Cruel Seduction: A Dark Romance (Underground Kings Book 2)

by Kelli Callahan

  A few chuckles surrounded us, but not enough to break the tension. It is obvious Gabriella is pissed off, I just forgot how cute she is when she is angry. She is like a puppy growling, not that I’ll ever tell her that, then she’ll bite me.

  She points to Heaven, who is smiling, but she glares at him and his smile fades and is replaced with a scowl, the trickster. “Apologize to him. He did not deserve a punch in the face; if anyone is acting like an asshole it would be you, for hitting him in the first place.”

  “I’m not apologizing,” I argue. I’m a man. I have pride, and I'm not going to apologize, especially after what he said. “He knows exactly what he said. If anyone needs to apologize, it’s him. That’s final.”

  “I’m sorry that I hurt your precious feelings with the fucking truth,” Heaven says, his lip swelling.

  I take a step forward to give him another hit across the face, but Gabriella stands in front of me, laying a hand in the middle of my chest. “Stop this. It isn’t you.”

  “It is me,” I say, glaring into her concerned eyes.

  She shakes her head. “It isn’t. I know you.” She rubs her hand over my heart, and the buzz of her touch has my anger expiring, just like that fucking milk she talked about poisoning my drink with. “I know you. You don’t have to be so angry anymore. I’m here.”

  Everyone seems to realize the moment has shifted and they turn their heads to the game. Jaxon has gotten an ice pack for Heaven, and he lays it against his lip while giving me a thumbs-up. I don’t know another man who is so good-hearted and forgiving. He should be furious with me.

  I lay my hand on top of Gabriella’s, the one that rubbed gently across my chest, and take a deep breath. “I have every reason to be angry, baby. Every single reason.” My anger isn’t pointed at her. It is pointed at me. I have no idea what to do with myself now that she is here. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, and I am ruining it. I am so infuriated with myself that she has been under my brother’s influence for all these years, and I couldn’t have saved her. I tried.

  My efforts weren’t good enough.

  I am so fucking angry. I want my time back, the time I missed with her, time when she didn’t feel pain, humiliation, and sadness. I am fucking furious that she jumped into the ocean because it was her only way out. She knew she could have died. She knew death would be her only way of getting away from Kendrick’s slimy fingers.

  I am angry that love couldn’t be stronger to stop horrible things from happening. How long did she live in hate to hopefully find love in life again?

  “Sebastian?” Gabriella’s hand holds my face, a touch so light it reminds me of a feather. Her fingers are cold, but her amber eyes hold warmth. The longer we stare at one another, the more my body heats, responding to her attention locked on me. “Talk to me. You don’t have the luxury of stomping off whenever you want. You might have been burly before, but now that I’m here, I want to coax you back to reality, Sebastian.”

  I’m not too sure if this is reality to be honest.

  “Come on, let’s go swimming.”

  “Do you know how?” I ask her, remembering all those years ago when she said she never learned. I always wanted to teach her.

  “No, but I have a feeling I’ll be okay,” she says as she walks away. She pauses when she realizes I’m not following her and looks back, extending a hand in invitation. Her strength, something I know she always had, surprised me. Her shoulders are back, her chin is high, and she has this wisdom in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. It isn’t fear or sadness, but endless determination peering at me through the depth of her honey-colored eyes.

  Gabriella is an earthquake, expected and strong. If she wants, she could destroy someone with her wit, but she couldn’t do it with my brother. If there is one thing that drowns the aftershocks of an earthquake, it is the tsunami caused by the force.

  A man who drains a woman from what makes her uniquely unlike any other woman in the world deserves to die by the hands of that woman.

  How could she effortlessly bounce back after everything? Maybe…My dreams get the best of me again. Maybe Kendrick wasn’t as horrible as I thought.

  No, I know that isn’t right, or he wouldn’t have hidden her away for so long. He was afraid to get caught.

  A light switches on in my head. Kendrick is afraid of me, and he didn’t know the place he wanted to hide her is the place she was meant to be found.

  I slide my hand into hers, still in disbelief that she is here, and follow her lead. My eyes lock on to the heart-shaped ass, watching the slight jiggle of each cheek in the tight pants. Fucking hell, I want to sink into her from behind and fuck her until her throat is raw from screaming my name.

  If there is one thing I know that needs to be reality, it’s the way she cried my name as I drove into her repeatedly in my dreams.

  I'm not the kind of man to give up either.

  She opens the door, and I slide it shut behind me. The night is beautiful, starless, but still beautiful. The dark skies look gray from the clouds, and the moon is behind them somewhere, shining its light. I walk to the pool’s control panel and flip on the lights. They change different colors, blue, red, green, and yellow. I also make sure the temperature is warm.

  Instead of getting in like I thought she would, she rolls up her pants to the knee and sits along the edge, placing her feet in the pool. She leans her weight on her hands. “Come on, sit next to me.”

  Like I’d turn down a request like that.

  I roll up my pants too, feeling like a dork with capris on, and sit beside her. I suddenly feel drained, and my hand hurts from hitting Heaven across the face.

