Mine (Real Book 2)

He’s very speedy, and he didn’t like it when I talked to Pete and Riley on our way to the hotel. He didn’t like it when I had to leave him to go pee in our room, and he paced in our bedroom waiting like some sort of impatient groom, slamming his lips to mine the second I came out and kissing me for just about half an hour until they came to get us for the fight. He didn’t want to let go of me as he headed to the locker rooms, his hand tightening on my hips the deeper we walked into the Underground.

I told him that I couldn’t wait to see him fight, and that I would be watching. He clamped his jaw and looked—proprietarily and thirsty as hell—at my lips. Then he nodded and patted my butt as he gave Pete strict instructions not to move a foot away from me during the fight.

Now Pete is attached to me like a Siamese twin.

He’s the Man in Black and is now carrying a stun gun, pepper spray. You name it, Pete’s got it. He even wears an intimidating frown today, like everyone should stay away.

“You take yourself way too seriously,” I joke.

“What the man wants, he gets,” he says with a chuckle.

A swarm of bugs awaken in my stomach as we head to our seats, first row to the right side of the ring. And it feels like a lifetime since I watched a fight. Excitement mingles with nervousness, and unfortunately the heartburn that seems to have remained after all my first-trimester nausea promises to come back with a vengeance.

“Remington bought the full box so you don’t have people bumping close,” Pete explains to me as we reach our seats, and I notice that the two seats to our sides and the two behind are empty.

Pete nods to someone across the ring, and I follow his gaze to see big ol’ Josephine standing there, keeping an eye on us. “Where did Jo come from?” I ask, happily smiling at her and pleased when she smiles primly back at me. She stands, somehow, like an army man, and she manages to act very polite and discreet while at the same time looking incredibly intimidating.

“She had stuff to take care of and flew commercial to catch up with us. She’ll be rooming with Diane and will be on your tail whenever Remington is not by your side.”

I would have probably protested if I didn’t like her so much, and if I hadn’t heard how happy she was to have landed a job that clients usually hired men to do. So I keep smiling at her as Pete and I settle down and start watching the first matches.

“Where’s Remy?”

“Bring out Remy!”

The crowd yells as the ring is vacated for the fourth time, and by the time the chant starts, there’s only one name audible in the entire arena. “Rem-ing-ton, Rem-ing-ton, Rem-ing-ton!”

“The organizers loooove making the public have to ask for him,” Pete says with a chuckle.

And finally, the speakers flare. “That’s right, ladies and gentlemen! Bitches and manwhores! Girls and fucking boys! You want him? You got him! Say hello tonight to yourrrrrrr one, yourrrrrr only, Remington Tate, RRRRIIIIIPTIDE!!”

My Riptide! my mind excitedly screams. My Riptide. My my my. Mine tonight, mine always.

All across the room, the people stand on every side of the ring. Some frame their hands around their mouths and yell, while others are jumping and waving posters with his name on them.

“Remy, I’d die for you, Remy!!” a voice behind me screams.

Joy bubbles in my veins as he comes trotting out.

His perfect strong posture and relaxed shoulders, his RIPTIDE robe covering the hardest muscles in the world, makes my nipples peak and all my body throb with need. As the lights from above focus on him, I greedily take in his dimpled face, but my gaze snags on the red lipstick marks on his jaw. And on his mouth.

I blink in confusion.

He grabs the ropes and swings inside, landing stealthily as a cat who already owns the squared space of that coveted ring, and then the robe comes off and Remington is on complete glorious display. I see him, but I’m still confused as to what I see on his boyish face; those marks, red and blotched all over his beautiful tan, until the truth starts sinking and sinking and sinking inside me, and each one of those kisses feel a little bit like a whiplash.

A thousand and one insecurities I didn’t even know I had rear up inside me.

I imagine manicured hands touching his skin . . . lips on his lips . . . his growls for somebody else . . . his calluses rasping against somebody else’s skin. . . .

A burn starts up in my eyes as Pete quietly tells me, “Brooke, it comes with the life. He doesn’t ask for the groupies—he just wants to fight. It’s no big deal.”

“If I can just get the rest of my body, other than my brain, to understand that,” I say miserably, and it feels that a black cloud of pain has dropped over me like a cloak on all my light.

A couple of seats to my right, a woman pulls on her hair and screams, “Riptiiiiiiiiide! I want to drag you to my room and fuck you till I can’t walk!”

Lord, I want to hit that bitch so bad.

