Mine (Real Book 2)

Sunlight steals through the window. Remington isn’t in bed. I twist to scan our cute little cottage but can’t see him anywhere. I force myself to slide out of bed and hop into my track pants, then my sports bra and top.

After freshening up, I grab my sneakers and pad out barefoot to find Diane in the kitchen. “Good morning, Brooke,” she says merrily. I love how she travels with her aprons and gives every one of our hotel rooms such a cozy ambience.

She even travels with her green ceramic pans—ones that don’t shed aluminum, so Remington’s food is completely pure.

“Hmm, it smells divine,” I say as I wander around in search of breakfast.

“Dive in. The big man asked me to set a ton aside for you.”

I lift a bowl of sweet potato hash and munch. “What time did he leave?”

“Pete came and got him a couple of minutes ago.”

“Pete? Not Riley? What gym did he go to?” There’s a knock on the door, and I lick the coconut oil Diane used to cook the hash from my fingers as I go to open it.

“Brooke Dumas?”

A woman stands holding a medium-size box wrapped in red paper but without a bow. “Yes?”

Her smile widens. “Mr. Tate ordered this for you.” She hands me the huge box, and I stare in disbelief.

“Remington sent me this?” I ask stupidly.

“Yes, miss. Enjoy.” I kick the door shut as she leaves, my hands full of the big box of surprise Remington sent me.

Ohmigod. He’s completely unexpected. He not only seduces me with music, with his blue devil eyes, with his spiky hair, with his dimples and his delicious fucking smell, he gets me presents?

I immediately tear the box open and discard the top, and I see lots of white packing peanuts inside. I stick my hand among the bubblelike shapes and feel a bunch of tickles running up my finger. Frowning, I take my hand out, and three enormous scorpions come out attached to it.

For a moment, everything is in slow motion.

Everything.

I can see the insects perfectly moving up my arm. I can see the long, segmented tails. The claw on the tail’s tip, the two claws up front, and the eight legs moving on my forearm. I also dazedly register three black dots on each of their heads, as if they have three eyes. Do scorpions have three eyes?

Everything, I register.

In half a second.

And then, in the very next second, I register something else. That this is one of the most WHAT-THE-FUCK MOMENTS OF MY LIFE.

I fall back and kick the box. A dozen or more scorpions come crawling out as I try shaking off the ones already on me. My heart has flown up to my throat and now it’s constricting my airway as it flutters and pounds in my pure building hysteria.

“HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! DIANE!”

I have scorpions. Scorpions. Crawling. Up my fucking arm! They are huge, half the size of my palm, each with eight legs. Seriously? Only eight legs? I feel a thousand legs on me. I feel legs on every inch and centimeter of my skin. I start convulsing and shaking like crazy on the floor, screaming when I feel my first sting on my forearm. “OH MY GOD, DIANE!!”

Suddenly I feel a fourth one crawling up my ankle and I notice that all this time, Diane has been screaming hysterically. “Brooke! Oh my god! Somebody do something!”

“GET THEM OFF ME, DIANE!! GET THEM OFF!”

I don’t know why I am yelling frantically as if that will scare them away. Afraid to touch them with my hand, I’m instead twisting and squirming on the floor when a bucket of water crashes upon me. I suck in my breath as I watch Diane rush back to the kitchen, fill another pan full of water, and throw it at me. But the scorpions are hanging on.

I reach for one and try to push it off me, and its tail snaps at me. The stinger hits my thumb. Instant pain shoots into me as the others keep crawling. Crawling. On me. I don’t know if these animals have been drugged or starved or given something to alter them. They are almost crawling on me like spiders, fast and frantic over me. One swings its tail and sticks its stinger into the skin of my forearm. Then it sticks a second stinger into me. Pain shoots through me. I feel another sting up on my arm, and then I stop squirming and freeze. Fight or flight is full force in me. But I can’t run, and I can’t fight, and now I freeze, my body paralyzed in fear while all my organs go wild at the threat these things pose to me. All my fear rushes to the forefront, and I start crying helplessly.

I’m on the floor, sobbing, the only thing moving on me is the awful legs belonging to these awful creatures, when I hear Diane screaming tremulously into the phone, “Get back here! Get back here please!” She keeps repeating the same thing, over and over, when she suddenly swings the door open and screams out into the hall, “REMINGTON!”

Everything’s hazy as almost immediately, or maybe a few minutes later, I don’t know, the door slams open wider with a crashing noise. Through my tears, I see him, and I can picture what he sees. Scorpions all over me and me, doing nothing, crying like a baby, as afraid as I’ve ever been in my life. My vision blurs completely from something other than tears, and I wonder if it’s the venom. I feel shocks all over me. I feel the scorpions being yanked from me with bare hands, one after the other, as I sob.

