Mine (Real Book 2)

Those first few nights when I first slept with Remy, I used to lie and cuddle at his side, not knowing what he was doing on his iPad. Until one day I shook aside my sleepiness and decided to investigate.

“What are you doing?” I said then, straightening up to take a peek.

He sets the Apple aside and drags me onto his lap, then he adjusts me between his thighs and grabs back his iPad, whispering in my ear as he shows me the screen, “Kicking the computer’s ass.”

“What is it?”

“Chess.”

I lean back against him with his hard arms stretched at my sides. “Are you winning? Of course you are,” I answer myself.

I stare at the screen, at the white and black pieces, and he explains each piece and how it moves, the pawns being the most basic ones. We continue the game, and what I am enjoying is watching his brain work as he moves his pieces, and hearing his breath in my ear. And how every once in a while, he nibbles my earlobe and sets a kiss on me.

He tells me to pick which piece to move when he’s up next. I decide to go for the big guns.

He laughs softly. “You don’t want to move our queen.”

“Why not? She seems like the most versatile and powerful piece.”

He taps the queen and puts her back in her place. “The queen stays by the king.” He kisses my temple.

“Why?” I counter.

“To protect him.”

“From what?” I turn and stare into his laughing blue eyes, and he sets his iPad aside and cups my face, smiling, like I should know why the queen protects the king.

Then he kisses me, and just to play chess with him feels like I’ve learned something new about him. That I also love. Just like the rest.

God. He’s a living, breathing treasure, and he’s letting me discover him, and all I want is to get lost in the complex divine darkness and light in him.

Now, he’s miles and miles away, flying to Chicago, but I’ve found that if I log in at night, I can play chess with him and let him beat the hell out of me. And I can write little comments on the screen, like, I’m going to get you now!

He only answers with a move that eats up one of my pawns.

And I make a stupid move and go, You’re dead meat! Both your king and queen! But I’m gonna make your king watch while I kill his woman!

He types, Nobody touches my woman.

I go, But you?

Now you’re getting the idea.

And I laugh, and then he calls me, and we forget the game, and I get lost in his voice and in the things he says to me.

By week two, I’ve visited my gynecologist, and I’m able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. Melanie records the event on her phone and sends it to me, so I send it to Remy, and he answers with a ?

I dial his number and hear his rough voice. He always sounds a little impatient, like he’d rather do anything than talk on a damned phone, answering with a gruff “yeah.” I tell him, “That’s the baby’s heartbeat.”

We both fall quiet for a moment. Then he says, “Let me hang up so I can listen. I’ll call you in five.”

I laugh and then wait impatiently. . . .

By week two and a half, Nora has been stopping by less and less. She’s somehow angry at me about something, or maybe I’m angry at her? I’m not sure. But even Melanie wonders what’s up with her, and I sometimes wonder if she’s grumpy because of Pete, for she keeps asking me about the fights, about our schedules, and about the Underground.

By this time, I’ve played most of Remy’s songs. My favorites are Nickelback’s “Far Away” and 3 Doors Down’s “Here Without You”—which I listen to over and over at night.

Melanie is now on a first-name basis with the florist. I get red roses every day. Every day. She gets a call from Riley in the morning and in the evening, requesting a full report for Remington. If I liked the flowers? If I’m doing all right? I’ve been sending a text every day—okay, actually more than one—and Remy always answers me after training.

I’ve watched hundreds of movies and Internet shopped till I dropped, and I’ve been seeing my parents. Things may be tense with them, but it gets better every time they come for a visit. At least they now seem accepting of, and almost excited about, the baby.

By the third week, I have read the entire What to Expect When You’re Expecting pregnancy bible and I’ve learned that the heartburn I’m feeling is normal. The weepiness? The anger? The mood swings? Normal. In the online forums, we90r64mama and 4uwtforever call it “pregnant-mama drama.” I have laughed my head off with their anecdotes of feeling possessive of their baby daddies and doing a thousand and one crazy things like checking their receipts and their credit cards, and spying.

I really think I’ve been doing all right with the pregnant-mama drama, PMD, until the start of the fourth week, when the bed rest starts driving me up the wall. I’m trying to keep my mind busy, if not myself, but I miss running, I miss the sun, I miss the fights, and I miss him.

At midnight, I had insomnia—normal!—and texted him a long, detailed message that it had been raining in Seattle and I found a song I want to play him. Has he ever heard “Between the Raindrops” by Lifehouse? Oh, and has he gone running? I miss running—it’s so frustrating to stare at these four walls. . . .

Then I told him I planned to get permission from my gynecologist so I could come and see him fight when he comes to Seattle next week. The only answer I got to all my questions was the one he texted:

No Underground for you yet, LF. Stay home.

Of all the things I imagined him saying, I never, ever imagined Remington would say this. And thus, the PMD began when all my sister’s words came back to haunt me, about him being a sex god of the Underground . . . and suddenly the PMD worsened as I imagined whores pleasuring him while he was all alone without me. Who’s giving him all the sex this primal male needs? It seems that all my pregnancy hormones are hard at work, not only helping me hold this baby, but hard at work driving me crazy in my head.

I forced myself to text: Why? Why don’t you want me at the Underground?

He didn’t answer, and all my fears raged even more fiercely, as I truly wondered: Why?

Don’t you want to see me?

He answered: Just stay the fuck home and wait for me.

So he wasn’t anxious to see me then at all?

You want me home? So all your fans can scream at you and see you and not ME? Fuck you!

I added the red, fuming emoticon after that so he’d know he’d pissed me off, then I tossed the phone aside and stewed in my own juices until I wanted to explode. Stay home? Home is where he is. Motherfucker.

This morning my roses doubled in amount.

When Riley talked to Melanie this morning, he told her to tell me that Remington hoped I liked my flowers, and that he wants me to send the link of the song I told him about yesterday by text.

Ha.

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel like sending him shit.

Our baby is doing well, and I’m so excited the cream seems to be working. The spotting has stopped completely, but the hormones in me? They are raging. I am dying. To see him. I’ve defended him, me, and our baby to my parents daily, telling them that I have not been discarded or used, that he’s brought me here to be supported and taken care of, but to hear him say that he doesn’t want me at the Underground sucks balls.

All the misery I’ve been trying to keep at bay is coming at me from all sides now that I’m angry at him and don’t want to have reason to be angry at him, but, god, I can’t help it. Being on bed rest, you have nothing to do but let your head come up with a thousand and one stories about what is going on out there—in the world, without you—and none of these stories are pleasant.

“Stop sending reports, Melanie,” I say glumly that afternoon.

“Why? Riley asks, and Remington asked me to send daily reports before he left that day. He wants to know how you’re doing.”

“Stop giving detailed reports, period.”

She seems to be completely unable to keep the laughter from her voice. “Hey, you want them too! Your eyes bug out of your head when I’m listening to the other end of the line like you want supersonic ears to hear. I’ve heard you call Pete and ask how he is.”