And there he is, beautiful and magnificent Remington Riptide Tate.

He does his turn, and I feel such pressure in my chest, I curl my hands around my baby and stare at the small little swell it now makes. I never regretted being pregnant, but now I feel so pregnant and so stupid.

I breathe, slow and deep, while all my insecurities gnaw on my insides. We’re going to have a family together. I will be a mother . . . but he will still be a fighter, surrounded by young, pretty groupies who will do anything to have him.

Brooke Before Pregnancy would probably feel nobody could ever take him away from her.

But Pregnant Brooke feels a little bit at a disadvantage. Because maybe it hurts a little that he hasn’t asked me to marry him. Maybe he doesn’t even want to?

Why would he even bother, when I’m his already?

“Brooke, he’s looking at you,” Pete murmurs excitedly.

Still feeling more unsteady than I’d like, I drag in a deep breath and continue staring at my lap, at the stupid linen dress I wore when I prettied up for him this morning.

“Brooke, he’s staring blatantly at you,” Pete says, now in alarm.

The crowd quiets.

The silence becomes oppressive, as if Riptide has stopped smiling and now everyone knows something’s going on.

I can feel his eyes boring into the top of my head. And I know that when I look up, all I will see is that red. Lipstick. On his beautiful face. Like the lipstick I smeared him with once, but that belongs to someone else today. Maybe one of the fucking whores he fucked when I was gone. God.

“Brooke, Jesus, what the hell?” Pete elbows me. “Do you want him to fuck up tonight?”

I shake my head and force myself to look at him.

He’s staring at me with a look of complete wildness and anxiety. His legs are braced apart, his jaw tight and his stance defensive, and I can tell he senses there’s something wrong with me, because his hands are fists at his sides and he looks ready to jump and come get me.

I hold his gaze proudly, because I don’t even want him to know how hurt I am, but when he smiles at me, I just can’t smile back.

His smile fades.

His eyes flash with hurt as he curls his fingers into his hands and the wildness in his expression almost claws into me, but I feel equally wild, and this time, I just can’t appease him I am so fucking hurt, and angry, and jealous, and pregnant.

Vaguely, I remember there were times when I sat on these sidelines, wishing that magnificent raw beast up there were mine. And this moment I sit here, pregnant with his baby, hurting because some woman, or women, kissed and touched what I feel is mine, and suddenly I want what I had before. I want to be just a girl, just wanting a job. Simple. Simple goals and a simple life. But no. I can’t have that now. Because I am more in love with Remington Tate than I ever thought possible. And he is as elusive as a falling star, one that nobody will ever really catch, and if you catch him, he will only burn right through you.

Like he burns into me right now, right in the center of my chest, my love for him corroding me.

Unable to look into his dark eyes any longer, I force my gaze away to watch his opponent take the ring, and my eyes slide over but quickly return, to the tattoo of a dark, elegant curled B on Remington’s right bicep.

My heart stutters in disbelief. Staring at the inky design in confusion, I realize that yes, it’s right there, on his right bicep: a perfect, beautiful B.

It does something crazy to me. My poor panties suddenly feel soaked, and I start to throb.

Remington turns to his opponent, and I see his lips curl cockily when he spares a look at the fighter he goes up against, someone young and jumpy, clearly too eager to get started.

They tap gloves, and Remington looks at me. Then, without smiling, he meaningfully flexes his bicep with the B and kisses it so that I see. A furious, hot little ripple runs down my sex, and I clench my legs together.

His smile flashes, as if he knows he makes me wet and I can’t help myself.

The bell rings.

“When did he get that tattoo?” I ask under my breath. I can’t stop staring at the mark.

“Right after we left Seattle,” Pete tells me.

Remington goes toe-to-toe with the “eager young buck” as Pete called him, and immediately slams him; then he backs out and feints, making the new fighter come after him. The buck swings and fails, and Remington comes back with a powerful one-two punch that launches the man back like a cannon blast. The guy bounces on the ropes, and then falls facedown on the mat.

“Oooooooooo!” the public says.

“Ouch, that must’ve hurt,” says Pete, but he’s grinning while behind me, someone yells, “That’s what you get when you go up against Riptide, sucker!”

No matter what’s going through my head, watching Remington fight is such a thrilling experience that, inside me, all my muscles brace as if I were the one fighting.

The other guy gets up, and Remington hits him again, his punches precise and powerful, his body moving sinuously, the sexy black B on his bicep rippling as that muscle hardens in action. I’m a mess of emotions as the fight progresses, and a drop of perspiration slides between my breasts.

