, breath stuttering with every slam of his hips against mine.

“You feel that?” he grits out, gripping my jaw and forcing my head back so he can watch my expression. “That’s what it feels like to be mine.”

I can’t answer. Can’t think. I’m too far gone, split wide open by everything he is: danger and dominance and that maddening, intoxicating heat.

Goddamn, this is stronger than any drug I’ve ever taken.

My heart’s tearing through my chest like it’s trying to escape, like I just injected a vein full of raw poison and adrenaline.

It’s not a high, it’s a fucking possession.

He’s under my skin, in my blood, and I don’t think I’ll ever claw him out.

And when he wraps his hand around my cock, stroking me in time with each thrust, it’s over. I spiral fast, breathless and raw, the world cracking wide as I come with a shudder and a helpless, violent moan.

He doesn’t stop.

He rides it out, taking everything, giving everything, until I’m broken beneath him, completely undone.

He pulls out with a growl, tears off the condom, and spills hot across my chest and stomach like he’s claiming the wreckage he made. The dining table’s ruined. I’m ruined.

My thighs are still shaking, breath shallow, mind scrambled.

The man I was hired to kill just fucked me into oblivion, and all I can think about is letting him do it again.

Fuck…

This is going to be a fucking problem.