Real

Not even Mel can cheer me up.

I talked to my parents and told them things are great, especially because I don’t want to worry them about Nora until I figure out how I’m going to bring her home again. I’ve already researched, and Scorpion, according to his fan site, he’s reportedly celebrating his win in an undisclosed island location until the Underground’s next season begins—which isn’t until February of next year, in Washington, D.C. I hate there’s no trace of my sister.

I’m probably going to accept the job offer from the Military Academy of Seattle with my middle graders to begin in August. But if I do, I might not be able to travel in February in search of Nora. Which I don’t like. But when I go after Nora, I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to see Remington in the Underground again.

Melanie, who’s been stalking Twitter, says all his fans are speculating on whether or not he will return to the fights next year.

“Please,” I tell her when we’re running and she brings the topic up again. “Please don’t talk to me about him anymore.”

“Why not? Come on, little nugget. You’ve never had a love interest before and it’s fun to finally talk about drama that isn’t mine.”

“Just don’t talk to me about him, please! I love him, Melanie. I love him. He’s not just a star; he’s the whole fucking sky to me. He’s the sun and every planet in this galaxy. It hurts me to think of him, don’t you understand?”

On the verge of tears that finally shut up Melanie, I grab my iPod and stick the buds in my ears, but as I turn it on, even listening to music affects me, because every song I hear makes me want to find a meaning in it that will make me want to play it for him.

Completely distressed over how volatile I’ve become, I switch my music off and focus on running, tap-tap-tap, on the ground. Now the sun is getting higher, and as we round the corner to my building, we see a black Escalade parked right in front of it.

We keep trotting toward it, and as we approach, the doors open and a man in black that looks remarkably like Pete steps out. Followed by another who could be Riley.

And suddenly, standing across from me, every inch of him beautiful, healthy, and vital, is Remington Tate. I see his gleaming dark hair, his sexy boyish face, his slightly scruffy jaw, and all of his manly tan skin and perfect muscles, and my heart stops.

I stop running.

Stop breathing. Stop existing.

My brain goes blank, my lungs close up, my ears shut off.

I look at him. And he looks at me.

And as we stare, my eyes on his, his eyes on mine, my heart resumes with one burst of emotion.

It leaps and runs to him, slams into him, explodes in him, and although it hurts like an open wound to look at this man, all my senses have sizzled to life and I couldn’t take my eyes off him even if my life depended on it. A private Fourth of July is happening in my stomach as I feel Melanie’s nudge at my back, and we begin walking toward them at a slower pace.

A nerve-wracking pace.

It feels as though the entire world is in slow motion. Every step of mine takes ages.

Remington looks so . . . large as we approach. Larger than life itself, and I can’t even believe this striking creature was once a little bit mine.

The bad part is, my body cannot distinguish that he’s no longer mine, and every pore of me seems magnetized by him, like they all still think that he belongs to me.

“Holy shit, that man is hot,” Melanie gasps at my side.

I nod helplessly and drink him in several times, head to toe. Something rushes through me, as if this is the first sip of water I’ve had in long, dehydrated weeks, and every atom in my body is thirsty. A tremor wraps itself around my heart. I know there’s no doubt that I’m every bit in love with him as I was before. And this is nothing, nothing, compared to the instant, the very second, he briefly, almost boredly, smiles at me.

“Miss Dumas?” Pete says with a grin, as we approach. “We believe this belongs to you?”

He signals in the direction of Remington, who watches me with that bored smile slowly vanishing as he studies me. My pulse goes so wild I can hear it in my ears, and then I realize another figure is stepping out of the car. A female figure. That looks like . . . Nora.

I blink, and my heart stops. “Nora?”

“Nora?” Melanie repeats, sounding even more stupid than I’m sure I do.

“We just wanted to make sure she got home safe,” Pete says.

“Nora?” I repeat. And now I really sound more stupid than Melanie.

“It’s me!” my little sister says, and she looks lively and like her old self as she comes to hug me, shaking in excitement as she does so. “It’s me, big sis! I’m back! I’ve done work in rehab. Pete helped me,” she rushes to explain. “And I got the tattoo off.” She points to her rosy cheekbone. “I felt so little when you looked at me that day, Brooke. I felt so little and so . . . dirty.”

“No! No, never!” Reeling in surprise, I drag her in for another hug, still stunned and disbelieving that my little sister is in my arms, and then Melanie grabs her and gives her some Mel-love.

“Nora!! Nora Camora Lalora Crazyora!” She hugs and swings her around and squeezes her, and I turn to stare at the three men before me, and since I can’t make myself speak to the one I really want to speak to, I speak to the least intimidating one instead. “Pete, what’s going on?”