My body temperature seems higher with the pregnancy, but watching my baby’s father up there—a master of complete disaster, with that tattoo screaming to the world that he is mine, but at the same time kissed by some other bitches—makes me possessive and angry. I feel like a volcano.

After Remington knocks the young buck down permanently for the night, fighter after fighter is brought out to challenge him. He rams them so hard they bounce on the ropes, drop on their sides, face-forward, or onto their knees, all of them shaking their heads in consternation like their brains are shuddering inside them.

He’s unstoppable.

Pete laughs at my side. “It never ceases to amaze me how much that man likes to SHOW THE FUCK OFF WHEN YOU WATCH HIM!”

I shake my head in disbelief, and Pete nods somberly. “Seriously. The difference in his blood work when he’s exposed to you—the way you alter his chemistry and bring out all his testosterone, bring his fighter’s instincts to life—it’s incredible. Did you know men’s testosterone rises when they see a new attractive female? His doesn’t. It just goes through the roof when he sees you—his female.”

Pete’s words kill me. Remington always seems to want to prove to me that he is the strongest male in the world and the one who will protect me—and oh, yes, do I believe him.

He takes on a fourth fighter and then a fifth, his body a bulldozer of sex and strength as he pounds them down, one after the other, those dark eyes checking me out—in my seat—making sure I’m watching him. Every look he sends my way, I ache a little more inside me, get a little more angry and embarrassingly horny, until my sex is so swollen and my hands so tightly curled on my lap, I don’t know what I want to do most: fuck him or slap him.

A sixth and a seventh fighter are brought out, and Remington is still not tired. He’s blocking, punching, attacking, and defending.

“RIP, RIP, RIP, RIP, RIP!” the public chants to him, and Pete joins them, pumping his hands in the air, chanting the same word as the thousand people here, as the ringmaster grabs Remington’s thick wrist and raises his arm in victory.

“Our winner! Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Remington Tate, youuuuur Riptiiiide!!”

Those dark eyes search for me in the stands. The second they find me, my pulse pounds fiercely in my body, my heart fluttering like a winged thing in my chest as he stares at me and smiles. A shiver runs through me at the sight of those dimples, the white smile, the dark, scruffy jaw—and that fucking red lipstick.

When I can’t seem to make myself smile back, his eyebrows draw low over his eyes, and he grabs the rope and climbs down from the ring.

“Riptide, Riptide, Riptide!” I hear the excited people start chanting.

Forcing myself to hold his steely dark gaze, I stand on shaky legs, watching him come over. He gives me his hand, and I look at all that fucking lipstick on his face, and then at his hand, and I grab it. My jaw tightens as he hauls me down the rows.

“Keys,” he barks at Riley, and Riley hops down from the corner of the ring and trots to walk next to us.

“I’ll drive you guys.”

Into the back rooms we go, and Remington stops at the lockers to grab his duffel, never letting go of my hand. I can’t stop looking at the lipstick on his damn, sexy, infuriating mouth, and at the B tattoo on his sexy, hard bicep. Conflicting sensations spiral in me so fast, I don’t even know what to do with them except grit my teeth. Releasing my hand for the barest second, Remington pulls on a white T-shirt and jumps into a pair of black sweatpants, then he grabs my hand, rams his fingers through mine, and leads me outside. He shoves me into the back of the Navigator, and once we settle in our seats and Riley starts the car, he grabs my face in one hand, his eyes glowing with the same hunger they’ve glowed with all day. Or maybe even more. He bends to kiss me and I twist my face around.

“Don’t,” I say.

He forces my head back around and murmurs in a low, desperate voice, “I want you to look at me when I fight. I’ve been waiting what feels like forever to have you look at me.” He crushes my mouth with his, and lightning streaks through me as his lips press to mine. The need inside me is so great, it takes all my willpower to force my mouth shut under his as I twist free with a moan.

“Don’t kiss me!” I hiss.

He seizes my face in one open hand and turns me around, and he takes my mouth again, forcing my lips to part so he can thrust his tongue in me with a groan. I moan as his tongue touches mine, fighting weakly as I squirm between him and the seat and I push at his shoulders, twisting my head away.

“Let go!” I moan.

“God, I need you like I need to breathe. . . .” He slides his callused palm under my dress, stroking his long fingers up my thigh as he presses a path of hungry, wet kisses up my throat. “Why are you playing games with me? Hmm? I need to be inside you right now. . . .”

