Chapter 18: The Devil’s Bargain: Chapter 17

Everyone in the Sinners Syndicate treats me like I’m Devil’s wife after that—everyone, that is, except for the one man who counts.

I don’t know exactly what happened. He was the one who brought me in front of all of his men. He was the one who insisted on hoisting me up on the table, drawing my panties down in front of all of them, before burying his face in my pussy. He ordered me to ride his face, to pull his hair, to come… and then, when I’d barely come down from my orgasm, he killed a smart-mouthed man in front of all of us.

In that moment, I knew that my Link was gone—and that’s assuming that any part of the kind, dedicated, devoted boy he’d been was still lingering inside of him. I’d had glimpses of the Devil before—the way he glared at Joey’s corpse, and how he beat that man half to death at the club—but when he calmly pulled his gun out and shot one of his soldiers point-blank like that?

I finally understood why everyone in Springfield whispers his name in fear alongside Damien Libellula. He isn’t just dangerous. Devil is wicked. He’s heartless.

And I’m supposed to be his bride.

Maybe I’m wrong. Running my thumb over the healed ink, covering his name from the L to the n, then going back again, I wonder if I said ‘I do’ to Lincoln Crewes, and now that Devil has reared his head, he no longer thinks of me as his wife.

I guess that makes sense. Since the scene in the conference room two weeks ago, there hasn’t been a single whisper that our marriage is a sham. Any time one of the Sinners stops by the penthouse, I get a nod instead of a knowing sneer. They murmur, “Mrs. Crewes,” in a voice full of respect; no more murmurs that I’m the Devil’s whore, or whispers that I’m his beard. Link might not have gone so far as to lay me out on the conference room’s table, fucking me for all of his men to see, but eating me out in front of them did the trick.

Not only did it prove that Link wasn’t afraid of vagina, but he showed them all just how much he honored me by going to his knees rather than ordering me to go to mine.

I know I shouldn’t, but I regret throwing it in his face that his act embarrassed me. For one, I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to marry him. Though so much of learning about Link’s world is an education, I went into this fully aware that he was the head of the Sinners Syndicate. He was a crime boss with at least thirty loyal soldiers under him.

The Springfield mafias do things differently. They let their actions speak much louder than any words. Whether by using their firsts, their weapons, or—in this case—their wicked mouths, they have to show they mean business.

He didn’t have any problem performing a sex act on me with all of his men watching. Of the two of us, it was Link I had to coax and tease to get him to go along with the thrill of fucking where we could be caught. Pleasuring me where the Sinners had no choice but to watch? That would’ve bothered the old Link way more than me.

He wasn’t wrong when he told me I’d like it. If he’d eased me to my back, hanging my legs off the edge of the table after he made me come the first time, I would’ve eagerly welcomed him whipping out his dick. At that moment, I would’ve let him fuck me gladly, and not given a single crap who was watching.

But he didn’t. Instead, he encouraged Twig to take out his.

I still remember the fleeting sense of betrayal that had me hopping down from the table, moving into Link. If there was one thing I thought was clear about our arrangement, it was that we were monogamous. He wouldn’t take any mistresses, and I wouldn’t have to worry about another guy getting with me.

What happened that night in the Playground was supposed to have made that obvious—but then he stood there, entertaining the idea that I would suck off Twig.

I don’t know why I even let myself believe that Link would ever do that. In hindsight, the idea that he would kill Twig instead of standing back and watching me pleasure the other man was so much more believable… but until he fired his gun, it never occurred to me that he would.

I know better now.

This is the life, Ava. Welcome to it.

I get that. And if this is who Link is, I accept that. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s still the boy I once loved—and the man that, despite showing me different facets to the complicated Devil he’s become, I thought I was falling for again.

He’s a murderer. An obsessed murder, I admit, and for the first few weeks, I was his target of his obsession. From the gifts he bought—ranging from a first edition copy of my favorite book to jewelry, flowers, and a laptop that probably cost more than two months of my mortgage that someone named Tanner tricked out for me—and the way he hung on every word I said when we had dinner together, plus how devoted to wringing as many orgasms out of me as he could when we were in bed… even if he couldn’t love me, I knew he at least felt something for me.

He admitted as much after I accused him of not having any feelings at all.

Lust, he said.

Anger.

Obsession.

Not love, but that’s okay. I can love him enough for both of us—and when Link spends the next two weeks after his big illustration growing more and more distant from me, I have to.

It starts out by his missing dinner once or twice. He’s busy. Busier than normal, from the snippets of conversation I pick up, listening in on his conversations with whatever Sinner he has watching over me. Even Mona notices it, assuring me that Link is in the middle of something.

Fine.

But when I go an entire night without him, only waking up as he slipped, exhausted and fully-dressed, into our bed at six-thirty in the morning, I begin to think his obsession with me is fading.

He doesn’t initiate. It’s the first time since he took me in Judge Callihan’s bathroom that he doesn’t at least hold me close; when I was on my period and didn’t feel like sex, he snuggled, stealing gentle kisses all night long while holding the heating pad in place to ease my cramps.

