“Ex-plain,” I enunciate.
“All right. She’s
into
you, Tate. She was pissed last night because I sedated you and she got all protective.”
The thought of Brooke getting protective over me makes me feel
doubly
as protective of her, and half-crazed with the urge to claim her. But it has to mean something. It has to mean enough to her so that when she finds out I’m not . . .
right
. . . she’ll still be with me.
“All right, Rem, recover. Text me if you need me. I’ll go ahead and hang the DO NOT DISTURB, ALREADY DISTURBED HUMAN BEING INSIDE sign out the door.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, and roll to my stomach.
Don’t want to eat.
Don’t want to move.
Don’t want to fucking live.
Then I notice the pillow smells of her. I sniff all of Brooke Dumas on the fabric, and my dick jerks in excitement, so I exchange my pillow for hers and fall asleep.
* * *
HOURS LATER, I hear movements out the door.
Brooke!
my brain screams. My cock jumps to attention. I groan in misery once more.
I force myself to take a shower and come back to bed. The sun is setting in the horizon, but I can’t sleep. Setting my headphones on my head, I click SHUFFLE on my iPod. Song after song plays in my ears, but I don’t listen. I don’t feel them for shit.
I spend exactly two hours lying in bed, replaying the image of her in that Disneyland T-shirt. She was in bed with me like she belonged here, like a part of her already belongs to me.
I spend another hour on Scorpion, and how I can’t lie here like a loser for long. I’m not letting him take what I want from me again, am I? He provoked me and made sure I couldn’t box again—but now he’s got me in his territory, and I’m marking it as mine every single season. Points-wise, I’m on top, as usual, but I can’t allow myself to miss more than a couple of fights, even when the last thing I want to do is fight right now.
I. Want
. Her.
Pushing to my feet, I ram myself into a pair of pajama bottoms, then stalk across the suite and open the door to her room. My eyes almost bug out of my head as they run over her silhouette on the bed. With a rustle of bedsheets she sits up and her startled gaze finds me at the door, watching her.
“Are you all right?” Her voice is whisper soft, and for the first time in my life I realize a woman is worried about me. Something twists hard inside my chest.
My voice comes out rougher than I intend, gruff and slightly drugged. “I want to sleep with you. Just sleep.”
For a moment, nothing happens. Brooke just sits there . . . as if waiting. My pupils are adjusted to the dark, and I see every inch of her on that bed. And I want everything I see. I want it so much my frame is tight with barely checked need. Inhaling slowly, I walk over, scoop her up in my arms, and carry her to the master bedroom and to my unmade bed.
She clings to me like I was made to carry her somewhere. She weighs next to nothing, her little muscles tight and tiny compared to mine. I set her down and join her under the covers, pressing her face to my chest and my nose against the top of her head.
We stay like this; she holds me and I hold her. The drug is still in me. If she runs, I couldn’t catch her. My strength is there, but not my speed. But instead of leaving, she nestles closer to me, her body instinctively seeking my heat.
“Just sleep, okay?” she then whispers, her voice thick.
“Just sleep,” I murmur. “And this.”
Curling my hand around her jaw, I start kissing her. Nobody ever told me I needed more than food, air, and water to live. But I do. Holy god, I do. I need this sweet mouth now, just as much. A soft moan escapes her as she sifts her fingers through my hair and arches, and I feel the push of her firm, little tits against my chest. My testosterone shoots through the roof. I want to pull off her T-shirt and tear off whatever she wears underneath until all I can see are her gold eyes, her pink nipples, and her sweet pussy. I want to suck her clit into my mouth and slide my fingers into her sex, one, then two, then three, until she’s soaked and stretched and my little firecracker is coming for me.
I’m swollen to the max and I’m so fucking ready to make her mine I can’t breathe right, but I’m greedy when it comes to her, and making her come is not all I want. It’s only a part of it.
So I brush my tongue to hers and feel her small body tremble.
When I take you, baby, I’m taking it all. I’m taking every fucking breath, every inch of your skin. Every. Beat. Of your heart.
Her taste drugs me all over again—her wetness, her heat, the way our mouths move. It’s not enough. Soon I’m fucking her mouth and sucking and tasting her harder. She’s so hot and hungry. She runs her hands over me, like she wants all of me. Those sounds she makes deep in the back of her throat, the ones that almost sound as if I’m hurting her, send all my instincts into a frenzy, first the mating ones and then the protective ones. I want to fuck her and make her yell louder and I want to cradle her against me and protect her from everything—especially from me.
She eases back to look at me, and her lips are stained with my blood. Moaning softly when she realizes the cut of my lip opened, she comes and licks me, making me groan as I grab her closer. I want every bit of her skin on mine. She’s burning and I know she’s strong as fuck, but I’ve never wanted to hold something so gently. We kiss some more, deep and hungry, I push her face back to my neck and nestle her to me, my chest heaving as fast as hers. I think I fall asleep, but when she squirms against me in the middle of the night, I stir awake to the strange sensation of sleeping with something warm and soft against me.
She awakes too and peers up at me in the dark as if she’s never awakened with someone in bed before either. I never sleep with the women I fuck. I like my space, but I like it when Brooke is in it. I know men laugh about this. About being pussy-whipped. About panting like a dog after a girl. About wanting a woman more than you want to want her. I don’t fucking care. They can keep their sarcasm. I’ll take the girl.
Holding her curious gaze in the dark, I duck my head and I lick her mouth so she knows I want her sleeping here, then I cuddle her close and lock my arms so she won’t leave me.
