Real

We’re supposed to meet Nora at a small Japanese restaurant situated only blocks from our hotel, but I feel completely awful about lying to Remington about this evening.

“I’ll make up a business meeting for him,” Pete assured me when we met at the gym this morning. “I’ll say you and Melanie are out sightseeing and that Riley will pick you up after dinner so that Remy can go through his monthly finances with me.”

I nod in satisfaction, but I confess that I’m still not thrilled about it. At all. I’m queasy and nervous in the afternoon, but even then, I allow a deep, secret part of me to enjoy the way Remy watches me from the boxing ring. I wave at him from the gym door and signal to Melanie—who stands next to me in all her miniskirted and spaghetti-strap-topped glory—while I mouth to Remy, “Going out with Mel.”

He yanks off his sparring headgear to shoot me a smile and a quick nod, his eyes shining like they do when he spots me, and only Mel’s hand on my elbow seems to keep me from leaping up to the ring and kissing each of his devastatingly beautiful dimples.

Upstairs, I dress sensibly and comfortably in a button-down blouse and formal black slacks.

“I still don’t understand why you don’t want Remy to know about this,” Melanie says as Riley drives us to the restaurant.

“Because Remington’s got some alpha tendencies.”

“Which is sexy, last I checked.”

“Mel, this isn’t a movie. I don’t want him to be unable to concentrate or get in trouble because of me.”

Mel huffs. “You take away all the romance of your relationship, Brooke.”

I groan and then bang my forehead on the window in total exasperation. “Mel, I feel bad as it is. Please. People who do what he does for a living are considered lethal weapons. They can’t legally fight outside of the ring, do you understand?”

“Yes. Although why one man can’t fight with his fists in the street while others run around legally with guns is beyond me. I really should complain to Senator . . . Whoever.”

“All right, ladies, if we leave the letter to Congress until later, here we are.”

Melanie glares at Riley as he opens one of the hotel’s back doors for us, and he glares back as she passes. I have no idea what is up with them. Melanie is usually sweet to everyone, and Riley is usually easy-breezy. But all righty then.

“Thanks, Riley, I’ll be right back,” I tell him.

“The hell you will. I’m coming with you.”

“We don’t need you to,” Melanie says, shooting him a superior look with the tip of her nose high in the air. “Brookey and I have done excellently for twenty-four years without your assistance.”

“I’m doing it for Remington, not for you,” Riley says stiffly.

Thankfully, they stop bickering when we enter the restaurant.

I soak up the quiet atmosphere with one sweep of my gaze, taking in the peeling green painted walls, which hold an assortment of framed pictures of raw fish plates, and then my eyes slide along dozens of black wooden tables to notice that all of them are empty except one.

To my astonishment, the only people here, aside from the three of us who stand by the door, are a concerned-looking Japanese man doing nothing but watching us from behind the sushi bar; Nora, who sits stiffly at a small round table at a corner, and it breaks my heart that all I can see of my sister’s expression is the disgusting scorpion marking on her face; three tall, beefy men who I recognize as the same goonies whose skulls I had the pleasure of bashing in back at the club; and, of course, the big mean Scorpion, who now strides toward us like he’s the goddamned host of the evening.

I don’t know if he pulled some strings with the restaurant managers, or if he vacated the premises by intimidation or Benjamin Franklins, but then, who in their right mind would want to have dinner with dudes like these?

Well. Apparently my sister.

Nora was always the starry-eyed one of us, always wanting to “rescue” some cat, dog, rat, or guy. I never bought the romance stew she seemed so intent on tasting, until I met Remington, of course.

I’ll drink anything that guy feeds me—I won’t deny that.

Now I see Scorpion come forward , bulky and muscular, and I feel an instant moment’s regret that Remy doesn’t know I’m here.

A kernel of fear blooms deep inside my center.

Fear not only of these men, but of what Remy will do if he finds out I was ever here with them. This is so new to me, being in a relationship. I don’t know what he would do for me. But I do know that I would do anything for him. Including making sure that he remains oblivious of my meeting with Nora.

I just hope that I won’t regret dragging Pete and Riley into this alongside me.

My breathing hitches nervously when Scorpion halts a foot away from us, his eyes green and mean. His presence, coupled with the fish smell coming from the bar, makes me a little nauseous. It feels like the black tattoo is all you see on his sickening face. I don’t see why anyone would want that animal on his skin. It’s a 3-D tattoo, and the scorpion appears to be crawling up into his eye.

“Well, if it isn’t the little whore.” He flings the words like stones at me and glances derisively past my shoulder. “Where’s Riptide? Hiding under your skirt again?”

Impotent anger rages through me, making my throat curl tightly around my words. “He had better things to do.”

He narrowly eyes me, then Melanie and Riley. “Only you,” he says, jabbing a finger in my direction, “can pass.”

I start passing, but he blocks me with an arm, and a red flush slowly creeps up his face: eager anticipation. “You have to kiss the scorpion first.” Eyes glimmering meanly, he taps the icky black scorpion on his cheek, and his teeth flash, his entire mouth covered with a grill of diamonds.

My organs halt in pure shock and horror at his request, and I clench my lips in response as my gaze jumps past his shoulders, across the little restaurant, to the corner table where Nora sits. I meet my sister’s honeyed gaze and despair runs through me at the blank look in her eyes.

How can I let her do this to herself? I can’t.

I just.

Can’t.

Scorpion wants his fun and wants to demean me. He wants to show me he has the power today. But he can’t demean me if I don’t allow him to see how much his request revolts me.

Wildly trying to convince myself that it means nothing, I take a deceptively steady step forward. But my entire body begins to tense at what I’m about to do, and an awful flush of embarrassment burns fast across my skin.

“Brooke,” Riley says in a warning that also sounds like a plea.

But it’s either kiss a stupid tattoo, or sacrifice Nora to this man, or risk involving Remington to tangle with these losers, and I just can’t do any of those things.

