Cruel Intoxication (Underground Kings 4)

It looks like they have money since they are comfortable in a Lexus, but they remind me a lot of my parents. Money doesn’t create happiness, moments do.

And while there are a series of moments that are telling me not to be happy right now because of what is going on with Heaven, I can’t help but to feel happy. It’s wrong, considering Owen’s best friend is hanging on for dear life, and Owen is a wreck inside.

At the end of the day, we are all wrecks.

Something always happens.

Good and bad moments that form how we feel every other second and in this second, I’m experiencing something I never thought I’d ever have.

Owen loves me.

I fought for my life. I ran. I survived. I was lost, looking for a way to figure out how to live again.

And I found my way to love.

Twenty

Owen

I swipe the card over the door handle and wait for it to turn green. A few people have stared at us funny since we are dripping with water, but they can look all they want. Jolie loves me. She actually loves me. Somehow, she has figured out a way to love me through everything she’s going through.

Jolie’s strength is unprecedented, and not even I stand a chance against the unparallel winds she carries inside her.

The lock clicks, and I push the door open with my hip. The room is dark but once Jolie takes a step forward, the lights automatically come on, and she gasps when she sees the luxurious room.

It’s the best they had, but if they had a penthouse suite, I would have gotten that. It’s Trinidad, not the Hamptons.

“Oh, wow,” she whispers as she runs to the floor-to-ceiling windows to look out at the ocean. “I never get tired of a view like this, not when mine consisted of walls for so long. I know we live in a cliff, which is the best view ever, but still.”

“Yeah, the view is something else.” I wince when I realize how fucking cheesy that sounds, but it’s true. Her shirt clings to her body, showing the full shape she’s gained over the last few weeks. She still has a few more pounds to go, but she’s gained it quick, and I’m so damn proud of her.

And hard.

Really fucking hard, but that isn’t important. What is important is the woman staring out the window.

A woman who says she’s in love with me.

She’s important.

Jolie tucks her hand in her back pockets and peers over her shoulder, then she spins around to face me. “So,” she says, rocking on her heels.

“So.” We stare at each other, and it’s awkward, kind of, but thrilling all at the same time. I feel like a teenage boy again, not knowing what to do. “I’m … ah … I’m going to go take a shower.” I run straight into the wall and grunt when I slam against it.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m … it’s just a bump. That isn’t the shower,” I say dumbly.

I’ve kissed her, held her, fallen asleep next to her, and for some reason I’m a bumbling idiot right now. Maybe it’s because I know she loves me, and we are alone in a hotel room, drenched from head to toe.

Then there was that heated kiss in the rain.

And it’s all I can feel right now, the slide of her mouth against mine, the velvet lush pillow against my lips as she sighs down my throat. No matter how much she tries to fill me up, I’ll always be hungry for her. I’ll always crave her. She’s woken up this starving monster that hasn’t fed in two decades.

And I want to eat until we are both satisfied.

Then I want to do it again.

And again.