Then he grabs me, and I’m in his huge arms, steady arms that hold a body that is mine—is it mine? Is this body that is falling apart mine?—and I am shaking and in an agony of pain.

I try climbing up him higher, like a tree, and cling to his neck as I sob and try to breathe, sucking in his scent like it’s the only way my body can remember to breathe again. He’s breathing hard. His hands are fists in my back, and they are shaking. Then they start rubbing up and down. His hands reach my face and he furiously wipes my tears.

“I got you,” he hisses passionately in my ear, squeezing me none too gently. “I got you. I got you.”

“A woman just came and knocked!” Diane’s frantic words tremble with tears. “She said Remy had ordered the box for her!”

“Jesus,” Pete says in disgust. “Let’s not throw them away, Diane; we need to see what kind they are. Call an EMT and let’s just crush the motherfuckers—give me a pan.”

Remington’s voice is hard as granite in my ear. “I’m going to kill him,” he promises me. “I swear to god, I’m going to kill him so slowly.”

“Just save it for the ring, Rem. Sabotaging your championship is exactly what he wants,” Pete says between whacking noises.

Remy’s voice is a hiss as I feel him rub his hands over me. “Where did they bite you? Tell me exactly where, and I’ll suck all the poison out.”

I’m gasping for breath as if my air ducts were suddenly swelling. “I . . . e-everywhere . . .”

“You shouldn’t suck on these—let me have a look at her,” Pete says.

I cling to Remington, and he tightens his arms around me and slowly rocks me, his entire body shaking almost like my own as he speaks into my ear. “I got you, little firecracker, I got you right here in my arms,” he whispers, and I can hear the barely unleashed fury in his voice.

“Rem, let me see her,” Pete begs him.

“No,” I moan, and I clutch Remy harder because I know that if I die, this is the way I want to go. Oh my god, am I going to die? Who’s going to take care of him? “Don’t let go, don’t let go,” I moan.

“Never,” he promises in my ear.

“According to Google, they’re Arizona bark scorpions. Venomous but not deadly.”

“Hang on to me,” Remy whispers, and then we’re in motion. My vision blurs even more. My tongue is thick. Saliva in my mouth. Can’t breathe. I’m shaking as he lifts me, and the sensation of being electrocuted from the inside increases to an alarming level.

“Where the heck are you going with her, Tate?”

Remington’s growl rumbles against my chest and somehow comforts me in my shaky, altered state. “To the fucking hospital, dipshit.”

I hear the crash of the door as he opens it with all his might, and then a creak as if he unhinged it. Then we’re in motion, going somewhere . . . his breathing hard and fast. . . .

Pete calls behinds us, “Dude, Diane just called the EMT. Let’s just take a fucking chill pill and give her some Benadryl.”

“You. Take a chill pill. Pete.”

We’re walking rapidly somewhere, and I can hear in his voice that he’s hanging on by threads. The thought that this could greatly affect him and make him speedy makes me panic.

“I’m awright,” I tell him; then I hear my own voice. I sound stupid. Maybe some brain cells are dying from the venom. I can’t form the letter l. I say it again, “I’m awright, Wemy. . . .” Ohmigod.

Remington freezes, and I can feel him look at me but my eyes are blurry; then I hear him say, “FUUUUUCK ME!”

The elevator arrives. When the rolling doors open, Riley’s voice reaches me. “All right, what’s going on? Coach is waiting at the gym, Rem. . . .” He trails off.

“Live scorpions,” Pete tells Riley. “Venomous, but fortunately not deadly.”

“I can’t bweathe,” I say out loud. I am freaking. The hell out. For the first time in my life I don’t understand what the hell is going on in my body.

“The poison spreads through the nervous system, but it doesn’t enter the bloodstream. Try to stay calm, Brooke. These bark scorpions are nasty suckers. Can you feel your legs?”

I shake my head. My tongue feels leaden, every spot where I was stung hurts so bad that my face is stuck in a permanent grimace, and I’m breathing in pants.

Pete reaches out. “Let me see that. . . .” I feel Remy wrap his hand around my arm and stretch it out and whisper, “I’m going to kill him,” while Pete studies me.

“It’ll be all right, B,” Pete says. “I’ve had the experience once. Awful, but you really don’t die from a North American scorpion.”

I nod and am clinging to that reassurance when Diane calls from the door, “There’s a note! I turned the box over and there’s a note!”

“What does it say?” Pete asks. Then I hear a crumpling sound as he reads, “ ‘You’ve kissed me. Now you’ve been kissed back by the Scorpion. How does it feel to have my venom in you?’ ”

Remington’s body engages. I can feel it suddenly, a complete change in the way he holds me. He was protective and proprietary, and suddenly . . . he wants to fight.

