Remy

PAST ATLANTA

The heavy bag swings. Slam. Wham. It swings, side to side, as I drive my fist into the center and follow with my left, then my right. Slam. Wham. Thunk. Slam.

Coach tells me I’m showing off, and I’m not going to waste my words and explain to him the ways I intend to keep showing off my moves in front of her.

I picture Scorpion, my mortal nemesis’s face, in the center of my bag and wham. Bam. Thunk.

When I boxed with professionals, everyone wanted my ass. I was younger, faster, and stronger—you’re not taught this shit. You have a good fist, or you don’t, and fists were all I had. But when I look at Brooke, I’m aware of another use for my hands, how their palms and the tips of my fingers want to trace every inch of her slim, lean, little body.

“What is Remington having for breakfast?” she asked Diane this morning as she walked into the suite.

I perked up at the table, and when Brooke noticed, she smiled and said, “Good morning, Remington.”

The way she says my name feels like a lick across my body.

“Good morning, Brooke,” I rumbled.

Pete and Diane observed us in noticeable amusement.

Once Brooke had brought her plate over to the table and sat on the opposite side of where I was, I watched her slide the fork into her mouth and suddenly became so thirsty that I jammed a carrot into my mouth. She licked the corner of her lips, and I wanted to go over there and haul her down with me, on my lap, lick up the flavors from her mouth.

I leaned back as Pete told me something, and I wanted to toss all the plates aside and spread her on this table, get her ass in my hands, lick my tongue across her spine and up to her neck while my fingers worked all the soft and wet spots of her. I grunted at the thought.

“What?” Pete says.

She looked up at me.

I scowled at Pete. “What?” I said.

He shook his head and stood while Diane asked Brooke something about how she dealt with all these men. When she laughed at that, my body tightened and I stared. Her throat curved back, her ponytail falling. I wanted to pull it down as I tipped her head back and kissed her.

“You done?” Riley asked from the door. You done ogling her? I could see him think.

Scowling, I grabbed my stuff as we headed off.

Now I’ve been pounding the bags—all of them—as fast and hard as I can, and I still can’t get rid of all this extra energy. Pausing for a moment, I look at her on the sidelines, hot as fuck in her tight exercise gear and ready to put her hands on me. I want them so badly, tonight I want to keep her for hours in my room, working on my body.

On me.

Hours later, I’m prepped and primed by the time I’m in the Underground locker room.

My body engages when the announcer calls, “Remington Tate, Riiiiiptide!”

Screams burst across the arena, rushing through me. I trot outside, and I know exactly what to do when I hit the ring. I draw it out for the crowd tonight, and I take my time tossing my robe aside and making my turn, amused by the screams, the kisses flying at me, the banners.

“And now, the famed and acclaimed Owen Wilkes, the ‘Irish Grasshopper’!”

Grasshopper heads for the ring, and while the crowd takes him in, I look at Brooke. She sits with her dark hair down while the corners of her sweet, little mouth are curled upward for me, and for as long as I’ve lived, I’ve never seen something so pretty from up here.

The bell snaps me back to attention.

I head to center. Grasshopper is in my peripherals, jumping side to side like a fucking springboard. He’ll wear out soon. I wait and watch him. I see my opening on his side. I swing, slamming my fist into his gut, knocking him out.

“Remyyyyyyy!” people scream.

The line of opponents keeps building as I fight my way to the Butcher. He’s twice my weight and three times as wide, but nobody cares about that. He draws blood, and so do I.

He takes the ring with the agility of a meatball. Then he looks at me. I look at him.

The bell rings: Ting.

We take positions and eye each other over our knuckles. Butcher is known to wait boxers out, but I’m impatient to get things going. My knuckles knock into his jaw several times; I start with easy, quick hits, then I edge back and Butcher comes at me with a solid punch to the side that rocks me back a step. It takes me a moment to get back in position. I inhale through my nose, then my arms shoot out and I bury my fists, one after the other, into Butcher’s flabby stomach. I back off and watch him swing, and instead of covering, I take the hit. He slams me again.

“Boo! Boohooo!” the crowd shouts. I see his fist coming at me again, and I catch it with my face. My head swings and blood flies from my mouth. That’s better.

Straightening, I lick up the metal taste in my mouth.

He slams me down to one knee.