I sigh and rub my temples. “I just worry about him.”

I’ve called Pete to ask if everything was okay and he said yes. Like a true guy, he was not very talkative on the phone except to say that they’re there if I need anything, and that Remington is training nonstop. I asked if he was speedy, and he said they were all focused on keeping that under control, and to relax, that he was trying very hard to stay blue.

What did that mean?

Pete called me a trigger once, and the thought that Remy might want to avoid me to stay blue eats me up like acid.

Mel stares at my forlorn face and shakes her head with a grin, as if she can’t believe I’ve been reduced to this. “You’re getting wrinkles as we speak; cut the frown already,” she lightly says as she brings a bowl of homemade organic popcorn for us to eat while we watch yet another movie. “Sweetie, the Underground comes through here in a week—you should be beaming!”

“I won’t even be able to go. Remington doesn’t fucking want me there.”

Taking a deep breath, I try to calm down as I wonder what would BBP—Brooke Before Pregnancy—do?

“Because he’s coming to see you after the fight. Riley told me your man plans to sleep here with you during their three-night stay.”

I cover my face. “That makes me feel even worse. Why is he arriving just in time to fight and not before, to see me?”

Melanie shrugs.

“What if Nora is right and he doesn’t want me anymore?” I continue.

She squeals with laughter now. “Okay, first of all, Nora is a cheese-head with little holes in her head, and she’s been lost all these days when she promised me she’d be coming to take care of you and is Lord-knows-where instead. She’s up on cloud nine somewhere, and you’re somewhere else—because these are definitely hormones talking here.”

“I can’t believe he doesn’t want me there. I think someone else stole his phone and texted me. Maybe a stupid whore.”

“Brooke, he’s clearly protecting you and the baby.” Melanie rolls her eyes at me as she searches my Apple TV for something to rent.

The monsters in my head prevail over her words. Baby is doing better. If my doctor gives me the green light, why wouldn’t he want me there? Does he not even miss me?

“I just don’t understand,” I grumble, grabbing one of the same stupid magazines I’ve read a thousand times and tossing it against the wall.

Melanie drops the remote and comes to stroke my hair. “Like they say, men are from Mars. Some of the ones I’ve dated are even from YourAnus—the assholes. And you, my darling, are very pregnant here. You’ve been stressed about losing the baby, stressed about missing your guy, stressed about your mama and papa not being so supportive, and Nora isn’t any help at all. You’ve been stuck with me, a nutcase, in these same four walls, for three weeks, without even feeling the sunlight. Chicken, this is why everyone who ever appeared on Big Brother went crazy, and at least they had a pool.”

I shove her playfully and laugh.

But hours later, I’m staring at my living room wall, replaying all the scenarios of Remington not wanting me. Remington seeing someone else in the stands he likes. Remington realizing a baby—as it has proven so far—is a little more trouble than a man like him would want. I am torturing myself, and my mind has gained such momentum I can’t even stop it.

“You’re distant. Where are you? With Remy?”

“He must be fighting right now.”

Right now, hundreds of people get to see him. Hundreds of women are screaming his name, lusting after him. Right now those blue eyes will have to look at something or someone else when they scan the audience and I’m not there. And even when he’ll be here, in my city, he doesn’t want me there and I don’t even know what to do.

“Don’t they stream it live on some Underworld site? Come here, I’ll bet they do!” She tugs me to my room, opens my laptop, and starts Googling. My insides jump as I wonder if they do. She squeals when she finds a link and clicks on the volume. “He’s there. Come here! Well, it’s not him—do you think he already went?”

I scan the comments. They mention him, but the commentators seem to be asking when he’ll be coming on. My heart squeezes with wanting to be there, and then Mel snatches up my hand when the announcer uses his most suspenseful voice: “I’m hearing a name out in the crowd. It keeps coming up. Can you all hear it too?” He covers one ear, and the crowd screams, in unison:

“RIPTIDE!”

My butterflies burst alive in my stomach when he goes, “That’s right! That is RIGHT, ladies and gentlemen! Now welcome, undefeated this season with a perfect score, the bad boy wonder, the one and the only, Remington Tate, Riiiiiiptide!!!”

My stomach flutters as he comes out, and the public roars in the background as the camera focuses on the ring. And then he climbs up into that ring, agile and aerodynamic, like he does. He jerks off his RIPTIDE satin robe—and the screams from the women almost break my laptop’s speakers. Far away, I see a sign that reads FOREVER RIPTIDE’S in the air.

Fascinated, Mel and I watch him make his turn. He’s smiling, drinking in the attention. Then I see him stop where he always does and automatically look at my empty seat, and then his smile falters. He pauses for a moment, then cracks his neck and goes back to Riley and turns away from the crowd.

“Aww. I think he misses you too. He never goes to his corner like that.” Melanie sighs. “Brooke? Brooke?”

I’m crying into a pillow.

“Brookey, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Brooke, what’s wrong? Is something wrong?”

I squeeze the couch pillow tighter and then wipe my eyes.

“Ugh! It’s rained more inches in my apartment than it has in the whole of Seattle,” I groan. Then I stand and get away. I go to the kitchen, get a napkin, and am patting my tears when I hear the scream from the public as a big thunk! is heard. I rush back over and peer into the screen, and a man is splattered on the canvas, facedown, Remington standing before him, feet braced apart, chest heaving, arms at his side. Like a conquering god of war. Who I desire with every aching molecule of my body. Who can have any woman in the world and might not just want me anymore, and I cannot fathom the way my heart will break if I’m to live the rest of my life without him.

“Riptide! Ladies and gentlemen! Your victor, undefeated this season, leading the championship in the number one spot! RRRRRIP-TIIIIIDE!”

My heart swells in my chest, and it throbs, and I grab the computer and turn it to me, see his arm is raised as he catches his breath. He’s not smiling tonight. He’s somber and panting, staring at a spot in the crowd as if he’s lost in his thoughts.

“I love you so much . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to make you love me this hard too,” I whisper, caressing his face on the screen.

“You’re going to be a daddy, Rem!” Melanie squeals. “Your baby momma loves you so much!”

Remington turns his head to the ringmaster, and, with a nod, the announcer calls up someone else. My stomach tangles when I realize he’s going to keep fighting.

Melanie answers the phone and I forget to tell her not to.

“Riley! What . . . oh, she’s fine. Really? Well no, actually, she’s also not doing good either.” I close my eyes and look at my phone as they start talking about how badly we’re doing. “Yes, yes, I told her he’s coming over. Right after the fight? All right, she’ll be happy.”

She hangs up. “Remington just finished the fight and he wanted to know if you were all right, and Riley wanted to know how you’re doing since Remington isn’t doing so well. He wants you to know they’ll be in town soon.”