An image blooms inside my head: I’m standing before that embodiment of gross and kissing his disgusting tattoo of a scorpion so I could see my sister. I moan as a fresh wave of nausea roils up my throat.

“Pete, I saw his goons downstairs in the lobby. I think he’s here at the hotel,” Riley says.

“The motherfucker is probably downstairs waiting for Remington.”

“Oh, he has it coming!” Remington thunders. “He’s already dead!” he explodes.

I close my eyes tight as his tumultuous energy surrounds me, and I know, no matter how he might have struggled to stay blue . . .

Remy has gone black.

His lips are suddenly in my ear, and he whispers as he cups the back of my head, “I need to do something right now. I love you. I fucking love you to pieces, and I’m going to come back and put you back together again, all right?”

I nod, even though I feel like shit. Little jolts run through me. I bite my lip hard to focus on that pain instead, but it cannot compete with the stings on my body. I’m trying to be brave, but I remember the scorpions on me . . . on my body . . . the ugly bodies, the pincers . . . the three black dots on the head. . . . I shudder in his arms and feel like vomiting.

“Why is she shaking like this, goddammit?” Remington demands as we start moving again.

“It’s the nervous system being affected. She sustained several stings, so it’ll be painful. While the EMT is on his way, let’s give her some Tylenol.”

We’re walking back into the room, as far as I can tell, and Remy sets me down on something soft. From the blue blur I see, I think it’s the couch. He brushes my hair back, and I can feel his eyes on my face.

“I’m going to go crush him now.”

Then he’s gone, like some sort of hurricane out to destroy anything in its path, and my brain is so stunned by how fast he made this decision—by how calm and cold he sounded when he made that last statement—that for a moment I convince myself he really just went to get me some Tylenol.

“Damn it, he’s full speed ahead, Ri, go after him before he sees Scorpion or any of his goons—Diane! Get some cold compresses and wait for the EMT. We need to go get that man!”

The last time I saw Remington have an episode and go fully manic, Pete jammed a syringe containing a sedative into his jugular, and as I hear the men’s footsteps on the carpet, I immediately yell, “Pete, don’t fucking shoot anywing up his thwoat!” then I groan, turn my head down, and start vomiting.

♥  ♥  ♥

THE EMT HAS come and gone, and we’re still waiting, over half an hour later, with the remains of the scorpions in an awful Tupperware container glaring at me from the kitchen.

I was told to take Tylenol and Benadryl, use cold compresses, and to call if it got worse, in which case they would procure an antidote for me.

Now the Tylenol and Benadryl have kicked in and I’m a bit better. I have a trash can next to the living room couch in case I puke again.

I have thrown up half my body weight, it feels like. Diane is now putting ice on me so the stings don’t swell, but still I feel shocks. I’m now groggy thanks to the Benadryl, but at least the swelling in my tongue is down some.

“I told you that man has the reddest self-destruct button I’ve ever seen,” Diane says gently as she presses a cold compress to my arm. She reminds me of my mother, and for the briefest second, I am so homesick I want to cry. But the home I really want to cry for is the man downstairs ready to beat to death the sicko who did this to me.

“Please don’t let him even set eyes on Scorpion,” I say miserably. “If I screw things up for him again—”

“You don’t screw it up for him, Brooke,” Diane assures me. “You love him. You’re the only woman he’s ever loved and the only person who’s loved him and accepted him as is. He wasn’t given love growing up. He was rejected and cast aside. How hard do you think he will defend you?”

My eyes blur, and my voice breaks.

“I want to defend him too and can’t even stand right,” I say, feeling suddenly pitiful and weak.

By the time the guys come back, it’s been almost an hour, and all my nerve endings have been corroded by my anxiety.

I’m lying on my side on the couch with my eyes closed, drunk on the Benadryl, when I hear muffled voices outside the door.

“. . . hold the door . . .”

My heart dies. I swear it dies. Because there’s just no other reason to hold the door except if your arms are busy holding something.

Something big and reckless and beautiful.

I hold my breath as Diane goes over to help with the door, and then I see them. Not them—him. Remy.

Pete and Riley are grunting and huffing as they lug him inside, his feet dragging in the ground, his head facing the floor. His dark hair is all I can see, and the anger and protectiveness I suddenly feel is so overpowering that the only reason I don’t charge over to hit those two is because I still can’t feel one of my feet.

“You assholes!” I cry.

They look at each other and say nothing when suddenly, unexpectedly, I hear his voice, slurred and still somehow determined. “Need to see Brooke.”

“Hang on, buddy,” Pete breathlessly says as they head to the master bedroom.

“Need her,” Remy repeats in a low, garbled voice.

Diane hastens to help me to my feet and follow them. I swear, my heart feels like a Kleenex in my chest, one that has been used to a tiny pathetic wad. I hate when they shoot that freaking sedative into his throat!