“Surprise,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows and signaling to Nora. “She’s done great. She’s such a sweet girl.”

I keep staring impatiently, and he nods at Remington, who’s just rammed his hands into his jean pockets. His eyes are raking me top to bottom, nonstop, making me aware of my athletic gear and the way it hugs my butt, my breasts, and my waistline, which has expanded a little from mood-boosting dark chocolate meant to help with my completely frustrating heartbreak blues.

“The night Remy went to fight with Scorpion, Scorpion offered your sister to him in exchange for the championship,” Pete tells us. “And Remy agreed.”

I stand motionless for a moment, blank, wavering, and very baffled. When my eyes confusedly seek out Remington’s, I feel a shock run through me at the intensity in his stare.

Then I’m bowled over.

“You mean he agreed to . . . lose?”

First, there’s disbelief.

Then . . .

A powerful emotion zip-lines through my body, settling like a burning bolt of light in my brain, illuminating me with the magnitude of something that sounds impossible.

Briefly tossing my head from side to side, I cling helplessly to those dark-lashed, achingly familiar blue eyes. My pulse spins with confused disbelief. A war of emotions rages within me as strange and disquieting thoughts race through my mind, clenching around my heart.

“You did this for . . . Nora?” I breathlessly ask Remington.

His face is so beautiful, I just want to grab his spiky hair and kiss him senseless, but at this point, I don’t think I even deserve to have him standing here. Looking at me, not even telling me what a jerk I am for leaving him the way I did.

Feeling painfully hammered inside, which is not the optimal feeling to experience when you’re told your baby sister is, thankfully, happily, back home, I sit down on the stairs to my building, knocked out by my attempts to blink back a well of tears threatening to fall.

Pete grabs a green duffel bag from the back of the Escalade and heads inside with Nora. “Let me take this in for you, Nora.”

I’m left with Riley, whose gaze shifts from Melanie to me like a Ping-Pong ball, and I’m also left with Remy. My Remy. The Remy I abandoned in the hospital. The one I adore. The one I am mad over. The one who got his guts torn apart and humiliated for the sake of my sister. For me.

A ball of pain gathers at my throat and I can barely stand it.

He’s so handsome, so familiar, I feel like a prisoner in my own body, screaming to touch what I had, for weeks, viewed as mine.

His big hands are still deeply buried in his jeans, and I wonder if he may be struggling with the same issues too? But there’s a somberness in his expression that is rarely there when his eyes are blue. And they are so blue I’m drowning in them.

I wrap my arms around myself and drop my head as the shame continues building inside me. “Why didn’t you tell me? That you threw the fight for . . . her?”

I can’t even say “me”—I feel awful.

But Remington says softly, “You mean for you.”

Riley interrupts. “I didn’t know either, Brooke. Or Coach. Only Pete knew. He’s the one who found him that night, and he helped secure your sister while Remington delivered the win.”

My eyes shift to the face of my dreams, and my voice drops as the pain of what he did for me seeps through my pores. “How are you? Are you all right?” I look at him, and his eyes are blue and on fire with emotion as he nods.

He’s angry at me. I think. I don’t know. I feel punched in the gut when I look at him, but at the same time, it’s all I want to do.

“What does this loss mean for you now?” I ask. Oh, god, I missed my Remington so much that when I look at him, all perfect blue eyes, beautiful face, I feel water in my eyes.

I think he’s having trouble talking too, because there’s a silence.

A violent and unexpected despair surges wildly through me as I stare at this surprising, unpredictable man, the ever-changing mystery of Remington Tate, and suddenly, nothing in the world has hurt me more than having had him and lost him.

“The loss? Other than we’re poor?” Riley finally answers when it seems neither Remington nor I is going to speak. He chuckles a bit too loudly and rakes his hair back. “He has a couple million to get him through the year. We’re making a comeback when the new season starts. Remy’s fans demand retribution.”

“You do have loyal fans, don’t you?” I quietly ask, directing my question to Remington as I remember all the flowers he made them bring me and I feel queasy and excited again.

This second it feels like my entire life I’ve been waiting to talk to him again. My running partner and friend. My lover. My love.

“Well, time to go.” Riley slaps Remington’s back, and my insides feel pain. “Actually, Brooke, we’re also here because we’re looking for a sports rehab specialist for the upcoming new season. Good to get a head start on training,” Riley says, producing something from his back pocket. “In case you’re interested, Mr. Tate’s number is on the back. There’s the hotel where we’re staying too. We leave in three days.”

I watch Riley climb into the car, and then Pete strides out of my apartment and says goodbye.

I look at Remington, and he looks directly back at me, and through all the emotions I see in his eyes, I can’t decide which one reels me in the most. My skin breaks out in goose bumps in a silent plea for his touch—tingling in remembrance of his rough hands, the way he drags his tongue over me. My dark-haired lion. Licking and claiming me.