The screams intensify, and I know the entire arena must be looking at me, but I’m only aware of her eyes on me. I jump back to my feet and wipe my bleeding lips. Endorphins kill the pain. I glance at her, but the look on her face gives me pause. She’s white as paper. Hell, she looks ready to bolt. I’m so damned puzzled by the worry in her face, I take another punch. This one rocks my balance and before I know it, I’m bouncing against the ropes, something I never do.

“REMY . . . REMY . . . REMY!” the crowd starts chanting.

I’m caked with sweat and my mouth is still bleeding when I straighten and notice Brooke is not even watching me fight anymore. She’s dropped her head and stares at her lap.

Fuck.

Yeah, that’s the way to impress her, you fucking dickhead.

Clamping my jaw, I straighten and glance into Butcher’s keen brown eyes. “Playtime’s over,” I growl, and I swing out one of my most powerful punches, feeling the crack of his ribs under my knuckles. He crashes like a dead weight on the mat, and the crowd comes alive with a roar. “Yeah!” I hear the collective yell, then the chant, “REMY! REMY! REMY!”

I stand by as the counting begins, and a knot of frustration and disappointment tightens in my chest when Brooke still doesn’t look at me. Finally, the announcer’s voice bursts through the speaker as the ringmaster comes to raise my arm. “Our victor, ladies and gentlemen! Riptide! Ripppppptiiiiiide! Yes, you hungry ladies out there, scream your hearts out for the baddest bad boy this ring has ever seen! Rippppppptiiiiiide!”

The crowd starts shrieking my name, and I quickly jump off the ring and grab a Gatorade from the bucket at Coach’s feet.

“Remington,” he snarls.

I shake my head and stalk down the walkway. I could tell by his tone that he wanted to have words, and I’m not in the mood to get my head chewed off in front of Brooke.

Back at the hotel, back in my room, I drop down on the bench at the foot of my bed and wait, sipping my Gatorade, replaying the pretty smile she gave me before the fight.

By the time she walks into my room, I’m so impatient, it feels like I’ve waited for this girl all my life. Our eyes lock, and the hunter in me goes wild. Her cheeks are flushed, and her legs long and endless in those jeans she wears. I want those legs and those arms around me, that mouth under mine, whispering my name. Fuck me, when can I have her? I loathe thinking I’m going to make her mine and the day my dark side catches up with me, she’ll be gone, her walls will be up and she won’t let me in, and I will be forever every woman’s adventure. A sex god and a plaything. Nobody’s real. Nobody’s choice. Nobody’s anything.

“Like the fight?” I ask her.

“You broke the last one’s ribs,” she tells me, breathless.

I drain my Gatorade and send the bottle spinning across the floor as I force the knots in my chest to loosen. “Are you worried about him, or me?” I can’t believe I’m fucking jealous of the Butcher.

Her lips pull at the corners. “Him, because he’s the one who won’t be able to stand tomorrow.”

Then—finally!—she comes and does what I secretly wanted her to do. She kneels between my thighs and starts to smear a thick, shiny paste over the cut on my lower lip. I get instantly hard. Her sweet scent teases my nostrils, and I force my body not to move a single muscle so she doesn’t stop what she’s doing.

God, she smells like a fucking angel.

“You,” I hear her suddenly admit to me, her voice a soft whisper. “I worry about you.”

I stare at the top of her head and want to bury my nose in all that dark hair and sniff her until the world ends. She covers up the salve tin and remains on her knees and seems to consider what to do next. I want her hands all over me, so I wrack my brain to find the source of my biggest discomfort, other than my dick.

“I messed up my right shoulder, Brooke.”

A spark of concern flashes in her gaze, and when she notices my smile, she rolls her eyes at me and sighs. “With a bulldozer like you, I knew it was too much to hope you’d survive this night with just a cut lip.”

“Are you going to come fix it?”

She pushes to her feet but huffs as if she doesn’t want to. “Of course. Someone has to.”

I’m amused by her, how she acts tough and sassy with me. I like it.

She heads to the back of the bed and grabs my shoulders in her hands. She prods expertly into my tissue, and when she hits the spot, an annoying pain starts to awaken. I zone out of there and focus on the feel of her cool, little fingers.

