Cruel Infatuation (Underground Kings 3)

“Yeah, he is. He started this group of misfits,” Owen, the guy with the more serious expression on his face, informs me.

I want to ask what the misfits do exactly, but I think I’ve learned not to ask any more questions and to remain quiet. It’s obvious I’m not meant to know what they do. I don’t belong here. I’m the liar, the teenager, the girl who doesn’t belong. I know when to bite my tongue.

And right now, I’m biting it so hard it’s bleeding.

“This way,” Grayson says, placing his hand on my lower back to guide me.

His palm is huge and as wide as my torso. My body tingles from the simple touch, the heat radiating from his hand is slowly causing the chill under my skin to dissipate. But as quick as he touches me, he pulls his hand away. “Just follow me,” he grumbles, walking ahead of me while his friends stare at us with humorous grins.

I’m glad they think it’s funny because I feel like I’m about to get my head blown off. I watch Grayson’s ass sway, rounder than what I expected it to be because of how built he is. I can’t take my eyes off the way his spine disappears below his waistband, giving me a defined trail surrounded by lean muscles.

Blood rushes to my cheeks, and I’m glad he can’t see me right now. I don’t deserve him, not after what I did. I should have never lied. Lying is what scared little girls do, and I like to think I’ve been through enough to know I’m a grown fucking woman now.

It’s time I start acting like one.

I do my best to put Grayson out of my mind and focus on my surroundings. The Cliff House is one of a kind, truly beautiful with it’s unique architecture and floor-to-ceiling windows. Every so often, a wave crashes and swallows the cliff, submerging us in water. It happens in a blink of an eye, but it’s still a wonderful thing to witness.

Grayson stops midway down the hall and points to a black door with a gold knob. “You’ll stay here. That’s my room,” he points directly across the hall, then the door next to his. “That will be my son’s room. I’m new at the dad thing, so please don’t turn your girly teenage music up high or any of that bullshit.”

He thinks I blare my music? I’m not fucking twelve. “I’ll be sure to keep Five Seconds of Summer on the low, don’t worry,” I snark with more attitude than I intend. My hand lands on the handle, but before I open the door, I turn to him. “You know, I am sorry, but I’m not a child. I know you think I am because I’m so much younger than you. What I did was wrong, but I’m not that person. It isn’t who I am. I was just trying to survive before my real life killed me. You were a happy part of my day, friend or not.” Glancing away from his handsome, stone-cold face, I open the door and lock it behind me, finally letting the tears crash around me as I let go of the pain that’s been building up for far too long.

Crying behind closed doors is allowed because no one can see me, and if no one can see me, it didn’t really happen. I hate being weak, and the more time that goes by and the more challenges I’m faced with, the more I realize that I’m not strong. I’m weak, and the only thing that has kept me alive so far is fear.

Chapter Eleven

GRAYSON

I can hear her crying behind the door, full-on heartbreaking sobs. I frame the door with my arms and hang my head. I hate to listen to her pain because I know I’m the cause of some of it. Maybe not all of it, but some. She’s been through hell the last few weeks, and it’s only natural for her to fall apart when she’s safe, and her defenses don’t have to be up anymore.

There are so many things I’m mad at her for. I don’t want her here, but I do. I want to hold her, but I can’t. I’ll never allow myself to touch her. She deserves someone her age, without a fucked up record staining their life. She’s too young to be a stepmom to an eight-year-old boy.

And there is only a ten-year difference between the two of them.

Jesus.

How the hell do I get myself involved in these messes?

The trim of the door creaks when I push off, and I give my back to her cries to go into my own room. Every inch the door shuts, the more guilty I feel. I want to ignore her, but I can’t because this is the woman who kept me up late at night as we joked back and forth. We talked about dreams and goals. We talked about everything under the sun. She’s the reason I never slept at night.

But the happiness I felt talking to her was enough to make me feel energized, and that person is here now, right across the hall, and I’m too damn mad at her to ask if all of it was a lie.

None of it matters to me now, or it does, and that’s why I’m so damn mad. Because she lied, I started liking someone I wasn’t allowed to. She trapped me in a sense, and I don’t think I can ever forgive her for that.

What kind of man would it make me if I told her we should start over, forget the past between us, and start fresh? She’s eighteen now. We could start over, and I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about it.

It sounds stupid, but she made me feel like I mattered. For once, I felt important to someone. I never got the impression there was romance between us, not yet; we had been taking our time.

Thank fuck.

And now? I can’t even think straight.

The bed sheets rustle, yanking me from my thoughts that have gone in circles for the last hour. I walk over to the bed and sit, watching Dillon get comfortable again as he sleeps. The last twenty-four hours have been life-changing, and I’m spiraling out of control.

I don’t know how to be a father.

I don’t know how to ignore the want I have inside me for a woman who is barely fucking legal.

I don’t know how to handle any of this, and I feel like I’m about to dive off this cliff and just chance it with the ocean.