Page 15

To say things had gone from awful to awkward real fast would be an understatement.

Calix found himself roughly pulled away from Titus and dragged from the room, across a hallway, before being practically tossed into a wooden seat.

His nose caught wind of the rich smell of cooked meat and scallions a second later, and all protests over being lugged around like a sack of potatoes died on his tongue almost instantly after that.

He could barely even process the words being flung around him between his two captors, all his attention on that scent and the promise of food.

He hadn’t even realized how starving he’d become, too caught up in the other sensations being forced upon him the past few days.

“Eat.” Aodhan tore the blindfold off Cal’s head roughly, practically tossing the fabric to the side. He hardly noticed the way Calix winced at the sudden bright lights, already turning away from him to address the older man standing by the fridge. “You too.”

Cal blinked against the change, giving himself time to adjust. How long had it been since they’d blindfolded him?

It seemed like forever had passed. Their blurred faces took a while longer to come into focus, the scowl marring the doctor’s gorgeous face one of the first things Cal’s brain was able to process.

Aodhan was standing at the side of the table, arms crossed, glaring at Titus.

“Sit down,” Titus said. “You’re making Calix nervous.”

“He’s fine,” Aodhan disagreed, showing defiance he didn’t usually aim at the director’s way. “We need to talk about this, Mercy.”

“Talk about what?” He grunted and took a sip from a glass cup filled with ice water. “You should drink, Calix. You must be extremely dehydrated.”

“His hands are cuffed together.”

“So uncuff him then.”

Aodhan inhaled slowly as though trying for patience. “We aren’t doing it your way anymore. Not if you chose this method just to get back at him.”

“If the end justifies the means, does it really matter if I have ulterior motives?”

“It does if you keep them from me!”

Titus gave him a sharp look. “Don’t do that. Don’t pull a Cal and pretend not to know exactly what’s going on here. I’ve never kept anything from you, and that won’t change. You knew I wanted him, if you didn’t, you never would have agreed to making him our Third.”

“What?” Calix sputtered, though he went unnoticed as they continued to bicker around him.

They’d been dancing around that possibility for weeks now, and he was just going to put it out there in the midst of an argument with Aodhan? After all the shit they’d put him through to get him to say it first?

If he hadn’t been hungry enough to eat everything on the table and in their fridge, he would be figuring out a way to get to the knifeboard on the counter by the sink.

As it were, Calix was far too drained to bother or put up much of a fight.

Especially when the two were already so engrossed in each other.

“That’s not what I’m annoyed about,” Aodhan said.

“Your concern for him is admirable, but he isn’t even connected to us yet.” Titus leaned back in his chair. “Now, are you going to uncuff him and sit down, or are we going to wait until the food is cold before trying to feed our future Third?”

“Stop saying that.” Calix almost wished they hadn’t heard him that time either, because when both of their gazes suddenly landed on him, he felt his throat close under their intense scrutiny.

“Why? You’d already come to that conclusion all on your own,” Titus stated. “That’s what you were getting at back in the room.”

“We were waiting for you to admit it,” Aodhan stated the obvious, coming around and crouching behind Cal so he could unlock the cuffs. “But clearly we’re both out of patience.”

As soon as his wrists were freed, Cal brought his arms around and rubbed them protectively. He didn’t like how close they both were to him, with Titus seated on his right and Aodhan pulling out the chair on his left. The door was also all the way across the room.

“Should we tie you up again?” Titus asked, catching him staring at the exit. “Or will you behave?” He speared one of the fried dumplings on the end of a single chopstick before bringing it close to Cal’s mouth.

The rich smell of boiled meat and savory sauce got the best of him, and without bothering to respond to the question, he found himself leaning forward, greedily taking the offering.

The second the flavors exploded on his tongue, he moaned, eyes momentarily slipping closed as a wave of pure bliss shot through him.

It was another trick. They’d starved him on purpose to make him desperate enough to sit here like a pet and behave for them in exchange for food. But even knowing that didn’t change the fact it’d worked.

Calix would be good for them.

For now.

At least until the dumplings ran out, in any case.

“I can’t be your Third,” Cal said, wringing his hands in his lap. It was an insane thing to even consider, and he refused to believe the feeling in his chest was anything other than horror. It certainly couldn’t be hope. “I don’t even know you people.”