Keeping her arm around me, Diane helps me limp my way into the master bedroom, and we find the guys jerking Remington’s clothes off until he’s in his gray boxers. Then they struggle to get him onto the bed.

“Get the other side,” Pete says, and Riley hauls him up from the bed’s far edge.

“Rem, what the hell are we to do with you? Huh, dude?” Pete chidingly says as he puts him into bed and cleans him up.

“Brooke,” Remington growls angrily.

“She’s coming, dude!” Pete says with a laugh.

They struggle to adjust him on the bed so that he faces me. They plop a pillow behind his head, and I see his eyes are halfway open. They fix on me as Diane helps me to bed, and they’re fully black and almost frantic when he sees me. I still marvel at how fast they can change, those beautiful eyes of his. How his body can completely make this transformation within minutes. His large, tanned hands are idle at his sides, but his finger twitches like he wants to touch me, and suddenly all the fingers of my hands ache with the same urge to touch and comfort him.

“Okay?” he rasps to me, his gaze stormy and dark and vivid with frustration.

I can also feel his frustration. He wanted to go defend me, and they stopped him. I can feel his angry turmoil whirling around us as I clamber into bed with him and cover us to the waist.

“More than okay,” I say gently as I put my arms around his hard shoulders and stroke the top of his head.

I can feel the tension ease from his body as he closes his eyes and suddenly sags. Sinking my face into his hair, I desperately haul his scent into my lungs and hold him tightly as his weight settles against my side, shifting so that his head is pillowed by my breasts. “I love you so much,” I hiss into his ear. “Wake up soon, okay? I’ve got you now.”

“This is going to be a difficult season,” I hear Pete say.

I nod in understanding, but I can’t take my eyes off him, his beautiful lashes resting on his cheekbones, his lips slightly parted. I stroke my fingers over his boyish face with that sexy scruffy jaw.

Riley says, “Let me go pick up Lupe from the gym and tell him our guy’s not coming.”

Pete watches me as I slowly start rubbing Remy’s scalp, then he brings me some water and another ice pack and sets them on the nightstand while Diane tells me she’ll clean up outside.

“How you doing?” Pete asks me.

I nod. “Better with the pill combo,” I whisper. Then I add, “I’m sorry I called you guys assholes.”

“I’m sorry we had to . . . but he was there. The motherfucker.” He flattens his lips into an angry line, then keeps staring at me oddly.

“You’re the one thing that calms him, Brooke, but you’re also the one that completely triggers him.” Pete sighs and stares out the window at the little desertlike garden outside our room. “And Scorpion knows there’s something about you that makes Remington lose it. He’s going to keep provoking him. He’s going to try to fuck with his head and lure out every inch of Remington’s beast.”

“We can’t, Pete, we can’t let anybody fuck with his head.” I kiss Remy’s forehead, sending all my love to his beautiful brain and quietly promising, I won’t let anyone fuck with you.

“Remington is as strong as he’s ever been right now,” Pete says. “But you’re a big weakness of his. He’d lose for you, quit for you. Kill for you. Medicate his ass off for you.”

I wipe my tears and pull Remy’s head deeper between my breasts. “Pete, please don’t sedate him anymore. We have to find another way.”

“Dude, he’s as strong as half a dozen men combined. How do you suggest anyone stop him? Let me tell you, if the Underground organizers decide to make that final match one of full submission . . .” He shakes his head and stands.

“What do you mean? What is that—submission?”

He looks at me drearily, then sighs. “Nothing. But Remington’s got a hankering for Scorpion. He’s a noble man, but he won’t have mercy on that asshole—and if he gets a chance to kill him up in the ring, let me tell you right now, he will.” He walks to the door. “Now let me go and find us another hotel.”

Nodding at him and whispering, “Thank you,” I turn back to my big lion.

“Let’s get comfortable,” I say to Remy. I pull off my clothes with shaky, clumsy hands, then peel off his underwear because I know he’s always naked in bed. Then I come back to take his head and press it against my breasts, caressing his hair. I kiss his temple. “I got you now.” His breathing is slow and even. His finger twitches at his side, and I grab his hand and wrap it around my waist. “Do you like holding me like this?” I ask softly, not really expecting an answer. I snuggle and coil my arms around his shoulders, picturing him the day I left him in the hospital.

Black and confused, manic, and desperate to say something to me.

And I was too afraid to stay . . .

My eyes well up again, and suddenly, not only the stings hurt, but all my body aches on the inside.

Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I tighten my hold and bury my face in his hair, kissing him fiercely several times, anywhere I can. His breathing is slow and even, but mine is still hitched over what happened. All I know is that it stops hurting when I look at him, when I smell him, and when I touch him.