“That ugly bastard landed a pretty hard one here. He landed a lot of hard ones. Does it hurt?” she whispers. She eases on her investigations for a second, then she pushes even deeper.

She’s pushing so hard, a fractionally amused part of me wonders if she wants to make me sound like a pussy and say, Yes. “No.”

“I’ll rub you down with arnica, and we’ll do cold therapy.”

She sounds businesslike as she works some nice-smelling oil into my skin. I hear the slick sounds as her touch slides over my skin, and I imagine turning around, lowering her down on my bed, and being the one who drags his hands all over her. Being the one who finds a slick spot that makes noise when I rub my fingers across.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“No.”

“You always say no, but I can tell this time it does.”

“There are other parts of me that are hurting more.”

“What the hell?” The door of the suite slams shut, and Pete storms into the master bedroom squealing like a freaking banshee. “What? The hell?” Pete demands.

A couple of seconds later, Riley joins the party. “Coach’s in a snit!” he rants. “What we all want to know is, why the fuck are you letting your ass get kicked?”

Brooke’s hands stop massaging my shoulders, and I swear to god, I want to pound their faces in for taking those hands away from me.

“Yes or no: You let him get in on purpose?” Riley demands.

I don’t answer.

But the look I’m sending in their direction is so clear, only a wall would not understand my fucking meaning—to piss off!

“Do you need to get laid?” Pete asks, glaring as he signals down at my lap and the painful, pulsing erection she just gave me. “Do you?”

Brooke mumbles something under her breath, and the moment she leaves, Pete fixes his attention on me. “Dude, you can’t let them do this to you just so you get her hands all over you. Look, we can arrange some girls. Whatever it is you’re doing, you can’t play these damned games like a normal person. You’re just torturing yourself, Rem. This is a dangerous thing you’re doing with her.”

My heart is pounding in anger and frustration. She. Is. Mine. Mine to take. Goddamn them for making me feel like I’m not worthy of her.

God.

Damn.

Them.

“You bet all your money on yourself this year, remember that episode?” Pete asks me, like I’m a fucking moron and don’t remember the million other times he’s told me this in a panic. “Now you need to defeat Scorpion at the final no matter what. And this includes her, dude.”

Teeth clenched, I keep my voice low as I fight to keep my temper in check, but my god, I want to punch them. Scorpion is a walking corpse. Nothing on this earth or on this planet will keep me from busting his face open and taking the title that belongs to me. He ruined my life once and that’s fucking enough for me.

“Scorpion’s a fucking dead man, so just back off.”

“You pay us to prevent this shit, Remy,” Pete counters, jerking on his tie as he paces around.

I rise to my feet and look at Riley, then wait for Pete to stop pacing and look at me. They’re my guys. My brothers. I pay them a lot of money to keep me from doing shit, and to keep me from screwing up. But I’m not screwing up with Brooke. Jesus, I haven’t set a fucking finger on her even when the thought of her under me is taking chunks out of my brain. I softly growl, “I’ve got. It. Under. Control.”

Shoving past them, I go grab my sweatpants and a T-shirt, then slam into my bathroom to change. I find Brooke in the kitchen, talking to Diane, and the mere sight of her round butt is a friendly greeting to my dick. Under control my ass. I’m a walking tornado of lust and it’s all because of her.

Stepping close behind her, I seize her wrist and tug her around to look at me. “Do you want to run with me?”

I want to be with her. Alone.

If I can’t fuck her yet, I want her close. I want her in my space, so deep that soon I want her space and mine to be the same—to be buried to the hilt in her, and she’s wrapped, hot and wet, all around me, and we’re just Brooke and Remington.

I can tell she’s alarmed by the tumultuous energy around me, and I can’t help but notice how cautiously she inspects my bruised chest.

“You need to eat, Remy,” Diane chides from the corner.

Smirking at her, I grab a gallon of organic milk from the counter and down it, then wipe my mouth with the back of my arm.

“Thanks for dinner,” I say, then I glance at Brooke, lift one eyebrow, and wait for her to answer.

The lady takes her sweet time.

“Brooke?” I prod.

Scowling thoughtfully, she keeps glancing at my chest. “How do you feel?” she asks, studying me with a keen, doctorly look I used to get at the Institute.

“I feel like running.” I peer into her gaze and dare her to deny that she wants to be alone with me too. “Do you?”