My heart hurts me as we both stare, but neither of us is talking, even when there are a thousand things weighing on us both.

“You’re looking good, Remy,” Melanie says with a sunny smile.

He graces her with those dimples that kill me, and then his eyes flick back to me and the dimples are gone. “You know where to find me.”

He climbs in the car and leaves, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake, all along my skin.

Melanie goes inside first, but I stay outside under the sun, just . . . processing.

When I eventually stride into my place, my heart swells at the sound of Nora’s excited voice, reminding me she’s here. Suddenly my apartment sounds like a college dorm with laughing friends, and all because of Remy.

“I really think he likes me!” Nora is saying on a little squeal.

“Nora!” I come into the eclectic living room—courtesy of Melanie’s free decoration skills—and squeeze my sister in a big bear hug again, where I get to be the bear. “Let me look at you. You okay?”

I inspect her head to toe, and admit she looks good. Rosy cheeks, brilliant grin. She’s cut that soft brown mane into a cute bob to her elfin ears, and there’s color back in her sweet, curled lips. She looks slender and wholesome, and the animation in her eyes enchants me. This is the Nora I remember. My baby sister.

She squeezes my hands and nods emphatically, lacing her cool fingers happily through mine.

“Nora was telling me how Remington fought Scorpion for her.” Melanie widens her eyes at me and nods meaningfully. “She thinks Remington is way hot because of the way he fought.”

A sneaky hint of jealousy curls around my tummy. “Oh. Of course.”

Nora has seen him for the past four weeks, maybe, and the thought of any woman enjoying his smiles and his voice, while I’ve been denying myself of it, makes me a little sick.

“Brooke, you should have seen him,” Nora bursts out, oblivious to my inner torture chamber called a “heart.”

“He just barged into our rental rooms and knocked out two of the men, and then he went straight to pound Benny’s face, nonstop. He rammed a pencil into his tattoo so deep he completely deformed it.”

“Wait! Who the hell is Benny?” Melanie asks.

“Scorpion!” Nora explains, her smile eager with delight. Seriously, I’m still staring at her in awe because she looks like another person compared to the drugged, fiery-haired girl with a facial tattoo I saw at the Japanese restaurant. The wonders a month of rehab can do. And my dark-haired fighter . . .

“Oh! Benny is the he-beast Scorpion—got it!” Mel says, rolling her eyes.

“Remington was like a devil unleashed from hell, nonstop hitting. Benny couldn’t stop him as he kept shouting about staying away from his girl, that he wasn’t leaving without what his girl wanted—and tons of bad words—and then Benny scrambled to stop him and offered me. He said if he stopped that he would set me free in exchange for the championship. Then Remy looked at me and asked me if I was your sister. And I didn’t know what to say, because I knew that if I said yes, he’d take me to you. I could see it in his eyes. But then I remembered . . .” she trails off. “I remembered the way you looked at me, Brooke. And I was so mad at Benny offering me to save himself like I was worth nothing! I decided to leave and so, I nodded. And so Remington agreed. He didn’t even hesitate. He demanded I get out of there that same night, but Benny said I was to be on lockdown until Remington delivered the championship, so Remy called Pete to get me. Pete took me to a rehab place in Connecticut and Remy paid for my entire stay.”

I fall into a chair and just can’t hold myself upright, my eyes a mess. After all the tears I’ve cried, I feel like I could still cry another great lake. For Remington Tate. And for myself. For underestimating someone who I believed did something wrong and who instead did the best and most incredible thing possible for me. Remy, when he goes black, has done a lot of bad things, or so they say. But boy, oh boy, did he make it right with Nora. For me. I know, despite Nora’s romantic side, it is for me he fought. For me he threw the fight. For me, and for who I love.

I remember how proud he was during the fight, taking every blow. How it must have hurt him not to fight back! That’s all Remy knows to do. He’s a fighter at heart. Even in his eyes I could see his fierceness. He can barely control himself when provoked, and to think of him holding back when he was being hurt this way, only for me. For my sister.

Something clicks in my mind, and my heart swells until I think I’m going to pop with pain and emotion. I’m bombarded with thoughts of the first night I ever saw this man. All glinting blue eyes, golden tan, spiky black hair, playful face, and hard male body.

“Your name,” he growls, panting, his eyes wild on mine.

“Uh, Brooke.”

“Brooke what?” he snaps out, his nostrils flaring.

With trembling effort, I pry my hand free and glance fearfully at Mel, who comes up behind him, wide-eyed. “It’s Brooke Dumas,” she says, and then happily shoots out my cell phone number to my chagrin. His lips curl, and he meets my gaze once more.