So I run my hands around the hard muscles of his bare shoulders and then lean over and kiss the shell of his ear, then his smooth, warm temple. He smells like him, seducing me, and I duck to smell his neck as I run my fingers down his back, the hard squares of his abs, then buzz my lips across his jaw.

He murmurs something unintelligible, and his finger twitches. I frame his jaw within my hands and place a soft kiss on his lips. “Thank you for defending me, but I won’t let you ruin your dreams for me anymore,” I tell him.

I run my fingers over his muscled chest, his neck, his corded arms, up his thick neck, where I bend to kiss his low, steady pulse point. He makes another noise, and I wonder what he thinks. Does he hear me? I think he does.

I grab his iPod and my earbuds so that we can share, and I look for a song that I’ve wanted to play to him. I place one earbud in his ear and one in mine and play him the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Stay with You.” I take his hand in one of mine and kiss his knuckles, stroking his hair as we listen, the song making me forget that every part where I was stung hurts as if I still have the stingers inside me. I hold him as we listen. My fighter. He fights everything, even himself, but I love that he’s never fought loving me.

♥  ♥  ♥

HE’S COMPLETELY SPEEDY.

Two days after the Gift—as we now call it—it was all over the news that the Underground fighter known as Scorpion and his team had been apprehended and charged with damages to a motel room due to the explosion of firecrackers inside.

Yes. Firecrackers.

When I asked Pete and Riley what happened, they just said Remington never leaves a message unanswered. “He could’ve tried for something that would’ve gotten Scorpion kicked off the tour, but he clearly wants to end this in the ring.”

Now Pete is getting some sort of device to protect me during the next fight, and I very much hope that I will be carrying one of those devices in case I need to beat the shit out of anything Scorpion related.

The rhythmic sound of Remy punching his speed bag echoes in the large gymnasium, and today, we can all feel the magic.

I can always tell when he’s having a good training day, because his energy takes over the room. He inspires me, he inspires anyone nearby. His fire lights our fires. It’s palpable, like a rope swishing in the air. Remington’s energy is so powerful, I can smell it, taste it.

Coach has been pacing around the area Remington is training in, clearly buzzed with all that energy. Riley has been watching nearby while swinging in the air in shadowboxing style, and I spent two hours running on a treadmill, facing in Remy’s direction and getting all my inspiration from the way he takes on his every athletic task.

Now I stretch on the sidelines, my body, which is still peppered with scorpion marks, spread out on the floor mats as I do some yoga.

I still remember stirring awake the night of the stings, the small garden outside our room completely dark by then. Little pinpricks of pain ran all over my body when suddenly I felt Remington haul me to his hard body and start swiping all my stings with my own salve. God. And his voice, so lazy, a little drunk with the sedative, but oh so tender and concerned as he said, “Look at you.”

I said, completely disbelieving, “Look at me? Look at you!”

And we laughed miserably. Mine was really just a bluff, because, frankly, he looked lazy and relaxed, his speediness not really apparent because of the downer quality of the drug. He didn’t look pitiful in any way, shape, or form, as I felt. Remington oozes strength. Even when he’s asleep. Or down. A lion sleeping is still a fucking lion.

Now he’s killing it at the gym, and I’m up on down-dog pose when suddenly, I hear him stop punching. Unaccustomed to the silence, I lift my head from where it hangs between my arms to the floor, and peer up at him. He’s looking at my ass—up in the air. My insides do something weird, and I straighten and give him a little smile. His dimples peek out at me in return, then he lifts his powerful arms and starts swinging again, hitting his speed bag again and again.

I love the way he trains. Each powerful hit lands hard and dead center, and his beautiful face has that quiet look of concentration I find so sexy. His biceps bulge as he slams the bag repeatedly, and he’s so focused on what he’s doing, I hear him growl at the bag sometimes, low and deep in his throat.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Coach is having one of his loud afternoons, and I hear him start up again: “We won’t take shit this year! We won’t give anything away. We take what’s ours!”

Remington has no reply except to hit harder.

“We’re going to need a heavier punching bag if we’re going to be champs, Riley,” Coach says from the side of the bag opposite from where Riley is now taking notes.

I love how Coach Lupe uses the word “we” as if he’s up in the ring himself, fighting alongside Remy. Pfft! Like that man really needs any coaching.

“What do you mean?” Riley yells back, signaling at the large, heavy bag Remington is crushing with his fists. “It’s the 270-pound bag—there’s no heavier one here.”

“Sways too much!” Coach yells, shaking his bald head.

Riley laughs and jabs a finger toward Remington. “ Let’s switch him over to speed.”

Coach whistles and signals him to the speedball, and Remington pulls off a glove so he can hydrate.