The awful man’s gaze feels like a snake slithering upon me as he watches me approach, and I remind myself to concentrate on is my sister and freeing her. I draw a deep breath, forbidding myself to tremble.

As I take the last step, suddenly his request seems as impossible as asking me to climb Mount Everest and dig a hole to the bottom. My stomach roils in protest, and I’m dangerously close to vomiting at the sight of the black crawling insect up close.

He smells of fish and pure mean asshole.

And I wish I had the guts to try to kick the shit out of him.

Suddenly a vivid reminder of a show my dad used to watch called Fear Factor strikes me, where people do all kinds of gross things, getting in boxes with live snakes and scorpions and the like. If people can do that for money, I can certainly do this for my sister.

Shoving my pride aside and seizing my determination, I force my lips to pucker so hard they feel like rocks as I press up on my tiptoes. Nausea roils up my chest before I even make contact.

“Look at this, Remy’s fucking whore is kissing the Scorpion.” His goonies spit the words out contemptuously, and the humiliation the words bring makes me want to run and hide with a force I haven’t felt in years. Revolted at myself, I quickly smack the air and drop back on my heels.

“There. All done now,” I say, loathing that my voice shakes.

His laughter is deep, dark, and awful as he turns to his goons. “Did she kiss me? Did Riptide’s bitch actually kiss the Scorpion? I don’t think so.” His beady green-yellow eyes slither back to me, and, coupled with that glare, I’m not feeling very powerful at the moment. “I didn’t feel your kiss. Now you’re going to have to lick it.” He beams his diamond grill at me again.

My eyes widen in horror, and my determination to see my sister falters woefully at the thought of licking any part of this man. Omigod, I want to run so bad from here, my veins already feel dilated as the blood pumps into my muscles, priming me to flee. Flee to the car, back to my Remy.

Riley grabs me, his face a mask of concern.

“Brooke,” he says in warning, which snaps me back to what I’m here for. I quickly squirm free and once again face Scorpion.

How can I leave? How will I otherwise get to talk to Nora about this shit she’s in? Just the thought of her in this human worm’s grasp disgusts me. How can I see her with this type of pervert and not do something to help her? Swallowing back the painful dryness in my throat, I tip my face back with false bravado, desperate to do anything except lick that grossness on that man’s disgusting cheek. “I’ll kiss it, you have my word.”

Fear Factor.

You can do this for Nora.

If you could do the hundred meters in 10.52 seconds, then you can kiss this sucker’s stupid skin mascot!

Evil lurks in his eyes as he studies me thoughtfully, then speaks mockingly down at me. “If you’re not going to lick it, then you’ll hold it for five seconds, hmm, Remy’s bitch? Go on now. Kiss the scorpion.” He taps his mark, and my stomach again seizes spasmodically. I struggle very hard to keep my expression blank and show the human insect how unconcerned I am with his revolting request.

Drawing a deep breath, I forbid my knees to quiver as I go up on tiptoes, pucker my lips, and squeeze my eyes shut, loathing and rage seizing my insides as my lips hit his dry painted skin. Holding the contact, I feel poisoned as I count toward five, my heart black inside me. Hurting and coiling in complete and utter embarrassment. My legs waver as another second passes, and my systems feel paralyzed in this purgatory, where every ounce of my body is repelled by this embodiment of Rotten and only sheer willpower holds me up.

These are the longest five seconds of my life. Where I am humiliated beyond humiliated, angry beyond explanation, and feel as low as when I saw the video of my broken self on YouTube.

“All right then.” With a smile nothing short of disgustingly wide, I drop back down, surprised there is even ground under my feet. He extends his thick arm out to Nora, and I reel with self-loathing as I hold my spine straight and head for Nora, resisting the urge to go into the kitchens and scrub my mouth raw. It feels dirty and cheap. No, not it. I. I feel dirty and cheap, and the thought of kissing my beautiful Remy with this same mouth makes my eyes tear up and my throat constrict.

I already feel drained by the time I reach my sister’s table. There are empty tables with upside-down chairs littered throughout the place, but our small table is set with one electric tea light at the center and chopsticks for four.

“Nora.” My voice is deceptively soft, but inside I’m a mess of conflicting emotions, including resentment toward my sister for sitting here, watching me have to kiss her filthy boyfriend’s tattoo. But seeing the lifeless expression on her face, I just know the girl across the table from me, willowy and frail, pale and not really happy, isn’t really my sister.

Reaching for her hand on the table, I’m saddened when she doesn’t let me hold it and instead shoves it under the table with a little sniffle. We stare at each other for a moment in silence, and it strikes me that the sight of that black scorpion almost crawling into my sister’s eye is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

“You shouldn’t be here, Brooke,” she says, her eyes on the men and Riley and Melanie, who wait in stunned silence by the door. When our eyes meet again, I’m shocked by the animosity in her eyes and the way they openly lash out at me.

A sudden anger seizes me too, and I narrow my eyes. “Mom wants to know if you liked the Australian crocodiles, Nora. She loved the postcard you sent and can’t wait to see where else you’re heading to. So? How were the crocodiles, sister?”

There’s a world of bitterness in her voice when she answers. “Obviously I wouldn’t know.” She wipes the back of her hand across her nose and looks away, scowling at the mention of Mom.

“Nora . . .” Lowering my voice, I gesture at the empty Japanese restaurant containing the Scorpion and the three goons, who watch us from the sushi bar. “Is this honestly what you want for yourself? You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“And I want to live it my own way, Brooke.”

There’s a bunch of defensiveness in her tone, so I try to keep from sounding aggressive. “But why here, Nora? Why? Mom and Dad would be heartbroken if they knew the things you’ve gotten yourself involved in.”

“At least I keep them from knowing the truth!” she snaps out, and this is the first spark of life I actually see in her gold eyes.

“But why would you do this to them? Why would you drop out of college for this?”