I count up to eight heartbeats, and she still hesitates, driving me insane, until she finally nods. “Let me grab my sneakers and put on my brace.”

I nod, and my mouth waters as she walks out of the kitchen to go change. God, this girl is going to be the death of me.

We run along a well-lit dirt trail that’s scattered with trees. As soon as we start, I pull my hood over my head to keep it warm and pump my fists in the air to keep the blood in my muscles rather than where it goes to when she’s around. The air is cool. She wears running shorts and a top that hugs her curves, and in my peripherals I see her breasts bouncing, her butt firm as her long legs take those sprinter strides.

Drives me fucking crazy.

“So what happened to Pete and Riley?” she asks.

“Out looking for whores.”

Her eyebrows go up as I keep punching into the air. “For you?”

“Maybe. Who cares.”

Her ponytail bounces and swishes side to side, and I like it. I like the way she measures her stride to mine, how our feet hit the dirt at the same time.

We pass a couple of other runners on the trail, but we keep going. Brooke is fit and fast. I’ve never had a training buddy, but I swear I could get used to this. To running with her.

We covered four fast miles easily before she stops and sets her hands on her knees and waves me forward. “Go on, I’m just gonna catch my breath, I’m getting a cramp.”

I search into my hoodie’s front pocket and pass her an electrolyte pack, then I bounce in place to stay warm and thrust my fists alternately in the air as her marshmallow lips part and she slides the pack over her tongue.

Fuck.

Me.

Standing.

All my blood rushes to my groin.

I’ve seemed to stop bouncing.

I don’t believe I’m even breathing.

Fuck me, she’s tonguing that packet right in front of me, and I’ll be damned if I don’t just stand here and watch like a dickhead. “Any left?” I ask.

She hands it over. I can’t help but notice she watches me as intently as I just did her as I push it into my mouth. This is what I want to do to you, I think as I look at her. This is what I want to do to your tongue, Brooke.

Sucking the remaining gel out of the packet, my body tightens when her taste slides through me. The packet has never before tasted like this. Sweet, but sweeter. It’s so fucking warm, and I’m so turned on, I suck every last drop as I look at her. Her lashes are lighter at the tips, and they sweep upward as she forces her gaze from my lips, to my eyes. Eyes that I’m fucking swallowing her with.

God, I want you. I want you now. I want you tomorrow. I want you the instant you’re fucking ready for me.

“Are they right? What Pete said? Are you doing it on purpose?”

She holds my stare with curious intent, and I’m trying to get my head straight, still rubbing my tongue on the packet. I’ve never waited so long to claim something I want, and I’ve never wanted anything like this. It’s driving me insane and crazy. Her breasts look perfect in her running gear. Her ass. Her legs. She’s delicious and I’m hungry. I am so fucking hungry for her.

“Remy, sometimes you break something and you never get it back. You never get it back.” Her voice falters, and she glances at the street and passing cars for a moment.

And just like that the lightness of tasting her is gone and my chest feels heavy. The YouTube video plays in my head and the instinct to protect her from everything they said and everything they called her only frustrates me because I can’t do shit.

“I’m sorry about your knee.” I’m not good with words, but as I slam-dunk the packet into the nearest trash can, I wish I were. I wish I could tell her how I feel thinking about her crying and helpless. I’m going to fucking protect her from now on if it’s the last thing I do on this planet.

“It’s not about my knee,” she counters. “It’s about you not taking your body for granted. Don’t ever let anyone hurt you, don’t ever allow it, Remy.”

I shake my head to appease her but scowl when I think of not ever getting hit again. She will never understand how much I crave her to touch me. Not only sexually. Her touch does crazy shit to me. I’m sick for it. I’m . . . sick.

Fuck me. She’s so beautiful and I’m so broken.

“I’m not, Brooke,” I gruffly tell her. “I just let them get close enough I can fuck them over. Little sacrifices in search of the win. It gives them confidence to get a couple of punches in, then it starts getting to their head, that I’m easy—that I’m not like they’ve heard I am—and when they get drunk on how easy they’re pounding Remington Tate, I go in.”

Her eyes brighten beautifully. “All right. I like that so much better.”

We keep running, our feet hitting the dirt, our breathing equal. Right here and right now, I’m just a guy running with a girl and, holy mother, how I want her.

