Remy (Real Book 3)

We’re at the hotel dining room, the entire team sitting down at two separate tables, one for the ladies, one for the men, when I get an e-mail from an unknown source, with the heading Thought you might like to see this.

I open the attachment, and I see Scorpion, and a woman in familiar clothes, and familiar hair . . .

Brooke.

My.

Brooke.

On tiptoes. Mouth puckered. Kissing Scorpion. My blood drains, then shoots back through me with desperate anger. I don’t know what happened. Why I’m looking at this. But I shoot to my feet and send the table crashing to the ground. Coach ends up on the floor as I throw my cell phone and it crashes into the wall. Then I start for her.

“No, Pete, no!” she bursts out, panicked from her seat.

My blood boils as she calls out to her precious Pete, my body suddenly trembling as betrayal and hurt flood me. God, I want to shake her. I want to do more than shake her. I stop before her, breathing and trying to calm myself, squeezing my fists together with the urge to pound them on something. Brooke’s eyes are bright with worry, and the truth in them makes my gut sink.

“Do you want to talk to me, Remington?” she asks me, in deceptive calm.

My god, the gall of this woman. I’m shaking so bad my arms tremble beside me. My throat feels so raw, I can barely talk. I can barely even breathe. I’ve never given myself to anyone, and yet I’ve fallen like some fucking imbecile for her. I have never shared my music with anyone. I have never, ever, believed anyone could love me until I looked into her eyes and I thought I was her god. . . .

But I’m nobody’s god.

I’m just a fucking sick fool.

The pain is excruciating. I want to do some damage, but I just don’t want to damage her. My voice is grim with rage, and it’s a miracle I can even speak as I fight to stay in place, to keep my hands down, to try to control myself. “I want to do more than talk to you,” I rigidly tell her.

My nostrils flare, and I don’t want her to look at me in fear, but all I can see is her mouth.

Her beautiful mouth.

On that motherfucker’s face!

“All right, let’s talk. Excuse me, Diane.” She surprises me by saying it almost as calmly as if I’ve just proposed a fucking picnic to her! She pushes her chair back and makes a whole circus about folding back her napkin.

The anger builds inside me and I keep seeing, in my mind’s eye, her mouth puckered and kissing the very man whose fault it is I’m no longer a boxer. I want to grab her. I want to crush her to me and shake her. I flex my hands at my sides to keep them from doing that and more, and I can’t breathe right, I can’t think right. I want to kill Scorpion and carve his motherfucking skin off!

I want to throw something. I want to yell. I want to take her clothes off and fuck her and show her She. IS. MINE! Mine to touch, to hold, to protect.

“I just went to see my sister,” she breathes.

My gut coils in rage that she would not trust me to get her sister back to her like I’d promised.

I reach out, and my hand trembles as I touch her mouth, then I duck and angrily bite it. She gasps at the feel of my teeth, and it gives me pleasure, perverse pleasure, that she is reminded that that mouth is for me.

“You go negotiate with scum like him? Without me knowing?” I scrape my thumb across. I want to drag her up to my room and wash her mouth with soap. I want to lick it clean and then make her tell me that picture does not really exist!

“I went to see my sister, Remy. I couldn’t care less about the scum,” she softly tells me.

I touch her hair, trying to be slow while my insides roil and pull and twist, and I keep rubbing her lips. These are lips I love, lips that move me, that kiss me, the only lips I have ever thought loved me. “Yet you kiss that fucking asshole with the same mouth you kiss me?” I growl.

“Please just count to ten.” She touches my sleeve, and the anger rises in me even more. She thinks that I can count to a fucking million and forget this?

“One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten,” I angrily rush out, then I grab her collar and pull her to me, leaning over her with narrowed eyes. “You kiss that motherfucker with the same mouth I would kill for?”

“My lips hardly touched the tattoo,” she whispers pleadingly. “I did just what you do when you let them get a hit and give them false confidence so I could see my sis.”

I slam my chest. “You’re my fucking girl! You don’t get to give anyone false confidence!”

“Sir, we need you to leave the premises now.”

I swing around to watch some idiot coming over. Pete and Riley stop him and start telling him I’m going to pay for all the shit I do, and, hell, the man has no idea I have done nothing yet. He can stay and watch me break everything in this stinking place, and then I’ll gladly invite him to come over and watch me crack Scorpion’s skull in two.

Shooting him a warning glare, I turn back to Brooke and slide a finger down her pretty jaw, watching the way her breasts rise and fall with her panting breaths. “I’m going to go break that fucker’s face,” I whisper to her, then I lean over and push my tongue into her cruel, delicious little mouth, “and then I’m going to break you into submission.”

“Remy, calm down,” Riley begs me.

“That’s all right, Riley, I don’t break that easy, and he’s sure welcome to try,” Brooke snaps, scowling at me.

Scowling back, I fist her hair in my hand and crush her mouth with mine, giving her a hard, angry kiss meant to punish her. “When I get you in bed, I’m going to scrub you raw with my fucking tongue until there’s nothing anywhere on you from him. Only me. Only me.”

She seemed to like my punishing kiss—goddamn her—now I’m so fucking hard I want to take her right here, right now.

Her pupils are dilated, and her body seems to lean on mine as she breathes, “All right, take me there.”

I want to. Fuck, I almost do. Fuck everything else but me and her.

Jerking back, I look at her narrowly. “I don’t have fucking time to take care of you,” I snap before I head to the door.

“Remy, come back. Don’t get in trouble!” she calls out.

I stop, then I drag a bunch of air into my burning lungs, but it’s impossible to calm down, the anger and the possessiveness, the fucking jealousy in me is so great, greater than me.

I whirl around, then I jab the air with one finger so she fucking understands the situation and where we fucking stand. “Protecting you is my privilege. I will protect you and anything that you value as if it were mine.”

She stares breathlessly at me, and I don’t think she gets it. She loves her sister, but she needs to know that I am her man and she is untouchable by anyone but me. Anyone. But me.

“That sick asshole has just begged me to end his miserable life, and I’m happy to oblige,” I angrily inform her, running my eyes meaningfully over her body, every inch of which belongs to me as completely as mine belongs to her. “He’s just taken something sacred from me and pissed on it!” I storm back at her and push a finger between her breasts. “Understand me. You. Are. Mine!”