“Because I’m sick and tired of them comparing me to you.” She glares, then starts making a mocking voice that resembles our mother when she whines. “ ‘Why don’t you do this like Brooke?’ ‘Why don’t you find something meaningful to do with your life like Brooke?’ They just want me to be like you! And I don’t want to. What’s the point? You missed all the fun growing up so you could be this hotshot gold medalist and now you’re not only not an Olympic medalist, you can’t even sprint anymore.”

“I may not sprint anymore but I can still kick your ass right,” I reply angrily, hurt beyond words at what she’s saying to me.

“So what?” she continues. “You were the best track athlete in college. Everyone couldn’t stop talking about how talented you were and how you were going to make it. That’s all you did and talked about, and now look at you! You can’t even do what you loved and will probably end up like Mom and Dad, living in the past, with your stupid high school medals still hanging in your bedroom!”

“For your information, I am happier right now than I have ever been, Nora! If you’d only paid a little attention, you’d realize that my life went on, and to places I didn’t even imagine I’d ever be. You want to be independent? We get it. Go for it! Just be independent on your own, not tied to some man who makes me lick his gross tattoo before I can see my sister!”

“I like it that he’s protective of me,” she shoots back. “He fights for me.”

“Fight for yourself, Nora. I promise it will give you tons more satisfaction.”

Nora sniffles angrily and wipes her hand across her nose, glaring down at the tea light as a silence falls between us. I drop my voice once more.

“Are you doing coke, Nora?”

My sister seems to take to the Fifth and doesn’t respond, which only serves to double my concern and frustration.

“Come home, Nora. Please,” I plead, my voice a whisper so only she can hear.

She touches her nose with the back of one finger, then brings her glare up to me as she continues brushing that finger across her nostrils. Sniffling. “What do I want to go home for? So I can be a has-been at twenty-two like you?”

“I’d rather be a has-been than nothing at all. What are you accomplishing now? Don’t you want to finish college?”

“No, that’s what you wanted to do, Brooke. I want to have fun.”

“Really? And are you having loads of it? Because I don’t even see that your smile has any place on your face anymore. You might not like the fact that I failed to reach my dream as much as I do, but I am over that. I happen to like where I am now, Nora. It’s not where I planned to be, true, but I have so many other things. Better things. I have a great job, am working with amazing people, and I’m in the first relationship I’ve ever had in my life.”

“With Riptide?” she sneers. “Riptide doesn’t do relationships, sister. Women fling themselves at him everywhere he goes. He goes through them like his opponents, and fucks them all and barely asks for their names. I watched him before you got here. Don’t forget, I’ve been in this scene longer. One day he’s going to look at someone else, and you will even be his has-been girlfriend too!”

“And your precious Scorpion will want you for all eternity? Nora, the man you’re with doesn’t look right,” I hiss, stealing a glance at him past my shoulder. He smiles a satanic smile as if he’s hearing every word, and suddenly I am consumed with the urge for my man to get up in the ring with this asshole and kill him. And I have no doubt that Remy will. Knock him within an inch of his life. Maybe then Nora will want to leave this sucker.

“Benny’s good to me,” Nora explains with a little shrug. “He takes care of me. He gives me what I need.”

“You mean drugs?” I lash out in pure fury.

Her eyebrows furrow, and I instantly regret that I made her go into defense mode again.

A tense silence lengthens between us, and I clench my hands on my lap until my nails bite my palms as I try to calm down and reason with her gently.

“Please, Nora. You deserve so much more.”

“Time’s up!” A hard clap from the bar alerts us, and Nora flinches, which just confirms what I’ve suspected: she doesn’t want to be home, but she doesn’t want to be here either. She feels like she has nowhere to go, and she can’t leave because she’s got more coke up her nose than I even want to think of. Shit.

“Unless you want to kiss the scorpion again, say goodbye to her now.” Scorpion stands threateningly at my side, his eyes glimmering that snaky yellow-green color that tells me how much he would love to humiliate me again.

Nora stands, and a sliver of panic runs through me at the possibility of never seeing her again. I push to my feet, experiencing a gamut of perplexing emotions. I want to hug my sister in my arms and tell her it’s going to be all right, and at the same time I want to freaking punch her for being so stubborn and stupid.

Instead, I go around the table to hug her, ignoring the way she stiffens when I turn my lips to her ear and speak soft as cotton to her. “Please let me take you to Seattle. At the end of the New York fight, meet me at the ladies’ restroom and I will have two tickets home. You don’t have to stay there, but you need a time-out to think this through. Please.” Pulling away, I look down meaningfully at her face.

A shadow of alarm touches her expression; then she nods, sniffles, and swings to leave, the sight of her retreating back heading toward the back exit making me feel like I’ve just lost something very dear to me.

With a sinking in my gut, I feel Scorpion’s beady green eyes on me as I head to Riley and Melanie and leave, and I can’t shake off a feeling of complete and utter dirtiness in myself.

“Does anyone have any mouthwash with them? I feel like I’m getting a rash,” I say as Riley drives us back in the Escalade.

Mel frowns thoughtfully. “I can’t determine why what you just did felt so sickeningly wrong, when it wasn’t a big deal. I mean, I’ve kissed grosser men in grosser parts of their anatomies, you know? What you did was no big deal.”

“It’s a fucking big deal!” Riley rants from behind the wheel. “Brooke, I hate to break it to you, but Remington is going to find out about it and he’s going to get majorly, MAJORLY BLACK!”

My stomach clenches, and I shake my head as I struggle for calm. Me kissing that filthy tattoo is something I sincerely never again want to remember. Never. Again. “He’s not going to know if you don’t tell him, Riley. Let’s all relax, why don’t we?”

“What’s he talking about?” Mel asks, genuinely perplexed. “Black what?”

“These men will make sure he knows, B. And they’ll make it painful,” Riley insists.

