The Devil’s Bargain (Deal with the Devil Book 1)

AVA

The judge’s robes are askew.

The entire time he’s going through the shortened version of a civil marriage ceremony, that’s all I can focus on. His robes are askew, and he’s yawning.

It’s two o’clock in the morning. I’m standing in the small office in Judge Callihan’s mansion in North Springfield. A mousy-looking man in his early fifties, he has the dazed look of a man ripped out of his sleep so that he can marry me to Lincoln Crewes.

Oh, wait. That’s because he is.

Link wastes no time. Proving that he has infinite connections, once I had traded my pajamas for the lacy, white wedding dress—that, somehow, is just my size—and a pair of white flats I found in the back of my closet, I ran a brush through my hair while he made a few phone calls. Twenty minutes after he woke me up from my own sleep, I was in a car driven by a man whose face I never saw, sitting next to Link, fiddling with the floofy skirt on the dress he gave me.

Up until he led me up the walkway to Judge Callihan’s house, I didn’t honestly believe I would be getting married tonight. It was one thing for him to dangle his help and his protection in front of me in exchange for saying I would marry him; it’s another thing entirely for him to expect me to pledge myself to him immediately.

But that’s exactly what he expected. Link even had a simple gold band for the occasion that he slipped on my finger after I—almost in a daze—say ‘I do’. Link’s version is a lot more adamant, so much so that the judge glanced up at him in surprise when he growled it out.

The judge had a print-out waiting for us, too. He laid it out on his desk, and once we exchanged vows, all that was left to make our quickie marriage binding, was the officiant witnessing us signing the license.

Is it legal? Probably not. I always thought you needed a separate witness, but both Link and his judge seem satisfied, and it’s not like I can really question them. Even if I did, what good would it do?

My new husband is the head of an organized crime syndicate. I guess I should be grateful he was pretending to do things by the book at all.

Link took the pen first, writing his legal name on one line. Passing the pen to me, he watched closely as I signed it with a trembling hand, swooping Ava Monroe on the line.

The judge takes the sheet. “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Crewes.”

When I was a senior in high school, I used to doodle Ava Crewes in the margins of my notebook. Little hearts surrounded the name I always thought I might have one day, but gave up on so many years ago. It’s so strange to think of that now, and I barely have a second for that to sink in before Link snatches my fingers.

With a nod, he says, “I appreciate it. Next time you’re at the Playground, let me know. I’ll take care of you.”

Judge Callihan’s tired eyes light up. “If there’s anything else I can do for you…”

“There is. You can tell me where your nearest bathroom is.”

“Of course. Down the hall, third down on the left.”

“Thanks. And don’t worry about showing us out, Judge. When we’re done, we’ll let ourselves out.”

The judge gives him a knowing smile. “I’ll send one of my staff to lock up in… half an hour or so? Or would an hour be better?”

Link tucks my hand beneath his arm, tugging me into his side. “Half an hour should be fine. I just want to finalize our marriage as soon as possible.”

“Yes, yes. I understand.” He finally adjusts his crooked robes. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

“Come, Ava,” Links says, completely disregarding the judge. “This way.”

I guess he doesn’t want to leave me behind with Judge Callihan while he takes a trip to the bathroom. Considering he thinks he’ll need it for close to half an hour, I figure Link needs to take a shit before we leave, and I’m prepared for him to park me in the hall before he slips inside the bathroom.

That’s… not what happens.

As soon as we reach the third door on the left, Link pushes the door inside, using his grip on my hand to pull me in behind him. Once he has, he lets go of me, but he closes the door before I can run back out again.

With a decisive turn of the lock, he traps me in the room with him.

It’s a single toilet bathroom, with a large mirror, two cabinets, and an oversized porcelain sink. Smelling of potpourri, with every single decoration lacking personality and screaming “money”, it’s a nice bathroom—but it’s obviously designed for one person to use it at a time.

“I’ll wait in the hall,” I begin.

“Not so fast, pet,” he says, his voice a low rasp. “Come here.”

I gulp. “Link, you probably want privacy for this.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I brought you to the bathroom instead of just bending you over Callihan’s desk.”

What? “I don’t understand.”