“Remington, she’s my sister,” she pleads.

“And the Scorpion will never let go of her. He keeps his women drugged and dependent, their minds in pieces so tiny they can’t even think. He’ll never give her up unless he wants something even more than her. Is it you? Does he want you, Brooke? He could have drugged you. Stripped you. Fucked you—goddamn my life, he could have fucked you!”

“No!”

“Did he touch you?”

“He didn’t! They’re doing this to provoke you, don’t let them! Save it for the ring tomorrow. Please. I want to be with you tonight.”

“I was with her the whole time, buddy, nothing happened,” Riley suddenly intercedes, calmly patting my arm.

When I realize what he’s telling me, I swing around to grab his shirt in my fist, the fury skyrocketing inside me. “You let my girl get in that scumbag’s face, you little shit?” I lift him off the ground.

“Remy, no!” Brooke comes to my side and futilely tugs on my arm.

I shake Riley. “You let her kiss that filthy scum’s ink?”

Pete taps my shoulder. “All right, buddy, let’s put Destroyer to bed now, huh?”

There’s a prick on my neck, and my adrenaline kicks in with a vengeance. Motherfucking shit, I can’t fucking black out now. I drop Riley and yank out the syringe and toss it aside. I go grab Brooke and stare at her. I want to tell her never to doubt me again, never to go behind my back again, and never—ever—believe I won’t protect her and what is hers, but I open my mouth and she looks so scared and so beautiful, panting and worried, that instead I make a low, gruff sound and crush her mouth, punishing myself with her taste, the sweet, wet taste of her, so pure and good, and how I hate that she put her beautiful mouth on that motherfucker because of her love for her sister. I tear free and release her before charging off.

My heart kicks wildly in my chest, fighting the sedative. All I can think of is introducing my knuckles into Scorpion’s face. I’m going to make him eat my fist, and then I’m going to make him go pick up his teeth from where they fall.

I know where he’s staying. We all know where each other is staying, if only to avoid each other. There are usually several hotels close to the designated Underground location, and Pete always finds out where Scorpion is so the only place we meet is in the ring.

He’s four blocks away, in a cheap five-story building littered with groupies at the lobby. When they see me, I hear a collective gasp, and all I have to do is growl, “Scorpion,” and two of them begin moaning excitedly and rubbing up against my sides, sandwiching me as we take the elevator. When we reach Scorpion’s floor, I get them to lead me to his door before I halt their roaming hands and squeeze their wrists so they stand still.

“Get them to open up,” I growl.

One of them rubs my chest while the other knocks. “Willie! Hey, Willie, it’s Trish,” she calls out.

The door opens and I immediately swing out my arm, my fist connecting with Willie’s face. He falls splat on the floor. Two other assholes sit on a flowery sofa watching TV, and they leap to their feet.

I go straight for the nearest one and grab him by the shirt. “Hello, motherfucker,” I tell him as I swing my fist. Bones crack. Blood sputters as I toss him down and grab the next, smashing my knuckles so his nose cracks just as hard. When I let him drop to his knees, I see him—Scorpion—at the door to a bedroom, his eyes slightly wide and as yellow as dog piss.

Clamping my jaw, I angrily stalk over as he lifts his palms up to ward me off. “Now, now, Riptide, you don’t want to do this here.”

“Yes, I do.” I grab his shirt and pound my fist three consecutive times into his face.

He tries to hit me back but I’m pounding him too fast. I shove him down to the ground and spot a girl there, crying, watching us from a chair by the bed. She looks nothing like Brooke. Her stare is empty, her hair is atrocious, and then I see a pencil at the nightstand as Scorpion tries standing. I grab it, and before he can stand, I ram it into the black tattoo he made Brooke kiss, tearing it downward. Blood spurts, and he releases a low, bloodcurdling scream as he tries to pull the pencil out.

As he winces and yanks it off, bloodied and broken, I pull him up by the T-shirt and force him to look at me.

“STAY. AWAY. FROM MY GIRL,” I spit into his face. “You MOTHERFUCKER. Stay away from my property. I’ll KILL you next time.”

I swing out, and the girl cries, “No!” and when I turn, his fist slams into my face.

I stumble back, then scowl, roar, and lunge at him. As we swing hard and fast, the only sounds in the room are the weeping of that girl and our hard, fast punches.

The thing about Scorpion is he’s not me. He’s not as fast, he’s not as strong—he will never win, unless he provokes the shit out of me and I fuck up like I did with my boxing career.

Like I’m doing now.

And I don’t care. Right now nothing will feel as good as breaking every one of his bones. Roaring, I deliver a killer right hook that drops him to his knees, and he raises his arms to stop me.

“Halt! I say, halt, Riptide!” My swing halfway there, I halt and glower down at him as he signals at her. “Do you want her?”

Blood dripping down my eyebrow, I wipe it off and look at her, as Scorpion grits out, “I’ll give her to you. I’ll let you take her if you let me win tomorrow.”

“I kill you now,” I growl, hauling him up by the shirt and forcing him to his feet with an angry shake of my fist. “And I take her.”

He shakes his head and pulls his shirt free. “Kill me and my three boys will tear her apart while you do.”

The soft weeping continues from the corner, and she’s whispering, “Please stop, stop.”

I scan the minions approaching her. I can take them all, but I don’t fucking want to do it in front of her. Clamping my teeth, I shove Scorpion away and approach her. I’m no fucking murderer even if the desire to kill is swimming in my veins, making me tremble. “You’re Brooke’s sister?”

She nods.

I take her by the arm and lift her to her feet. “You come with me.”

“Not so fast, Riptide,” Scorpion calls. “You want her, then one of your guys and mine stay with her in lockdown until you deliver the championship tomorrow.”

My laugh is dripping in sarcasm. “Ahh, asshole, when are you going to realize? I can give the championship away tomorrow, that won’t mean I won’t take it back. And when I do, everyone’s going to watch me break you.” I grab my phone and call Pete.

“Where the fuck are you—” he starts as soon as he answers.

“Get your ass over here. I need you to do something for me.” I tell him where I’m at and hang up.

Five minutes later, when Pete arrives, he sees my eyebrow is bleeding into my eye, that my fists are cracked and my knuckles bruised. He stares at Scorpion, his mouth hanging open. “Rem, what have you done,” he gasps.