A frown pinches into my face as I wonder if that’s what they’d intended to do when I arrived. Was this all planned out to get at Remy really? Shaking my head, I look at Riley’s accusing light eyes through the rearview mirror from where I’m riding with Mel.

“What did you expect me to do, Riley? I don’t have fists like that bastard does, and I have to use other means to get what I want, and what I want is for my poor sister out of that living turd’s grip!”

“Jesus, I hope to god she’s worth it.”

“She’s my sister, Riley—so she is, she is. She’s going to show up after the New York final match. I’d kiss the sidewalk and lick a toilet to make sure she’s all right, you have to understand!”

“That’s so gross, Brooke,” Mel squeals, laughing.

“Rem is like a brother to me, B. This is going to . . .” Riley shakes his head and seems to get out all of his anger on his hair, raking it with his fingers. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out that you . . .” He shakes his head again, fisting another handful of hair. “He’s done tons of shit for me. For my family, when my parents got ill. Remy is a good. Fucking. Man. He doesn’t deserve—”

“Riley, I love him.” The words just tear out of me out of my pain and frustration of having kissed his enemy. “Do you believe I’d ever deliberately hurt him? I don’t want him to get involved in this, because I love him. Can’t you see? I don’t want him to go black because of me. God!”

Riley breaks at a stoplight, then seeks my eyes in the rearview mirror again, his lips pursing as he nods. “I get it, B.”

I feel instantly vulnerable and revealed, and squirm in my seat. “Please don’t tell him. Not just about tonight’s debacle. About the other part.”

He nods in silence, and we’re quiet the rest of the drive. But by the time we’re all walking to our rooms, I’ve calmed down a bit and add, “Riley, thank you for taking us.” He nods again, and when he walks off, ignoring Melanie, she shoots tons of invisible knives in his direction with her eyes.

“That guy gets on my nerves.”

“I think you get on his too.”

“You do?” She scowls at me, then her eyes widen in pure disbelief. “You mean he doesn’t like me?”

Groaning at her obtuseness, I push her in his direction. “Mel, just go do him.”

“But I don’t like him,” she argues, but I’ve already swung around to board the elevator up to the P, and when I slip my key into the lock of our room I’m wild with anticipation.

Remy sits at the desk with his laptop open and with his music in his ears. He lifts his head when I approach, and when those heartbreaking eyes look at me from that boldly handsome face, my insides shudder uncontrollably.

His spiky black hair gleams in the soft hotel room lighting, and in his comfortable sweatpants and tight T-shirt, he exudes pure raw masculinity. The sight of his full mouth opens up a ravenous hunger inside me, and I just hurt with the physical pain of wanting that mouth on me. His arms on me. His voice telling me it’s all going to be all right. Because with every second that passes, I loathe myself more and more for what I did.

But Remy has protected me from his fans, and I will protect him from this too. From anything. Especially from Scorpion. I will protect him so that the only time Remy has to face him will be in that ring, where I will gladly watch him make that bastard wish he were dead.

Close to exploding with all my emotions, I jump onto his lap, then take off his earphones and slip them briefly over my head so I can listen to what he was hearing. A crazy wild rock song bashes into my ears and I frown in confusion.

He watches me with darkened blue eyes that go half-mast as he leans to kiss my nose, cradling my jaw as his thumb runs sensually across my mouth. My stomach cramps, and I worry that Remy can actually see the fear and self-loathing that I am tamping down inside me.

Slipping his headphones back on him, I ease to my feet and hurry to the bathroom, feeling so violated I wash my teeth and add Scope until my mouth feels swollen. I barely take a step out of the bath when I suddenly need to return and thoroughly do it all again. For the awful sensation across my skin, I swear I could have a live scorpion crawling up my cheek, and the sensation is eating at me.

Finally I come back out. My mouth is minty fresh and even my lips feel numb with cleanness.

Remy has set his music aside. His full attention is on me, his dark eyebrows furrowing as he tracks my return. He seems confused and slightly distrustful.

The sight of him makes me emotional, and I’m afraid I’m going to break down at any second. I hate that I feel like I don’t deserve him anymore, even when all I wanted was to keep him safe and uninvolved.

I’ve never wanted to take care of someone in my life like I want to love and take care of him.

A painful lump builds inside my throat.

“Remy,” I say thickly, my heart pounding because I don’t know how I’ll cope if he questions me about tonight. “Would you hold me for a bit?”

I desperately want my special place in his arms, the place I fit in like nowhere else. He makes the perfect nook for me, engulfing me like a nest and warmer than anything. I want it so bad, my heart aches in my chest.

I wait, shaking a little, and I think he notices and relents.

“Come here,” he says softly, shoving his chair back as he extends his arm. I eagerly snuggle into his engulfing male hug. He chuckles when I squirm to get closer, which seems to delight him, for I’m acting so needy that his dimples peek out at me.

“You missed me?” His eyes dance as he cups my face and I feel his calluses on my jaw and cheeks, and that comforting feeling that only Remy can arouse sweeps through me.

“Yes,” I gasp.

He gathers me close and holds me snug to his chest as he lowers his lips to mine. Our mouths graze softly, then connect, and he opens up with a soft breath that claims my mouth, his tongue sending shivers of desire racing through me.

His fingers outline the curves of my breasts as he drags his mouth along my jaw and sinks his nose into the back of my ear, inhaling me, groaning softly in pleasure, and blood pounds in my brain, leaping excitedly from my heart. “Remy . . .” I plead, grabbing his T-shirt and shoving it up to his shoulders.

He grabs the cotton in his fist and with a muscular yank tosses it over his head. I quickly slide my hands over his chest, kissing every part I can get.

“I missed you so much,” I choke out emotionally, kissing his collarbone, his jaw, grabbing his hair as I press my face into his neck—anything to get close to this man.

He engulfs me in a big hug and strokes my back, then holds my face as he whispers, “I missed you too,” setting a kiss on my lips, then on the tip of my nose, my forehead.