“Brooke Dumas.” He just fucked my name right in front of me, and right in front of Mel. He steps forward, and his damp hand slides to the nape of my neck. “Brooke,” he growls softly, meaningfully, against my lips, as he draws back with a smile. “I’m Remington.”

Oh, god, I knew my life would change. I just never knew how much.

I. Love. This. Man.

Yes, he is a man who will be difficult, and bipolar to boot.

He’s strong, and he’s proud, and I don’t expect him to beg me.

But even though he probably won’t beg me to come back, he’s at least not asking me to beg his forgiveness for being a chickenshit and dumping him while he was stuck in the hospital either.

Feeling the first real sense of joy I’ve felt in weeks unfurl in my tummy, I glance down at the hotel address written on the card, and my insides move in anticipation.

He wants to be my real, not my adventure. Even when he will be the realest thing in my life, I know it’s still going to be an adventure. Because that’s him. An exhilarating bungee jump . . . a free fall . . . Olympics all year round for me . . . that’s what being in love with him is going to be like for me. What wondering when he gets black . . . and all the pushing and pulling and reasoning with him . . . will be like.

And suddenly, this is all I can think of.

Suddenly, my bad knee is all that’s stopping me from running after him.

I want the job.

I want to be with my big, crazy, sexy beast of a man, and I won’t apologize to anyone for it. He’s bipolar, and I’m crazy about him.

He never said he loved me. But he came back for me. He gave me my sister. He lost his wealth, his fight, and lay unconscious in a hospital bed. Because of me.

“Nora, I’m going to call Mom and Dad so you can spend some time with them, would you like that?”

“Yes, Brooke, I thought about what you said, and I do want to finish college.”

Mel chimes in. “Oh, yay! Nora, college is the place for hot guys, girl! It’s something you definitely do not want to miss,” she adds in total excitement, still all sweaty and red-faced from our run.

Plopping down next to Nora, I tell her, “The thing is, I may not be around for a while. My new job will require I travel.”

“New job?” Melanie perks up, then her tawny sleek eyebrows lower over her eyes. “Dish out, Brookey!” she says threateningly.

“Mel. I’m going to get the job I want with the man I need,” I confess.

“You mean you’re getting back the man you need with the job you want.”

“Same difference!” I laugh, flinging the card at her. “I’m getting my job back.”

“With Remington?” Nora asks.

“Nora, your sister is, despite her not being the type to fall so hard, head-over-heels, crazy in love with this guy. And he’s been after her for months,” Mel tells her, handing me back the card.

We both gauge her reaction, and her mouth parts in surprise as she points at herself. “Oh. You thought I . . . ? I wasn’t talking about Remington wanting me. I said Remington is super hot, but I was talking about Pete.”

“Pete!” I laugh in delight and relief and squish her between my arms again. “Oh, Pedro is such a great guy. If I go back to work, I have a feeling you’ll be seeing him.”

“Brooke, I realize I’ve always been a bit too . . . romantic, but what he did,” she tells me, her eyes serious. “Remington, I mean . . . Brooke, I’ve never, ever, seen a man fight like that for anyone.”

Closing my eyes, I nod and hold one arm around her shoulders until Melanie squeals, “Sandwich!” and comes to hug me from the other side until they’re both almost killing me with love.

“You’re going to fly me up often?” Mel murmurs in my ear when she moves back.

“Both of you,” I promise.

♥   ♥   ♥

THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER, I’ve settled Nora with Mom and Dad, who keep asking her about those crocodiles. Poor Nora is going to have to pay for all her lies now that she’s being asked about the Indian culture and the Eiffel Tower and the works.

Melanie helped me pack and was a little tearful when she waved me off in the taxi, but I kept telling her, “It’s not forever! It’s seasonal, you little wimp. And I’ll be flying you up like crazy.”

My voice was confident, but honestly, I don’t even know how my meeting or interview or whatever it’s going to be called will go this evening. I just know that I’m heading for Remy, and my body already feels like a battlefield of desire, fear, longing, love, need, and regret.

I’m not sure which Remy I’m going to get tonight. All I know is that Remington Tate is not a man people plan long-term relationships with. He’s a magnet to women and trouble, and he has a dark side that’s not easily controlled.

He’s my beast. My dark and my light. Mine.

There’s just no other option for me except ending up with him.

“We’re so damned glad to see you! I’d hug you if I wasn’t afraid of losing my neck later in the day,” Riley says when he opens the door to the hotel’s presidential suite. He’s grinning so hard, his sad surfer eyes seem to light up in real glee.

“Hey, I thought you guys were poor. Poor people don’t rent such lavish suites,” I say as I come in and drop my bags.