“Did you tell that to your groupies?” Panting and angry as his hand advances up my thigh, I push at his granite chest and make a frustrated sound when he doesn’t budge. “Tell that to the one who kissed your chin, your temple, your jaw, and your fucking mouth!”

He edges back with a confused scowl.

“You’ve got lipstick all over your face, Remington!” I say, straightening my dress.

With a low, exasperated noise, he drags the back of his forearm across his lips, then looks down at it and narrows his eyes when he sees the red streak on his skin. He clamps his jaw shut and falls back in his seat, dropping his head back with a groan. He rakes his hands through his hair and stares angrily at the ceiling, breathing through his nose. I try sliding to the other end of the seat, but his hand shoots out and clamps around my wrist.

“Don’t,” he rasps, like he’s in pain.

I swallow a lump of anger in my throat as he slides his hand from my wrist to my hand and links our fingers. The entire ride, I am acutely aware of his palm against mine, his thick, long fingers laced through mine, holding me tight while my chest feels like bursting and imploding, all at the same time.

We get to our hotel and Riley cautiously checks on us via the rearview mirror. “I’ll pick up the rest of the team now,” he says.

“Thanks,” Remington flatly says as he helps me down from the car. Then, with his hand still holding mine, he walks me across the lobby to the elevators.

We hop on, and his scruffy jaw is still all streaked in red. Even with those streaks, his face is every woman’s fantasy. His hair rumpled and black, those sweatpants riding low on his hips while that T-shirt clings to his eight-pack and broad shoulders and bulging biceps. He’s still the same sex symbol he’s always been, while I feel more pregnant than ever, with the tiny bump of my stomach.

He pulls me into our room, the door slamming with its own weight behind us, and the instant he lets go of my hand he grabs me by the hips and lifts me up to set me down on the dining table.

“Don’t do this to me.” He nips my neck and slides his hand under my dress again, raising it up quickly to cup me over my panties this time. “Don’t fucking do this to me now,” he groans.

I start to shudder when he drags his mouth up to my jaw, nipping my lips as he rubs the tip of one finger over my panties. I hate the whimper that comes out of me, but he seems to like it, for he groans and heads straight for my mouth. I jerk my head away, my voice soft and pained. “I want to kiss you, not them!” I cry, weakly pushing at his big chest.

“It’s me.” He pulls his hand out of my dress, grabs the sides of my face in both hands, and kisses me, smearing me with someone else’s lipstick as he covers my mouth and forcibly opens me. I push on his chest until I can’t push anymore while his tongue overpowers mine and he curls his arms around my back as he leans me down on the table, his arms protecting me from the hard surface as he suckles on me with desperate hunger. “It’s me,” he rasps, rubbing a hand along the side of my body and to my breast.

I whimper needily and hate that I do. I’m so wet. I need him so much. He smells so fucking good. I’m going crazy, but when he covers my breast with one hand, I’m still so jealous and angry, I try to push his hand away. He makes a low, pained noise. “Brooke . . .” With a frustrated sound, he grabs the fabric of my dress in both fists and rips it open in one jerk. I gasp as he spreads the fabric aside to reveal me in my underwear, his dark head quickly diving so he can drag his tongue over my skin, from my belly button upward, as he parts the material even more and strokes his hands up my ribs.

Tremors run through me and I clutch the back of his head, torn between pulling him up to my mouth and pushing him away; instead, I pull him up by the hair. “No,” I groan, and he eases back and looks at me with those wild-animal eyes, and I know I shouldn’t provoke him, I should calm him, but I am jealous out of my fucking mind. He has turned me into this. Loving and obsessing about him, wondering who he’s been with. He might not even know himself—but they know, and they aren’t me.

Seized by a new determination, I sit up and angrily grab his jaw and start scrubbing my palms and fingers furiously over the marks. When I can’t remove much of them, I grab his white T-shirt and pull it up to wipe him. He stands there, breathing harder than he does when he fights, looking at me like he’s begging me for something—for me—as he patiently lets me wipe him clean.

My fingers tremble. His eyes are brilliant in the shadows of the suite as I scrub, but I still can’t get the lipstick off, and I can’t stand it.

I lick my finger and then rub saliva on the lipstick marks, then pass his T-shirt over the damned spot.

He grows frustrated and shoves his fingers into his mouth, then starts rubbing the places I am, our fingers bumping as we scrape our saliva all over his jaw. I lift the T-shirt and scrape again, going breathless as it finally starts coming off.