“No one’s talking,” I stress out to placate him, and when he keeps gaping, I snap my fingers before his eyes. “Hey, hey, man, focus! You’re to secure Brooke’s sister until I tell you and they release her to me. Do you hear me?”

He blinks. “Dude, you need stitches.”

“I’ll get some fucking stitches,” I growl. “Just take her away from that asshole.”

I turn to look at Scorpion. Holy god, I still want to kill him. He’s slumped and bruised, and bleeding, but he has a gleam of victory in his eyes.

“I can’t wait to break you up on that ring,” he tells me as I walk out.

And it doesn’t matter.

♥  ♥  ♥

“AND NOWWWW, LADIES and gentlemen, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Our reigning champion, the defender, the one and only, Remington RIPTIDE Tate!”

I am zoned off from the crowd and even of the way my body is primed and pumped to fight. I trot out to the ring and all I can see is Brooke draped in this same fabric around her skin. It brushes against me. I feel calm. I am reminded that she’s the reason why tonight I’m going to be hitting the canvas.

I can feel her gaze on me as I hop into the ring and let Riley pull off my robe.

This is the moment I always look at her.

My stomach is burning with determination. If I look at her, she’ll be wearing that worried look on her face. She’ll weaken me. She’ll make me want to fight. Fuck.

The crowd yells my name in a chant, and I hate that she’s going to have to watch this. But she wants her sister back. I won’t let her be with Scorpion.

The announcer then calls, “And nooow, ladies and gentlemen, the nightmare you’ve all been dreading to come alive is here. Watch out for Benny the Blaaaaaack Scorpion!”

And here he comes, the motherfucker. Walking slow as poe to test my fucking patience, with both his middle fingers stretched out to me and the public.

He feels badass tonight ’cause he knows I won’t be having any game tonight.

I wait for him to get up here, reliving the way I stuck a pencil into his fucking tattoo. I think of Brooke kissing him and my blood boils again.

He hops onto the ring and his black cape is removed, and I’m glad to see the motherfucker looks like shit. He’s been stitched up where I carved the tattoo off his fucking skin, and his yellow eyes land on me, and I can see the joy he feels that he’ll get to publicly kick the crap out of me.

Ting ting.

For a blind second, instinctively, I feel my body start to bounce into place: guard up, feet apart, going toe to toe with him, but I catch myself before I swing and let him have it. He punches me in the ribs, then my jaw, double. I shake myself to recover, then go back toe to toe.

I’m so wired up, it even feels good.

Scorpion hits me right in the gut, then goes for an uppercut, and I straighten my head. I’m not going to be knocked down by those sissy swings. If I land on the canvas, I fucking land on it because I can’t stand.

I take three punches in the body again, chest, and rib cage, and my body, my muscle memory, is at war with my brain. I’m going against every single instinct inside me. But I tell myself I might not have the championship, but I will have her.

I can see myself and the way she will look at me when I bring her sister. She will have that young girl back and she will know, once and for all, that I will fucking do anything for her.

Scorpion goes for my jaw, then goes straight and knocks me to my knees. The public doesn’t like it. I stand up, a little dizzy.

“Boooo! Booo!”

“Kill the bastard, Riptide! KILL HIM!”

We keep going. Punch after punch, I concentrate on not protecting, on not punching back.

We’re going round after round, and I’m just taking it. I feel my systems shutting down somehow. My muscles throbbing, my skin bruised, my bones tender. My brain slowing, my lungs straining to oxygenate every bruised part of me. I don’t even know where it hurts, my body is producing tons of numbing shit, and I am grateful for it.

I wipe my forehead and keep breathing, my arm ends stained in blood from my eyebrows, my lips, my temple. I slam onto the ground again, and I hate that this motherfucker can’t knock me down unconscious even when I want him to. I jump back up and spit at him, angering the motherfucker so he will give it to me good.

“Remy, fight him!” I hear Brooke’s unmistakable voice, and it freezes me. “REMY, FIGHT HIM! FOR ME! FOR ME!”

I hear it. Holy god, she has never screamed for me like this. It breaks me, and for the briefest second, I want to knock Scorpion with whatever force I have left. I am the strongest, the fastest, so she knows I don’t go down. I am her mate and I want her to be proud of me. The jabs come, and all I can hear is her begging me to fight. For her. And for the first time in my life, I feel completely humiliated. Can’t she see I’m allowing this?

This one’s for you, little firecracker—ooof.

My breath goes, my body contracts to hold the pain. My thoughts scatter and my head spins.

He goes for my head now, and my brain spins in my cranium like jelly. I can hear his fist connecting with my jaw until my head swings on the last crack!

Keeping balance is impossible.

I slam to the floor.

I feel it under me. I almost like it. The only solid thing as my world spins. Something about knowing I can fall and the motherfucking floor is there for me is comforting.

A wet puddle of blood is beneath me. My eyes are nearly shut and swollen. And my ribs feel like they’ve been punched into my lungs. I plant a hand on the canvas, and then the other, and I hear counting. I try pushing up, and for a moment there I don’t know if I can.

I hate him. I hate him with a passion. All I can think about is me standing here, seeing those yellow eyes and that face, and busting it open the next time I face him.

I push up and spit blood, and as soon as I am up, I catch a left hook on my side that swings me around.

I stumble and almost fall again, need to shake my head. The room is spinning. And all I can think of are Brooke’s arms, and how good they will feel when she holds me tonight. I’m going to cuddle her to me and let her put ice on me and work her magic, and she’s going to love me for giving her back her sister because I thought I wanted the championship, but not now.

Now all I want is the woman I love. To love me. Like nobody in my life has loved me before. And I’ll fight harder for her than for anyone.

I hear Riley and Coach yelling at me over and over, “Your fucking guard! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

People yell all over the arena. They’re getting thirstier and thirstier for blood, but today I can only give them mine.

“KILL HIM, RIPTIDE! KILL HIM!”

The next hit sends blood splattering across the canvas, and the people shout even louder. “REM-ING-TON! REM-ING-TON!”

My heart has never pumped so hard. No part of my body understands why I’m not using it. My fight tonight is with myself, with every fucking instinct inside me, my muscles, which want to work, my nerves, which jump reflexively to protect. But I can’t move my right arm anymore. It hangs limp at my side, and it doesn’t even hurt.