“Poor by Remy’s former standards.” Pete comes over and totes my bags into one of the rooms. “He spends several million a year, so naturally, he has to keep producing as much, but he sold the Austin house, and we’re working on getting some new endorsements as we speak.”

Nodding, I steal a longing glance down the hall at the bedrooms, wondering if he’s here. When the guys usher me to the living room, I finally break down and say, “All right, so I need to know if Mr. Tate is still interested in my services? As a rehab specialist?”

“Of course,” Pete assures, plopping down on a couch and playing with his tie like he always does. “He wants to focus on what’s important. He wants you. He’s been very specific about accepting no one else.”

I laugh, then go sober when they both stare at me like I’m a falling star and they’ve just caught me. “Guys,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Don’t be obtuse. Is he here? Did he tell you to torture me endlessly?”

“Never!” They both laugh, and Pete recovers first, his expression sobering. “He’s paced the length of the room a thousand times these past days. He just went out for a run.” He holds my gaze in a haunted way, his voice dropping considerably as he sits up and leans on his knees. “Your letter, Brooke. He’s read it about a thousand times; he’s fixated.”

The sound of a closing door reaches me, and when I leap to my feet and look toward the entryway, my breath goes.

Standing across the room, covered in sweat, is the reason I’m ready to go all out and gamble everything on love. My heart stays still for a moment, and then it jumps to full speed, because this man does that to me. I sprint for him even when I’m standing still.

His hair is perfectly messy, and he stands there, the sex god of my dreams, my blue-turned-black-eyed devil of my dreams. He looks at me, then at Pete, then at Riley, then he starts for me, his kick-ass running shoes muffled in the carpet. I can see the emotions evolve in his eyes, starting with surprise, with a hint of anger, and then morphing to pure red-hot need.

I don’t know how long I stare at him, but it’s a long time. Chemistry crackles in the air like something unreal and electric leaping between us. His chest rises and falls, and a wild, desperate need to close the emotional distance between us makes my chest ache.

“I’d like to talk to you, Remington, if you have a moment.”

“Yes, Brooke, I want to talk to you as well.”

His flat tone does nothing to help my rapidly fleeing confidence, but when he heads toward the master bedroom, I follow closely at his heels. The slight autumn smell mingled with a scent of ocean clinging to his skin gets me awfully hot, and I’m almost cross-eyed with desire.

He closes the door behind him and turns to me, and a bolt of heat shoots through me as he curls a hot, big hand around my neck and bends to scent me. Undone by the possessive gesture of him burying his nose in my hair, as he drags in a long, deep inhale, I grab his T-shirt in my fingers and hide my face in it, aching for him. “Don’t let me go please,” I beg. He wrenches free of my grip and releases me, almost as if he’s annoyed to have grabbed me in the first place.

“If you want me so much, then why’d you leave?” He unnerves me as he watches me sit down on the bench at the foot of the bed and crosses his powerful arms, his eyebrows drawn together as he widens his stance almost threateningly. “Did I say anything when I was manic?”

With a sudden vivid recollection, I remember every amazing memory, and I seize on one. “You wanted to take me to Paris.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“And make love to me in an elevator.”

“Did I?”

“And to have me in my pink pants,” I thickly admit, and an unexpected warmth climbs up my cheeks.

He keeps staring at me, his face taut in an unreadable mask. His arms are crossed tight as if he’s holding his raging emotions in. I’m shaking because I can’t determine if the look in his eyes is love or hate. It is simply consuming. Consuming me.

“You forgot the part where we played each other a song,” he tells me in a quiet murmur, and the realization that he probably remembers the tender way he made love to me after that causes a burning emotion in my chest to quickly spread up my throat.

I hold my breath in silent shock when he reaches for my hand and takes it in his dry, firm grasp, lifting my fingers to his lips.

My heart speeds up as I stay seated and watch in delicious agony as he turns my hand in his grip. He stares down at the center of my palm before he bends to flatten his tongue over my skin and gently lick me. Need explodes in my tummy.

“That picture made me very angry, Brooke,” he rasps into my skin, as he drags his tongue wetly across the sensitive nerves at the center of my palm. “When you belong to someone . . . you don’t kiss anyone else. You don’t kiss his enemy. You don’t lie to him. Betray him.”

My systems roar back to life as his teeth graze the heel of my palm.

My voice shudders out of me. “I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you, like you protect me. I won’t ever go behind your back again, Remy. I didn’t leave because you were manic, I just didn’t want you to get manic or low because of me.”

He gives me a dark nod as he rakes a quick, thirsty look over me, and he lowers my hand back to my lap. “There’s something I might have missed then. Because I still can’t understand why the fuck you would leave me when I fucking needed you!”

