Page 12 of The Devil’s Bargain (A Devil to Die for #3)

It was a struggle not to let on that this was exactly what he’d wanted. Hell, Calix had seen it happen between his First and Second enough times that he should be able to mimic it, but he was unsure. What if he wasn’t getting away with it?

What if the punishment would get worse because he’d been found out?

This was a common dance between the other two. Aodhan would purposefully push his luck, and Titus would whip him back into line. On the outside, it looked like control, but in reality, the act was something they clearly enjoyed.

And Calix wanted in on it.

So he’d stupidly gotten drunk with Nero and convinced the other guy to bring him home. On the one hand, he’d also wanted his old classmate to see how well he was doing. That he lived in a big house with a hot director boyfriend.

Wanted to silently warn Nero off any bright ideas of getting close to Mercy during one of their little, secret meetings.

He’d known Mercy would be home, waiting for him, and that Aodhan was working late. It seemed like a flawless plan at the time. Although…he’d admittedly already been a couple of drinks in when he’d concocted it.

Calix had tempted Mercy’s wicked nature on purpose, but the results were…unexpected. Aodhan got complex, drawn-out punishments. Acts that left everyone in the room writhing and needy and ready to beg for just about anything.

But not Cal.

He found himself tossed over the tub, half in, half out, and before he could process what was coming, Mercy was quite literally splitting him open on his massive cock.

Calix’s scream echoed throughout the bathroom, tears instantly pooling in his eyes as he was torn through. The pain was sharp and unforgiving—a stark mirror to the man forcing himself deep into Cal’s body, despite the resistance he was greeted with.

“It hurts!” Cal tried to right himself, to get better purchase, but Mercy forced his head down lower, his forehead practically touching the soaked bathmat.

Gross.

“Don’t!” He tried reaching back to grab onto the director’s arm and make him let go, but all that got him was a harder thrust, followed by another wave of bathwater pouring out over the lip of the tub.

Some of it spilled into his mouth and he sputtered, the rigorous pounding of that punishing cock never faltering even as he gasped for air.

There was no chance he wasn’t bleeding. Cal could feel the pain below, already knew tomorrow was going to be a bitch having to move around at work. He shouldn’t have pressed his luck, should have known better than to so openly challenge Titus Mercer.

He’d only just found even footing with his First, yet he’d foolishly toed the line.

On purpose.

If not for the tears and the pain, he would have laughed at his own audacity. He really was a sucker for punishment, an adrenaline junky hoe.

A monster.

Because even as he cried, his hole clenched around that invading girth, clinging to Mercy’s cock, desperately trying to keep it close despite the suffering his body was enduring because of its brutal intrusion.

“You’re enjoying his too much,” Mercy’s dark voice trickled through Cal’s sobs, the words forming a second too late. “Should I strip away your arousal? Make you experience true fear?”

Hold on…

“No!” Calix tried to look over his shoulder, but Mercy shoved him back into place with ease. “Wait, please, not that!”

“That would be a true punishment, would it not?”

Of course it would, but that was the opposite of what Calix really wanted. He hadn’t done all of this for Mercy to use his Connect abilities to twist his urges. He could affect pheromones, force Cal to no longer feel lust and instead be afraid.

Without the lust there to blanket it, without that adrenaline high, the pain would be all that was left.

Calix was a fan of pain, sure, but that was because of those other components. Without them…He whimpered.

Things were not going to plan.

Where had he messed up?

He’d figure that part out later. For now, damage control, and quick.

“If you go through with that, I’ll never forgive you!” Calix exclaimed.

“Threats?” if anything, he sounded even more upset.

Right. Threatening the guy was stupid.

“Mercy,” he switched tactics, making his tone pleading. “It didn’t mean anything, I swear. I’ll do whatever you want. Anything. Just, please, don’t—”

“Do you really think you’re not deserving of my wrath, little monster?” He clicked his tongue chidingly. “The bathwater has turned pink, the problem is, if you saw it, you’d only get more turned on, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s your favorite color.” Wow. That was the best he could do?

Really? Calix bit the inside of his cheek and tried again.

“You’re the only one who can reduce me to this.

The only one I want bleeding and fucking me through the torment.

I’ve...I’ve never felt this way with anyone before. Definitely not Nero, of all people.”

That was beyond the truth. Calix had never been a brat on purpose with anyone else.

Had never chosen to instigate someone. He’d been so curious though, watching the way Mercy played with Aodhan.

Watching him chip at the doctor’s pride.

It should have been impossible for anyone to tame someone like Aodhan Solace, and yet Mercy did it flawlessly. Consistently.

Since he’d been able to capture someone like that, it was no wonder he’d been so confident in his conquering of Calix.

“You were doing so well, little monster,” Mercy growled. “So well. Until you weren’t.”

What?

What mistake had he made?

“Scream for me.” Mercy pounded into him, bruising his hips against the porcelain edge of the tub from the force of his thrusts.

He chuckled when Cal whined, leaning down to nip at the curve of his ear, hard enough to draw blood.