I stop when there’s nothing left, only his hard jaw, a little raw, my body on fire with need and my heart on fire with love and every inch of me burning with jealousy. And I grab his hair and lean over and set a kiss right there, where another kiss used to be, desperately trying to erase anything before. And I set another kiss there, and another where another mark used to be. He grasps my hips tight as I drag my lips along his jaw and head for his mouth, and I kiss it, fast and almost as if I don’t want to, and ease back, sucking in a breath as I let go.

He raises a brow. “Done?” he asks in a haggard voice, and I don’t think I’m breathing when I nod.

His chest expands as he grabs the stained T-shirt and lifts it in one single, fluid move, tossing it aside. “You and I are going to make love now. We don’t have to wait a second . . . longer . . . to be together.”

Shivers run through me, and my voice is raw with emotion. “I can’t stand seeing their lipstick on you, Remington—I won’t let them kiss you. And this isn’t some pregnancy craziness talking or my insecurities! I told you a long time ago that I won’t share. I won’t share you.”

“Shh, baby, I neither expect you to nor want you to.” He eases my tattered dress off my shoulders, then lets it spread out beneath me on the table. He urges me down and then looks at me splayed for him, with my knees folded back. He touches me everywhere—my legs, my arms, between my breasts—as he leans over. “Coach was tying up my hands, I had my headphones on. I didn’t see them coming until they were all over me. It won’t happen again. I kiss no one. I kiss no one. But my little firecracker.”

He ducks to my breasts and licks one nipple through my bra, sliding his thumb under the plain white cotton, easing the fabric down and hooking it beneath the rising swell. “I am going to lick these and I am going to suck these and I am going to do whatever I want with these.”

My heart pounds hot blood through my veins as he lowers the fabric on the other side and licks the sensitive peak, sending bolts of pleasure everywhere in me. My breasts are bigger, thrust out, the nipples darker and puckered, and he cups them as if exploring new territories that delight him. The sound that rumbles up his chest causes me to make a small little sound of my own as I squirm needily. His eyes lift to mine when he hears that sound, and he grabs my hips and drags me to the edge of the table, my butt flying off the very edge, and he jerks loose his sweatpants. Suddenly I feel how hard he is, his heavy erection brushing against my soaked entry as he leans over to lave and lick my breasts again, his hardness nestling into the apex of my legs.

“Sensitive?” He presses one nipple in with his thumb, then the other, his hands rough but gentle. I arch and mew softly. I want a bruise, I want to ache, I want to ache in my skin and my muscles like I ache inside with love for him.

“Yes,” I gasp and there’s a lump in my throat and tears of need in my eyes.

He takes my lips in a voracious kiss, then ducks his head and groans into my neck, “Brooke.” He caresses between my legs and pushes his thumb into my body as he turns his head and strokes my tongue with his own. My insides tremble when he draws back to observe how debauched I look as he thumbs me.

I see the raw need in his face as he watches; then he lifts his hand and licks his glistening wet thumb. Oh god, I see him—primal and male, still with that boyish charm and that disheveled crazy black hair, and I squirm and moan because I want him, I want him, I WANT HIM.

“You’re restless, what do you want?” The ragged need in his voice makes me tremble as I say, “I want to lick you like you lick me,” and he nods and bends over and gives me his tongue first; then he cups the back of my head and presses me to his neck.

Wet and burning hot, his skin is silk under my twirling tongue. I shiver as I go up and grab his hair and suck his top lip into my mouth. He tastes like he does, and he tastes like he wants me. We kiss intensely, and my breathing hitches even more. He tears my bra as I bite his lower lip, and he’s breathing deeply when he pulls down my panties and draws back to see me fully naked now. His eyes trace me, devour me. He sees my breasts just thrusting out, bare, and they’re fuller, and I know he desires them. He cups one, like he’s knowing me for the first time. This is what he did to my body. This is what happens to my body after him.

He touches my other breast, then he immediately cups them both and fondles them and starts playing with them, watching what he does with brilliant dark eyes.

His lip is bleeding from my bite in the place it always opens, and his chest is slick with sweat. I protest. “I bit you,” I say.

“Just put your lips on it.”

“Remy—”

“Put your tongue on it.” He bends again and nudges my lips with his, and I softly lick him, the way an animal instinctively cleans a wound. I suck on that bleeding lip gently. He drags his nose over mine and then licks my lips open. I hug him and part my legs and circle them around his hips.