“A lapsed Catholic is still a Catholic,” he says, shoving his suit jacket and his sleeve up just enough for me to see a hint of the rosary he has tattooed on his forearm, toward his wrist. “I didn’t get to marry my wife in a church, but fuck if I’m not going to consummate this marriage right now. Then you’ll really be mine.”

Consummate…

Holy shit. “Link, you don’t mean—”

“That I’m going to fuck you right now? That’s exactly what I mean. Unless you’d rather take back your vows and I take back my offer of protection.”

Asshole. He knows there’s no going back for me. Either Damien Libellula and his goons come after me for killing one of their own, or I go to jail for murder. Maybe I get manslaughter, or even a lesser charge since I did it in self-defense, but what about the unregistered gun in my house? I’m absolutely fucked if I walk away from Link now.

I’m absolutely fucked if I stay in this bathroom—and this marriage—with him.

What’s that saying? Better the devil you know?

What does that mean when the man looming over you is the Devil?

“Understand me, Ava: once I fuck you, you are my wife. This is your last chance to change your mind. I said ‘til death do you part on Callihan’s office, and I mean it. You have to mean it, too, or you’re on your own.” He tilts his head toward me, too gorgeous for his own good. “Yes or no?”

God damn it, he knows that I’m already in too deep.

“Yes.”

“Then turn around.”

I do.

“Good girl,” he murmurs. “Now brace your hands on the sink and hold on tight.”

Ignoring the lump lodging in my throat, I do that, too.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised, but it hits a little that Link can’t even look me in the eye when we have sex for the first time as a married couple. If I had any delusions that he picked me because he still had feelings for me, they die a quick death as he bends down behind me. Throwing the skirts of my white dress up, he grabs my panties and starts to tug them down. He keeps going until he’s crouched down behind me, the panties around my ankles.

“Lift,” he barks.

I lift.

Once my panties are off, the echo of Link’s zipper being tugged downard fills the small bathroom. I swallow nervously as the whisper of his slacks move, knowing that he’s only undressing us enough to release his cock and line it up with me.

He lifts the skirts again, placing them against my back so that my bare ass is on display. Leaning over me, trapping the skirts between our bodies, I stare into the basin of the sink as I wait for this to be over with.

This isn’t making love. What’s going to happen next is fucking, plain and simple, and I don’t feel like his bride. I don’t even feel like his former lover. Right now, I’m just a pussy to him, something he’ll use to get off, and to make it so that I know just what I signed away when I scrawled my name on the marriage license.

And that’s when Link orders, “Eyes up, pet. I want you to watch as I make you mine for life.”

My eyes shoot to the mirror. I’ve never seen such a self-satisfied grin on Link’s face until now. For a second, I almost regret thinking so poorly about him—this isn’t the first time he got off, the two of us watching as he fucked me—but then I see the muscles beneath his suit jacket move, sense something blunt and hard nudging at the entrance of my pussy, and all I can think about is how this is really happening.

How he’s going to just take off my underwear, pull down his zipper, throw up the skirts of my borrowed dress, and shove himself inside of me without any foreplay, any sweet caresses, or any protection.

I won’t deny that I’ve always been turned on by a powerful guy who took charge. It’s also no secret that I’m never hotter than when I’m fooling around in a place I shouldn’t be. Whether it was making out beneath the bleachers at school, or how the first time me and Link ever had sex was in Marissa Reilly’s bathroom during her Sweet Sixteen, I might be a little shocky over tonight, but my pussy’s already soaked.

But protection…

“Wait—”

“I’ve done my waiting,” Link murmurs under his breath, but he keeps his cock lodged just past my entrance without pushing any further in.

I have no idea what that means. It’s barely been an hour since he blackmailed me into marrying him, and if he can’t go an hour between getting off, I’m in trouble. Maybe when I was twenty, I could keep up with a libido like that, but I haven’t had sex in almost a year.

I’ve been tested since then, but I’m not on any birth control. Even when I was dating, I insisted on any of my partners wrapping it up. I haven’t let a guy go bareback in me since… well, Link.

I don’t want to think about how many women he’s been with over the years. When we were each other’s one and only, I had no problem letting him do whatever he wanted to do to me. Now? I can’t hold the years against him—especially when I’m in this situation because of an ex of my own—but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let him fuck me bare.