The frustration of being bedridden is enormous, but this added frustration of wanting to see him just boils me over. I can’t stand thinking that he will be here in Seattle fighting and that I won’t watch him fight.

Suddenly I grab my cordless telephone and start dialing.

“What are you doing? Who are you calling?” Mel asks.

“Dr. Trudy please? Brooke Dumas,” I say, then cover the speaker. “Melanie, I don’t care if he doesn’t want to see me. I want to see him and I’m GOING to see him, period.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You need to get me into the Underground.”

♥  ♥  ♥

“I’VE ALWAYS WANTED to dress like an old chick since I saw Mrs. Doubtfire,” Melanie says as she pulls out the wigs we ordered off the Internet.

“Mel, I won’t get out of that wheelchair—tell me again nothing will go wrong?”

“Dude, you cajoled permission from your doctor. It will be fine. Remy won’t even know you went. We’re young, Brooke! Hello? YOLO. You only live once.” She huffs resolutely and goes to try on her floral “old chickie” dress.

“But I told the doctor I was visiting my boyfriend at his place,” I remind her.

“That IS his place. The ring is Riptide’s lair. Plus, don’t underestimate the power of happiness. People heal better when they’re in their loved ones’ arms. The baby will love it, won’t you, you adorable little baby?” she coos stupidly down at my stomach.

Biting back a laugh, I shove her away, but she’s right, I’m pretty sure the baby will love it. Already I feel invigorated, and I don’t really think the baby has been having fun with me in my current sorry state. I am in love with a complicated man, and he makes me feel complicated feelings. I have run it over in my head a thousand times, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if he doesn’t want me there. I am going to go see my man. Period.

“What do you think?” I ask Melanie as I adjust my shoulder-length blond wig.

“Awesome. You look cheapish. Now let me paint you.” She smears a makeup cake on me while the prospect of seeing him makes my heart wham excitedly into my rib cage. “Mel, my pores are drowning.”

“Tut-tut! Hush! Now me.”

I eye myself in the mirror as she does her own face. “Okay, I look like a prostitute. They’re going to ask us how much we charge.”

“You ding-dong, we have to make you not look like you.”

“But you still look hotter! You’re a hot grandma—why can’t I be?”

“Because I’m the one who can still walk, and you’re the one in the chair.” She pushes me closer to the mirror and we look at ourselves in our floral dresses. Mel added a little cashmere sweater to hers and a flower to her gray-and-white wig, while my blond wig has an Alice-in-Wonderland black headband holding the hair in place.

I look completely unlike me, and if I added the big glasses we got, I would look even doubly less like me, but they’re so big and disturbing to wear, I tuck them into my dress pocket as we head out to the elevator. “I don’t want to distract him, all right? Remy can’t see that I’m there. He might get angry. I don’t even know what he’ll do—he’s too unpredictable. And we’ve never really fought without breaking up before, Mel.”

“My darling chicken, judging by the roses he’s sent, he wants to make up. And don’t you worry! I will have you back here in an instant, and in the meantime we’re getting you out of this GODDAMNED ROOM! Woo-hoo!”

♥  ♥  ♥

THIRTY MINUTES LATER we discover that the Underground is not a handicap-friendly place. We learned this when Mel tried to get me out of the cab, then into the chair, then into the nightclub, down the elevator, and into the Underground. She’s huffing and puffing and telling me she doesn’t look all that cool anymore, “thanks to you, pregnant chick.”

I’d be laughing over how ridiculous she looks trying to get people to let us pass, but as we enter the crowded arena, it feels a little bit like coming home, and the mingled feelings of happiness and frustration over not being invited collide in me in a complicated little combo.

This is where I met him. Where I lost my heart in one breath. Where he fucked my name. Where he kissed my lips. Where he took the ring by storm, before he took me.

After about a thousand “excuse me, sorry, coming through” notices, Melanie finally draws me up to our seats. I had to buy tickets with my own card and I splurged, so I got us front-row seats, although not exactly center. They’re good, and I’ll be able to devour every inch of my Riptide from up close. He’s not anxious to talk to me? Not anxious to see me? I’m dying for a mere glimpse.

“Remember to look the part of an older woman, Mel,” I whisper as the first fighters of the evening start pounding each other’s faces in.

“That woman keeps following us,” Melanie says worriedly and points behind us, but I can’t even turn. “She’s like a she-male. A little scary.”

I scan the area for Pete and see him, and right next to him, in the seat I usually occupy, is my sister Nora, grinning and flirting with him.

“Wow, Nora got Pete to get her a ticket?” Melanie says.

I don’t know why, but seeing someone, anyone, even my sister, in my seat, sparks a thousand snakes of jealousy awake in me, and I am angry all over again. Not angry. Furious all over again over Remington telling me I couldn’t come here. Bastard.

Suddenly the ring is vacated and I think I see Riley starting to walk over to take his place near the corner of the ring, and my pulse skyrockets.

“The last time he came to this arena, he gave us a record knockout and chased after one of our very own. . . .” The voice through the speakers flares, and the women scream and my heart just heats as I remember the way he came after me. “You know who I’m talking about. The MAN you are HERE to SEE! Say hello to the one, the only, Remington Tate, youuuuuuur Riiiptiiiiide!!!!!!”

Melanie holds her breath, then murmurs, “Ohmifuckinggod, I see him.”

My pulse has shot up to the ceiling as I strain to see a flash of red, trotting toward the ring, but I can’t see anything from this stupid chair. “I can’t see him!” And god, I hate that everyone can see him but me.

“Dude, he’s coming to the ring! Some chicks are coming over, but he’s pushing through. He’s a god, Brooke. Oh my god . . .”

And then I see him at last, and my heart literally stops and my stomach immediately constricts with emotion. I love him I hate him I love him.

He comes into my line of vision, a flash of red, and swings up into the ring, so lithe and muscled, so sleek and agile. The lights shine down on him as he gets rid of his red robe, and suddenly he’s there. So masculine and raw. Every woman’s fantasy and my real.

I will never forget the way he looks in his boxing attire, every muscle of his ripped torso hard and cut, tanned and glistening. I will never forget the way he smiles for his crowd. I. Am. Dying. He looks amazing. Perfect. Radiating male strength and vitality. Like he’s been on a fucking beach and I’ve been in hell. It even feels like all the lights above rush down to kiss his suntanned skin. His rock-hard arms spread out, muscles taut as he starts slowly turning around. The arena almost trembles under my wheels—the screams are deafening.

“Fuck them over, Riptide!” people scream behind me.

“And then fuck me!”

His dimples flash for them, his eyes glint for them. He looks so blatantly happy I want to hit him. In fact, I want to go up there and crush his mouth with mine while I hit him.

“Brooke, I feel like such a bad friend that I lust over your man, but please tell me you understand!” Melanie says anxiously.