“Remy, Remy, REMY!” people continue yelling.

Scorpion growls in rage. I know for a fact there has never been a moment in his life when anyone rooted for him.

I spit in his face. “Next time I see you, you’re going to eat my fist,” I tell him.

He swings his arm back with a roar and I wait for the slam. It comes and I’m down. My vision tunnels and goes black.

♥  ♥  ♥

I HEAR MUSIC in the dark. I hear the songs Brooke has played me, songs I have played her. My body aches and I try to move but can’t pull out of the dark. I feel hands on my jaw, and I hear sounds close to my ear. Sobbing little sounds. I feel her kisses on my temple, her fingers on top of my hair. I hear the music and lose it . . . lose her . . . No, I’m never going to lose her. I’d do everything for her. She has to know I’d do everything for her.

Light burns into my retinas. My body is leaden and numb. My chest hurts. I peel open my eyes wider and assess my surroundings.

Hospital. Riley.

And Brooke?

Panic seizes me. I try to talk and something is stuck in my throat, so I groan.

Riley’s head shoots up from where he sits in the chair. “You’re up, thank god!” He comes to me. “Holy god, Remington, I’m fucking glad you made it so I can kill you myself. You had us all—”

I grab his arm and squeeze so tight, he halts, and a noise emerges from my throat, through the stupid breathing tube I’ve got jammed in there.

“You want to know where Brooke is?” Riley asks when he looks into my eyes.

I nod and groan again. The panic claws through me. She saw the debacle in the ring, and I need to see that she’s all right.

When Riley goes to get her, I count the seconds with my heartbeat.

She comes in and stops when we see each other. I’ve never before felt what I feel now. Every cell in my body leaps, but at the same time I’m immobilized in this bed, trembling with the sight of her. She’s there, looking at me, in clothes that are wrinkled and her hair a mess, her face pale, and she has never looked so good to me. My body tenses with the urges burning through me. I want to tell her, I love you, Little Firecracker. I fucking love you so bad. . . .

I want her to bring me my iPod so I can play a song to her. “I Love You” again. Or another one. Shit, nothing can capture the feeling of loving her.

She starts trembling on her feet, and my eyes start burning when I hear the sobs that start wracking her. They tear from somewhere so deep, her voice sounds completely unfamiliar, and it makes me hurt in places I didn’t even know I had.

“How d-dare you make m-me watch t-that . . . how could you stand there and make me watch h-him destroy you! Your bones! Your face! Y-you . . . were . . . mine! Mine . . . to . . . to . . . hold. . . . How d-dare you break you! How dare you break me!”

My eyes are on fucking fire and I can’t fucking move, all I can do is lie here as her pain and mine tear through me.

“A-all I wanted was to help my sister and not g-g-get you in trouble. I also wanted to protect you, to take care of you, to be with you. I wanted to ss-stay with you until you were sick of me and didn’t need me. I wanted you to love me because I . . . I . . . Oh, god, but you . . . I . . . can’t. I can’t anymore. It’s hard to watch you fight, but to watch you murder yourself is . . . I won’t do it, Remington!”

I make noise and try to move even when an arm is in a cast, hating how heavy my body feels. My fast, trained body fails me, and it is as broken as I suddenly feel.

Tears trickle down her cheeks, and suddenly she comes to me and she touches my free hand and bends to my chest as she kisses my knuckles, her tears falling on my scars.

I want to touch her so bad I force my cast to move so I can place my hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair.

She wipes her cheeks and looks through tear-filled eyes at me, and I silently will her to understand that I can take this, that I can take a beating.

But suddenly she stands to go.

I grab her hand and clutch it as tight as I can without breaking her little bones. She pulls it free and grabs my face and sets a kiss on my forehead. I feel all her pain explode inside me, and she’s fucking killing me. A sound tears from my throat as I grab the tube and try pulling it out, and the machine goes crazy and so does Brooke.

“Remy, don’t, don’t!” she pleads, but I won’t fucking have it, I need to take this fucking shit off. I’ve never been a man of words, but I won’t have shit in my throat when I have something to say to her, but Brooke panics and yells for a nurse. “Nurse! Please!”

A nurse rushes into the room, and something shoots through the IV to my veins, and I am instantly as heavy as a bull and my head is closing in on me. Brooke looks at me with a face I will never forget. I think I broke her. She’s strong, she’s my mate, and she is naturally strong enough to take me—no.

Nobody can take me.

I see the look in her eyes, the same look I imagine everyone gets when they realize I’m hopeless. I’m a fucking mess. But then she smiles at me, and it’s a smile that brands itself in my head. I cling to it as I start sinking, trying to think of what song I will play her when I wake. . . .

♥  ♥  ♥

Dear Remington,

The very first moment I laid eyes on you, I think you had me. And I think you knew. How could you possibly not know? That the floor was shaking under my feet. It was. You made it move. You colored my life again. And when you came after me and kissed me, I just knew somewhere deep inside me, my life would forever be touched and changed by you. It has been. I have had the most amazing, incredible, beautiful moments of my life with you. You and your team became my new family, and never for one second did I really plan to leave. Not them, but most of all, not you. Every day I spent with you only makes me crave more of you. All I wanted for days was to be closer. It hurts to be close and not to touch you, and I wanted to spend every waking moment with you and every sleeping moment in your arms. So many times now, I wanted to tell you all the ways you make me feel, but I wanted to hear you say it first. My pride is gone now. I have no room for it, and I don’t want to regret not telling you: I love you, Remy. With all my heart. You are the most beautifully complicated, gentle fighter I’ve ever known. You have made me deliriously happy. You challenge and delight me and make me feel like a kid inside, with all the amazing things to look forward to, just because I was looking at the future and thinking of sharing it all with you. I’ve never felt so safe as when I am with you, and I want you to know I am completely in love with every part of you, even the one that just broke my heart.

But I can’t stay anymore, Remy. I can’t watch you hurt yourself, because when you do, you’re hurting me in ways I never thought anybody ever could, and I’m afraid of breaking and never being right again. Please never, ever, let anyone hurt you like this. You are the fighter everyone wants to be, and this is why everyone in the world loves you. Even when you screw up, you get back up fighting again. Thank you, Remy, for opening your world to me. For sharing yourself with me. For my job. And for every time you smiled at me. I want to tell you to get well soon, but I know that you will. I know you will be blue-eyed and cocky and fighting again, and I’ll be in your past, like all the things you’ve overcome before me. Just please know that I will never hear “Iris” again without thinking of you.

