Cruel Temptation (Underground Kings 1)

She just sat there, watching, as if this was a show and she paid money to see my suffering.

“Help me!” I finally screamed at her, finally finding my voice, but she just sat there, letting Jaxon conduct his business. “What are you doing? Are you with him? What do you people want?” I looked around, seeing faces I didn’t know, but no doubt faces of men that are just as dangerous as Jaxon. “I hate you Jaxon. I hate you! I wish you would have stayed away.” Tears dripped down my face as I stared at the only man that ever held my heart. The love with Jaxon was wild and unpredictable.

And when he did what he did, it crushed me. I had never been so afraid in my entire life. So when he went off to prison, I broke up with him. I wanted nothing to do with a man like that, and Brian and I found comfort in each other, and I loved him as much as I could, but Jaxon was the man that owned the majority of my heart.

My heart might be a wayward sonofabitch, but my mind knew Jaxon was no good for me. It helped me let go and move on. I was so close to finding happiness again, and of course, Jaxon had to come out of the woodworks. When did he even get out of prison?

“You’ll know in time that I am not your enemy, Quinn. I could never be your enemy. You can paint whatever picture you want of me, but I can guarantee you, you are using the wrong colors.” He stepped forward and grazed his knuckles down my cheek. A jolt passed between us where he touched me, and I hated him even more for making me yearn for him while I stood in a bloody wedding dress while my groom laid unconscious.

Crosses hung upside down when Jaxon was near. There was no hope for me. I’d be condemned to him because Jaxon Steel if there was one thing I knew about him, his way, was hell’s way. He made horns look good as they held up his black halo.

Black because there was no good in him.

Lucifer was an angel, after all.

“Are you going to kill me too?” I hissed, gathering the spit in my mouth, and then launched it at him, right in his face. “Fuck you, Jaxon. Be a man and get on with it.” The man behind me laughed, and the guy by Brian’s body scoffed as he lifted him up into the air and carried him out of the shirt, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. “Where are you taking him?”

Jaxon smiled and ran his fingers through the spit slowly dripping off his cheek. “We aren’t killing him if that is what you’re asking,” he said, but I heard the inevitable ‘yet’ lingering at the end of the sentence. He glanced at his fingers, wet from my saliva, and sucked them into his mouth. He hummed in delight and gripped my chin, his fingers sliding against my jaw from how slick they were. “Still so tasty, Quinn. Still as sweet as I remembered you to be.”

“I’m more bitter than you think.” I struggled to get out of his friend’s grasp, his henchman, whatever the hell he was. I wanted to wrap my hands around Jaxon's throat, slap him, kiss him, punch him, hate him, and never see him again.

Except, I knew he would always make his way into my dreams.

He always did.

The bastard.

“I don’t doubt that,” he said, leaning forward until his hold on my chin tightened to a sharp pain. His breath puffed against my lips, and the warm air flowed over my tongue and down my throat, possessing me for a split second with his own bitterness. “I bet you’re as sweet as a cherry.”

“When it comes to you?” I tugged my chin free of his fingers and lowered my voice, “Think of me as a poisonous berry.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but the old lady spoke, “Cops are coming. I hear the sirens. We need to leave,” she said, hobbling down the aisle by shuffling her feet.

“We? Ingrid, don’t you have grandchildren or something to go to?” Jaxon asked, wiping his cheek off with a handkerchief. “I don’t e

ven know you, and you have no idea what you’re asking to walk into.”

“I don’t have anybody. I’m only here because I saw the wedding signs outside and it had been ages since I saw one. You boys need a grandma. I’m old. I just ask I get taken care of too.”

“I never had a grandma,” the man behind me said.

“Oh, you people are fucking crazy!” I screamed. “Are we really hashing out if she is going to bake cookies while you ruin my damn life!” I lifted my legs off the ground to try and gain momentum to kick someone, but my attempts were useless.

“Business is business. It doesn’t matter what it is about,” Jaxon said, then shoving the handkerchief into my mouth to silence me. “That’s better.” He rubbed his temples as if he had a headache. I wanted to scream! The man was so infuriating.

I tried to speak and spit out the cloth in my mouth, but the more I tried, the further down my throat the material went.

“I like you Ingrid. The men have never had someone like you, so I'll allow it. You’ll be vetted first. I trust no one, no matter how old and cute they are.”

“You’ll find I'm more capable than you think,” the crazy old bitch said.

I was in the twilight zone. None of this was real because a man who killed his own sister, hijacked my wedding, kidnapped my boyfriend, was holding me hostage, and now took an old lady under his wing. Why? He suddenly felt like a martyr?

Lifting my heel, I slammed it down on a shoe, and the guy behind me released me as he doubled over in pain. I tried running for it, but the old hag tripped me with her cane, and Jaxon caught me by my neck.

Just my neck.

He held on tight and whipped me around, tightening his other hand around my throat. The gag was hanging out of my mouth, and he bit down on the cloth and pulled it out of my mouth. I coughed when it was cleared and tried to breathe in, but his hands around my neck tightened. He dropped the cloth from his mouth, and it drifted to the floor.