I groan in disgust at myself. I have been abandoned, and here I am, chasing after him like some groupie. Lusting after him because he is mine.

MINE.

“And now, laaaadies and gentlemen, we welcome the Mother of All Monsters, Hector Hex, Herculeeeeeees!” the announcer cries, and Melanie mutters, “Hooooly shit.”

The moment the Mother of Monsters takes the ring, I swear I almost see the floor caving in with his weight. I’ve never seen this one before, but he looks even bigger than Butcher, and the knot in my stomach tightens tenfold. The new fighter looks like some sort of Paul Bunyan–enormous giant.

“What galaxy did that piece of meat come from?” Melanie asks, as perturbed as I am.

Remy taps boxing gloves with him, then he draws back and flexes his arm muscles, and I watch the tattoos between his shoulder and biceps ripple. And all my body ripples in remembrance of how his feels.

Ping.

They go center. My heart hammers inside me as the Mother of All Monsters slams Remington’s ribs, and Remington comes back with a triple punch that is so fast and so powerful, it knocks the guy back three steps.

“Brooke, ohmigod!” Melanie says. “OH. MY. GOD!”

The giant comes back with a swing that strikes Remy straight in the gut. I hear the sound of the punch and wince, but suddenly I hear the sounds of the way Remington hits back. Fast and hard. PAM PAM POOM! The giant falls on his ass. Remington circles the ring as he waits for him to get up, sinuous, graceful, my powerful blue-eyed lion.

All my body remembers the way that lion moves over me. In me. The way his hips push with perfect precision. The way his hands coast all over me. Squeeze me. Tease me. The way his tongue rasps against me, tastes me, licks me.

The monster slowly gets up and shakes his head, as if he’s confused, and before he can get in another punch, Remington hooks him with his right and knocks him back down—splat on his back.

Melanie jumps and screams.

“YES!! YES! REMY, YOU’RE THE KING OF THE FUCKING JUNGLE!” she screams. And he turns with that smile, and I freeze when he spots us. He’s smiling indulgently at us, his fans, facing in our direction, when suddenly his stance changes—and his body seems to reengage. His dimples are still in place, but his eyes narrow just slightly as he surveys us, like a predator in hunting mode.

The bottom drops out of my world.

“I think he recognized your voice, you idiot!” I hiss under my breath, tugging Mel’s skirt so that she sits back down.

But he’s not looking at Mel. Oh, no. Remy is staring at me. Feet braced apart, his chest heaves as he suddenly lasers in on me. Me and only me.

His blue eyes bore into me, curious and questioning, and I am suddenly excruciatingly aware of everything I am wearing. The kohl around my eyes, the ridiculous red lipstick, the plastered-on makeup . . . I pray, quietly and fervently, that it’s enough to shield me from him.

I expel a breath when his eyes slide to my right, to Melanie, and she adjusts her wig and breathes, “Shit on a fucking stick.”

And if I thought I was free and clear, I completely, completely, underestimated him.

He looks at me again, and then, slowly, he shakes his head.

My heart clenches so hard I think my chest will have some permanent interior damage.

He drags a hand through his hair and restlessly paces around for a moment; then he lifts his head again, and when his eyes sear into me and he shakes his head again, this time with a sudden flash of his beautiful dimples, I think I come.

Electricity courses through me as his eyes darken with heat, his lips curl sensually, full of that male knowledge of his that I, contrary to what any of his fans say, I am his number one fan.

He knows exactly who I am. I can see chastising amusement in his eyes and can almost hear him say . . .

You little shit, I know who you are.

I see you.

I fucking see you!

I want to rip off this stupid costume, and just run up to him and climb him like a tree. Grab that hard jaw in my hands and kiss his mouth and drown him with my kisses and all the love I have for him that’s been drowning me for weeks.

He curls his fingers at his sides when another fighter is announced, and as he takes the ring, Remy keeps looking at me, clenching and unclenching his fists, and the heat in his gaze, I can feel it burn in every part of my being, down to my toes.

The bell rings, and Remington winks at me, a wink that makes the crowd roar.

Melanie squeaks and squeezes my hand. “Tell me again how much he doesn’t want you, you dopehead!” She points at herself. “This girl right here is horny on your fucking behalf! Ohmigod! He’s completely doing you in his head!”

I almost moan when the fight begins.

Remington looks invigorated. He punches the new fighter repeatedly, jabbing, hooking, ducking, and he turns to me in between punches, just to see that I’m looking.

I am.

I see him.

I feel him.

I want him.

I fucking love him more than anything or anyone in this world.

The man doesn’t stand a chance against him, and I watch in utter and complete fascination.

All these weeks, with all these hormones, missing him like crazy, wanting him like crazy, loving him like crazy . . . He’s as close as I’ve ever had him in weeks, and I am dying for him so badly, I’m gripping my chair so tight my knuckles are white. I want him inside me like I want my next breath. Right now it’s all I can think of—all I can think of is that he is mine, and I am his, that I am not letting him go, that I will make him want me again if he ever stops wanting me, and that there will never be a moment of my life when I will let go.

With every win, his name is called, his arm is raised, the crowd roars, and those blue eyes find me in my ridiculous outfit and his jaw tightens and his body tenses, as if he can’t stand to see me without touching me. My entire body responds and I tremble in my seat with the way he looks at me. I may look awful, but he still wants me. Lust burns in his eyes, and the promise that he’ll take me dances inside those irises. My heart throbs. I remember him.

I remember his skin, his calluses brushing over me. His breath. I see his body up on display, glistening with sweat, every cut and ripped inch perfect, and I can almost taste it, feel it slide against mine.

All night I am a mass of happiness, excitement, nerves, and quaking, overwhelming need.

“Mel, I don’t want him to come see me in this costume,” I tell her, for the first time regretting my clothing choices. I look ugly, whorish, unclean, and ridiculous, and this is not how I wanted Remy to see me tonight.

“All right, let’s get you home and make him come to you,” she mutters. She starts pushing me, and suddenly I hear the voice bursting through the speakers. “KNOCKOUT! Yes, ladies and gentlemen! Our victor this evening, once again, I give you, Riptide! Riiiptiiiiiiide!!!!!!!!”

His name echoes around me as the public chants, “Riptide! Riptide!”

“Of course you’d do the exact opposite of what I asked you to,” a guttural, insanely deep and sexy voice whispers behind me; then I see a muscular torso move in front of me, and I’m lifted into a pair of deliciously sweaty arms.

Remington turns to Melanie instead of to me, and I hear him tell her, almost growl, “I’m taking care of this fireball. Riley can give you a ride home.”

His scent spins around me and completely disarms me. I want to hit his chest and tell him to let me go, because I’m still a little angry, but my fingers have linked at the back of his strong neck in my fear of falling, and I’m motionless in his hold—absorbing the feel of his arms around me. Good. Scary good. His bulging biceps pressing into my sides, his thick forearms glistening with a sheen of perspiration, like the rest of him. The rest of beautiful, infuriating, complicated him.