Need races through me as he grabs my ass and lifts me in the air. I lift my bottom to help him, and I’m so drunk with desire my vision blurs as he carries me a couple of steps to the sofa.

He kisses my neck as he lowers me, then he circles his thumb between my thighs exactly where I’m wet and I mew softly. “You ready for me?” His voice rasps over my ear as he strokes my wet folds with his fingers. “Get ready for me.”

He pushes his long finger inside me to make me wetter, but I’m so drenched, it slides in easily. I contract and almost can’t keep from coming as he rubs inside my depths.

He slides his lips down my body and bends his dark head, his tongue running over my clit, lapping lightly as he holds me open by the thighs. I grip the back of his head, watching him do this to me. Then he kneels at the end of the sofa, grabs my hips, and drags me down a couple more inches—and he starts pressing in. Full. Hot. Harder than anything I’ve ever touched. I arch my body and gasp as he guides every inch of himself inside me, while my eyes lock on to his and his lock on to mine. He cups my face and drags his thumb down my bottom lip, pulling it roughly and lovingly as he keeps easing inside, until he’s fully seated in the deepest part of me.

I whimper as he rocks his hips.

He leans over and kisses my ear. “You miss me.”

I turn and kiss his mouth, gasping as I tilt my hips. “I feel like I’ve never been this wet and swollen.”

“I’ve never been this hard.” He pulls out and then eases back in, slowly and pleasurably. I feel him part me, open me, take me, fill me, then leave me. . . . I whimper and am about to beg him to come back in when he does . . . he comes in . . . rocking back in . . . the muscles of his arms, his Celtic tattoos and his B, rippling as he moves. The third time, he pins my arms up above my head and thrusts harder, the move jerking my breasts.

I scream and he muffles it with his mouth. I breathe deep, inhaling his scent.

“I love you . . .” I choke.

He stops in me, breathing hard. A low, guttural sound tears deep in his throat as he turns and starts licking my ear. Then he slides his arms around me as though to protect me as he picks up a rhythm that is fast, determined, raw, and primal.

I’m almost crying as I tilt my hips and turn my head to his ear, gasping as he savors my neck, squeezes my breasts, fucks me hard and fast. “Oh god . . . Remington . . . Remington . . .”

He sets his forehead on mine as his hips continue expertly rocking into me; then he brings his thumb up and starts to caress my clit while his cock drags, hard and pulsing, inside me. I loosen and shatter, shuddering uncontrollably as he takes my mouth with his deliciously hot kiss. Love, lust, need course through me as I come and thrash beneath him.

“All right?” he asks, slowing his motions as I continue to come.

“Yes!” Every inch of me screams for him. I arch up against him and undulate a little, wanting more, wanting him. He growls like he can’t hold back and pulls out, then thrusts back in, driving forward harder, holding me with one arm around my waist as I arch and he holds me in place with one hand as he enters me. I moan, and say, “Remy.”

His eyes are burning me as he drags a hand down the arch of my throat, between my breasts, then bends to lick me again. “Mine,” he whispers softly, reminding me.

“Yours, yours,” I say as my orgasm builds in me.

He presses his nose to my ear, growling as he comes, hot in me, his big body tensing over me, a guttural animal noise wrenching from his lips before he rasps again, “Mine.”

After he comes and holds me for a minute, he lifts me up in his arms, still inside me, and I tuck my nose into his neck. He carries me around the kitchen and grabs two green apples in one hand, then gives one to me as he carries us to the master bedroom.

I bite into it with a crunch as we settle down under the covers, and he bites into his own with a bigger crunch. We kiss a little, and he tastes like juicy, lemony apple. He finishes his first, then licks the juice from the corners of my lips, and I offer up my apple to him because I suspect he’s still hungry. He takes a big bite, smiling down at me when I turn it around and bite from where he did.

His legs move restlessly under the sheet, and I know my speedy Remy won’t sleep tonight, but if he wants to make love to me all night, he can. I hope he will. I shift to keep him still inside me as we both eat my apple and bite it on the opposite side at the same time. We laugh in unison, and I tell him, “Right now our baby is the size of a plum.”

“A plum?” He opens his mouth so I give him more apple, and I move my fingers to shape the size of a plum with my free hand.

“A plum,” I repeat.

“So little,” he says tenderly, sliding one big hand to the small curve of my stomach.

“So little,” I breathe, curling into his big warm body with a sigh, listening to him finish my apple and letting him lick all the juicy drops that fall on my skin.