  “You look sexy in your outfit, Gabriella.” I don't want her to think I think she looks horrible. She could never look horrible. The woman could put on a witch’s nose and a trash bag, and she’d still be the prettiest woman in the room.

  God, I am fucking gone for Gabriella. Lost in her.

  And I have no way out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  GABRIELLA

  I feel like a teenager all over again.

  Sitting next to Sebastian has my stomach matching the tempo of the waves beneath us. Which reminds me, the house they live in is extraordinary. There is a view of the cliffs and the sea in every room. It screams wealth, but secrets too. I have a feeling every person in this house has secrets that makes them able to afford a place like this. What are Sebastian’s?

  “It was Quinn’s idea. She wanted to get me all dolled up and if her plan failed, she was going to sick Heaven on me, but he beat her to it.”

  Sebastian flexes his hand and winces. “He really did.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you hit him?”

  “Does it scare you that I did?”

  I bark out a laugh. I throw my head back to let it all out, but then it come to a slow end, trailing off on a huff. “You think that scares me? Nothing scares me anymore, Sebastian. Well, Kendrick does, but anything else? I’m numb to it.”

  His hand lands on mine, lacing our fingers together, a sweet habit that I didn’t think existed anymore. “That makes me angry. You said I had no reason to be angry, but he is the reason why I’m angry,” he says, staring up the vast sky that looks like it is about to swallow us up and never spit us back out.

  “Don’t be angry. It isn’t worth it. He isn’t worth it.”

  “Are you not?” he asks, his jaw opened, flabbergasted.

  “Hmm,” I think about it, swinging my feet into the warm water. I dig around in my mind for anger and don’t feel anything. “No, I’m not angry. There was a time when I used to be. I dreamed of waking up in the middle of the night and cutting his throat. I dreamed of it, but somehow, he always had one eye on me. Eventually, anger fled, and I accepted my fate. He was an odd man. He touched me, but never…” I clear my throat and am thankful it is dark out so he can’t see my face heat from embarrassment. “Anyway, he wasn’t always all bad. I realize it was when he needed something fr
om me. For a long time, I knew he was a sick man with sick needs, but when he introduced me to his friends, I knew I had to leave somehow. I honestly don’t know how I managed to escape their clutches. Luck. It had to be, but living that life for so long, I grew accustomed to the way I was treated. I figured it was my fate. I—I stopped trying to escape him for a long time. I got tired.” I hate admitting I gave up on myself, but no one could understand how draining life was being with a man like Kendrick. I’m not going to give Sebastian details, but being locked away in another room with a bracelet around my ankle was peaches compared to the night room.

  That room was cold without windows. Kendrick would chain me against the wall, naked, and whip me repeatedly until I passed out. Everything was dark. I could only hear my sob and the crack of the weapon he used to abuse me with. When I passed out from pain, he’d throw ice cold water on me to wake me up and whip me all over again.

  Then he’d leave me there for days, in darkness, wondering if I was dreaming or if I had died and my soul was dragged to Hell.

  After the fifth or sixth time of that, part of me broke. I gave up on my life and knew I’d die at the hands of Kendrick.

  “You didn’t give up, or you wouldn’t be here,” Sebastian says, tightening his grip around my hand.

  I scoff and shake my head, sliding my gaze to him from the water. He’s staring at me, perplexed. His big black brows are pinched in the middle and he searches my face for reassurance in what he said, but I don’t have any to give him.

  I did give up.

  “Sebastian, I did give up. I jumped in the ocean knowing I’d probably die. It was you who saved me. You are the one who didn’t give up on me. You were the one who didn’t let me go.”

  If he could breathe fire, it would have burst from his nose like a dragon. “I’ll never let you go. I don’t have it in me to let you go, Gabriella. You can’t talk like that. How could you think for one minute that I’d live…” He pinches his lips shut, and he doesn’t have to finish what he was going to say.

  I can fill in the blank.

  My breath catches in my throat from the seriousness of his words, the depth of his emotion goes further than the trenches in the sea. I swing my leg over his lap and straddle him, soaking his jeans from the water dripping from my feet. I circle my arm around his neck and lay my forehead against his, and then I slightly roll myself against him with a shake of my head. “Please, don’t ever talk like that. You can’t mean that.” I let a tear slip free because the seriousness of what he is saying nearly has me falling into the pool and sinking to the bottom. I never want him to feel like that.

  It’s dangerous.

  His hands knead my hips, and his palms take me by surprise when they touch my bare skin. I forgot I was wearing a crop top. No one should feel this good.

  No.

  No one should have the power to make someone feel this good.

  That is dangerous too.

  “It’s true, Gabriella. I’m not proud to admit it, but I waited every day to see your name in the obituaries. I’m not this indestructible man you take me for. I’m weak in a lot of places. I had everything planned. My will, my finances—everything was sorted. I was ready. I had a gun—”

  “Stop it!” I sob, not wanting to hear any more. I don’t want to hear how he wanted to die if I wasn’t alive. “Just stop. No. Just … no,” I claw my fingers against his back until I’m flush against him, as close as I can possibly be. He has no idea how strong he is. He survived so many things; prison being the toughest, cruelest part of his life. If he can survive that, he can survive me.

