Sleeping with your ex was one thing. Sleeping with the man who now carried the title of your stepbrother was something else entirely.

You told yourself once that fate couldn’t be cruel enough to force you back into his orbit. You were wrong.

Your mother remarried. She stood glowing beside her new husband, the man who was the ex husband of the woman your father had cheated on her with.

She had chosen happiness, after your father walked away from the family without looking back, chasing a second chance without knowing it would tether you to the one man you swore you’d never see again.

And there he was, your ex. The boy you once gave yourself to, the boy you once tried to love, now standing before you not as a memory, but as your stepbrother.

The word itself mocked you, made your throat felt like it was being prickled by thorns.

His eyes met yours across the room and you knew instantly nothing had changed. His hunger hadn’t dimmed, it had sharpened, grown feral. He didn’t need to touch you for you to feel his claim, that look was enough.

Step brother? Who? Him? The man who used to get hard just seeing you in those ridiculous Hello Kitty shorts. Whose smug, sinfully handsome face you once slapped when he tried to eat chocolate from your lips in public.

He never once hid his desire for you and now it was the same, he looked at you like no rejection could stand in his way.

You remembered why you left him. High school years was spent suffocating under his obsession. His hands on your skin as though he was starving. His jealousy like a death threat anyone who dared get too close. You broke it off because you thought if you ran far enough, you’d finally breathe again.

But now you were trapped in his father's mansion, breathing the same air and he never looked away.

To keep the fragile peace holding together the family, you tried to move on. You forced yourself to date. But he ruined it every time with just a look. A glare sharp enough to cut through skin, a silent threat that made every man shrink back from you.

Until tonight.

The high-society party was supposed to be a distraction. But then your date’s hands were on someone else, his mouth devouring a woman who looked as if life had chewed her up and spit her out.

Something in you snapped. You smacked him across the face in front of everyone, kicked off your heels, and chased him through the hall like Tom chasing Jerry.

By the time it was over, your breath came in ragged gasps, your skin hot, your body trembling not from heartbreak, but from fury.

And before you could even gather yourself, he was there.

Your ex. He lifted you up on his shoulder like a sack of potato.

"What do you think you are doing, you overgrown bulldog?!!

He smacked your ass, silencing you, then tossed you into his car, the slam of the door sealing you inside like a coffin. His hand gripped the back of your neck, pinning you against the seat.

His face hovered inches from yours, eyes burning with that madness you once thought you could tame.

“Don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to yourself. I feel it every time you look at me. That ache, you think anyone else could satisfy it? No. You’ve always craved me. And you always will.” His voice dropped to a growl, every word vibrating through you.

“I don’t give a damn if they call you my sister. You’re not my blood.”

Your breath hitched, panic and heat colliding in your chest.

“I’ll destroy every man who touches you. I’ll tear apart this family if I have to. Your mother, my father, the whole illusion they built, it means nothing.” His fingers tightened, forcing your gaze into his. “And if you run, I’ll hunt you. If you resist, I’ll break you. But make no mistake…”

His mouth brushed your ear and lips curling into something far too dark to be called a smile.

“You’ll never escape me. Not in this life. Not in the next.”

And deep down, beneath the dread and terror you knew he was serious.