I thought he’d be pissed that he didn’t knock me up, but he wasn’t. He just smiled and said, “That’s just more time I get with only you, my Ava.”

My Ava…

I stopped being his ‘pet’ after he brought me to the Playground to introduce me to the Sinners. I’m his Ava—even if I’m not so sure he’s my Link anymore.

And that’s assuming he ever was…

The next night, Link is home by ten. Knowing that that means he’ll be gone as soon as I fall asleep, I wait for him to come to bed before I initiate this time.

I have before. It took me a few nights to get used to his appetite, and for it to trigger something in my own. The way I saw it, if he expected my duty as his wife was to be available to sleep with him whenever he wanted me to, I might as well get as much pleasure out of his rugged, brawler’s body as I can.

I do that night. Instead of laying back on the pillows, letting Link worship me with his mouth like he loves to do, I take a firm grasp on his erection, steering him right where I want him. As soon as I have him there, I smile to see the hungry look on his face, the way his tongue darts out, licking his bottom lip as he rises up on his elbows, watching as I crawl between his legs.

And then, taking a page of his book, I show him how much he’s mine with actions instead of words.

Link loves to watch me suck his dick. He always has. For as long as we’ve been intimate, he’s never treated the act like it was something he owed. To him, me going to my knees in front of him reminds him of dropping to his knees in front of the pew during Sunday Mass, only instead of listening to the priests talk about all the reasons why we’re both going to hell, he mutters prayers under his breath as I take him to Heaven with my tongue and my teeth.

I’ve caught him stroking the rosary inked on his forearm sometimes while I tease him, squeezing the base of his shaft while swirling my tongue around the circumcised head of his penis. Then, when calling for Mother Mary doesn’t give him any relief from me, he would jab his nails in his skin, fucking my mouth, trying to hold out as long as he thinks I want him to.

Tonight, I’m not torturing him, even though—in the heat of the moment—Link insists he still deserves to suffer. That he’ll be serving his penance until the day he fucking dies… which, now that I have him back, better be when he’s ninety and too weak to hold a gun, but still strong enough to shove his wrinkled dick inside of me when I snort.

Tonight, I worship the man who saved me, even while sentencing me to a life with him.

He thinks I’m being punished. Having a gorgeous gangster obsessed with me, a penthouse to protect me, and the luxury to pretend I never pulled a trigger and took a life… if this is Hell, I’m happy to burn.

From the way Link pants as I hollow my cheeks, taking him deep while his prayers tonight are a repeated chant of my wife, my wife, my fucking wife over and over again as he slowly begins to rock his hips, nearly gagging me on his thick dick… from the way he throws his hands behinds his head, letting me take control of his big body… from the way he tries to pull out moments before he shoots his load, but I graze him with my teeth, warning him to stay right where he is as his salty spun fills my mouth…

My husband is right there with me.

Once I swallow and he catches his breath again, Link hooks his hands under my armpits, dragging me up the length of his naked body. I know exactly what his plan is. He’s going to finger me, playing with my pussy while he recovers from his own orgasm. Sometimes he prefers to keep tugging until I’m sitting on his face, where he takes his leisurely time licking me before he’s hard again and I’m suddenly riding his dick.

If there’s one thing I can say about Link—and why I was so taken aback that time in the bathroom—it’s that he’s always been a generous lover. He got to come. He won’t leave until I get to, too.

But I didn’t suck him off because I wanted him to reciprocate. Tonight, I wanted to enjoy my husband—and fool myself into believe that he really is mine.

“Just hold me tonight,” I whisper. I lay my head on his chest. “I want to hear your heart beat.”

One arm wrapping around my shoulders, he tangles his fingers in my hair. “You should,” he rumbles, the vibrations tickling my cheek. “You’re the reason it fucking beats at all.”

I wish I could believe that. “Mmm.”

“What? You think I’m full of shit, Ava?”

No. I think he’s saying what he thinks his wife wants to hear.

When I don’t answer him, he gives a gentle tug on my hair. “I don’t lie. Not to you, Ava. Never to you. You have to know that.”

Only… I don’t.

And that’s not all.

I want to ask him what we’re doing. What he’s doing. In this room—in this bed—I know that he’s as much mine as I’m his… but what happens when he inevitably leaves it in an hour or two to return to his business?

I don’t, though. It would only be a waste of breath. Because Link? He means it when he says he won’t lie to me. He never has.

But that doesn’t mean he always tells me the truth.

So I stay quiet, my head leaning against his right pec, my finger tracing the cross that covers his left side, following the twists and curves of the script dashes right over his heart while I still have him here with me.

If someone handed me a pen and told me to close my eyes, then slipped a sheet of paper in front of me before telling me to draw this particular tattoo of his, I could do it. That’s how much it’s imprinted on me in the time since I’ve got to enjoy Link’s naked body.

It’s a reminder that I so often need. Scrawled in the middle of the cross, written in an elegant script as though it’s the most important thing in his world, are two words: the life. Despite the different designs he has inked all over his body, they’re the only written tattoos, and it’s clear to me what it means.

It’s a tribute to being in organized crime, and Link’s way to show anyone who might see his cross that he’s devoted to being the head Sinner.

They come first, and I have to remember that.