“I think I quit. I’m going to be so sore tomorrow, I’d rather hit the sack now than require you to carry me to the hotel later,” she tells me.

“I wouldn’t mind.”

In the hotel elevator, several other people board with us, and instinctively I pull my hoodie lower over my head.

“Hold the elevator!” a couple shouts, and Brooke presses the button until they hop in. I grip her hips and pull her close to me once they board. Then I drop my head, close my eyes, and smell her. My body heats instantly, and I get so worked up, I imagine peeling off her top and scraping my palms over her skin until I’ve got her breasts nestled in my hands. . . .

“You feel any better?” she asks, her voice somehow different from usual.

“Yeah.” I duck my head even closer, and I want to kiss the back of her ear. Edging closer, willing her not to pull away, I put my mouth a hairbreadth away from her skin. “You?”

The scent she wears right now makes my mouth water. Sweat is the best fucking accessory on her. She’s sweaty and delicious and I want my tongue on her neck. My hand clenches on her hip, and I have to force myself to release her as we stop at our floor and step off the elevator. She steps into her room, then I head to mine, and soon I stand under my showerhead, making the water as cold as it can get and opening my mouth so the water hits my tongue, which still fucking tingles after tasting the electrolyte packet she did. I curl my hand around myself and close my eyes. Fuck, I want her. I want this in her. In her and on her.

I squeeze my length and then angle back so that the cold water runs over my body and cools me down. It doesn’t. So I have to think of my parents. The final. Scorpion. And finally I’m cool enough to soap up myself.

When I step out to dry, I hear female voices outside. Easing into a T-shirt and sweatpants, I head down the hall to the kitchen. “Hey, Rem, look what we got for you,” Pete says from the living room, and he spreads his arms out.

Two girls stand there.

“Remy,” the blonde gasps.

“Riptide,” the redhead says.

Clamping my jaw, I shake my head and go grab my headphones from where I’d left them this morning on the dining table. “Come on, dude, they’re putting up a show just for you.” Riley follows me to the kitchen, where I pull out a coconut water from the small fridge.

“I’m not in the fucking mood tonight.”

“Fine. You crave something else. That’s okay. Just chill out with us, man.”

Sighing, I drop down and sip my drink as the girls start some sort of dance. One sits on my lap. The other dances on top of the coffee table. She’s got all the right things, and she’s readily displaying them for me. But what I want to see is Brooke in her exercise clothes, with her brace, her little boobs jumping up and down as she runs. No. What I want to see is Brooke bare-butt naked for me. I want her eyes to shine with desire. I want to know the size, shape, texture, and taste of her nipples, and I want to goddamn sink every part of myself, my cock, my tongue, my fucking fingers, inside her pussy and I want it to be wet.

Fuck me, I want it to be so wet, I want to hear it.

There’s a knock on the door.

“What’s the matter?” the girl on my lap pouts. “A little birdie told us you wanted to play with us, Remy.”

“Yeah?” Riley asks to whoever is on the other side of the door.

I stiffen when I hear a muffled voice, and my cock shoots up like steel when I realize it’s Brooke.

“Who is it?” I ask as Riley shuts the door. I shove the chick off my lap and stalk over.

“Brooke seemed to lose something.”

“What did she lose?” I’m sure as fuck she must have seen the dancer, and I’m sure as fuck I don’t want her thinking I’m putting my hands on anyone but her.

“I don’t know, dude! She made a mistake!” he cries.

I charge to the door, and when there’s no sign of her outside, I start down the hall to her room. I reach the doorknob and engulf it in my palm, and I swear it’s still warm. I lean my forehead against the door and my heart pounds as I strain to hear something inside, but there’s no noise.

I stand there like a fool. Thinking about her breath as she ran with me. The way her ponytail bounced when her shoes hit the dirt. The sight of those pink lips around the electrolyte packet in the way I want them around me.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but I’m there when an old couple walk past and stare at me in pity, like I’m some poor fuck kicked out of his own room. Hell, I wish that was my room. I head back to the suite, rescue my headphones from the blonde’s butt, then I head to my room. The guys keep partying outside. They’re disappointed, and I know, but I don’t care. I slip on my headphones and stare up at the ceiling as the music starts. I got banged up today. I put my body under immense strain; I don’t feel it. All I feel is this fucking ache inside me that I somehow want her to magically fill. I’m hard and throbbing and wondering if she wants me, if she gets wet when she thinks about me.