Yours always,

Brooke

I’ve read this letter over and over today. I’ve read it in disbelief, in anger, in self-loathing, in loneliness, in desperation, but never in detachment. And now, I read it another time, and it’s finally sinking in that she—my girl—has left me. My body implodes and I groan and drop my head with the sort of intense pain they don’t make painkillers for. My eyes blurring, I scrape my thumbs over the I love you, Remy over and over while I hear Pete out in the living room, talking as if it’s a normal day.

Another fucking day of the life of Riptide.

Before he ever met . . . her.

“Fifteen hundred shares of that one. Sell. . . . Yes.” There’s a silence that makes me figure out he hung up, and I watch the doorknob turn as he peers into the bedroom. The curtains are open, and he starts when he sees me. “Your eyes are blue.”

I rub my face and try to piece the past weeks together in my head, but all I can think of is bits of this letter. I love you, Remy. . . . You have made me deliriously happy. . . .

Pete steps into the room and strides over. “You’ve been out for almost three weeks. Do you remember?”

Silent, I just look at him, holding the letter in my hand.

“Remington, do you realize what you did? You lost the fucking championship. You threw. The fight! You gave up everything you’ve worked for. Every last penny of your liquid cash is gone. Years of endorsements and work. The championship . . . gone.” His voice breaks, and he looks at me. “Do you remember that?”

“I know what I did, Pete. Nothing I gave up is something I can’t get back.”

“You, you moron. You could have fucking died! Remington, who fucking does that? You willingly let him beat you unconscious.”

Twisting around, I sit on the side of the bed and rub my neck with one hand as I stare down at the letter and impulsively smell it. Fuck, it smells like her. Even the sight of her handwriting gets me.

Riley comes in.

“He’s blue,” Pete instantly informs him.

“Hell, that’s fucking great! Hey, Rem.”

I look at them, and they’re my brothers. My brothers I care about. “You’re disappointed,” I tell them.

“We’re not disappointed, dude, we worry about you. No woman is worth that,” Pete says.

“She is.” But I’m so fucking pissed at her for leaving me, I crumple the letter in my fist and stand. “I’m sorry about the fight. I’ll make it up to the team.”

“We’re not sorry for us,” Pete repeats.

I stretch one biceps, then the other, testing my body while I ask, “Scorpion?”

“Somewhere in the Bahamas or some shit. Having fun spending your money,” Pete says, still sounding glum.

“Put the Austin home up for sale,” I mumble. “That should get us through this season.”

He nods. “We’ve also got some endorsement interest. You’ve been doing great—”

“What about her? Is she all right?”

They blink.

“Brooke.”

“Dude, why are you asking?” Pete looks at me in alarm, then at Riley, then at me. “You’re getting over her, Rem. You’ve had like dozens of ladies over! They’re wild for some Riptide, just like old times!”

“Yeah, Rem, the kinds of ass you get,” Riley says. “Jesus!”

An image flashes in my head of gold eyes, brimming with tears, in a hospital room. I stare down at the letter and uncrumple it from my fist, aware of Pete and Riley watching me, and then watching each other.

“Dude, hand that over, I can put that away for you.” Pete comes over for the letter.

I instantly fist my hand around it. “You touch it, you die.”

He drops his arm and sighs, and I look at both of them. “Where’s her sister?”

“Not out of rehab yet. Another week.”

I keep testing my body. Coach must be using the TENS machine on me to maintain muscle mass. I fold my muscles, they’re hard as ever. All electronically manipulated to make them believe I trained—when I did not.

“Coach has been shocking every inch,” Riley says, confirming my thoughts. “You’re filled up with glutamine and all kinds of supplements.”

I drop to the floor and do a push-up. Nice. It flows. My back isn’t fucked from lying in bed. I jump up and twist my neck, then I open my suitcase and spot my boxing robe. And I know, with every inch of me, if I grab it, it’s going to smell like her. In that moment the urge to expend all my rapidly building energy becomes acute. “Call Coach, let’s hit it hard.”

“You’re seriously going to train? You’ve been in the hospital for over two weeks and getting shocks in the head! That’s the only way we could pull you out of your depression.”

“But I’m good now.” I take her letter and my training gear into the bathroom, then I open the letter and read it again: I love you, Remy.

I close my eyes and throw it away.

Then I go get it, read it, and trace her letters. Damn you, Brooke. You should’ve told me to stay away. That you hated me. That you can’t live with someone like me. Instead you tell me my team is your family. That you’re happy. That you think about me when you hear my songs. You tell me that you fucking love me. Now, Brooke, I’m coming after you.

♥  ♥  ♥

EVERYONE EXCEPT DIANE, rides in the Escalade. We’re only blocks away from the building and there’s a war zone in my chest. I drum my fingers on my thighs while the knot in my gut tightens as we get nearer. Brooke needs to be set fucking straight, and I’m sure when she sees the little package we’ve brought, there won’t be much explaining to do.

I rub the back of my neck and then ram my hand into my jeans and grab the letter. The letter burns me. I’ve read it until my eyes cross and they burn from my rage. She held me like I was golden. She said she’d never leave and every inch of me believed her. I want to know what I said. I want to know what I fucking did. I want to know if she meant what she said in her fucking letter or if it’s all a load of fucking bullshit.

“Oh, there’s Brooke, and Melanie,” Pete says from the back.

My head snaps toward the two figures trotting down the sidewalk as the car heads farther down the block to stop before her apartment. Holy god, it’s her.

My heart starts pumping, the arteries in my heart widening to feed my muscles. I curl my fingers and yank open the door, but Pete and Riley descend from the car first. I step out on the sidewalk after them, and I see her. And she sees me. And we stare, neither of us moving. My eyes have been so starved, they hurt when I take her in—ponytail, running shoes, exercise gear, the oval face I dream of and those marshmallow lips of my fantasies and those gold eyes shining as they look back at me.

God, I love you.

