Cruel Temptation (Underground Kings 1)

“Why were you really at the wedding?” Grayson asked.

“An old lady gets lonely. I might be a bad bitch, but I still have feelings,” she grumbled, pushing her shoulders back. “I was taking flowers to Henry’s grave and saw the wedding. I know, who takes flowers to their serial killer husband’s tombstone? There were the happy times. He never harmed me. I don’t know why, but I think he loved me the best he knew how. I still want to celebrate the man I thought he was, not the man he died as.”

“Aw, Ingrid,” Heaven embraced her in his arms, and she looked less than thrilled with the contact. She didn’t wrap her arms around him and gave the rest of us guys a glare that screamed ‘get him off me’.

It was amusing, and there weren’t many things I found amusing these days. Maybe Ingrid could stay.

Maybe.

“The little tyrant.” Another ten minutes have gone by, and I was done waiting. I chugged the rest of my beer and slammed it on the counter with so much force that it broke under my hand. Heaven jumped away from Ingrid, and she let out a relieved breath. I made the first step to stroll down the hallway, but Ingrid placed her hand on my arm from across the counter. “What?” I snipped with more attitude than necessary. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

I was a fucking mess.

“Woo, remember? Woo,” she repeated as if saying it again would make me understand what she meant.

I didn’t woo. I didn’t need to ‘woo’. I was Jaxon Steel. Women came to me whenever they wanted me. I was the woo.

Ingrid unwrapped her cold fingers from my wrist, and I marched forward and hung a right around the wall. The hallway was long, plain, the lights were turned down low, and my heavy steps echoed down the corridor. With every step, I became more impatient. No one would dare disobey me like Quinn had, and every time I turned around, she was doing something else to set me off.

Maybe when we were teenagers, we were different people, and I hadn’t fully understood how fiery her heart was. While she pushed me to the edge of insanity, each day she challenged me, the more I wanted to conquer her. I’d make Quinn fall to her knees and worship me one day. A queen should serve her king.

A king would do more than serve; he’d give her his kingdom. A king would give her him. In my life, there wasn’t a greater power for someone to have because once a powerful man had a weakness; the enemy could extort it.

And without a queen, the kingdom would fall.

My kingdom.

And in a way it already had. The last ten years had been nothing but me trying to figure out how to get back on my feet. I never thought I’d build an empire like I have, and it was precious, just like Quinn. If I had to choose between her and crime?

There wouldn’t be hesitation in my decision.

I knocked on her door and stuffed my hand in my pocket as I waited for her to open the door. “Quinn? Are you ready?”

Something knocked on the door and crashed against the floor. Again.

“Stop destroying my room,” I barked, and another item hit the other side, shattering. “I’m warning you, Quinn.”

Another.

I pulled the keys out from my pocket and unlocked the door just as another expensive item plummeted into the door and fell in ruins. I ducked inside the door and ducked when she threw the lamp that sat next to the bed. I locked the door behind me.

The only way she was leaving this room right now was if she killed me. “Put the vase down.” The glass on the floor crunched as I stepped on it to move further into the room.

“Ah!” she shouted, launching the glass vase through the air, diso-fucking-beying me.

I lunged left, and the vase hit the mirror on the right, splintering the glass. I pointed a finger at her. “Throw another item, Quinn, and I swear I’ll bend you over my knee and spank your ass.”

“You aren’t getting anywhere near me,” she said, hoisting a quartz bowl in her arms. That cost thousands of dollars. She grunted because it was too heavy for her, but she wasn’t giving up. She made a pathetic attempt to twirl around and launch it at me, but it fell short a few feet away, cracking right in half. “Damn it, that would have done some real damage too.” She blew a piece of her blonde hair out of her face, laying her hands on her hips. She had sweat on her forehead, and her chest had a quick staccato from exerting herself.

I was done with her games.

In four long strides, I was in front of her and tossed her over my shoulder. She had yet to put on pants. Good. She wouldn’t be needing them for what I was about to do. “Put me down, you Neanderthal!” Her tiny fists hit my back and they barely tickled me. I would laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious.

“I swear, put me down,” she screeched.

“What the lady wants, she gets,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and I swing her over my shoulder and lay her across my lap.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed, wiggling under me, and my cock took notice, perking right up against Quinn’s body.