I’m not getting out of being railed in this bathroom. That much is obvious. He wants our quickie marriage consummated, and I’m so in over my head that I have no choice but to go along with it.

But damn if I’m not going to ask about protection first.

“Condom,” I gasp out, my entrance stretching slightly as he shifts his stance behind me, cock slipping a half-inch in. “Please tell me you have a condom.”

Reaching in front of me, Link collars my throat. He bends his head, pressing a hot, open-mouth kiss to the side of my neck. “Why the fuck would I have a condom?”

I insisted my lovers wear one for protection—I guess his didn’t.

The skirt of the wedding dress is a slight buffer between us as Link leans over me. In this position, he has me completely trapped. One jerk of his hips and he’ll be fully seated, leaving me no escape.

I don’t want to. Everything happened so quickly tonight, but I’d be lying if it doesn’t feel… feel right to be in Lincoln Crewes’s arms again. Just because I’m looking forward to fucking him again, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be safe.

Before I can articulate that, he nibbles on my ear lobe, sucking my silver hoop into his mouth. A husky chuckle bathes my neck with warmth as he releases it before saying, “Told you, pet: if I knock you up, I need an heir anyway. You’re my wife now. There will never be anything between us.”

I wasn’t even worrying about getting pregnant. I probably should’ve been, but that’s the last thing on my mind as I admit, “Is that what you tell all the girls so they don’t make you wrap up?”

Link cages his arms around me. “Other girls? There aren’t any other girls.”

I’d hope not. Otherwise, it’s fucked up that he made me marry him. I’ll be his wife, but I didn’t sign up to act the part while he keeps his mistresses, and I made sure to tell him that on our way to the judge’s house. It was the only thing I asked before I married him, and Link smirked at me as he said, “Of course.”

In the mirror, I see he’s wearing the same expression now as he did in the back seat of the car. Like something’s funny, or it’s a joke I just don’t understand.

I’m serious. “I’m not talking about now. I mean—”

“I know what you mean. There aren’t any other girls,” he says, and I have to bite down on my lip to stifle my scream when he drops his hands to my hips, pulling me back the same time as he pushes forward, “not for fifteen years.”

I had to have heard him wrong. The sensation of being stuffed full of him, the stretch, the ache, the delicious pain of having his thick cock trapping me between his hard chest and the sink in front of me… I had to have heard him wrong. No way did the Devil of Springfield admit that he hasn’t been with another woman since me?

And if he did? Maybe he’s referring to serious relationships, like what we once had. Knowing Link like I did, he couldn’t have gone fifteen years without sex… could he?

I don’t know, but the man behind me is fucking me like he has. Leaving one big hand as a brand on my hip, the other moves to the small of my back, keeping me with him so that I have no choice but to ride his dick at the frantic pace he’s started with.

“I did my time waiting,” he pants, digging his fingers into my skin, holding me in place while he pounds into me. I cling to the sink for dear life, watching the dark look on his face in the mirror. “I did my penance. Now you’re mine, Ava, and I fucking dare anyone to try to take you away from me.”

I can’t say anything to that, and not only because I’m breathing so heavily, I can’t get a single word out. It’s like someone’s flipped a switch in him, and the cold, calculating gangster who thought it was a good idea to make me his wife because he needed one is replaced by a demanding beast whose expression says he’s happy to devour me whole.

Marriage of convenience, I think to myself, scraping the sink with my nails as everything—his possessive hold, the idea that anyone passing by the bathroom knows exactly what we’re doing in here, his pace, my need—leads me toward a climax of my own… despite him telling me this would be a real marriage, I walked into the judge’s house believing it was a marriage of convenience so that Link could keep his spot as the head of the Sinners Syndicate.

And maybe it is. A dangerous man like this doesn’t need to be in love to fuck like he’s obsessed. He doesn’t need to feel affection to take a wife, and whatever he means by “waiting” and “penance”, it doesn’t matter.

I’m his, and as he grunts out his release, purposely yanking my ass toward him so that he comes as deep inside of me as he can before I get the chance to come myself, I tell myself that I have to remember that.

I belong to Devil, ‘til death do us part.