With every bit of my fucking being, and every inch is buzzing at the sight of her. She wears tight running gear and sweat glistens on her forehead and throat, her hair held back in a cute ponytail, and she’s frozen on the spot as she looks at me. I don’t know if she’s going to launch herself at me when she starts to move; all I know is, if she does, I’m so fucking ready to catch her. I’m going to catch her and never set her down on the ground.

Jesus, she looks so right and so glad to see me, I get all knotted up as they start heading for the three of us.

“Miss Dumas?” Pete asks her as she and her friend keep heading over. “We believe this belongs to you?”

He signals past me, and from our Escalade Nora emerges.

Brooke looks at me first, then blinks. “Nora?”

“Nora?” her friend Melanie repeats.

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

“Nora?” Brooke can’t take her eyes off her sister, and my chest swells at the joyous disbelief on my little firecracker’s face.

“It’s me!” Her sister runs over for a hug, and I’ve never been jealous of a woman before, but I want Brooke’s arms around me, her scent in my nostrils, in my lungs, caressing my soul. “It’s me, big sis! I’m back! I’ve done work in rehab. Pete helped me. And I got the tattoo off.” She points to the place where Scorpion’s fucking ink used to mark her face. “I felt so little when you looked at me that day, Brooke. I felt so little and so . . . dirty.”

“No! No, never!” Brooke hugs her again, and my gut clenches in jealousy and my arms feel leaden with the want to go around her.

“Nora! Nora Camora Lalora Crazyora!” Brooke’s crazy, funny friend dives for Nora and swings her around, and Brooke turns to stare at the group of us, my heart kicking in anticipation.

But she looks at Pete, only making the knot in me tighten even more. “Pete, what’s going on?”

“Surprise.” He signals happily at her sister. “She’s done great. She’s such a sweet girl.”

Then he nods in my direction, and Brooke’s gold eyes return to me, but I can’t take standing here, like she’s not mine, and I’m not hers. I ram my hands into my jeans pocket and can’t stop checking her out, the way her curves fill out, her sweat clings to her pretty skin.

“The night Remy went to fight with Scorpion, Scorpion offered your sister to him instead of the championship. And Remy agreed,” Pete explains.

I watch her, and her eyes meet mine in utter confusion, and I wait for her to say something.

“You mean he agreed to . . . lose?”

My body tightens at the disbelief there, at the pain. She thought I did it because I’m a fucking BP, and I know it.

She starts shaking her head, clinging to my eyes with hers. I see her pulse pounding, her face changing in color, her eyes darkening in pain.

“You did this for . . . Nora?” she breathlessly asks me.

She’s so exquisite, she’s my girl, my little firecracker, and when her eyes flood with tears, I want them to fall only so I can lick them away.

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.”

Riley stands by me, and the girls are looking back at us. No. Melanie is looking at Riley. But Brooke can’t take her eyes off me. I push my hands deeper into my pockets. I could grab her to me. Crush her to me. Give her a punishing kiss for leaving me, and then a loving kiss because I’m fucking insane about her.

She wraps her arms around herself and drops her head. “Why didn’t you tell me? That you threw the fight for . . . her?”

She looks forlorn, and, god, I wanted her to feel protected by me. Not ashamed of what I will do for her. “You mean for you,” I softly tell her.

“I didn’t know either, Brooke,” Riley says. “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.”

Her eyes briefly meet Riley’s, then they come back to roam all over me. I can feel her touch. Her want. It’s in her eyes, trembling in her voice. I want to reach it, touch it, see it, feel it closer.

“How are you? Are you all right?” she asks me, and her sweet concern makes it impossible to think straight. I only nod. I’m not all right, little firecracker, not even near all right.

“What does this loss mean for you now?” she asks. She wants to talk, but I don’t want to talk about the Underground. I lost something far more important that day and I want it back.

“Other than we’re poor?” Riley answers for me. He chuckles too hard. “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?” Brooke asks, those gold eyes softly massacring me.

I want to tell her that for a month I have not been aware of everything I have, only what I don’t.

“Well, time to go.” Riley slaps my back. “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 gives her the card with the details. “In case you’re interested, Mr. Tate’s number, if you consider, is on the back. There’s the hotel where we’re staying too. We leave in three days.”

Riley climbs into the car, and so does Pete, but I wait for her reaction.

She looks at me, and I stare directly back at her.

My pulse is wild as I want to say a thousand things, play her a thousand songs, and nothing comes out. Out of the mess inside me, the roil and tangle of emotions, I can’t say a single word. Not even Why? Why did you leave me. Why did you say you loved me and leave me.

“You’re looking good, Remy,” Melanie says happily.

I smile briefly because I like the way she makes Brooke laugh. I like that Melanie gave me the phone number that started all of this.

She skips away and Brooke remains watching me, and I don’t even know where to begin. In my life, nobody has ever told me what she told me in that letter. I’m used to being dropped. I’m conditioned to expect it. But when she said she’d never tire of me, I believed her. When she played me a song about loving me, I fucking believed her. And I need her to come back to me on the same two long, sleek legs she used to leave me.

“You know where to find me,” I murmur, then I get in the car with the guys and we ride off.

I grab her letter and squeeze it, and for a moment I’m angry again. At myself. At her. At my fucked-up body. I could go back and carry her up to her own fucking apartment, fuck her brains off, and remind her who she cries for, who her man is, perfect or not.

But my pride is so battered, I feel like that stupid boy left at a mental institute, who kept waiting for somebody to come and get him out.

♥  ♥  ♥

I RUN AND run until I am dripping, and even then, every inch of me is tense and waiting. Tomorrow we’re scheduled to leave. And I know I can’t leave without her. I know me, and I’m going to come back and take her if she doesn’t come.

Still, I want for once in my life for someone to come to me because they feel I’m worth it. No, not someone. Her. I want the woman I love to come to me because at last someone in this world understands me. How the fuck am I supposed to leave, to live, without her?

I go back to the suite and slam the door—

And like a vision, I see her, sitting in the living room with Pete and Riley.

She leaps to her feet and an awareness of every stitch of clothing she wears and every detail of her seizes me. I feel the calm I feel for a fraction of a second before a fight, and then the fight is inside me. A thousand emotions racing one after the other. The air buzzes with tension. I can feel arcs of lust leap between us, pulling at my gut. My chest heaves, and I am stunned, and still angry, and then I’m just desperate to bury all of this turmoil I feel inside her and remind her that she’s fucking mine.

