He hadn't asked for any of this. Not the first time he'd glanced up from his car and seen her, all fire and fury, going at Atlas like she was ready to end him. Not the wedding party that had pulled him in, drawn to her essence like a moth to a flame, even when he knew better. And definitely not the night he'd marked her, the raw intensity of it all—the best sex of his life, sure, but a line he never meant to cross. Maybe he'd enjoyed it in the moment, lost in the heat and the connection, but he sure as hell hadn't invited it. And now? Now she was waltzing back in, through some twisted twist of fate, like his life was her playground to torment.
Who did she think she was? To vanish, leave him fractured and questioning everything, only to reappear out of nowhere? In the most conventional—or hell, unconventional—way possible? His blood boiled, a mix of rage and something deeper, more primal, that he refused to name.