The guys think I’m obsessed with her, that I’m going to get manic any second now and once again fuck up my entire life like I always do.

They’re so right, I don’t even laugh anymore when they warn me.

I HAD A wet dream.

I woke up in the middle of the night, thrusting the mattress, growling her name. I didn’t let myself come. I snapped awake, punched the pillow, roared in frustration, and filled the tub with cold water, then sank myself in and stayed there until the sun rose.

I’ve never been a merry dandelion in the morning, but today my bad mood and my sexual frustrations hang over me like a cloud with fucking thunderbolts in my head.

My sparring partners? These guys have tits and a vagina. They can’t take a good sparring session, and Coach? He’s in a snit when I knock them both down.

“These are sparring partners, Tate! If you’d only stop knocking them down and just have fun and work on your moves, you’d still have someone to train with today. . . . Now we’ve run out and you have no one to practice against anymore.”

“Then stop giving me little pussies, Coach,” I angrily spit. “Send Riley up here.”

“Ha. Not even if he were suicidal. I need him conscious tomorrow.”

“All right, Rem, I’ve got a little something for you,” the man in question suddenly calls, clapping on the side. “I know for sure he’s not going to knock this one out, Coach,” Riley says, and then he signals happily at Brooke.

I notice Brooke—Brooke Dumas, of all people—is climbing into the ring with me. I want to laugh. It’s like matching a kitten to a lion, but I don’t laugh because she’s wearing a black Lycra sort of outfit that molds to her every fucking curve. My eyes sweep over her and my entire body seizes. She starts to approach, swinging her hips and looking fierce, like she plans to inflict some damage on me.

I like her so much, my fucking chest hurts looking at her.

I like her eyes, her mouth, her smile, the things she says. I like her white, little teeth, her slim, small, strong hands. Her lean runner’s legs. The shade of her skin, sun-kissed and lovely. I like the ways she wears her hair. I’m attracted to every inch of this woman and every day is a challenge to keep my hands to myself when my gut screams at me to Take. Her.

“Don’t smile like that. I can knock you down with my feet,” she warns me.

She’s so cute, I can’t stop smiling. “It’s not kickboxing. Or are you going to bite too?”

She swings her leg out and I deflect it easily with one arm, lifting one eyebrow. Well, well, well, now. She’s pissed at me?

She kicks again, and I deflect, then watch her circle me and jump up and down as she warms up. Clearly, she’s attempting to weave, and she’s not only pretty good—she looks so damned good doing it. I want to stand here all day and let her weave around me and even punch me if she wants. She tries a test punch. I’m too well trained. My body moves on automatic. My arm flies out to catch her full fist in my palm.

“No,” I softly admonish, and curl my fingers over hers and tell her how to make a good fist. She tries, and I nod. “Now use your other arm to guard.”

Pretty soon she’s playfully attacking, flushed and excited, her eyes sparkling. Brooke can attack all she wants—and in the meantime, I’m watching her perky little breasts bounce up and down. She wants me to show her a new move? All right then. I do, taking advantage to touch her as much as possible. She’s a fast learner, but something dark and bloodthirsty is in her eyes. They glitter murder as she looks at me. I don’t know what she’s in a twist about, but I know that if she were mine already, I’d kiss her so hard she’d forget about everything but the way I fuck my tongue into her mouth.

She smashes her fist into my abs, and I’m so taken aback by her speed, I blink. “I’m so good,” she taunts.

Fuck, that’s about the hottest thing a woman’s done to me. She’s fucking punching me. I’m too distracted now. Here she is. In my ring. The first woman to ever get up here with me, and I’m sure god made her just this ballsy so she could stand up to me. I’m selfish like that. I think everything about her was made for me. I feel proprietary. Territorial. I want to make a claim. I want to take her down and strip her down and pin her under me.

She swings out with her foot and yelps when her foot strikes my sneakers. Instantly, I catch her by the arms, frowning in confusion. “What was that about?”

She scowls furiously. “You were supposed to fall.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I’ve toppled men much heavier than you!”

“A fucking tree topples sooner than Remy, Brooke,” Riley shouts.