The pain in his voice strikes a chord within me, and instantly my eyes sting.

“Remy, I’m sorry!” I cry wretchedly.

He groans, agitated, then he pulls out the letter I wrote from the pocket of the jeans draped haphazardly on a chair by the corner. The paper is crumpled and broken in the middle from so many reads. “Did you mean what you wrote to me?” Hearing his dense, distressed voice causes the little hairs on my body to jump.

“Which part?”

He grabs the paper, and yanks it open, ramming a thick finger to the words:

I love you, Remy.

Then he crumples it in his fist again, watching me in anger and despair. My heart constricts as I realize he can’t even say the word out loud to me.

Who has ever told him that they love him?

I have.

In a letter.

In a thousand songs.

But not out loud.

Even his parents only wanted money. They never accepted him or gave him the love he deserved. And me? Oh, god, I left him. Just like everyone else.

Throat thick, I nod up and down really fast, and his jaw clamps as hard as rock, as if he’s holding some wild feeling back.

“Say it,” he coarsely whispers.

“Why?”

“I need to hear it.”

“Why do you need to hear it?”

“Is that the reason you left after the fight?”

Burning tears fill my eyes.

There’s desperation in his question, and I think he wants to know so badly because it might be the only reason he’ll be able to get over my leaving.

Raw pain opens anew in my chest as I imagine him waking up in that hospital bed, after what he did for me, to realize that I left. When I’d said I’d never get enough of him . . .

“Is it, Brooke? Why you left? Or because you’re ready to quit on me? I thought you had more mettle, little firecracker, I really did.”

He’s wildly searching my face, and I feel just as wild looking back at his breathtakingly handsome features, noting the slight scar remaining above his eyebrows.

I touch it on impulse, and the instant my finger connects with his healing skin, the words burst out of me.

“I love you. I love you.” His breath seizes in his chest, and I continue in a rush. “More than I’ve ever thought it possible to love any other human being. I left because you broke my heart, again and again that night, with every one of your bones. I left because I couldn’t take it anymore!”

He closes his eyes, and his torment reaches me so deep, my own confession opening me, making me vulnerable. I hear his ragged exhale of breath, and I’m hurting all over at the memory of what he did for me, to rescue Nora. I drop my hand, and my voice trembles fiercely. “I don’t want you to ever let anyone hurt you deliberately again. Ever. Not even for me, Remy. Never. You are worth too much! Do you hear me?”

He lifts fiercely trembling hands and cups my face, drawing me up against him, and I shudder as I absorb the feeling of his arms again. My heart pounds because I know this is the first night of the rest of my life, and I want it to be.

“I’d do it a thousand times for you.” He scents me. And I scent him. “A thousand. A million. I don’t care if I’m humiliated. I don’t care about anything. All I knew was you were willing to kiss that motherfucker’s ink for your sister, and so I had to give her back to you.”

“Oh, Remy, you didn’t have to do anything.”

“I did. And I will. And I’d do it all over again. I’m sorry only Pete could know. He stayed in a hotel room with her and one of Benny’s thugs, transferring her when I delivered the championship. I just couldn’t let you stop me, Brooke.”

“But you wouldn’t even look at me . . .” I say, squeezing my eyes shut. “That was as painful as the rest of what happened.”

“If I’d looked at you, I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it.” His voice is rough with conviction, and I cover my face and try not to think of the way Scorpion delighted in humiliating my proud fighter. It makes me want to fight and cry at the same time, and I shake my head.

He’s quiet.

Then he releases me with a pained noise coming from deep within him.

He stands and paces, pushing his fingers like angry claws through his hair. “I knew this would happen.” Dark clouds darken his blue eyes from underneath drawn eyebrows. “That’s why I didn’t want to touch you. I knew I’d go crazy if I touched you, and now it tears me open to ask you to be with me when I know I’m just going to do something to fucking hurt you again!”

“Yes! Yes you probably are, you idiot! And it’s going to be a damned skydive for me, and I’m going to hang on tight and just jump with you because that’s what you do to me. I’m crazy about you. My life now sucks without you. I’m not here for the job, although I love it. But it’s you I want. It’s you I came for that first night. It’s always been about you. I want to be with you, but I won’t do it only on my side. I want you to love me back, Remy. You’ve never told me how you feel about me!”

His eyes are brilliant blue, and they ignite with a fire that heats my entire being.

“Brooke, you honestly don’t know?”

I stare, and he kneels on the bed and holds my face.

