Cruel Temptation (Underground Kings 1)

I brushed a piece of hair out of her face and ran my finger down the vein on the side of her throat, allowing a smile to tug my lips. She was truly exquisite.

“You know what happens when you enter the devil’s lair?” I spoke to her as I kept my eyes above her breasts while I tugged the shirt over her head. I wanted to look, but I was more of a man than to take advantage of an unconscious woman. “You never escape.”

When darkness met darkness, sometimes the brightest light couldn’t see into the depths, and that was what Quinn and I were, the abyss at the end of a black void.

Chapter Five

Quinn

It was the second time I woke with a dizzy head, and I couldn’t be more pissed off. The man had some nerve; I’d give him that much. Jaxon Steel always had what it took to get under people’s skin and itch them the wrong way.

When he got under my skin, it felt good.

No, that was then, and this was now. A man who ruined my wedding day, my happiness, and destroyed my heart for the second time in my life. What else could he really want from me? He had taken everything. I had nothing left to give him.

I rolled over in bed, and the mattress went on forever. When I sat up again, I held my hand to my head and cursed Jaxon Steel with every damn word I could conjure. Just wait until I saw him. I was going to give him a piece of my mind and punch him.

In between the legs.

And then I’d make a run for it.

Stupidest plan ever. I had zero chance of escaping his hold. He wasn’t a man that kept anything out of reach.

Studying my surroundings, I noticed the room was different.

Was every time I woke up going to be a maze of rooms?

The walls were stark white with one gold accent wall to dull how bright the room was. There were a few wide diagonal skylights along the ceilings, showing a tease of the evening sun setting.

God, was it still the same day? Amazing what could happen in twenty-four hours.

I rubbed my hands along the fluffy comforter and looked left and right to see the gigantic mattress I laid on. No wonder when I rolled it felt like it went on forever. It was a double California king. This room was massive, it had to be to fit a bed like this, and who needed a something so large to sleep in? How many people did Jaxon sleep with?

No, I didn’t want to know.

The room was cut at an odd angle, not like a plain square, but the ceiling was high and slanted, and the walls were obtuse angle’s, fanning out from the doorway instead of staying narrow. The bed sat on a white and gold slate, and this time, art hung on the walls, a style that reminded me of Jackson Pollock. A winding marble staircase sat to the left and spiraled up to the top floor. Must be a loft of some sort.

The room was beautiful, but even with all the beauty, I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to go home. I was on the verge of freaking the hell out but knew throwing a tantrum wouldn’t get me anywhere with Jaxon, and I knew he wanted me to lash out at him. I knew well enough that a bit of defiance turned him on, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

Yeah, right. I remembered all too well how Jaxon reacted to defiance.

It made goosebumps appear on my arm when I thought about how good he used to make me feel. If there was one thing I could say, Jaxon Steel was the best lover I had ever had and the worst man to trust. Still, memories of us rolling around in the sheets haunted me to this day. With his strong body, lean torso, tight ass, and big cock, it was hard for a woman to deny him when he carried the arsenal needed to take us down.

“Bastard,” I grumbled, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I didn’t remember putting on my shirt. I tilted my chin down and pinched the material, doing my best to think about how it got on, but the last thing I remember was being on the plane. “Jaxon,” I hissed. He had something to do with this and the reason why my head pounded.

Which meant he saw me naked.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then counted to ten. It was what I always did when I got worked up and had no outlet to release my anger. I had a bit of a temper, and Jaxon never failed to bring it out of me. My feet landed on the cold floor, and I sucked in a breath. My eyes flew open from the sudden shock, and I pushed myself off the bed. My eyes landed on a leather chair nestled in the corner with a modern lamp standing to the side. There was a bookshelf to the left, probably full of ‘how to get away with murder’ or ‘best way to get rid of a body’ books.

Turning to my left, I tugged on a long string hanging from a rod, and the extravagant curtains that took up the entire back wall parted. My breath caught when I saw the view in front of me. I was out in the middle of no man’s land by the looks of it. The ocean went on for miles, an

d the waves crashed against the rocky embankment. The large waves plundered the cliffside, even splashing up against the window, which had me taking a step back, afraid the glass might break from the strength of the water.

I learned to never underestimate the sea.

A knock at the door had me running to it, but right before I crossed the bottom of the bed, I thought better of it. I sat on the mattress instead of running toward the door and begging for help. I wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of pleading for help. I lifted my chin up and looked around the room, trying to see if there was a camera, but it wasn’t obvious like the one in the plane. If he was watching me, I had no idea.

The knock came again, and I yawned, bored. Maybe I’d crawl back into this massive bed and take a long nap. The knob clicked, and the white door swung open to reveal an old lady wheeling a tray inside.