I tremble with his admission. “But I missed your voice. Your hands. Your mouth . . . being with you . . . watching you . . . touching you . . . smelling you . . .” I trail off. He smells so good, like he always does, clean and manly. I take his lips more desperately.

He returns my kiss, slowly at first, then with more compulsion as he unbuttons my shirt and strips me bare with fast, anxious hands.

I know he’s not as verbally expressive as I, but I can feel his burning urgency when he grabs my hips and pulls me back to his lap, as though he needs to be inside me as fiercely as I need him to fill me. I’m naked and he’s still wearing his sweatpants, but I’m dying with love and the need to physically express myself to him.

My whole body clenches when his erection settles hot and pulsing between my thighs, and there’s an overwhelming need in me to give him something I’ve never given any man before.

Shivering uncontrollably, I slide between his powerful thighs at the same time he yanks down his drawstring pants and shoves them partly down his hips. I catch a glimpse of his star tattoo and then his erection pops free, and the instant my knees hit the carpet, my fingers and hands are all over his heat, his hardness, his heavy testicles, all full and primed for me.

“I want to kiss you here. . . .” My voice shakes with desire as I look into his lust-tightened face through eyes that I can barely keep open from the want. “I want to drown in you, Remington. I want your taste . . . in me. . . .”

The sound of a hungry male being thoroughly pleasured rumbles up his throat when I take him in my mouth, and he skims my hair with all his fingers as he rocks his hips, slowly, up to my mouth, gently giving me what I asked for and taking what I desperately want to give.

My sex burns wet with every drop of escaped semen that I taste, and I’m so intoxicated with this man, I can’t stop enjoying the raw look on his face as I work my tongue along his enormous hard length.

He’s as undone as I am when I add my teeth, suck his tip, then take his length down to my throat until I have to suppress my gag reflex. I’m still dying for more, I will never get enough of this man, and when he’s pumping out of control into my mouth, and his fingers are fisting into my hair, and his muscles are tightening for orgasm, I suddenly notice his eyes are a little less blue as he watches me.

♥   ♥   ♥

HE’S DEFINITELY SPEEDY.

Super. Completely. Speedy.

Medically, Pete says it is called manic.

And he suspects that this episode might have been triggered the night I went out with Melanie and Riley, for during their financial meeting, Rem apparently asked only three questions of Pete, and none of them had anything to do with the finances he’d been explaining.

At what time did she say she’d be back?

You sure Riley’s getting her?

Why the fuck are they taking so long?

Pete says he closed the money topic and dispatched Remington to his room as soon as Riley texted we were on our way back, and that’s when I found him listening to the loudest rock song I’d ever heard and wearing that somber, thoughtful expression on his face. Did he think I would never come back?

And is that what he does when his insides begin to spin in turmoil? Listen to hard rock?

I don’t know. All I know now is that he fucked me four times that night, like he needed to claim me all over again, and now Remy has totally gone rogue and appears to run on Red Bull 24/7.

He’s like fully charged.

His usual cocky self to the tenth power.

He attacks me in bed like a lion this morning. “You look especially good, Brooke Dumas. Good, and warm, and wet, and I wouldn’t mind having you on my breakfast platter.” His tongue paints a wet line between my breasts with his tongue, then goes all out and licks my collarbone like my lion always does. “All that’s missing is a cherry on top, but I’m sure we have some.”

The mischief in his eyes melts me as he produces a cherry from within his hand, which makes me realize he’d probably fetched it from the kitchen during the night and had been waiting to pounce on me the instant I woke up.

Lord, he is a predator indeed.

Groaning groggily, I roll to my back and look into his heart-stoppingly handsome face. Scruffy jaw. Dark eyes twinkling. Dimpled smile.

God, I’m done for.

“Who’s your man?” he asks gruffly, and he kisses me, rubbing that cherry against my clit. “Who’s your man, baby?”

“You,” I moan.

“Who do you love?”

Tremors run across my limbs as he tortures my clit with the cherry and at the same time penetrates my sex with one long finger, and I stare dazedly into his eyes. I can see miniature flecks of blue in their mysterious depths, and oh, I desperately want to tell him, You, I’ve only ever loved you, but I can’t. Not like this, not when he may not even remember.

“You drive me crazy, Remy,” I whisper, and brazenly grab his cock and drag him anxiously to me, so that he can fill me up and rub my swollen sex with his hard cock and make me smell of him again.

The entire week, he’s on high-maintenance mode, and I can barely keep up with him, but I really love it. I’m riding the high with him. His smiles blaze. He needs to take sex breaks now from training. He can’t see me without needing to fuck me. When I go stretch him he wants me as soon as I touch him.

I now notice that when he’s black, his eyes aren’t really black, but a really dark navy, flecked with gray and blue. But his mood is . . . somehow black. Not always, but sometimes. It’s either supremely elevated, or super pissy. Sometimes nothing makes him happy. Diane is feeding him shit. Coach is not training him hard. And I’m looking at Pete too much, for god’s sake.

But even as ridiculous as it sounds, these things seem like a very big deal to Remy, and now it seems like my entire day is absorbed by his energy and stamina, and I’m just scrambling to keep up.

“Who are all these people here for?” I ask when we land in New York to find a crowd of spectators have lined up to see his jet land, and they’re barely being held back by yellow cords and airport security.

“For me, who else?” he declares.

He sounds so cocky even Pete cackles and says, “Get off it, Remy.”

He grabs me seductively to him. “Come here, baby. I want these good folks to know you’re with me.” Large, sure hands grab my butt cheeks as flashes go off.

“Remington!”

He laughs and ushers me into the Hummer limo before all the others get in, pinning me down to his side as he fits his mouth to mine and kisses me like it’s our last night alive, his hunger wild and unleashed. “I want to take you somewhere tonight,” he rasps into my mouth. “Let’s go to Paris.”