“Jesus, when I saw you that first night in Seattle, I felt like I’d just gotten plugged into a socket. I got high just with the way you smiled at me, Brooke. The way you looked at me with an expression of pain and awe drove me crazy. You turned away to leave, and you wore these really nice pants. Your butt was just up there as you walked away, all perky and round. And I just wanted to finish the damn fight so I could go after you. I swear I fought the previous fight just so you would watch me. So you’d see me. See that I’m strong and could fight for you, protect you. I daydreamed of kissing you, of making love to you. I was planning it in my head even when I jumped out of that ring to go after you. When your friend gave me your number, I got to the hotel to find a roomful of girls, the kind Pete always has for me, and I couldn’t look at any of them. I wanted to look into your eyes and make you smile at me.

“I Googled you, saved your number in my phone, and spent all night wondering about all the ways I would fuck you when I finally had my hands on you. I sent you those tickets, knowing for sure I’d have you that night. But then I saw a video of you when I Googled you again. It was your first Olympic trials, and you were hopping away with your torn ACL and crying so damned hard, and I just wanted . . . you. I wanted to burn the keyboards of the idiots commenting about your life being over, about the depression that hit you. You were me, Brooke. Me. And I wanted you to go out there and show them they were idiots, and at the same time, I wanted to fucking go out there and carry you across that damned finish line. We were leaving town soon, and I just knew I had to see you more. So I hired you.”

When he confirms seeing my video, I almost break, a weakness seizing me in the knees. Instantly, I remember our first flight and how Remy was engrossed by inspecting my knee. He’d touched it almost lovingly, stroking the scar with his thumb. And how can I forget it when he toweled me off and was extra diligent with my knee, the day his fans threw eggs at me?

“I tried taking it easy with you. I wanted to know you, and for you to know me, and every day I wanted you more, Brooke. So much. I couldn’t touch you and risk messing it up until you knew about me. I wanted you to care for me. I wanted to see if you could understand me. . . . I tortured myself every night, thinking of you in your room, while I was in mine.

“The night we went to the club, and you danced with me, I just couldn’t stop myself. I’d been so wound up. And when you knocked down two guys for me, I went crazy protective. I wanted to tuck you into bed and go back and do some serious damage to all four of them. But you stayed with me, and I forgot about fighting, and all I wanted was to have my mouth all over you. I tried to control myself, but on the plane, you killed me with those songs about making love to me. I just had to have you. The thought of having you had me so damned high, I was already drugged with it, and by the end of that flight, I was manic and high on you before I could even get you into my bed.

“And then you woke up with me, and I saw that you’d cuddled with me, Brooke. Soft and sweet. The next time I was lying alone in bed, I wanted to cut open my fucking veins wanting you next to me, so I went back for you. That was all that got me through the day, those days. Thinking of getting you in my bed and kissing you breathless. I kept looking through my tunes just trying to find one that could tell you how you made me feel. Inside. I’m not good at saying this, but I wanted you to know you were special to me—you’re unlike any other woman in my life.

“You wanted me to make love to you and you don’t know how many times I almost broke down. When I showered with you, I swear to god, I was breaking inside. But I couldn’t do it, not without telling you there’s something deeply wrong with me, and I’m such a coward, Brooke. I couldn’t even find the courage to say the word ‘bipolar’ to you. So I prolonged my time with you. Because I’m selfish, and I wanted you to care before you knew. Thinking it would make a difference and you’d stay. Not even my own folks could do me long-term. But something about you made me think you’d know me, understand me on a level no one else does.”

“Remy,” I breathe out.

“I was right, Brooke,” he adds in a deep, raspy whisper, holding me entranced with his words, his liquid gaze. “When I told you about me, you still wanted me. And I’ve been in love with you for I don’t know how long. Ever since you tried to knock me down in the ring, and I ended up putting your little feet against my stomach to warm them. Jesus, when I saw that photograph of you and Scorpion I wanted to kill him. I wanted to give you whatever it was that had made you go to that fucking asshole and kiss his fucking face! I wanted to give that to you, so you would kiss mine instead.

“I went to him, and he was waiting. Of course he was. He knew I’d come. He saw me at the club. I’ve never been protective of a woman before. He saw me get out of the ring for you and get disqualified. He knows you’re my weak spot. We had a go at it, and he was crying like a goddamned weenie. He wanted me to stop. I wasn’t planning to until I’d knocked out his fucking teeth. But he offered me your sister if I gave away the championship. He was done with her. She was restless since she’d seen you, and he wanted no trouble. She was watching us fight, crying. I asked her if she was your Nora, and she said yes. So I said yes. I called Pete over, and he’d stand by while I delivered the championship and they released her to us.” He drags in a breath, then scrapes a hand down his face as he sighs. “It’s the first time I did something right when I was . . . not at optimal.”

