The End of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 4) (36 page)

“Ready for what?” she gasped, slowly coming out of her intoxicated state now that he had pulled his lips from hers.

The smile he gave her was pure sex. It was a smile that excited her and scared the living daylights out of her at the same time. 

“You’re sharing my bed tonight, baby.”

“It is the only thing that makes life worth living.”

18: Only Yoori

“Perverted lunatic!” Soo Jin shouted, bouncing on Tae Hyun’s bed after being pushed onto it.

She cursed to herself. She had really reached a new level of idiocy. How the hell did she manage to go from beating Tae Hyun’s ass to being his new sexual plaything?

To make matters worse, she could not blame alcohol for her loss of better judgment. She was sober, completely and utterly sober. She allowed Tae Hyun to disarm her. He utilized his goofball side as a placebo to make her comfortable—to tear away the last of her resistance. In truth, she had no one to blame but herself. She had given into his seduction, and because of this travesty, the gorgeous bastard took it as his open invitation to invite her into his bed.

Soo Jin muttered another expletive. It did not escape her how dangerous this very moment was for her. Kwon Tae Hyun was a master at seduction. He oozed sexual magnetism with little to no effort. The very fact that he was making an effort to get her into his bedroom only meant one thing: he was done with foreplay. He was determined to put their complicated relationship to bed—literally.

“You were the one who kissed me first,” Tae Hyun retorted, climbing onto the bed like a tiger on the attack. Tempting muscles corded to life with his every predatory movement. His dark eyes glittered with tantalizing promises of the pleasures to come. “You started this. Why can’t I finish it?”

Instinctively, Soo Jin began to back away on the massive bed, using her hands to pull her body away. Unluckily for her, Tae Hyun was mirroring her retreat with his own advancement.

“Finish what?” she asked stupidly.

A lazy and seductive smile embellished his face. He continued to move, his muscles flexing gorgeously. “Seducing my girlfriend.”

“Oh God, this is insane,” she complained after her back met the cold headboard. “This whole trip has been insane.”

“How is it insane?” Tae Hyun murmured after he reached her. He leveled his eyes with hers and rested his big arms on either side of her. The heat from his body stirred over her like an open flame, silently beckoning her to touch him. “You’re the one who started this.” A smirk perched on the edge of his lips. “You were the one who lost the challenge.” He laughed at the reminder of how he had won—how it was a duck that sealed the deal for him. “Embarrassingly so, if I may add.”

“You know that wasn’t fair,” Soo Jin argued in a rough breath. She desperately pressed harder against the headboard. Even though it was against the laws of physics, she was hoping that if she pushed hard enough, she would find a secret tunnel within the headboard to escape into. “You only won because that stupid duck appeared out of nowhere and screwed me up. I demand a rematch.”

His laughter intermixed with the soft quacking of the ducks outside.

“Rematch?” He shook his head and rested his hands on the headboard, locking her between his arms. He raised his glorious body up into a sitting position and faced her with a devilish look on his face. “I’m sorry, but I’m not a saint, Princess,” he apologized, his smooth voice coursing over her like honey. “I’m simply a guy who’s going crazy for his girlfriend right now.”

“This is such a ridiculous conflict of interest,” Soo Jin vented with exasperation. She maintained control of her hands while the heat from Tae Hyun’s body continued to tempt her. “I trained years upon years for you. I fought with everything I had to reach this moment in life. I’ve given up everything for you, and the epic battle—the epic God—I’ve been waiting all my life to challenge is seducing me? Oh God, this is irony at its best.”

Tae Hyun arched a pleased brow.

“You see me as a God?” he crooned gently, feathering his lips over her red-hot cheek.

When she didn’t say anything, he forged on by pressing his scorching body forward. He nipped his nose with hers before leisurely moving his lips to her earlobe. Soo Jin gasped when he skillfully took her earlobe into his mouth and began to nibble on it. “What kind of God, Soo Jin?”

Sex God
, she wanted to answer, but kept her mouth firmly sealed. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, nothing but appreciative whimpers would pour out. Her “Sex God” was already driving her crazy with his teasing. She refused to give him more ammunition by letting him know how much she was enjoying his advances.

Tae Hyun grinned at the tense anxiety engulfing Soo Jin. He shifted his lips from her ear and grazed them over the corner of her trembling lips.

“I can’t seduce someone who doesn’t want to be seduced,” he whispered, holding her gaze when their eyes locked. After appraising how much effort she was exerting into not making a sound, the seductive air he emitted thinned marginally. Perplexity troubled his once carnal eyes. “Why do you hate me so much?”

“Because you challenge my existence,” Soo Jin answered at long last.

The mystification mounted in his eyes. This was the last answer he had been expecting. “What?”

Soo Jin was initially resolved on not divulging the reason to him. Nevertheless, when she felt the answer bubble in her throat, it felt too much like a burden to not release it.

“I’ve been conditioned to be the best, and in our world, there is only room for one legend in a generation’s lifetime.” She looked at him unblinkingly, feeling the heat from their yearning bodies mingle together. “There could only be one champion in our era, and I want to be that once-in-a-lifetime legend in this world. I want to be the first Lord of our society. I want the generations to come to always remember my name, and I want to be alive—even after death.” Jealousy began to infuse into her eyes like a virus. “You challenge that very endeavor with your existence. Now I understand why Ji Hoon hates you so much. If you weren’t alive, then he would’ve been the favored one. Although my return demoted him to the third ranking, the simple truth is that this only means that I am just one rank above him—this only means that I’m still second to you.” She swallowed convulsively, physically choking down her jealousy. “I hate that—I hate
you
. I hate that you were never trained to be in this layer, yet you hold so much power over everyone. I hate that you’re arrogant, and I hate that you have every right to be because you are truly legendary.” She appraised him critically. “But what I hate most is that it is your throne to lose. On this stage, I’m merely a contender for the throne—the one fighting for something that has already been primed and ready for you.”