“Why Paris?”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because you have a fight in three days!” He makes me laugh when he’s like this. I grab him and kiss him back, deep and fast, before anyone else boards, and I whisper, “Let’s go anywhere with a bed.”

“Let’s do it on a swing.”

“Remington!”

“Let’s do it in an elevator,” he insists.

Laughing, I shake an index finger at my big, bad, naughty boy. “I’m never, ever, doing it in an elevator, so you’re going to have to find someone else.”

“I want you. In an elevator.”

“And I want you. In a bed. Like normal people.”

His gaze dips below my waist, and his expression morphs from one of a playful, smiling sex-god to one of a dark, sex-starved sex-god. “I want you in those pants you’re wearing.”

Feeling warm and wanted, I nod, grin, and lace my fingers through his, kissing each one of his bruised knuckles.

His head tilts in curiosity, and his dimples slowly vanish. He looks like he’s never been given these kinds of attentions until me. Suddenly, it makes me want to give him more.

So I do.

Crawling closer to him, I cup his jaw and kiss his hard cheek and run my hands through his hair, watching his gaze go heavy with desire along with something else. Something that makes his eyes look mysteriously dark and liquid.

Car doors open.

It appears the others will be sharing the limo with us, Coach up front and Pete, Riley, and Diane on the bench across from us. Remy squeezes my fingers as I try to ease away—that action alone telling me not to—then he slides down the edge of his seat and slumps his big shoulders as if he’s trying to make himself less bulky. When that proves impossible due to his size and muscles, he grabs me closer and ducks to settle his head on the soft part of my chest, grunting softly and then sighing.

I’m so surprised I don’t move.

Pete lifts one eyebrow as he watches Remington wrap his arms even tighter around my hips and draws me closer until the side of his head is perfectly cushioned on my breast. He grunts and sighs again. Riley lifts two eyebrows. Diane smiles tenderly, like she just melted.

I am not only melted. I’m liquid beneath him.

My parents, a coach and a teacher, are wonderful people but not big on hugs and kisses like, for example, my friend Melanie is; she was showered with affection and spreads it around the world like it’s her duty to. But the way Remington looks at me, the way he doesn’t hide his attraction to me even to his public during his fights, and the way he just cuddled me like a big hibernating bear that just found a cave makes me ache in inexplicably deep places.

Quietly, and with all the tenderness in the world, I run my nails through his spiky dark hair, then trace one fingernail along his ear. He holds both arms securely around my waist, somehow trapping me to him like he’d trap a pillow.

“You guys want a time-out when we get to the hotel?” Pete asks us, and his timbre vibrates as if some deep emotion has touched him.

I’m engrossed in sifting his hair through my fingers when I feel Remington nod against my chest, not even bothering to lift his heavy head.

I’ve never seen him so quiet when he’s manic.

Or sit so utterly still.

Pete’s and Riley’s stunned expressions completely confirm that they haven’t either.

When we hit the rooms, we receive our suitcases in our suite, and then I do what I always do. I unzip mine and tuck my small cosmetics bag hidden under the sink and pull out my toothbrush, to begin with.

Remy watches me from the door with such fierce longing I stop brushing, my mouth full of foam when I notice his stare. He looks hungry. Feral. Almost desperate. I quickly rinse as he approaches and towel off my hands. He’s not smiling. His black eyes swallow me in their depths. He lifts me easily in his arms and carries me back to the room.

I can’t help the way my insides flutter as I cuddle into his neck and breathe him in while he lowers us to the bed. I think I know what he wants, but I’m not sure. So I wait and watch him for a moment.

He pulls off my shoes and tosses them aside, then comes the big thunk of his own crashing to the floor. “I want your hands on my head.”

I nod and edge back to make room for him. “Does it calm your racing thoughts?”

He shakes his head, then takes my hand and spreads it open over his wide chest, his voice textured as he traps my gaze with his. “It calms me here.”

A tangle of emotion hits me as I feel his heart beating, slow and powerful like only great athletes’ hearts can beat. I stare into his eyes, seeing that same fierce longing in them I just saw, and I love him to such a degree I swear that my heart just picked up the rhythm of his.

He slides next to me, both of us dressed as we settle on the bed’s comforter. He drops his head to my chest and snuggles every bit of his huge muscles into me, inhaling my neck. I lower my face and kiss the top of his head as I start running my fingertips over his scalp.

He hasn’t slept in long, endless, restless, crazy days.

Days where I’ve felt him stroking my hair and my back at night. Where I’ve heard the low muted noise of him listening to his music. I’ve heard him eating in the kitchen at midnight, taking cold showers, and when those showers don’t seem like enough, I’ve woken up to find him well on his way to making love to me.

But I haven’t heard him sleep for so long. . . .

So when his breathing evens out, and I realize that he’s fallen asleep in my arms, in the middle of the day, in the middle of a manic episode, I don’t know how I can contain the emotions swelling in my chest.

Quietly, I wipe a tear from my cheek, and then another. I never imagined this kind of man existed. Or that I could ever have something like this for myself. These moments. This . . . connection. I never thought that the desperate, almost painful longing I feel for him could ever be reciprocated.

Crying in happiness for the first time in my life, I stroke his hair, his jaw, his neck, down his arms, looking down at his perfect, full lips, his hard, strong jaw and forehead, his perfect nose, quietly loving every inch of him.

Sunlight steals through the room and illuminates him completely, allowing me to drink his perfection in like a junkie. Our shoes are discarded on the floor, our suitcases still bursting full near the door. We’re in yet another beautiful suite of another luxurious hotel, and I swear that in my life I’ve never felt so complete as I do this moment, with this man sleeping in my arms, his thick arms around me, his nose in my cleavage, his breath warm on my skin. In a strange place, in a new room, far away from everything I’ve known . . .

I touch my lips to his ear. “It’s because of you,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “I’m deliriously happy. Completely at home anywhere you are.”