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

“Yes, Brooke, I want to talk to you too.”

I start walking and let her follow, hating how her voice gets me. The scent of her reaches me, and as I lead her into the master and close the door, my instincts betray me, and I curl a hot hand around her neck and bend to drag a deep inhale of her into my lungs.

She grabs my T-shirt in her fists and buries her face in me. “Don’t let me go please,” she begs. Renewed anger makes me wrench free, and I hate my weakness.

“If you want me so much, then why’d you leave?” I demand. She sits at the foot of the bed, on a bench, and I am so vividly pained I cross my arms, blocking myself. “Did I say anything when I was manic?”

She looks at me with emotion and her voice carries it. “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,” she admits, and blushes all the way up her throat to her cheeks.

I keep waiting for her to tell me the rest, and when she doesn’t, I remind her. Because it’s something I have played in my head this past month—every part of that moment.

“You forgot the part where we played each other a song,” I murmur, and I can’t keep looking at her when every ounce in me demands I make a connection.

I take her hand and hear her breath catch softly as I lift her fingers to my lips. My pulse starts getting faster as I turn her hand, spot the flatness of her palm, and drag my tongue over it.

“That picture made me very angry, Brooke,” I tell her into her skin as I drag my tongue all over, tasting her. “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.”

I add my teeth, and it affects her, and her voice trembles through her lips. “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.”

I nod in agreement, my eyes running over her in confusion. “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!”

Her eyes glisten. “Remy, I’m sorry!” she cries.

I groan in pain and go get the letter from the pocket of my jeans on the chair. I have read it until my eyes can barely stay open. I have held it at night, in my fist, when I was black and depressed and kept telling myself that I was worth something to her. “Did you mean what you wrote to me?” I demand.

“Which part?”

I yank the letter open and point at the words I have clung to, like a sick man, words nobody has ever said to me before. Words I want to hear from her, feel from her:

I love you, Remy.

I want so much to hear it, it infuriates me, makes me crumple the paper again and look at her, burning with need, anger, and despair. Did she mean it? She stares at me and suddenly she begins to nod, and my body tightens with want to hear it. My senses scream. My heart hurts.

“Say it,” I whisper.

“Why?”

“I need to hear it.”

“Why do you need to hear it?”

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

Her eyes well with tears, and they tear at me, but I can’t stop pushing, I need to know with every part of me, I’m so fucking hurt.

“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.”

I scan her features, one by one, and suddenly feel her little finger connecting with a scar on my eyebrow, arrowing pure heat and emotion to my core.

She bursts out saying, “I love you. I love you.” My breath seizes as she painfully rushes the words out. “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!”

I close my eyes. I love you making my breath rattle, leaving me shaken, tormented.

She drops her hand and sounds pained and afflicted. “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?”

I grab her face between my open palms, and I feel the shudder that runs through her body as she absorbs my touch. I look into her eyes and I am not ashamed. I am proud. I am letting her know, quietly, before I tell her in words, what she means to me.

“I’d do it a thousand times for you.” I scent her, and I want to growl when I hear her scenting me. “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 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 only sorry that only Pete could know. He stayed in a hotel room with her and one of Benny’s thugs, then helped transfer her when I delivered the championship. I just couldn’t let you stop me, Brooke.”

“But you wouldn’t even look at me. . . .” She squeezes her pretty 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.”

She covers her face, and I can see her suffering. I can feel it inside me.

I release her, a painful sound wrenching out of me.

I stand and pace, simmering with frustration and helplessness. “I knew this would happen.” My scowl bites into my face and my fucking helplessness eats at me. “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!”

I look at her questioningly, surprised at first, and then dead serious. “Brooke, you honestly don’t know?”

She stares, and I kneel before her and hold her face between my hands.

“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. The former fight I swear I just fought for you to 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 and went 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 tell her how I googled her. How I immediately told Pete to send her these tickets. How I saw those videos on YouTube. How I decided to hire her.

She looks flabbergasted for a moment, her face going pale, her eyes going even wider.

“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 fight, I was manic and high on you before I could even get you into my bed.

“And then you woke 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 playlist just trying to find one song 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 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,” she whispers.

“I was right, Brooke,” I add, looking firmly into her eyes. “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 explain to her what went down in the hotel room with Scorpion, her eyes going soft and teary as she listens to me tell her everything, and that it’s the first time I did something right when I was black.

I edge closer and nuzzle her temple, and she shudders against me when I whisper near her 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 . . .” I draw back to look at her. “I’m so fucking in love with you I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore.”

She nods and wipes her tears, and I can see the way she’s struggling with her feelings like I am.

“You’re going to want to leave me again,” I whisper, cupping her jaw. “You can’t, Brooke, you can’t leave so easy.”

I stroke another hand down her hair, and she curls into it, like a kitten seeking my 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.” I grab her hair in one fist and pull her close. “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.”

She presses her body to mine and hooks her slim arms around my neck, her shirt getting soaked with my sweat. “Not my screwup. My Real.”

I groan and lick her cheek, and she sinks into my arms as I take my mouth lower. I lick her jaw, her chin, and then her lips. Holy god, I think I won’t ever lift my head from these soft, pink, edible lips. I feel her shudder against my diaphragm, and I slip my arms around her back and draw her closer. I lick my way into her mouth, probing her entry, until she opens and gasps and lets me.

“Don’t fucking leave me ever again,” I murmur, my tongue tracing her lips, top and bottom, then delving deep inside as I open my hands on her ass and give it a squeeze.

She makes me high, rubbing her nipples on my chest, making me throb in every part of me.

“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,” I rasp as I reach under her dress to pull at her panties.

I love that she wore a dress, that she looks sexy, female. Mine.

I want to peel it off with my fucking teeth and try not to get rough as I pull her panties off her legs as she confesses, “I’ve got some too, I want to spend all day playing them to you.”

When I’ve got her naked, I haul her back on my lap, and she’s got me in tangles, my cock pulsing against her through my shorts.

She straddles me and rubs my hard-on, and she’s trembling with need. “I love you,” she breathes, and I take it from there.

♥  ♥  ♥

HOURS LATER, SHE’S spent in my bed.

Brooke Sexy-as-Fuck Dumas.

I could lie here with her all night.