“Well, I can see that,” she grumbles, then cups her mouth and yells, “Thanks for the heads-up, Riley.”

I’m so annoyed she hurt herself with me, I lead her, as she hops on one foot, to the corner, where I drop down on the chair and haul her on top of me so I can prod her ankle. “You fucked your ankle, didn’t you?” And she says I’m reckless? That I hurt my body deliberately? Did she think she was better than my ring opponents, or what—the—hell?

“I just seemed to wrongly send all my weight to my ankle,” she admits.

“Why’d you hit me? Are you pissed at me?” I demand.

She scowls. “Why would I be?”

Fuck me, I know she’s angry—I’m no idiot—and I want to know what the hell I fucking did. If she doesn’t like me right now, then I don’t stand a chance when I get manic. Worse. When I get depressed like some loser asshole. “You tell me.”

She ducks her head as she catches her breath, a sheen of perspiration on her neck.

“Hey, can we get some water over here?” I call.

Riley brings over a Gatorade and a plain bottle of water and sets them by my feet.

“We’re wrapping up,” he informs us, then he peers around to have a good look at her. “You all right, B?”

“Dandy. Call me tomorrow, please. I can’t wait to get back in the ring with this dude.”

As Riley laughs his head off, I test her ankle with my fingers, prodding into the tissue. “That hurt, Brooke?” I ask as gently as possible, and then her fingers join mine around her ankle.

“You weigh a ton,” she tells me. “If you weighed a little less, I’d have toppled you. I even toppled my instructor.”

“What can I say?” I peer, confused, into her face, wishing to know what she’s thinking.

“You’re sorry? For my pride’s sake?”

I shake my head, annoyed that she try such a stunt with me—me. Bending, she grabs the Gatorade and unscrews it as she straightens, and the blood suddenly boils in my veins as she sips. Her neck, the way the sleek, long tendons work as she swallows, fuck me now. My cock thickens painfully under her bottom, and with a voice thickened with arousal, I can’t help but ask, “Can I get some?”

When I set my lips on the rim, it’s wet from hers, and the way she watches me drink makes my balls hurt. I want to toss this shit aside and drink directly from her mouth. Instead, I return the Gatorade and make sure I brush my fingers over hers at the exchange, because I’m a devil and I need the contact. My eyes stay locked on hers as I steal that touch that shoots like a bolt up my arm, and neither of us is laughing.

She tries standing, and I instantly take the bottle and set it down, then I wrap my arm around her waist. “I’ll help you up so you can ice that.”

She leans on me as I lower her from the ring and help her out of the gym, her arm coming around my waist.

“It’s fine,” she keeps on telling me.

“Stop arguing,” I softly command.

She keeps her arm around me as we board the hotel elevator, then I lock her at my side as we ride upstairs. In profile, her nose is exquisitely dainty, and that smooth, pink mouth is perennially curved in a way that tempts me to kiss it. Her scent tickles my nostrils, and as if with a mind of its own, my nose drops as I try to find the source of that delicious smell. Holy god, I want to lick up all that sexy sweat from her neck.

One of her firm, high-perched tits softly presses into my rib cage, and I can’t pull my brain out of there. I’m painfully aware of the way that sweet little tit brushes against my side as we exit the elevator.

“Hey, man, ready for the fight?” a hotel staff member asks from across the hall, and I offer him a thumbs-up as we reach her room.

“Key,” I whisper to her.

She fumbles, then quietly I take it from her hand, slide it into the slot, and help her inside. The first bed has a ton of family pictures facing the nightstand. I set her down on the second one and I grab the leather bucket. “I’ll get you ice.”

“That’s fine, Remy, I’ll do it later,” she protests.

I pull the lock out to stop the door and go into the hallway to fill the bucket up half with ice. When I return to the room, I add some water.

Her face is pink in embarrassment when I kneel at her feet and set the bucket on the carpet, and the black of her catsuit only heightens the peach hue of her skin. I remove her tennis shoe and her sock, then I curl my hand around her calf muscle and guide her foot into the cold.

“When we get this fixed, I’m going to show you how to knock me down,” I whisper, flicking my eyes up to hers, and, god, I could eat her. Eat. Her. She’s biting down on her lower lip, her eyes wide and almost vulnerable as she lets me guide her foot into what has to equal the freezing waters of Antarctica.