His gray T-shirt is plastered to his chest, and sweat trickles down his throat, his torso, and his toned, muscled arms. A Celtic tattoo peeks out from under his sleeve as he lifts the bottle to his mouth, his bicep bulging like a mountain at the move, and he looks so fuckable, my nipples bead. He’s been at it for so many hours, I can almost feel the heat of his body all the way across the gym. My fingers itch to work on him, and I’m not even getting started on the rest of me. Let’s just say that when he’s black, I’m particularly aware of his “needs.” And I can’t wait to tend to them in a very good, girlfriendly way.

I’m already tingling in anticipation when a soft vibration nearby jerks my eyes to my cell phone, which I cast aside along with a water bottle. I pick up and read.

MELANIE: I’m having nightmares of that he-beast on your behalf! You recovered from those insects yet?

BROOKE: No. I can sometimes still feel the legs crawling on me! UGH! But I don’t want Remington to know Scorpion fucked me up like this—I don’t want him to fuck with our heads any more than he already has. But I feel shitty. Like, malaise. I go to the second bathroom as discreetly as possible at night and puke!

MELANIE: But why don’t you want to tell Remy that HE-BEAST MUST DIE!

BROOKE: Mel! Because he WOULD do it!

MELANIE: GO RIPTIDE! KILL THE HE-BEAST!

BROOKE: No, Mel, I have to tell him I’m FINE. I’m trying to appease his caveman.

MELANIE: I know of no other way to appease cavemen but through food and sex, and I just felt bats in my stomach thinking of you getting to “appease” an agitated Riptide!

BROOKE: I know, it’s such a HARD task! ♥ ?

MELANIE: OMG, where’s my athlete friend, you whore? I miss you, fly me up soon!

MELANIE: Let him show you how much he loves you again by bringing up the BFF—I mean, what’s the matter with him? He’s got you and now he forgets about impressing you by flying the BFF in?

“Stop looking around and focus! She’s not going anywhere, Tate,” Coach barks as I text Melanie a farewell; then I hear the sounds he makes on the speed bag.

Thadumpthadumpthadump . . .

Today, we aren’t alone in the gym.

Two gymnasts are training at the far end, and my stomach has not been too happy as they blatantly ogle him. They watched him when he was jumping rope. Then, they watched, their eyes almost popping out of their heads, when he was doing his pull overs, mountain climbers, and his upside-down ab work. My beast looks so sexy when he trains, those two have been gaping all morning and afternoon. One even fell on her butt for all the staring she was doing.

And I guess the problem with me now is that with every pretty woman I catch admiring him, I remember the groupies or whores and feel sick to my stomach again.

Exhaling as I lean forward into a downward dog yoga position, I hold it for a moment, then pass on to a cobra stretch—where I’m spread facedown on the mat with my back and neck arched backward—and I get a glimpse of him at the speed bag. There he is, punching and punching, a walking advertisement for sports and sex, his every muscle hot and engaged, powerfully striking. He swings his fists so fast, the ball never stops flapping.

He’s sans T-shirt, and I can see all his muscles as they contract and relax. The sweatpants ride low on his hips, gifting me with a peek at his sexy star tattoo—god, it just drives me crazy. I start thinking about the way his erection somehow rises to tease it, his cock so tall it covers the ink when it’s fully standing, and the memory pierces through me and heats me up in more ways than I’d like to be heated up right now. Aware that my nipples are beading with want, I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment.

Exhaling, I force myself to slide and stretch my legs out on the mat, first one and then the other, and once again.

Coach snarls, “You training or ogling today, Tate?”

Snapping my head back, I see Remy turn back to his bag, take position, lift his gloves, and slam so viciously hard that’s it’s the only thing I can hear in the gym. His punches.

“That’s what I’m talking about! Who’s that motherfucker you’re killing?” Coach demands.

My skin tingles when Remington’s voice explodes across the room as he yells back, “You know damn well who it is!”

“Who’s that fucker you’re going to send into a fucking coma?” Coach continues.

“He’s fucking DEAD!”

“That’s right! He took what belongs to you! Messed with you! Messed with your girl . . .”

Remington roars hard and he hits the bag, sending it crashing to the ground. He kicks it, and it launches into the air before it collides with the wall with a boom!

Riley chuckles as he comes over. “Would you say he’s a tad pissed, B?” he teases me.

My stomach tangles when Remington looks up and straight at me. His chest jerks on each breath, his eyes bore into me, and I feel a little bit naked under that stare. I’d bet my life on the fact that, right now, Remington is fucking me in his head.

“In two more weeks Scorpion fights the same evenings we do. We could bump into him. You nervous?” Riley asks, briefly surveying the gymnasts as he talks to me.

Just the name Scorpion spikes my adrenaline and makes me want to run to the hills. I drop my face and do a pigeon yoga pose to open up my hips, then I switch legs and repeat the exercise. “Yeah, I’m nervous. I should say extra nervous, since I’m nervous every fight, but with that asshole around, let’s make it ten times my normal nervous.” I roll my eyes at myself, and Riley chuckles.

