Rating: 1.5/5 
 (I received a free copy from the publisher, Kensington, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.) 
 ***Minor spoilers, TW: MENTIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT*** 
 Levi has spent several years in prison for accidentally killing a man who was going to attack his best friend, Rachel. However, Rachel would never tell him why she was in that alley. She never even gave her statement for what happened, and never once visited Levi while he was in prison. Levi considers it all her fault that he was in prison in the first place, and that fact that she never visited didn't help. Before he went in, Levi had wanted to be with her, but didn't think it was the right time. Now that he's out, he wants the life he should have had with her. While he was in prison, Rachel has opened her own tattoo parlour, Sugar Ink, in an abandoned building and now has a good business where she can use her artistic skills. However, this is all threatened by Levi, who now owns the building Sugar Ink uses. Rachel has a choice - be with Levi and give him the life he wanted, or lose her business. 
 This could've been a lot better of a read if Levi didn't make me so uncomfortable. I didn't like him at all, and I'm honestly not sure if I was supposed to. I feel like the author was aiming to make Levi irritating but understandable, but all he did was piss me off. For lack of a better term, he was pretty rapey. I found it disturbing that he thought it was okay to manipulate and blackmail Rachel in the way he was doing. I get that Rachel is partially responsible for what happened to him, but as Rachel says many times, he isn't even owning up to what he did, only placing all the blame on her. Also, I can't believe he was okay with pressuring her into sex. I know he views it as having a choice, but I don't really consider it a real choice since it was blackmail. He's so messed up that he thinks if he arouses her enough then it won't matter? Still feels like assault to me. 
 Other than Levi, this book actually wasn't too bad. I felt bad for what Rachel had to go through in her life, and what she had done which caused her to end up in that alley. I also felt bad because of what Levi was doing to her - making her feel so much guilt and forcing her make such an idiotic decision. The supporting characters were interesting too, but I wish I knew this was the second in the series so that I could read the first book before this one, since I know those characters were introduced in that book already based on its synopsis. 
 Overall, this would've been a better read if Levi wasn't such a disturbing creep. If his creepiness was toned down then I think I would've liked it a lot more. I know that throughout the book Levi is supposed to go down a path of self-discovery and redemption, but in my own mind he couldn't redeem himself from what he did right at the beginning of the novel, no matter how much he claims to love Rachel. I definitely wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking for a good romance novel, because trust me, Levi will piss you off. However, if you're interested you can find it on Netgalley here: https://s2.netgalley.com/catalog/book...