“Detective.” Aodhan propped an elbow on the table and smiled at him—not the charming smile he used on the rest of the world, but a dark, almost suggestive one. “You know us better than anyone.”

He shook his head.

“All right,” Titus lifted another dumpling for him, “where would you like to start?”

Calix allowed him to slide the food between his lips, using the excuse of needing to chew to stall. He’d gotten snippets here and there in their other conversations, but no one had told him anything concrete. Was it because they couldn’t trust him, or because they were lying?

It was more likely that this was an elaborate hoax. That they got their kicks by tricking others into thinking they stood a chance.

“Being with a Connect is a big deal,” he tentatively began. “You can’t make me believe you really want me. To fuck me? Sure. Play with me a little? Yeah, okay. But want me?” Saying out loud made it seem even more ridiculous. “Make me your Third?”

“You’re the perfect candidate,” Aodhan disagreed. “You’re the only one either of us has shown any interest in. It has to be you.”

“Interest?” He snorted derisively. “Interest brought on from the night of the reunion? The night you raped me?”

The doctor should have at least pretended to feel bad, but he didn’t. Instead, he tilted his head, as though he was struggling to process what Cal was saying and why it might be important.

Then again, if everything he had been told was accurate, something like guilt probably wasn’t commonly felt by Aodhan. Hell, it took a special kind of asshole to plot what he had, and all because his boyfriend had left out a newspaper clipping from eight years ago.

“Clearly you aren’t the sharing type,” Calix drawled.

“I’m not,” he agreed. “So don’t get any bright ideas, baby.”

“It’s us,” Titus chimed in. “The three of us. No one else.”

“I’m locked up in your house. Who exactly do you think I’m going to find to fuck here? What? Afraid I’ll jump the mailman?” Cal glared at them both, realizing he was going about this the wrong way. “You don’t have any claim on me. You don’t get to make those kinds of demands.”

His mind turned back to the video. To the words echoing from the speaker of the multi-slate.

What kind of freak gets hard while they’re raped?

“You don’t get say you want me after what you did,” Cal forced himself to insist, scowling but taking the next offered dumpling Titus held up for him.

“I’ll apologize for that night,” Aodhan told him, though there was no kindness written on his face. “But only if you’ll admit that you liked it.”

“You looked down on me for getting off,” he growled.

“You remember?” Aodhan tilted his head.

“No. You played me the video like some sick sadist. I saw it there.” He’d barely caught it through the shock, but it knocked something loose within him. “Because of the drugs, I don’t really recall much of that night at all. I don’t remember anything about…that.”

“Our first time was admittedly messy.” The doctor hesitated and then placed his chopsticks down on the table.

“I was being cruel on purpose. I was frustrated and didn’t understand why I was changing my mind about you, but I didn’t mean that.

Lots of people get turned on in situations like those, baby.

It’s just stimulation. It couldn’t be helped.

It doesn’t say anything about you or your character. ”

It wouldn’t be the first time Calix’s body had reacted when his mind had rejected what was being done to him.

But it was the first time hearing from his abuser that it wasn’t his fault.

That he wasn’t deplorable and a lost cause.

“He’s right.” Titus fed him another dumpling.

“It’s just like how you got hard when you hit Nero with your car.

” He pretended not to notice when Calix winced.

“Everyone likes to believe the mind has complete and total control over the body, but that’s just not the case.

Physical reactions such as those are unavoidable. ”

“He was hurting me,” Cal pointed out. “I was bleeding. That can’t be—”

“Maybe for some, the pain would have been enough to keep them from being turned on,” Aodhan replied. “But for others, people like you, who enjoy the pain? Maybe not even. Overstimulation could easily confuse the brain, making it misplace those feelings.”

“I didn’t want it!”

“No, of course not,” Titus comforted him, and it seemed legitimate.

“You were against it, disgusted by it, but your body reacted,” Aodhan said.

“That’s all it was, Cal. It wasn’t your intention, or your fault.

That’s not the reason I keep saying you liked it.

I don’t mean to belittle or to blame you.

It’s not that I wrongly believe you wanted it in the moment, I know you didn’t. ”

Calix glanced away, but that didn’t stop the other man from finishing his statement.