“Have fun, Brooke,” Melanie says with a twinkle in her eye as she comes to pat my shoulder, whispering in my ear, “Dude, in my life, I’ve never seen that glimmer in a man’s eyes before; he’s going to fuck you so bad.”

In the locker rooms, Riley greets me with a beyond-thrilled grin on his face. “Hey, Brooke! Since Rem’s got you tight, I assume you are Brooke?” he says as he hands Remington a small duffel bag.

Remy nods and whispers something to him, then he carries me outside and summons a cab and, instead of taking me home, gruffly tells the driver the name of a hotel two blocks away. He’s dehydrated, and he unzips his duffel, takes out a smartwater and starts gulping it down as he uses his free arm to haul me onto his lap.

His grip tightens around my waist when I try to move from my spot, and my heart hammers crazily in my chest when he tucks the water back into his bag. He ducks his head, and takes the deepest, longest inhale of me he’s ever taken. Lust spirals through me. I’m still a little bit angry, but between my thighs, my clit pulses to the point of pain. He grabs my face, turns me, and nips my earlobe, breathing heavily, completely aroused under my butt as if he wants me. As if he desperately wants me.

“God,” he rasps into my ear, his arms clenching around me as he fucks his tongue into my ear. A tremor of need races up my body and makes me bite back a moan. I’m torn between hitting and kissing him because he’s killing me. My panties are drenched, my breasts hurt, my heart hurts, every part of me hurts as he dips his tongue into my ear, outside the shell, behind it, with that same desperation I feel.

When we arrive at the hotel, I’m stewing in my own anger and at the same time simmering with lust because of the way Remington has worked himself into a crazy arousal in the back of the taxi. Rubbing his hands on me, licking and nipping me. Scenting me like he’s starving for air.

He picks up a key from the front desk and then we’re riding up in the elevator, and I say, “Put me down,” in a thick, alien voice.

“I will soon,” he murmurs back at me, his eyes flaming with heat as he looks down at me.

Even with those blue eyes taking me in in the most unsexy dress in the universe, in the worst makeup possible, with awful hookerish red lipstick, the primal lust in his gaze sprints through me like little lightning bolts of pleasure.

I feel like a simmering volcano, my blood stewing in my veins from an overpowering mix of anger and arousal. But the arousal, I hate how it’s quickly winning as his scent keeps reaching my lungs. My tongue hurts in my mouth. I want to lick his throat and take that sexy mouth with mine and make him show me he still wants and loves me.

My heart whacks fiercely into my ribs as he slips the key into the slot and carries me inside, heading to the end of the hall, where the master bedroom usually is.

He sets me down on the foot of the bed.

“I don’t know if I should kiss you or hit you.” My voice quivers with emotion.

Then I feel reenergized and smack my fist into his hard pectoral and push at his chest so he goes away. I grab his beautiful face and crush his sexy mouth to mine. His taste shudders through me like a gunshot of ecstasy until I yank angrily away and hit his wall-like chest again.

“Your songs made me cry! I missed your voice, your hands! I’m a pining stupid pregnant fool for you, and you want me to stay like some fifth-century good little wife, waiting for you while you’re out there wetting every woman’s fucking panties. I won’t do it. I refuse to be that girl—do you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.” He leans over and slides his fingers to cup the back of my head, then his husky, desire-thickened voice dances over my skin. “Now come here and kiss me again. . . .” He draws me closer and I hit his chest more weakly, moaning in protest.

“Did you touch someone?” I cry, trying to twist free.

He tightens his hold on my nape and fastens his hungry gaze on my lips. “No.”

“Then why didn’t you want to see me? I don’t understand you!”

His eyes flash in frustration. “You don’t have to understand me—just love the hell out of me. Can you do that? Can you?” His thumb drags with sensual roughness across my lower lip. “Do you?”

I can’t reply. While he stares at my mouth with a deliciously carnivorous stare, I’m drinking in the shadowed jaw, the blue eyes, the spiky hair, his high cheekbones and square jaw, the dark slashes of his eyebrows, every beautiful inch of his face, so achingly close that every organ inside my body starts to throb. I hear myself whisper, “Do you still love me?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says.

I moan as his fingers caress the back of my neck, the touch scrambling my brain. He intoxicates me with his nearness, makes me drunk with the smell of his sweat, his soap, him. Every time he’s near, he heightens my senses, and I’m so emotional, all these hours missing him, all these strange hormones, my voice trembles when I speak. “Do you still love me, like before?”

“I’m fucking insane about you!” he cries in disbelief.

I close my eyes and moan softly, clinging fiercely to the words.

“I told you I loved you with every petal of every rose,” he tells me in a low, husky whisper. Then he scrapes the pad of his thumb over my mouth again, more roughly this time, with more need, as his voice, velvet-edged and strong, sends a ripple of heat through me.

“At the institute one of my female doctors got a rose. She told me it was from her husband, because he loved her and he was away. Isn’t that what you send when you’re not there to tell someone you fucking love them? Brooke, I’ve never done this before, but it fucking hurts to look at you through a fucking screen. It hurts to text. It hurts like no fucking punch hurts.”

He spreads his fingers open at the back of my neck as if he needs to touch as much of me as possible, his eyes glowing to such a fierce degree, it only makes my heart thud harder.

“Didn’t you hear the songs!? They were all for you, Brooke. Didn’t you know I thought of you? Missed the hell out of you? If I haven’t showed you I love you, then tell me in what ways I’m fucking this up!”

“I wanted you to want me at the fight! Like you always do. You’ve always wanted me there before. Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you come see me before?”

“God, I want you there like I want nothing! Do you think I enjoy a second of this hell? If I’d come seen you before the fight, you think I’d have the will to leave you? How can you think this is easy for me, Brooke? How?”

The vivid frustration in his eyes cuts me so deep I drop my head, because, no, I don’t think it’s easy for him at all.

“You think you need me, little firecracker?” The gruff question travels all the way through me, and I have to press my thighs together to stop the tremor in me. “Baby, the way you need me can only barely cover half of the way I need you.” The unexpected sadness in his voice yanks my gaze back to his.

“My game is half of what it used to be. I can’t concentrate. I can’t sleep. I can’t get in the game. I’m like a robot out there. I feel a hole right here—right fucking here.” He places his fist over his chest. “I’m trying to protect my girl. Three doctors, three, said she had to be in bed for the first three months, with no travel. I can’t see her, I can’t make love to her—I am trying to do the right thing when my gut screams that SHE belongs with ME.” He narrows his eyes, exhaling roughly through his nose. “Every second that you and I breathe, you belong with me.”