I’m so determined to guard his sleep, I skip dinner even when my stomach rumbles. Soon it calms down, and all the time, I keep giving his big, beautiful body little touches that quietly say, I love you, Remington.

He stirs in the middle of the night, and by this time, I’m exhausted but as determined as ever, my arms heavy as I caress him and pet him.

Coming awake with a soft groan, he easily grabs me and tucks my body into his so that now I’m the one cuddled into his deep chest as he languorously kisses the hollow of my ear. “Brooke,” he says.

Just one word.

Thick with sleep, and so low and intimate, it could have been a proposal, any proposal, to which my reply would be and always will be yes.

“Yes, Remy,” I whisper, my voice just as groggy as his as I nuzzle his collarbone.

He growls and slowly inhales me. “My Brooke.” Voice still thick and raspy, he fingers the top button of my skinny jeans and lovingly kisses my neck as he pats my butt with one big hand. “Why are you still wearing these?”

Before I can remind him why, I hear him flick open the button and slide the zipper purposely downward. My every muscle clenches. I groan softly and press my nose to his neck, pressing closer like a kitten aching for his petting.

“I was waiting for the sexiest man in the world to take them off me.”

♥   ♥   ♥

AROUND 3 A.M., Remington grumbles “hungry” in my ear and gets up to assault the kitchen, and as I lie in bed and stretch, my stomach instantly agrees.

I turn on a lamp and slide into the first thing that pops out of his suitcase, which ends up being one of his RIPTIDE red satin robes.

I tie the sash tightly around my waist, and the fabric feels delicious and cool against my skin. The robe is huge on me, reaching all the way to the bottom of my calves, but I grin because I just love wearing his things. I pad out after him to inspect whatever Diane left for us in the kitchen.

Inside the hot drawer are two warm plates of parmesan-crusted chicken and a spinach and beet salad with a side of red potatoes. I pull them out and am getting our utensils when I spot Remington already lounging at the dining table, gloriously bare-chested and in a pair of low-slung sweatpants.

He’s scooping up peanut butter on a celery stick and munching, but he stops eating when he spots me and immediately swallows whatever he had in his mouth.

His eyes widen, and he drops the remaining celery stick and leans back in his chair, crossing his muscled arms so the ink vines at the top of his biceps look dark and sexy. “Look at you,” he says, the words a growl of pure male pleasure.

The word RIPTIDE burns deliciously into my back as I head over with the plates, grinning. “I’ll return it when we get back to bed.”

He shakes his head and pats his lap. “If it’s mine, it’s yours.”

I set the food on the table, and he cups my hips through the satin and draws me to sit on his lap. “I’m so fucking starved.”

He grabs a slice of red potato with his fingers and pops it into his mouth, licking his fingertips.

“You would love my mom’s red potatoes. She adds cayenne pepper and gives them just a little kick,” I tell him as I fork one up and munch, the taste of rosemary and the perfectly cooked potato melting on my tongue.

“Do you miss home?”

The question makes me look at him as he finishes another potato, and I realize he hasn’t ever really had a home. Has he?

His home has been a fighting ring and hotels. His family has been his team and his fans.

My chest swells to near bursting for him.

The time he locked me with him in his hotel suite, just after I saw Pete sedate him that first time, Remy had been in a depression and I hadn’t even known. He’d been holding on to me to stay sane, but I hadn’t known this either.

All I’d known was that he didn’t want me to leave that room and he didn’t want anyone in. He wanted me there. He wanted my touch as if it grounded him, and my mouth was the only warmth in his cold, the only light in his dark.

Remington is not a man of words. He is a man of gut and actions.

This big, strong man sometimes needs to be taken care of, and I swear I’m dying to be the girl who takes care of him more than I’ve wanted to be anything else.

He, who’s never had a home, wants to know if I miss home?

When I sleep like a queen, in a soft bed, in his arms, and eat the best food there is, and do my job, and spend time with him when he is sometimes cocky, sometimes grumpy, and always adorable?

Setting my fork down, I turn to face him and stroke the scruff of his jaw with my fingertips. “When I’m not with you, I do miss home. But when I’m with you, I don’t miss anything.”

His dimples briefly appear, and I bend to brush my lips over the closest one. He growls softly and rubs his nose against mine. “I’ll tuck you close so you don’t miss it,” he rasps.

“Please do. In fact I’m sure there’s enough space right here.” I wiggle meaningfully on his lap, and he nips my earlobe and hugs me tight, saying, “That’s right!”

We laugh, and we end up eating from the same plate, the same fork, taking turns feeding each other.

When I sense his restlessness, the one that comes with his mania, I realize he seems to want something to do. So I yield while he completely overpowers me and teases my lips with a brush of the fork, and I obediently open up and let him feed me.

I love the way his eyes darken every time he looks at my mouth as it opens for food.

He slides his free hand under the robe’s satin sleeve and lovingly caresses my triceps as he turns back to his plate and forks up a bit of everything for himself.

I watch him take a big bite, and then I wait for him to cut up more chicken and bring it, and a little bit of everything else, to my mouth.

He watches as I bite, savor, and finally, swallow, his lips curved in a tender smile. “Who do you belong to?” he asks softly, stroking up and down my spine. My heart melts as he sets the fork down and slides that hand into the robe through the parted fabric, curving it around my waist. He bends his head and brushes a kiss over my ear, rasping, “Me.”

“Entirely yours.” I maneuver so I’m straddling him, and I bury my nose in his thick, warm neck, sliding my arms around his lean waist. “I’m getting so nervous about the big fight. Are you?”

His chuckle rumbles in his deep chest as he edges back to peer down at me. He looks thoroughly amused. “Why would I be?” He tips my head back by the chin so that his laughing dark eyes capture mine. “Brooke, I’m going to break him.”

The certainty in his voice carries such depth and power, I almost feel pity for Scorpion. Remy is not only going to break him, he’s going to have fun doing it. “Remy, I love the way you fight, but you have no idea how nerve-wracking it is for me.”