  I am nobody.

  I grip the side of his head and look directly into his blue eyes.

  Anguish.

  He is telling the truth.

  I hate him for it.

  I love him more for it.

  How fucked up is that?

  “We’ve been through too much,” I say, sniffling so my runny nose doesn’t ruin the moment. “I don’t think we know how to be together.” The truth hurts, like most truths, but this one feels different. I only ever wanted to be with Sebastian, and now I wonder if our experiences will even allow us.

  He wraps his arms around me in a hug just as the breeze blows the salt in the air around us. It sticks to my skin, grainy and slightly itchy, but I don’t want to move. I am happy here. Right here. And I never want to leave.

  “I learned, somehow, to live without you. Now that I have you, I know for damn sure I can learn to be with you.” His palm nearly takes up the width of my back his hand is so broad. With drowsy glides of his fingers, he makes his way up my spine and to my neck, wrapping them around my nape.

  My neck has always been a spot that I can’t stand to be touched, but Sebastian isn’t gripping my throat. He is gentle. There is no pressure, no controlling gesture; he just wants to touch me, and that makes any fear of him touching my neck vanish.

  I know I am safe with him.

  Without thinking, I press my lips against his, my upper lip over his and my bottom lip plunging between his. I’ve never taken control before. I have always been the one being controlled, and Sebastian is letting me lead the way.

  That is power.

  That is strength.

  That is how I knew he was a good man because he easily and happily let me go at my own pace. He always has me in mind.

  “I love the feel of your lips,” he says, teasing my mouth with his. “You don’t know how long I fucking waited to feel them.”

  I slam my mouth against his, turned on by his words, wanting more, needing more of him. Our tongues share a dance, and his erection presses against me, long, hard, and thick, just like the rest of him. I gasp into his mouth when I give a rock of my hips against him, and he growls down my throat, one of warning, telling me I better stop.

  So I rock again, because I won’t stop—not until he tells me not to.

  My lips are hot, swollen, and tingling. His beard rubs the edges of my mouth raw, but it is a delicious anticipation and adds to the tango of seduction. My nipples are hard and rub against the thin material of his shirt. I wish it were his flesh, the hair on his chest teasing me instead. I whimper at the thought.

  “Sebastian, please,” I beg against his lips, urging him to take me already. I am his, damn it. Why won’t he just take me? “I need you,” I whisper against his ear, dashing my tongue along the earlobe before I pepper open-mouthed kisses along the column of his neck. I suck a bit harder than I intend, but I need him to see that I am in the right mind. I am not this scared little girl who needs coddling.

  What I need is to be treated like a woman who is fucking needy.

  And I am desperately need for Sebastian.

  My fingers tug on his soft, worn shirt. It feels like it has been washed too many times and no matter how good it feels rubbing against me, it would look better off. He has seen me naked, and it is only fair that I get to him in return.

  That is fair, right?

  “Gabriella,” his throat bobs as he speaks, tilting his neck back as I devours his skin. If I were a vampire, I’d sink my teeth in to get more of him, to be closer. It’s sick, delusional, and unhealthy to want someone like that.

  I want to completely take over him.

  “Fuck,” he snarls when I bite his collarbone, then I swipe my tongue over the abused skin. He jerks forward and drops us in the pool. The water is warmer than I expected. The crop top floats along the surface, and in one swift motion, he pulls it above my head and tosses the useless scrap to the other end of the pool.

  It lands with a splash, somewhere.

  Half my breasts are hidden under the water, while the other half are on display for him. His eyes lock on my chest, and he stalks forward, which makes me take a step away. My back hits the edge of the pool, and he cages me in with his arms, the biceps rolling with muscle as he flexes.

  “You’re fucking beautiful, Gabriella.”

  I lift his shirt over his head next and toss it away too. I rub my hands down
his torso, appreciating his beauty. He is all sculpted muscle and lean abs. His pecs are slightly puffed with firm strength, but not overly so where it looks to be too much.

  He is divine.

  “So are you.” I drop my hand to the button on his pants.

  Water drips off his chin, his hair is black and soaked, shining like oil.

  Anticipation is a dirty little nuisance in my veins, climbing lower in my body until I ache so much between my legs, I think I might explode. “Touch me,” I urge.

  I start to put two and two together. Every time I ask him to do something, he does it. He is making sure this is what I want. I am still in control.

  And that thought has me falling in love with him even more. I didn’t think it was possible, but impossible didn’t seem to be a word that exists when it comes to us.

  He dips down and sucks one of my nipples into his mouth. While he gives attention with the heat of his mouth and the sharp nip of his teeth, his free hand moves to cut the other breast. The double stimulation has me gasping, and I toss my head back on a loud cry, staring up to the starless sky.

  If only they were showing, then I’d thank them for having my wish come true. Sometimes having a little faith in what people don’t believe in is all someone needs to feel the tiniest bit of magic the world has to offer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  SEBASTIAN

  As I dip my hand down her pants, unzipping her jeans, I hear the sliding door open. I hold her tight against me until her breasts are smashed, her hard nipples grazing my pecs, which makes me grunt. I look for our shirts, but I can’t see them anywhere.