Her shiny mahogany hair is spread all over my chest and falling down my right shoulder.

Her warm breath coasts over my pecs while her long, slim, little fingers are sweetly delineating the squares of my abs.

My hands run up and down her back.

I don’t know what to touch, where to lick, bite, suck, I just want to do it all at once.

I take a loose strand of hair to rub it between two fingers, then I bend my head and inhale. My head buzzes as her scent fills my lungs. I can never get over the way that feminine scent gets into my gut, tangles me like a knot. It’s a sweet fragrance unique to her, and the first time I caught a whiff, I knew she was mine.

All mine.

I’m not letting anyone take her.

I’m not letting her go.

I’m her Real.

She’s Mine.

I can barely fit inside my skin. I feel like a fucking king who’s just inherited a kingdom named Brooke Little Firecracker Dumas.

I open a hand to cup the back of her head and place a kiss on her forehead. She moans softly and turns her head to kiss my chest. I peer down at her pretty face and trace my thumb along her lower lip. I’m wild about this mouth. The things it says to me. The things it does to me. The way it feels, the way it tastes, the way it looks.

I drag my lips along her forehead, the shell of her ear, inhaling her and feeling every inch of her small, lean body against mine. She’s sweaty and sticky with me and she’s warm as a little sun. I nuzzle her earlobe and then I lick her, pushing my tongue gently into the crevice.

I feel her shudder as I pet my other hand down her head and then down her smooth back while I have my way with her ear, slowly letting my tongue make love to it, and I can’t get enough.

I pull her over me and swipe her hair to the side, then I bury my face in her neck so her nose is tucked into my throat and I’m tucked in hers. “Brooke Dumas,” I murmur huskily into her ear. “I love you, my little firecracker.”

She sighs into my neck and slides her hands into my hair and sifts her fingers through my scalp. “I’m so happy,” she says. She eases back and looks at me, her eyes shining in the darkness.

She meets my gaze with a smile, and I know I’m smiling back at her, and she’s naked like I like her and suddenly my eyes rake her up and down. I’ve been starved for the sight of her, and now I’m going to look my fill until my eyes burst. Her breasts, her abs, her toned little arms, her slim throat, her lovely chin, her high cheekbones, her smart, proud little forehead.

“Remy . . .” she whispers.

She reaches out with one hand, and she starts caressing my jaw so tenderly it’s like she can’t believe she’s in my arms.

I cup her little face in my big hand and stroke my thumb across her lips because I can’t believe it too.

“Come here.” I sit up and cup the back of her head and pull her to me. I bury her face in my neck and squeeze her closer. She straddles me and wraps her arms around my neck. She kisses my neck and I rub my hands all over her body.

“You won’t leave me again,” I growl softly into her hair, and she kisses the tendons of my neck, then grasps my jaw in her small hands and kisses my nose, my forehead.

“I love you. I’m going to say it until you’re so sick and tired of hearing it, you’ll kiss me to shut me up,” she tells me.

I laugh. “That’ll never happen.” I clutch her tight and pull her face back. “I’ll kiss you anyway.”

I buzz her lips and she licks me softly, like I lick her, and I growl and suckle her tongue. I love her so much. She’s given me love in ways no one in my life ever has. I had never known someone could love me until she loved me. So alien it is to me, I wasn’t even sure why she spent nights stroking my head and I’d wake up to find her sleepy but still running her little hands all over me. I know how she defends me when I can’t. I know how strong she is. As strong as I need her to be.

“I’m going to rain kisses all over you,” she whispers.

I growl softly and nod. When she speaks, I listen because her words are my sweetest music. When she tells me her stories, about her friends. Her words have always done stuff to me—and her touch . . .

The knots inside me tighten as she drags her teeth up my jaw, up to my temple, and I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale heavily through my nostrils while my body responds fiercely to her caresses.

My muscles tense; my heart picks up, and I want to sink inside her and feel her warmth and her love, her understanding and her acceptance. Making love to her makes me feel whole and perfect, like I was made to provide and protect and mate with this woman. My woman.

She just came back to me.

I’ve been hurting like a motherfucker for over a month, wanting nothing but my Brooke.

I want her to know that she’s mine. That I’m going to protect her and that I’m going to be there for her. That I love her. That it doesn’t matter to me anything except she’s here and she’s not leaving me again because I won’t allow it. Not a single part of me will allow it.

No. I’m the one who wants to feel that she’s mine.

That she’ll never leave me.

That she will love me and touch my face and my hair in the way she touches me and everything inside me goes still and focuses on that single tender touch, the point of contact of my body with hers.

I rub my thumb over her tears and lick them one by one as they keep coming, my brain shooting a thousand words in my head. Female. Beautiful. Mine. I want to say it all but instead I don’t say anything and roll her over and cover her. I tug on her earlobe, and her sobs have turned to whimpers as I ease inside her. She slides her arms up my chest and curls her fingers on my shoulders, and I grab her breasts and squeeze them gently like she likes, then I kiss each tip with only my lips.

She arches her spine and mews when I add my teeth on the tips, and a shudder rocks her body when I swipe the little, hard points with my tongue.

She twists her neck aside when I twirl my tongue up her skin, and she opens her throat to me. I bite close to her pulse point, and she gasps and grabs my hair to lock me in place. She moves her body under mine, keeping my face to her neck. My every muscle is coiled for release. My body is used to pain, I’ve trained it to embrace it, but this is soul deep and I hurt with it.

I lick the spot on her neck where I just bit, and she claws her nails along the bunched up muscles on my back. “Remington . . .”

A desperate plea is in her voice. I grasp her hips and thrust harder as I sink my teeth into her and suck her skin.

Mine.

If I’d even known she existed before, I would have hunted her.

I would have caught and conquered her.

Mine mine mine.

I scrape her gently with my teeth and then suck again. A bubbling sound leaves her and she tightens her hold on my head. I smooth my tongue out to caress the spot in case it stings, and then I take it up again, sucking so it leaves a mark, so that she will feel it, feel me on her skin tomorrow. She shudders. I delve my hand to rub her beautiful little clit as I mark her.

I’m going to mark her in every way I can. I want her to wear the clothes I give her, the food I get her, I want her to wear my ring, my body on hers, I want her to wear my name.

Mine.

She’s going to be mine.

In every way possible.