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“And you could take the hint!” I shouted back, and Atlas’s expression suggested he had several responses prepared for that.

None of them complimentary.

The frustrating thing was that I knew he wasn’t truly angry. Irritated, certainly. Exasperated, absolutely. Frustrated enough to throttle me, probably. But beneath all of that, something else lingered. Something dangerously close to amusement, and the fact that he was finding any part of this entertaining only made me want to elbow him again.

I spun around before I could act on the impulse and increased my pace, muttering under my breath as I wrestled with the endless folds of fabric, determined to wrap themselves around my legs. Somewhere in the distance, I could almost hear Riley laughing at me. Years of combat training, countless battles, impossible odds survived, and this was how I was going to die, strangled by an expensive dress while attempting to escape my infuriatingly persistent boyfriend.

The thought almost made me smile.

Almost.

Then my foot caught the edge of my skirt, and thoughts of smiling vanished.

“Oh, for fuc…” I muttered as the world abruptly tilted beneath me before I could finish that sentence. As I stumbled forward, flailing inelegantly, I tried to recover my balance. The dress had other ideas and finally won the war it had been waging against me all evening.

My foot tangled again, momentum carried me backwards, and before I could stop myself, I landed heavily in the enormous chair positioned behind me.

I just sat there, wondering whether my dignity had finally packed its belongings and left. Then reality caught up and slowly, very slowly… I looked down to see exactly where I had landed.

But of course…

It was his throne.

Seriously!

Of all the places in the entire castle, I could fall. Of all the chairs. Of all the catastrophically unfortunate things that could have happened. I had somehow fallen directly onto the throne.

His throne.

The room went quiet.

Not the absence of sound, but something deeper. The kind of silence that arrives when a moment unexpectedly becomes something else. A shift in the air, an atmosphere settling over the room. Which was why my head snapped up, and I took in the man who had been pursuing me.

The King… and he stopped walking.

He was staring at me with an expression I couldn’t immediately decipher. As if this, me, sitting on his throne, was a significant sight or something.

But I knew one thing…

The chase was over.

The moment broke because I tried to stand, which, in hindsight, was an optimistic decision. Especially considering I had barely managed to get one hand against the arm of the throne before Atlas closed the remaining distance between us. One of his palms struck the carved wood beside my shoulder, then the other landed on the opposite side.

The sharp sound echoed through the enormous chamber as he caged me in completely, his broad frame blocking every possible route of escape. It left me trapped between the king and his throne, with nowhere to go unless I somehow managed to climb directly through him.

My heart immediately accelerated, though annoyingly not from fear, because fear would have been so much easier to understand. The problem was that I trusted Atlas, even when he infuriated me. Even when I wanted to throw him onto the floor for a second time. And even when he looked like the last shred of his patience was hanging by a thread.

Which meant that trust did absolutely nothing to lessen the effect of him leaning over me. All heat and power and barely restrained frustration, his body was close enough that I could feel the warmth of him while my anger still burned hot beneath my skin.

Naturally, I attempted to get past him anyway because, apparently, my survival instincts had decided tonight was the perfect time to become deeply unreasonable.

I shifted my weight, ready to duck under his arm if necessary, but his hand rose immediately and settled lightly against the side of my throat before I could launch myself from the throne. The touch was gentle, almost absurdly so, considering the size of the man attached to it. But it stopped me all the same, not because he was hurting me, not because he needed to, but because the gesture carried a warning, I understood perfectly.

It said only one thing…

Enough.

Atlas’s eyes locked onto mine, dark and unyielding as he leaned closer.