We’ve seemed to “make peace” by strategically avoiding talking about “it,” even though I am actually dying to ask him and Pete what exactly went on. But do I want to know any more?

No.

We were broken up. I have no right. He doesn’t even remember, with his bipolar disorder, and it’s gone. It’s over. I am his and he is mine.

“Heck, even I’m nervous, B. Scorpion’s message was pretty clear,” Riley tells me with a smirk. “It’s on—out of the ring, and in it. And Rem’s message only told the bastard his days are numbered. Nobody messes with his firecracker.”

I straighten up at that; then I look at those sad surfer eyes, and I swear there’s some enjoyment in there. I laugh. I just laugh. Because, honestly, these are full-grown men here. Men. But they are still . . . boys. And when I look across the impressive gymnasium at Remy, he’s the biggest, sexiest, and strongest boy of all.

“Riley, you need to help me make sure that whatever happens, Scorpion does not mess with Remington’s head. Both you and Pete need to watch out for that too. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, saluting like an army cadet. “Now go earn your keep.”

“Ha-ha. I work just as hard as you do,” I say.

“Yeah, but I don’t get the royal treatment you do.”

“Because you suck, and I rule.”

“I’m not even going to answer that. I value my face too much.” He smiles at something past my shoulder.

A tower of brawn right behind me, pulling the tapes off his hands. “I’d be happy to break it for you,” he murmurs.

“I’ll take a rain check on that, if you don’t mind.”

As Riley goes to help Coach clean up, Remington trains his black eyes on me, and I notice his nostrils flare as if he can scent me without even ducking his head, just looking at me.

“Ready?” He speaks in his I’ve-worked-out-for-hours-and-am-sexy-as-hell dehydrated voice as he strokes his fingers up the small of my back, and I’m not immune to any of it.

“Born ready,” I say, a little breathlessly. I don’t know what it is about the times he’s manic, but I’m extra aware of the energy crackling around him when he’s black. He’s a powerhouse, but when he’s black he feels like two. We both head to the small rehab room at the back of the gym. And when he puts his hand on my ass, I say nothing, but feel everything. Then, when he squeezes, it takes every effort in me not to turn around and grab his hard ass and squeeze that massive rock-hard flesh back.

“Up on the table, Riptide,” I command. I just like ordering him around because he gives me this whatever look of amusement. Like he does now, like he’s supremely entertained by me. He lies down on the table, which is much like a massage table, at the center of the small room. Nearby there’s also a refrigerator, for meds and cold items which I’ll raid later for his ice massage.

He spreads facedown first, and his body temp is so high after his workout, I can feel his heat before I even touch him.

“You feel okay?” I ask, my gaze caressing up the line of his spine. “Anything knot up? Bothering you?”

“I’d like to have my hands on you as soon as possible,” he whisper-growls at me, and I bite the inside of my cheek.

“All right, but like they say, ladies first.”

He groans. “Don’t torture me, baby, I want to fuck you already.”

I bend over and set a kiss on his ear. “It’s not torture, try to relax,” I whisper, and I really want him to relax, to focus on his body, so I curl my fingers around his shoulders. The breath hisses out through his teeth, and I also quietly hold my own—but our contact does that to me. Exhaling softly, I acclimate to him and start massaging with my fingers. He also acclimates to me and I know he’s starting to relax when he groans softly.

We’re so connected, I can’t touch his skin without feeling delicious little ripples radiate through me. It sometimes feels as if I am tapping into that powerful source that makes Remington Tate Remington Tate. Every centimeter of my body becomes cognizant of his muscles and skin under my fingers—and of everything else about him. The way he smells right this second, of ocean and soap, and just him. The way his chest expands with his exertion. The way his hair is spiky and rumpled and wet.

I love working on him with my hands.

This is my job, but this is also my love.

I can’t think of anything better than this.

I feel each muscle, one at a time, seeking their heat, digging deep into the belly of the muscle so that there is perfect blood flow into every part of his body. I massage and separate the fascia, kneading the muscle tissue with my fingers to provide good nourishment to the area. When the muscle is loosened, his blood, ripe with every nutrient of his healthy way of living, enters to help repair and grow that muscle.

Once I’ve rubbed him down on both sides, I go to the fridge so I can give him an ice massage. Ice massages are perfect for any knot or injury, but Remington loves them, and I sometimes give him one to speed general recovery.

There’s a Styrofoam cup already in the freezer. It contains a frozen block of water inside, and I rub my palm over it several times, to smooth out the ice and make sure it won’t nick his skin. Then I run it all over his muscles while I hold the back of the cup, almost like I’m sliding roll-on deodorant over his skin.