“If you’re going to act like a bitch in heat around someone else, this is what you get, little monster. ”

Calix vehemently shook his head, even knowing it was a lost cause. “I didn’t.”

“No?”

“No!” A sob escaped him, and he struggled to breathe through the searing pain and sharp pleasure as his ass was battered. “It was just drinks!”

“With another man,” he growled. “A man from your past. A man you have history with.”

“Bad history!”

“Semantics.”

“Titus,” he gasped. “Mercy, please!”

“Save your begging. Aodhan is on his way.”

What?! He was meant to be working past midnight tonight, something about prepping for surgery in the morning.

Calix tensed up. “No.”

“No?” he growled. “Why does that sound like you wrongly believe you should be more afraid of him than you are of me?”

Mercy had it all wrong.

Cal wasn’t more afraid of one over the other.

It was the fact that there would soon be two of them tormenting him in tandem that had his hole clenching and his chest seizing in trepidation.

“Mercy.” He hung his head in submission, hoping that by giving in, he’d appease some of his First’s darker nature. More than half the water had spilled out over the bathroom floor, the rest of it having turned tepid.

How long had they been in here? Like this?

His knees ached, and he felt so blown open, he didn’t think he’d be able to walk on his own two feet if asked. He needed to find a reprieve before Aodhan arrived and started his bout of punishment.

“I won’t do it again!” Calix promised, biting on his bottom lip when Mercy finally stilled, his cock buried all the way to the hilt.

“Won’t do what?” He draped himself over Cal’s back, reached out to capture his jaw, and forced his head to the side so their eyes could meet.

There was an almost maniacal glint in Mercy’s green gaze that caused a shiver of fear to race down Calix’s spine in the most twisted, delicious way. “Won’t do what, little monster?”

“I won’t be alone with him again,” he scrambled to say, continuing when that didn’t appear to be enough to satisfy the man clinging to his battered flesh. “I won’t meet with him at all if you don’t want me to. I only went because it felt weird not to.”

“Oh?” Mercy’s gaze sharpened.

What? What had he said this time?!

“So close again.” His First sighed. “Are you disappointing me like this on purpose?”

“No. No, I—” Calix cursed as he was suddenly lifted, Mercy’s cock remaining lodged inside of him even as the director stood and stepped out of the tub.

Before any type of relief could set in, however, Cal found himself turned to face the water, and only had just enough time to process that it was a pretty shade of pink, just as Mercy had said, before he was being let go.

Mercy shifted his hold to Calix’s thighs, dropping the rest of him down.

Calix gasped, catching himself on the opposite lip of the tub just in time to avoid whacking his skull on the porcelain, but then he slipped, and his face submerged. His ass was lifted even higher, Mercy still pounding away, as though he weren’t also at risk of drowning Cal in the process.

In dirty bath water.

He struggled but to no avail, and just as his lungs felt like they were about to burst, Mercy wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him up, only allowing his face to hover a mere inch or so above water.

“Stop! That’s disgusting!” Calix inhaled, blinking his eyes to fend off a wave of dizziness. His hands pressed against the wall in an attempt to keep himself from being lowered back into the bath, though he knew if Mercy wanted him there, there was nothing he could do to prevent it from happening.

Was this how Aodhan was punished?

Cal had thought he’d been paying attention, but maybe not. All of the things Mercy had done to their Second had seemed like overexaggerations of stuff Aodhan was actually into.

While he wouldn’t consider himself a germaphobe by any definition of the word, Calix hated—

“What’s wrong? Weren’t you just lamenting about how you’d do anything for me, little monster?” Mercy drawled. “Do you draw the line at getting a bit dirty for me? Is that it?”

Fuck.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“No response? I don’t like being ignored.” He dropped Cal back beneath the surface without giving him a chance to come up with a suitable answer. Mercy fucked him hard as he drowned him, digging his fingers into Cal’s sides bruisingly.

Calix couldn’t believe it, but he ended up coming like that, with his head buried, his lungs burning, and his body tipped at an odd angle. He felt himself unload, the orgasm sneaking up on him like a sucker punch, his scream buffered by the bathwater.

But of course, Mercy knew even without being able to fully hear him, yanking him from the tub a second time, soon enough to catch the tail ends of Cal’s wailing.

His First dropped down onto the closed toilet seat suddenly, spreading Calix’s thighs over his lap in the process. He thrust up into him, over and over again, laughing when it became too much and Cal started to cry for a different reason.

“Enough,” Calix shoved and clawed at Mercy’s arms, “No more. It’s too much. You’re—”

“Too deep,” Mercy taunted, holding onto him even tighter. “Too big. Too much for you, little monster?”

It was a test.

Only a psycho like Titus Mercer would expect someone to be able to recognize and pass a loaded test at a time like this. With his brains and back blown out simultaneously.

Bastard.

Fucking monstrous mother—

Mercy drove up into him and rolled his hips, the tip of his impressive length prodding at that place that should remain untouched within Calix.

“Not too much,” Cal rushed to say. “But I think I’ve learned my lesson. You don’t have to—”

On the next thrust, Calix could literally see him bulging from his stomach.