Leaning to me, he drags his nose along my temple, and a tremor of heat slips down my spine as he whispers close to my ear.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but it had to happen like this. When I told you I wouldn’t let you leave me the night I made love to you, I meant it. I want you, Brooke, for me. I can hurt you, I can do stupid shit, but I . . .” His stare galvanizes me. “I’m so fucking in love with you I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore.”

The knot is at massive proportions in my throat, and I’m nodding as I wipe my tears, unable to tell him how much and how crazily I have fallen in love with him.

He makes me feel so good. He puts on my music. Runs with me. Kisses and touches me. Licks me deliciously. Gets all sexy jealous over me. He’s grumpy one day and cocky the next, and I love all sides of him. He looks at me with his blue eyes or black eyes, and every time he does, I just know I’m right where I want to be.

“You’re going to want to leave me again,” he whispers, tenderly, as he cups my jaw. “You can’t, Brooke, you can’t leave. You’re mine.”

He strokes his other hand down my hair and I turn into his hand like a kitten again, seeking more of his petting.

“You’ve claimed me, little firecracker. You kicked a pair of two-hundred-pound men’s asses. I will never get over that. You kicked my whores out, Pete told me. You staked your claim on me, even before you realized I’d staked mine already.” He fists my hair and pulls me close to his lips. “I’m yours now, and you can’t ditch me like you just did. Even if I screw this up, I’ll still be your screwup.”

I need him close, so I press my body to his as I drape my arms around his neck, his sweat slicking deliciously into me. “Not my screwup. My real.”

He groans a male sound as he turns his head and licks my cheek. The heart-melting realization that my lion is back unravels me, and I feel myself sinking into his arms as he drags his lips down lower. He slowly, wetly, licks my jaw. My chin. And then . . . my lips. I think he feels me shudder against him, for he slips his hands around my lower back and draws me protectively against his frame. He licks his way into my warm mouth, with soft, probing strokes until I’m open and gasping, letting him have his delicious way with me.

“Don’t fucking leave me ever again,” he murmurs, his tongue retreating to trace my top lip, my bottom, then pushing deeply inside me as he spreads his hands along my ass and squeezes me possessively.

I’m drunk. The sensations his kiss and licks bring me are deep, and they tremble in my core like consecutive earthquakes, each one bigger than the last.

I rub my nipples against his massive chest, and my sex throbs to feel him inside me. He looks so delicious in his exercise clothes, drives me so wild with the way he smells when he works out, I want to strip him. Take him.

“I’ve got about a thousand songs in a new playlist that says ‘Brooke,’ all about me missing you, loving you, hating, and adoring you,” he rasps as I feel him reach under my dress for my panties.

This is exactly why I wore a dress. In record time, I’ve pulled it off as Remy pulls my panties off both legs.

“I’ve got some too, I want to spend all day playing them to you,” I whisper and remove my bra.

He hauls me back, naked on his lap, taking my mouth again. He has me so wound up with his kisses, I’m afraid I’m going to climax the instant he thrusts inside me.

Oh, god, I need it so bad, I don’t even realize I’m curling my legs to straddle him, rubbing myself over his hard-on. I want it. Inside me. I want him so fiercely I can’t stop trembling. “I love you,” I breathe.

It’s incredible. I lived my entire life without him, but we made this crazy connection, and I just feel empty without him.

He drugs me with another kiss as I undulate my body against his, teasing me with his hardness, his hot mouth, his groans. He’s making me want him in the wildest, most intense ways. He pulls free, reaching into his running shorts.

“I want to play you Avril Lavigne’s ‘I Love You’ again,” I say as he tries pushing them off without sacrificing my spot on his lap.

“I’ll get my headphones when we finish,” he murmurs, successfully shoving them off one leg, his arms bulging as he works to get them off the other.

I moan in gratitude at the thought of being able to hear music again with joy, especially when all I had been able to think of was listening to “Iris” and fearing how deeply it would cut me. Every single song, without Remy to play it to, cut me open.

I’m inundated with emotion as I nuzzle his hair, sliding my fingers in it. “And also ‘That’s When I Knew’ by Alicia Keys.” I start to sing this heartbreakingly romantic song in his ear and he makes an odd sound between a chuckle and a groan.

“You don’t sing for shit, baby,” he murmurs.

We stop laughing when he enters me. I gasp. He groans.

His mouth crushes mine, and our thirst is unquenchable. He rocks his hips powerfully, his muscles clenching, his thighs underneath me, his abs against mine, his biceps around me. I love feeling his strength when he makes love to me, in his rocking motions, in his arms, in his powerful erection. I love . . .

Here I go again.

I love everything about him.

“Brooke Dumas,” he murmurs, licking into my ear, his eyes sparkling. “I’m Remington.”

I laugh, then moan and dissolve into him.

Seriously, he’s so fucking sexy I can’t stand it.