“Remy, I’m sorry. This is driving me crazy too.” I cover my face and try breathing through my constricted throat, but he grabs my wrists and forces my arms to my sides, seizing my gaze with his own, his eyes vividly blue.

“I love you so much.” He engulfs my face in both big, beautiful callused hands. “So fucking much, Brooke, I still don’t know what to do with myself,” he says, and kisses the bridge of my nose with a low, shuddering breath. “I miss everything about you, from the way you smile to the way you look at me to the way the bed smells when you’re with me. I love you like I love nothing in my life, nothing. It eats me up inside like a disease to want to come get you and bring you back with me.”

I start trembling at the end of the bed, all my emotions, all my raging hormones, all my cells, all my being, buzzing at his words. My entire body throbs with love, lust, and the physical agony of being denied my Remy fix for weeks. Shaking, I reach out and lovingly stroke three fingers down the hard line of his jaw. “This,” I say, the word breaking from my lips, “is what I see in my bedroom. This face. This face is all I see, all I see, Remy.”

“Damn you, take this shit off and let me look at my Brooke.”

He grabs my wig and tosses it aside, then he holds my gaze as our smiles fade. The air between us pulses and leaps like our need is a living, breathing thing between us. “Why would anyone want to cover this hair?” Quietly, he eases the net off the top of my head, and the low rustling sound is all that is audible in the room.

Slow, deliciously expert fingers delve into my bun and work to loosen my hair, and the contact of his fingertips against my scalp sends frissons down my spine.

By the time he frees the mahogany strands so they fall on my shoulders, my thighs have dissolved into a puddle along with the rest of me. A thin sheen of sweat coats his thick throat, and his pecs glisten, too. His torso is so tight and so solid it seems as impenetrable as a steel wall, as if nothing can ever hurt him. His arm muscles bulge as he strokes his hands down my hair, and I’m as unraveled as my bun.

When I speak, my voice is as husky as I’ve ever heard it. “I was supposed to be an old groupie.”

“My,” he says, in a whisper that is so much deeper and rougher than mine.

“What?”

“My sweet . . . disobedient . . . favorite little groupie.”

Being called his again . . .

A sound escapes me, and he hears me. Bolts of heat race to my sex as he edges one hand under my dress. Vividly tender blue eyes watch me as his fingers brush up higher inside my thigh, and my heart gallops full speed.

He looks at my mouth, and oh god, I’m flooded with need. He ducks first to taste my mouth, parting it, lipstick and all while, under my dress, his finger slides over the fabric of my panties. His tongue slides over mine, and as he lays me back on the bed, I shiver as I open my mouth and moan softly.

It feels right, right, so right. . . .

He teases the edge at the crotch of my panties; then he eases it aside and his finger directly caresses me. A thunderstorm of desire rages in me as I softly kiss him. He tastes like him, and also of my stupid lipstick, and I’m dying as he guides me open with his finger and then here comes his tongue. Hot and moist, going around mine, then coaxing me to follow him and drink from his mouth as he slowly eases that middle finger inside me.

My body arches to his.

He whispers, into my mouth, “If you can come to my fight, you can come in my arms.”

My breathing goes as he drags his finger inside my channel. I feel me squeeze around him, my body greedy to have anything of his inside me. He adds his thumb to tease my clitoris, and when he edges back to watch my face as he plays with the wettest, hottest part of my body, his mouth is smeared with my lipstick, his jaw is tight with desire, his eyes brilliant blue, his beautiful face staring down at me, and god, I swear he looks as sexy as if some other woman kissed him. I’m jealous of myself and of my lipstick as I thrash and toss my head. “Remington . . .”

He groans and gives me another kiss, this one fast and hard, with a nip of his teeth, before he draws back and withdraws his finger.

Without any hurry at all, he tugs open each and every one of the buttons of my floral dress. Every cell in my body is frenzied as I sit up and help him undo the bottom ones while he undoes the top.

“Quickly, oh, god, touch me,” I gasp.

“Shh,” he croons as he parts the dress right through the middle, easing the fabric aside so he can take me in my white cotton underwear. My nipples poke out through the fabric of my bra, and my panties are damp, and I didn’t think it was even possible for his eyes to get any darker or hungrier than they previously were.

“God, I could eat you.”

Before I know it, he finds the center clasp of my bra with his thumbs, and as he shoves it aside and rubs his fingers around my areolas, he nibbles his way along my mouth, bottom lip, top lip, until he ducks his head and takes one nipple in his mouth.

Oooh, I hear. And it’s me. Making all these noises. Undulating against him.

He rubs the tip of his tongue over the point of my nipple and ripples of pleasure shoot through me. He slides his hand back into my panties, and I drive my fingers into his hair. He seems so hungry, and I’m so thirsty, the instant his middle finger eases into me, I’m so swollen, so wet, so desperate, feeling his mouth sucking on my breast like he’s starved for me, I start coming.

My fingers clutch his hair in a fist, and I make an oooooohing sound as my head falls back as my muscles start contracting and releasing, contracting and releasing, and he moves his finger slowly, dragging out the pleasure for me, as he sucks my breast even harder, unleashing torrent after torrent of pleasure in me.

“Oh god,” I cry, and I rear up to cling to him and turn my face into his neck, where I run my tongue over his delicious taut skin, drinking him desperately. “Oh god, I’m dying for you to make me yours. To feel you. You. Inside me.”

He watches me as I catch my breath, the possessive gleam in his eyes galvanizing me. “I’m not done with you,” he tenderly tells me, making me lick up his wet finger. “I’m going to fuck your mouth with mine, your pussy with my fingers, with my tongue, with any part of me I can. And you’re going to kiss my cock like there’s no tomorrow.”

“I want to kiss your cock now.”

“Not now.” He steps away and strips off his boxing attire until he’s all tanned skin, muscles, tattoos, and . . . My eyes bulge as I watch him take his huge, beautiful erection into the shower and run the tub. He comes to get me, and my eyes burn at the sight of his beautiful standing cock, so close to the star tattoo above it.

I want to kiss that part of him like I want to kiss the rest of him. No. I don’t just want to kiss. I want to lick. Suck. Savor. And claim him, mine, forever and ever.

Before I can grab him and play with him like he played with me, he takes my arm, pulls me to my feet, and then walks me to the huge Jacuzzi tub. Round and bone-colored, it sits in the middle of the room, and as he closes the knobs, I brace myself on one of his arms and dip my feet into the water, then I wait for him to follow me. He steps in behind me and lowers us into the warm water, turning on the Jacuzzi motors as we settle deep.

My eyes drift shut as he envelops me in his arms and immediately starts licking my neck. “Remy . . .” I breathe.