“You can have this world,” he told her without hesitation. “I don’t want the throne.”

“And
this
is why I despise you the most,” she gritted through her teeth. Fury vibrated in her words. “How dare you throw the throne away like it’s yesterday’s trash? How dare you belittle something that I’ve worked my entire life for?”

“Because I want something else more,” he told her desperately, genuinely. “I do not want to fight you for it.”

“
I
want to fight you for it,” she emphasized hatefully. She could feel her heart race in anticipation. “This throne means nothing to me if I don’t fight you for it. It means nothing if you simply hand it over to me. I did not train my entire life to win a throne by default. I trained my entire life to conquer another God for it.”

He smiled sadly. It was evident that her words were cutting into him like a knife. “You will only be satisfied if you fight me to the death?”

“Yes.”

Albeit the anguish in his eyes was undeniable, the enduring love in his warm stare was also difficult to overlook. It was clear to Soo Jin that Tae Hyun could never hate her for anything she wanted to do. This concept flabbergasted her. Her own brother and ex-boyfriend would never be as forgiving. Any other Underworld King would not be as forgiving, and yet, here Kwon Tae Hyun was: staring at her like she was the best thing to ever happen to him. It was disconcerting to say the least.

“What is it about Yoori that has you so hooked?”

The words came out faster than she could have controlled them. She hated Yoori, despised any given moment where she had to be reminded of the girl’s existence. Regardless of her hatred, she was fascinated that a simple girl like Choi Yoori could capture the King of Serpent’s heart to this degree. He was not only willing to give up his throne for her, but he was also willing to risk his life for her. What was so special about this girl?

Tae Hyun lifted his hand up and began to stroke her face with a light caress. His eyes filled with warmth at the reminder of the love of his life.

“She saved my life,” he answered quietly.

Soo Jin laughed at the silly answer. “Oh, you mean at the warehouse with Ji Hoon?”

He shook his head, not in the least bit offended by her laughter. “That’s not what I mean.”

Soo Jin went quiet as he went on, his eyes growing lost in a reverie.

“Before I met Yoori, I was living a very . . . numb life. I had all the money in the world, I had people who respected me—feared me, I had people ready and willing to bend to my every will, I had women throwing themselves at me, and on top of all of this, I was the King of this Underworld—the one every powerful entity the world was ready to kneel before.” He drew in a slow breath. “But there was something about that life that began to bore me. I was becoming more and more numb to everything. I started to realize that I was living too much of a solitary life. People constantly surrounded me, but I always felt alone. That’s why I moved out of the Serpents’ estate. I couldn’t handle sitting in my enormous living room alone, I couldn’t handle staring at the fireplace alone, and I couldn’t handle being in the big mansion alone. Everything about my estate reminded me of how alone I was—how alone I would always be.” He smiled to himself. “I thought things would change when I moved into my own apartment. To my disappointment, life still felt the same. I was still going through the motions, still watching the seconds pass me by. My life no longer felt meaningful. I no longer felt—”

“Alive,” Soo Jin mindlessly finished for him.

What he described felt too hauntingly familiar to her.

His bittersweet smile was confirmation that she used the right term. “That was when I realized that this was the debt all ‘Gods’ must pay. The longer you live your life being above human, the more you become numb to the simple human emotions that make life—
life
. I had a deteriorating soul, and all I had left was my ruthlessness and greed. The only love in my life was power. That was all I woke up for. It was all I lived for.”

The melancholic hue in his eyes gradually dissipated. Happiness began to illume in his once dim gaze.

“Then Choi Yoori came and changed everything. Like a fallen angel, she turned my world upside down. In the beginning, she amused me because there was something about her feisty personality that intrigued me. It was fascinating how she always managed to put me in my place—how I always seem to let her. Not long after, she started to make me happy—really happy. She’s such a strange and dorky girl, but everything she does has me eating from the palms of her hands. I’d never felt that way about any other woman.” He let out a reminiscent sigh. “Then I started to realize that I was smiling more as I went to sleep, smiling more as I woke up, and smiling more because of her simple existence. It wasn’t until I brought her to the lake house that I realized how I had changed. It wasn’t until I kissed her that night that I truly felt human again.”

“You felt alive again,” Soo Jin provided instinctively. It was terrifying how much she related to what he was saying.

He smiled, his eyes holding hers.

Seconds later, with no preface to what he was about to do, he snaked an arm around her hip and melded their bodies close together. His eyes searched hers with yearning.

“I can’t wait anymore,” he told her gently, gazing at her like she was a gift he waited his whole life to unwrap.

The last of his control deteriorated as he held her to him. She could feel the tensing of his muscles and the growing heat from his body. He was ready to take her, to make her his.

Pressing his forehead against hers, Tae Hyun managed to exert one last shred of control before it began to dwindle from him.

“I won’t be a mistake on your part.” Conviction pulsated in his declaration. “I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I won’t force myself on you.” His gaze never wavered from hers as he spoke, and neither did Soo Jin’s. She was mesmerized by him and wanted everything he could offer her. She no longer wanted to be logical. Not right now, not when she wanted him this much.

“So right here, right now, I’m giving you your chance,” he said with effort, every part of his body telling her that he didn’t want to let her go. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me to leave you. Tell me you don’t want me—that you never want to be with me, and I’ll walk away. I will never bring you to my bed, I will never touch you, and I will never chase after you again. Just say the words. Say it and I’ll go.”

Soo Jin parted her lips to vocalize those damning words. Her mouth was open, but none of those words came out. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and did something she knew she would regret: she kissed him.