“Why, Brooke?”

“Because. You’re . . . important to me. I wish nothing touched you, and every few nights, you’re just . . . out there. Even knowing that you will win, it still does a number on me.”

“But you’re happy, Brooke? With me?”

His face tenses on that question, and suddenly he looks super intent, very much like the times he asks me “Did you like the fight?”

I see the fierce need in his eyes, and I know my answer matters to him just like what he thinks about me matters to me.

“Deliriously,” I admit, and I hug him and smell his neck, loving how his scent relaxes me. “You make me happy. You make me deliriously happy and delirious, period. I don’t want to be without you for a second. I don’t even want all those women to look at you and shout at you the things they do.”

His voice changes like it does when he talks intimately to me during sex. “I’m yours. You’re the one I bring home with me.” He smells my neck, then nuzzles the back of my ear, and whispers into me, “You’re my mate, and I’ve claimed you.”

With that, he adjusts me to the side and resumes feeding me.

He seems to delight watching my lips open and close over what he brings to my mouth. He likes feeding me, and I think the obsessive male delight he’s deriving from it dates back to his ancestor, the Neanderthal man.

We gobble up all the food, pet and kiss each other, and I tell him about Melanie, how she and Riley slept together one night and now seem to have become great texting friends, and he laughs and encourages me, “Tell me more,” as he keeps eating.

So I tell him about my parents, how Nora used to fall in love with anything that walked, and he smiles and I just love making him smile.

“Do you remember anything nice about your parents?” I ask when we head back to the master bedroom and I climb into bed.

“My mother used to make the sign of the cross over me every night.” He locks the door, and I know it’s to keep Riley from bursting in the next morning and seeing us naked. “She crossed me on my forehead, over my mouth, and over my heart.”

“She was religious?”

Remington shrugs his big shoulders, and I see that he stops by his carry-on to pull out his iPod and headphones.

Honestly, the thought of Remington’s parents is torture to me. How could someone so religious abandon the best, most complex and beautiful human being I have ever known? How could they?

Remy carries his stuff to the nightstand, and I realize he’s setting up all his items close by. He’s preparing to hold me the rest of the night because he’s fully aware he won’t sleep.

“Do you miss your family?” I ask as he joins me.

The bed squeaks as Remy settles into it and he immediately reaches for me. “You can’t miss anything you’ve never had.” I don’t expect that reply, and I want to both cry and nurture and protect him from everyone who’s hurt him.

He pulls loose the drawstring of his “Riptide” robe and eases the satin off my shoulders. He likes me naked so he can do all his licking, lion-like things, and I like pleasing him. So I pull my arms out and toss it aside, loving when he cuddles me up against him, skin to skin.

Suddenly, with all my might, I want to give him all I have. My body, my soul, my heart, my family.

“If I told you something,” I whisper as we find our favorite spot, facing each other, my leg between his thighs, our bodies entwined and touching as much as possible, “would you remember tomorrow?”

He pulls the covers up over us and tucks my face into his neck, his hands wandering up and down my spine. “I hope I do.”

I feel his feet moving restlessly against mine, and I smile and reach up with my arms to stroke his hair to help him relax, and then I get an idea. A brilliant one. One where he will understand what I want to say, and in this way I won’t pressure him into anything he might not feel comfortable with. In fact, he won’t really need to respond to it at all.

I reach over him to the nightstand and grab the headphones and his iPod, praying that I will find the song in there. I am crazy about this song and I have never, ever, identified with it until this second, when I want to shout each of these lyrics to Remington Tate right now.

“Put these on,” I say excitedly. He grins because I know he loves it when I play him music. He straightens up against the headboard and puts on his headphones and then drags me toward his lap, and I crawl there.

I find it. It is the perfect song to tell him I am crazy about every special part of him.

So I select Avril Lavigne’s “I Love You” and play it.

I hear the music start, and excitement courses through my veins as he raises the volume and I can hear the lyrics start speaking to him even from where I sit on his lap.

I know he might not remember this tomorrow. I know his eyes are black, and that playing him a song won’t count as having said the words, but we’ve spent so many nights together. We train with each other, bathe together, run together, eat and feed each other, caress and talk, and I don’t think Remington has ever opened up to anyone like he has to me. I’ve had my walls up all my life, and I’ve never let anyone inside until I suddenly realized he was . . . in.

I breathe him and live him every day, even dream about him while lying next to him in bed.

Even if this man doesn’t recognize the emotions in his raw and untamed heart, I at least hope he will know by my song that he’s become my . . . everything.

Excited beyond words, I hear the song continue playing and watch his face, gnawing my lip as I study his expression. Every lyric is so perfect, the entire song is meant from me to him, including the chorus, which I swear I can hear right now:

You’re so beautiful

But that’s not why I love you

I’m not sure you know

That the reason I love you is you

Being you

Just you

Yeah the reason I love you is all that we’ve been through

And that’s why I love you

He listens while assessing my face, his expression intent as he scans my features. My full lips. My amber eyes. My high cheekbones.

“Play it again.” His voice sounds so asperous, I almost have to read his lips to understand what he’s saying.

I click the button to replay, but instead of listening to the song again like I expected him to, he rolls me over and lays me on my back, then sets the headphones on my head and adjusts them to my smaller frame as the song starts.

And in the next second, I’m listening to the “I Love You” song that I just played for him.

And which Remington Tate now plays for me.

I close my eyes, my heart shuddering in my chest, what I feel for him swelling inside me until I feel full and helplessly consumed on the inside. I feel his lips on mine, the song playing in my ears as he starts kissing me in a way that is not sexual, but infinitely tender.

This is the way Remy opens up to me, and I’m tingling from the top of my head to the soles of my feet as I soak up every single thing he’s trying to tell me, with this song, with his lips, with his whisper touch. Even knowing he might not remember any of this doesn’t make it any less real to me.