His teeth graze the back of my neck and then he rasps, into my ear, “Nothing in this world tastes as good as you, your skin, your tongue, nothing is as sweet and juicy as your pussy.” He lifts me suddenly from the water and turns me around, but he remains seated in the tub and his face is level with my sex. He spreads his hands on my thighs to part my legs wider and buries his head between my legs, kissing my pussy for a whole minute, stroking my clit with his tongue, then shoving his tongue into my channel. I can feel his growl vibrate all the way through me, and when he’s done tasting to his pleasure, he turns me back around and lowers me back with him.

“You get even wetter after you come,” he tells me in my ear, his voice thick as syrup, then he quietly starts soaping my hair. “And these . . . are bigger and heavier.”

He runs soapy hands over my breasts, and all my blood seems to be pumping south to my clit, and to the tips of my nipples. “Yes,” I barely manage. “They’re so sensitive, they’re always puckered.”

“They want to be sucked,” he breathes against the back of my ear, and the way he rolls that in his tongue, as though he’s already tasting my puckered nipples, makes my clit throb.

I can feel his erection on my back, and it’s so freaking hard, it pulses against my skin, and my tongue is restless in my mouth because I need to wrap it around the head of his cock so badly. I take some soap and scrub my face, trying to get rid of all this makeup.

“There,” I say, turning and quickly lathering his hair.

He watches me with a smirk, like he knows the reason for my hurry. As I kneel and run shampoo over his hair and try to wash it off with a conch by the side of the tub, I straddle him so that the huge bulge of his erection—the huge delicious bulge—is right there, between my thighs, as I wash off his shampoo. He leans over and starts sucking the wet drops of water from my nipples. I cry out, and he grabs my ass and drags me harder against the bulge while his sucking motions make my toes curl.

“Does that hurt?” he rasps, tugging the tip of a nipple with his teeth.

“No, ooh, Remy, it feels so good.”

He groans and rocks his hips to me as he repeats his sucking on my other breast.

“Shit, Brooke, I could come just sucking you, hearing you . . .”

“I could come being sucked . . . hearing you groan . . .”

He grabs one breast and sucks the other so hard, I whimper and start moving over his hips, and before I know it, I’m imagining lifting my hips, taking his cock in me, and riding him, and begging him to fill me, again and again. He halts me.

“I’m not coming in a tub. The only place I’m coming is on you,” he rumbles.

“Take me to bed to fool around,” I anxiously breathe, wrapping my arms around his neck.

By the time he carries me out of the tub and wraps me in a towel, bringing me to bed, I’m a quaking mass of red-hot need. What he says next makes me quake even harder.

“I want to tear you to pieces, I want you so much. I want to pinch, bite, and suck your nipples, all at once.” He lays me on the bed and opens the towel over me, then he immediately starts licking me dry. Oh god, I can’t breathe, think, I think I can’t even live as he starts pinching my nipples while licking me elsewhere.

“Remington . . .”

He is mesmerizing. The atmosphere around me has changed until all we have is a bed, and me, and him. I swear I can feel the thunderbolts between our bodies. He swirls his tongue up my throat, and I almost break at the feel of his familiar, deliciously raspy calluses on my skin when he drags them down my curves. “I’ve seen you . . . in my head . . . every fucking hour of every day . . .” he murmurs.

He scents my neck and cups one breast again, and I shudder when he squeezes the flesh and licks my collarbone. My fingers run down his slick back, his every muscle delineated under my fingers, and oh my god, he is holding me. In his arms. He’s wet, the air cold, but all he wants is to dry and lick me.

I grab his stubbly jaw in both my hands. “Remington Tate,” I moan, crushing my mouth against his.

He takes my lips with even more force, sucking my tongue. “Brooke fucking Dumas.” Watching me with hot eyes, he tortures my nipples with his thumbs, and I slide my hand down his body and start caressing his hard length.

“Make me kiss you.” Curling my fingers around the head of his erection, I suck greedily on his wet tongue. “Tell me to kiss you right here. If I can’t have you between my legs, I want you in my mouth.”

He groans and slides his hands up to my cheeks. “That’s where I want to be. The way you use your little teeth. Run that tongue over me like you want to live on me. I want to see these lips rimming the base of my cock so bad, I won’t even last when I do . . .”

“God, shut up.” I dive and take his cock in my mouth. Completely. Every hot pulsing inch that I can take, I take it.

A low, pained sound rips up his chest and he’s so hard and ready, I can immediately taste a few stray drops of semen. My lashes sweep upward as I meet his gaze, and he’s looking at me with raw ecstasy, seeing my lips rim around his cock. Not the base . . . he’s too big, long, thick. But my lips are firmly wrapped around him as my tongue rubs his head.

I splay my hands on his abs to brace myself, and his abdomen clenches when I use my fingers to caress the star tattoo at his navel. My sex burns with need and complete jealousy of what my mouth has the pleasure of being filled with right now.

Remy holds the back of my head as if enraptured, as my tongue slides over his thick length. I shudder under the carnal, primal look in his eyes. I seize the base with my fists and I start to suck with my mouth, moaning in approval when he shifts positions. He stands at the foot of the bed, and I stay on all fours on the mattress as he feeds me more of his length. He groans and pushes, his eyes drifting shut. I can taste him, salty and ready to come already. He’s pulsing and so fiercely hard, my sex aches with jealousy.

My breasts dangle beneath me as I lick him on all fours, when suddenly he slides one hand all along my spine, fondling every dent and rise, until he slides his middle finger down the fissure of my ass cheeks, then he runs down and down and to the entry of my pussy, and he dips that long finger inside me.

Pleasure bolts through me. I moan and rock my hips to take his finger deeper, raising my eyes to see his face, his beautiful wild, lust-hardened face, as he watches me give him the best goddamn BJ of his life.

His chest is jerking. I can feel the tension roiling off him as he fights for control. But I want him lost and primal. He’s being careful. He’s holding back. Rocking his hips softly.

“Are you hungry for me?” he says, and I know what he’s asking is if he’s going to come in me? God, I swear I don’t even want to stop to say yes.

I start stroking the base with both hands and ease back to say, “Starved for you. Ravenous for you. Please give it to me.”

The guttural sound he makes only makes me wilder. He starts gently fucking two fingers into my pussy at the same time he spreads one hand over the back of my head and holds me in place as he pumps his cock into me, each time feeding me a little more until he hits the back of my throat, and eases back. But I want him lost, as lost as I am, and I start moving my head up and down on him, fast.

“Brooke!” he yells, pumping my same rhythm, his head falling back in an animal growl. Then he groans and jets inside me, three warm and salty streams spurting in my mouth, and I’m so undone and intoxicated with him, I come the second that I taste him and, simultaneously, feel him rub his fingers out of my pussy and up to circle my clit. Colors explode behind my eyelids, and as my body shudders, I whimper and cling to his cock with my hands, feverishly licking the tip, wanting every drop, every last drop. Even when I finish, I gasp for breath and hungrily lick the corner of my lips and look up.