He lays there and lets me tend him, his sexy male pheromones clinging to his skin like sweat, his body so hot, the ice immediately begins melting. I watch the rivulets of water zigzag playfully along his broad back, and when he flips over, those rivulets do the same down the front of his hard chest.

My eyes follow them while my brain swims with thoughts of licking each of them up with my tongue, especially the ones that slide into his belly button, the ones that curl around his nipples. While I watch and mentally lick every beautiful inch of him, he watches me work on him, his gaze hot and tender and, somehow, grateful.

“I love the way you work out,” I whisper.

“I love the way you work me.”

♥  ♥  ♥

BY THE TIME we ride up in our hotel elevator, we’re both tired—and I’m especially so. I just haven’t recovered from the fucking Gift and I’m tired enough to skip dinner and head straight to bed.

After eight hours of working out, Remy has punched most of his speedy energy off for now. He leans back against the elevator wall with an arm loosely draped around my hips, while I half stand, half sag against his side, resting part of my head against the side of his throat.

“Cold shower, eat a cow, see you tomorrow,” Coach says as he exits on his floor.

“I’m on it,” Remington answers in his low and powerful voice.

“Good night, Coach,” I say.

And as soon as we’re alone in the elevator, Remington ducks his head to scent me.

The press of his frame against my back is all hard, hot muscle. He exhales warmly against my skin, then licks the back of my ear, and an electrical jolt surges through me. He then nuzzles his way across the back of my head, to the back of my other ear, and he scents me there too. My nipples bead painfully against my top, and at the first lick of his tongue across the back of my ear, need rips through me. He holds me snug against his big body, and whispers into my ear in a thick, appreciative tone, “I watched you stretching. Were you doing it for your muscles’ sake or for mine?”

As his words run through me like a sexual caress, he slides one open hand down the front of my body, and I shudder as he cups me over my Lycra pants. “Brooke? Was it for your sake or mine?” He licks and sucks a bare spot of skin on the back of my neck, igniting a painful thrumming inside me.

“Yours,” I moan.

He chuckles softly as he slides that hand upward. “Did you enjoy watching me work out?” His husky question presses every sexy button inside me as he fills his palm with one breast over my tank top.

“Me and the rest of the gym,” I say breathlessly.

Here comes his chuckle again. Sexy. Deep.

His fingers coast up and down my bare arm, wreaking all sorts of havoc in me. Lava percolates inside me when he adds teeth to my earlobe and gently tugs. Suddenly, I can’t bear it; I turn in his arms and, god, he smells so good I feel light-headed.

He’s in a clean T-shirt, his body emanating heat like a roiling volcano, and I fist my hands in the soft material to brace myself as I kiss his neck, licking him hungrily and desperately. His taste sends dull pangs of want to places I didn’t even know I had.

He growls softly in satisfaction and lowers his head to buzz my mouth with his. Then he cups my ass in his big hand and squeezes me as the elevator climbs the rest of the way. I rub my hands up his chest, over his T-shirt, and keep recklessly tasting him.

“Remy,” I moan. I press my nipples into his chest and undulate coaxingly, and he chuckles softly in my ear as he clutches my ass harder in his hands.

“Do you want me?” he prods, his breath hot and cajoling against my lips as he presses his mouth to mine.

“Yes . . .”

He slides his hand between my ass cheeks and, from behind, suddenly strokes his thumb over my clit through my Lycra pants. My knees nearly fail.

“Are you wet?” he entices.

“Remy . . .” I can only say, my sex aching painfully between my legs.

“Are you wet in your pussy?” he asks in my ear, sinuously dipping his tongue into the crevice.

“Yes. God, yes.”

“Let me see.” He flips me around so that we’re both facing the doors, then eases his fingers into both my pants and panties and caresses me for a brief second, verifying my wetness, slipping his finger into my swollen entry, making me gasp, rock my hips, and moan, until he says, in a husky and satisfied whisper, “Hmmm.”

Ping.

Hmmm . . .

It’s a sound between us, and when he says it, it means he wants to eat me.

All of me.

About a million cells in my body quiver with need, and my heart rate kicks up as the doors roll open. He swoops me up on his shoulder and grabs my butt on our way to our suite, and I laugh in surprise at the caveman move and kick in the air.

“Diane’s going to be in our room already!” I squeak, but he squeezes my butt like it doesn’t matter and carries me inside, dipping his thumb, once again from behind, between my legs, so it’s swiping over my clit.

My pussy swells with need, and I fall utterly still, letting him rub me.

My eyes roll to the back of my head as he rubs and rubs, his shoulders hard and strong under my stomach as he carries me.

“Hey guys,” Diane says as he carries me into the suite, and before I can answer, he heads directly to the master bedroom, saying over his shoulder, “We’re not hungry yet—we’ll be out in an hour.”

And he slams the door shut behind us.