“Cold?” I ask.

She sounds like her lungs are closing. “Yeah.”

Slowly, I sink her foot deeper, and she tenses completely, all the animation gone from her face. I’m torn between the urge to stop torturing her, and fixing her ankle. “More water?”

She shakes her head and then surprises me when she shoves her foot all the way under the water. “Oh, shit,” she gasps. And I know I should hold her foot in no matter what, but my instinct to protect her is so fierce I yank her foot out, flattening her skin against my abs to suck the cold out from it with my body heat. My muscles clench in shock, and her wide, surprised gold eyes lock on my face in startlement. Every one of her tiny, cold toes burns into my flesh, and I’ve been so successful in teaching my body to embrace pain, I want them closer. I curve my hand around her instep and hold her flat against me.

She looks breathless. From the cold. Or from me? She also sounds breathless. “I didn’t know you gave pedicures, Remy.”

“It’s a fetish of mine.”

I smile a lazy smile, then I pull out an ice cube and stroke it gently across her ankle. I make sure that her skin doesn’t burn as I circle around her, and I’m moving slowly enough that I can hear her breathing rhythm quicken. I shift my hold on her foot and rub my thumb along the arch while still caressing her with the ice cube.

Her voice trembles through me, like a feather stroking my insides. “Do you do manicures too?”

I glance up at her, on the bed, looking at me like a woman does when she wants to give herself away, and the hunter in me is so ready I let her know with my tone of voice what I’m thinking, what I truly want, when I say, “Let me do your feet first, then I’ll do the rest of you.”

I keep going with the ice, and when the slide of her foot across my abs feels like a caress, shocks of electricity course through me.

“Feel better?” I ask gruffly, and my head is screaming at me to kiss her. She looks like she wants it. Her pink mouth is parted. Her eyes shine with heat as she looks down on me. Her feet are on my stomach, caressing the squares of my abs—and not by accident. My hands are cupping her foot, and I crave to bend my head and lick her toes, the arch up her foot, up her leg. I want to peel that catsuit off her body, feel her skin with my lips, my fingers, my knuckles, my palms. I’m drawn to her strength and her sweetness, her bravado that makes me want to push and tease her, that draws me out of my own cave, my own walls, if only just to chase her and bring her back to my cave with me.

I don’t know the name of this, or maybe I do.

It’s the one thing in my life I don’t plan on fighting.

For the first time in my life I’m thinking of things other than fucking and fighting. I want to take care of this girl. I’m thinking about how I want to fuck her hard and kiss her softly, hold her tight and suck her gently, when she abruptly tells me, “It feels perfect now. Thank you.”

We engage in a slight tug-of-war for her foot as she tries to pull free, and I’m not too happy to let her, and then the door swings open and Diane appears. “There you are,” she tells me with a big grin. “I must feed you now so you can recharge for tomorrow!”

I stare at Brooke, confused as hell, and the way she stares at me as if I’d imagined the connection puzzles the shit out of me. What the hell? Right now, I could’ve bet my life that she’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted her. I toss the ice into the bucket and lower her foot. “I am sorry, about your ankle,” I tell her. She wanted my apology, and now she has it. “Don’t worry if you can’t make it to the fight.”

“No. It wasn’t your fault. I’ll be fine,” she hurries to say.

I’m still confused as I push to my feet. “I’ll ask Pete to get you some crutches.”

“I’ll be fine. Serves me right for messing with trees,” she calls out as I head for the door.

I stop and look at her, trying to read her, and for a moment she stares back at me, looking just as confused as I feel.

“Good luck, Remy,” she says.

Pummeled by a shitload of frustration, I consider charging across the room and slamming my mouth on hers, giving her a kiss so fucking wet and deep, there will be no doubt in her mind that she is mine. Instead, I shove my fingers through my hair and leave, then charge straight into the suite, where I know I’ll find Pete either on his laptop or on the phone.

“Get someone to look at Brooke’s sprain. Get her some fucking crutches. And get two of your own cars after the fight tomorrow, I want Brooke alone.” I cross the living room in search of food.

Pete dials to concierge. “Do you want the Escalade or would you like someone to drive you?” His yell reaches me in the kitchen as I scour for the food Diane prepared.

“Get me a driver, I want my hands free.”