“Brooke,” he says, staring at me with fierce possession, looking somehow marveled, then he lifts me and covers my mouth with his as he pulls me close to him, engulfing me in his arms, his mouth burning hot on mine as he lays us back on the bed. Maybe my mouth tastes of him, but he doesn’t care, he kisses me like there’s nothing left of us but our mouths. And I feel like that’s the only part of me I can even move.

He lies us down to spoon me and cups my pussy possessively, lightly fingering me. “I like when you’re so hungry for me,” he whispers into my ear as he caresses my abdomen.

“I’m pregnant with your baby. We’ve been apart and it’s been torture. I’ve been having dreams and I wake up sweaty and needing you and I can’t go back to sleep, my whole body hurts,” I whisper-moan when he cups my pussy.

He nibbles the back of my ear softly and uses his hand to gently penetrate me. “I haven’t been able to have a decent night’s rest since you left. The bed is so empty I’m either having a cold shower, or at the gym,” he murmurs as he tugs on my earlobe. “But I get hard just thinking about you, Brooke. Thinking I put a baby in you.” He nibbles the back of my ear softly and sticks his finger in me. Shuddering with need, I feel the length of his cock behind my buttocks, and he rocks it slightly to me, our hips moving. More delicious pleasure shoots through me when I realize he’s not done. He rolls me over to face him, wraps a leg around his hips. “Move with me,” he roughly commands, and then he’s moving against me, fucking me without fucking me, our bodies grinding and rubbing.

My chest fills with love as we kiss, then we watch each other. His blue eyes, spiky hair, those bulging muscles. My sex grips wantonly with each rocking motion of his hips that brings the entire length of his cock rubbing along my pussy lips, stroking my over-sensitized clit. I love you, I want to say, but the only sounds I can make are breathy bubbly ones.

“Who do you love?” he tenderly growls.

“You.”

“Who’s your man?” He teases his tongue into my mouth, then drags his deliciously raspy jaw along mine with a groan. “Who’s your man?”

I love the feel of his stubble against my cheeks so much, I frame his face and stroke my jaw against his raspy one again. “Remington Tate, my Riptide.”

“Do you want me all over you?”

“Hmm, I want you all over me.”

When I say hmm, it’s supposed to mean I won’t bathe just so I can smell of him and his groan tells me it’s driving him crazy that I said that. But he drives me crazier with the way he calls his semen “him.” I freaking love how he likes me to feel him on my skin, inside me, outside of me, in my mouth. Hmm . . .

“You asked for me, Brooke Dumas.” He pins my arms up over my head and clamps his fingers around my wrists as he drags his cock along my pussy lips, stroking my clit just right. He watches me in the same mesmerized, love-struck, lust-struck way that I watch him, memorizing him like he seems to memorize me. My neck arches as he slows the rocking motion, keeping me on the brink of ecstasy for a couple of delicious minutes as our bodies grind. And here we are. The rustling sounds of flesh against flesh, the slapping noises of our bodies, my moans, his groans, all I am aware of.

I whisper his name when I come, and my eyes spring open in that minute where everything tenses before it explodes, and I see him over me, closing his eyes tight, his jaw ground as he spurts all over my abdomen and convulses with me, his fingers clenching my wrists. I want it to bruise, the way he holds me down as he’s coming and I shudder, both of us groaning, long, drawn-out sounds of relief.

When we sag, he pulls me up to his side and gruffly murmurs, “I’ve waited for this for thirty-nine days.”

“And five hours.”

“And a little over thirty minutes.” Smirking in satisfaction, because obviously, I’ve been impressed to silence, he drinks in my face. He runs his thumb briefly along my jawline. “I think about you. Constantly. Day. Night.”

He uses his thumb to tip my face back and looks at me like he wants to eat me; then he bends down and does just that. He kisses me like I’m both precious and edible, treasuring and devouring me all at once. He slides his hand up and down my back. The feel of his calluses on my skin makes me shiver.

He looks at me, his hair a charming mess, standing up wet. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

“I looked ridiculous.”

He laughs softly, then tweaks my nose. “Ridiculously beautiful.”

Fastening his gaze back on my face like he reveres the sight of me, he then bends and kisses my stomach and sets his head there.

“Are you mad I came to see you?” I ask, setting my hand on his hair.

“No.” He licks my belly button. “I know what I’ve got, and you’re a little handful of trouble, that’s who you are.”

“Me? You invented trouble. You were born and instead of ‘it’s a boy’ the doctors said, ‘Ahhh, it’s trouble!’ ”

His chuckle is low and throaty, then it trails into silence and he looks at me, his eyes sober, almost tormented. “God, how I need you.” He props his forehead on mine and drags in a coarse breath. “How I go crazy thinking of you. The whole flight on my way here I listened to the song you’ve played to tell me you love me.” His hot mouth takes me again and we kiss feverishly, and he pulls back to bend over and kiss my stomach again. His breathing is rough. He can’t stop breathing me in. Touching all my body. Reminding me he owns it.

For hours we can’t stop kissing and murmuring and making each other feel good, until we lie back and settle and he spoons me. He nuzzles my neck for a brief moment and places a kiss on the hollow behind my ear. Then he caresses me for a while, and when he discovers there’s still some semen remaining on my skin, he picks it up with two fingers and rubs it into my pussy.

I gasp.

“Shh,” he says softly. “I need to be here. Right here.” He rubs his fingers inside my channel, licking the back of my neck softly, and I shudder and start coming. He chuckles softly and rubs me more, his warmth inside me, and it’s like having him thrust in me. My eyes burn as I keep trembling, and he pushes the heel of his palm into my sex to drive me higher.

When I’m done, I’m still like a junkie, thinking of having him inside me. “When you make love to me again, I want you to stay inside me. All night, swear to me, part of you will be inside me, just like you promised.”

He turns my face at an angle he seems to want me at and cradles the back of my head as he sucks my tongue like he’s starved for it. “I’m going to fuck you for every night I haven’t fucked you and then I’m going to stay in you.”

He exhales slowly as if the thought alone got him all worked up, and his breath is warm on my face as he waits for my consent.

When I nod, he smiles his lazy, heavy-lidded smile at me; I smile back.

I feel happy. Complete. Like the world is spinning in the right direction tonight.

He takes some extra time grooming and petting me, doing all his fun stuff with me that makes all the butterflies in my tummy have trouble letting me settle down. I’m so weak I only moan and whisper how good it feels, and he whispers how good I taste, and how good I feel.

When he’s done bathing inches and inches of my shoulder, throat, and ear with his tongue, and done petting his hand down my side, he spoons me with his bigger, harder body and our legs entwine like pretzels, and I sigh as we fall asleep. In the middle of the night he sometimes shifts his nose until he buries it in my skin. I reach behind me and caress his hair groggily, turn in his arms so I can smell him, absorbing every sensation of being back in bed with the only man I’ve ever been in love with.

And it feels like home has finally come to me.