PAST
DENVER
I’m not happy with the way the guys are looking at Brooke.
I’m not happy, period.
I’ve told them to back off helping her with her luggage, and she gave me this amused little smile. As if I’m some sort of jealous dickhead.
Maybe I am.
But I’m still not letting Riley carry her goddamned luggage.
Now she’s in the front of the plane, talking to them on our flight to Denver, and I’ve got the perfect view of her ass.
The ass that has been sleeping with me. In my bed. I think of her mouth. I’ve kissed her for four days. I won’t do anything else until she’s ready for me to. God, sometimes I think she’s already there. I think of how her little tongue comes to play with mine. It’s wet and playful and also anxious. Her hands rub my shoulders as she rubs it to me. She undulates her body against mine. Her legs part beneath me. I try to ignore all the green lights, the delicious press of her tits against me, and instead I focus on her mouth. I slide my hand up her throat and stroke my thumb along her jaw. She breathes as fast as me. She moans. She responds to me so hard, I have to stop and take cold showers when I’m a second away from exploding on her.
She waits for me in bed, her eyes on the door.
The instant I’m back she’s spreading out her arms and opening her mouth to me. The scent of her arousal hits me as I tell her she’s so fucking pretty and smells so good. She moans softly and tells me my name, in both ways.
Remington . . . Remy . . .
She jacks me up and I taste her throat, her collarbone, keeping my hands where my mouth is—if I touch her breasts, I’m going to lose it. Even the feel of her legs parted under me and the way she shifts to nestle my erection drives me crazy.
I taste her ear. I fuck it. I pretend every part of her body can feel my tongue. She shivers and the sounds drive me crazy as an animal. She lets me work her up so much her teeth chatter until I cover our bodies with the sheet and use my body heat to heat her up.
When her breaths are jerking out of her and she sounds too worked up, I ease back and play her some music. She likes it when I play her songs. And when I turn on the TV to help cool myself down, she leans her head against my shoulder and watches it, the gesture making me tip her head up to me and take her mouth once more until we can’t stand it.
My cock is in constant strain. The instant she looks at me, I’m hard. She looks at my mouth, smiles at me . . . everything she does runs straight to my dick.
She turns to me now, and I smile at her as she comes straight back to sit at my side, her legs and ass in those tight, pink jeans that beg to be peeled off her. I pull off my headphones and lean over to place my ear in her mouth, so she tells me what all the fuss is about with the team.
“They’re worried about you.”
“Me or my money?” I quietly ask. Another day I might not ask this. But I know they’re worried about my stupid bet. One black fucking night, I bet all my cash and savings on my win this year. Pete and Riley are worrying about it, especially Pete, who’s in charge of the finances.
“You. And your money.”
I smile at her. “I’m going to win. I always do.”
Her lips form a small smile too, and my mouth is drawn to that mouth of hers that tastes like peaches dipped in sugar. My blood heats when I notice how swollen and red her lips are from all our kissing, and the need to take that mouth in mine runs through me when she shudders.
So, she knows what I’m thinking about?
I swear I don’t even want to be here today. Only because of her did I manage to get out of my suite today and into this plane. But I don’t feel like doing anything except
her
.
“Do you want to run today? To get ready for tomorrow?” she asks.
I shake my head no.
“You’re tired?” she prods.
Nodding, I whisper, “So fucking tired I could barely pull myself out of bed.”
When she nods that dark, little head of hers in understanding, all the heaviness in my chest lifts for a moment, and she’s like a little sun in all my gray.
She leans back on the seat, her shoulder up against mine, and she looks so badly slept because of me, I slide myself lower on the seat so my shoulder is close to where her head is. And she can rest it on me.
She does.
Quietly, I pass her my iPod so she can hear Norah Jones’s “Come Away with Me.”
She listens while lazily leaning her head on me, and I duck my head to try to listen with her.
Jerking as if she’s just thought of something, she grabs her iPod, finds a song, and passes it to me. Then the Gym Class Heroes’ song “The Fighter” begins.
Her eyes are glued to my profile as I listen, and if I’ve kissed her for four fucking days straight and she’s playing me a song about fighting, I’m fucking not doing something right. “You play me a song about a fighter?” I ask her in disbelief and annoyance at myself.
She nods.
I toss her iPod aside with a scowl and then grab her by the hips and lift her onto my lap, hearing her breath catch when my erection bites into her juicy, little bottom. Bending my head down, I place my lips close to her ear. “Give me another one,” I demand.
She shudders, and suddenly she starts shaking her head. “We can’t keep doing what we’re doing, Remy. You need your sleep.”
I whisper. “Give me another song, Brooke.”
My heart kicks when she obeys me and reaches for her iPod, and I feel like I’m finally getting a bone today. Taking it from her, I click PLAY and listen intently when the familiar song of “Iris” begins.
God, this woman kills me.
I lift my head to meet her gaze while my heart beats fast and hard in my lap and in my chest. “Ditto,” I say.
“To what?”
The team up in the seating area is quiet, but they’re not looking at her and me. I slide my fingers in her hair and draw her head down so I can hungrily drag my lips along the seam of her lips. “To every lyric.”
She pulls back from me with a shudder that clearly tells me she doesn’t want to. “Remy . . . I’ve never had an affair before. I just won’t share you. You can’t be with anyone else while you’re with me.”
God, I’m so wild about her, I can’t even think of anything else anymore. Dragging my thumb along the lower lip I just licked, I look into those golden eyes that seem both pleading and demanding of me and tell her, “We won’t be having an affair.”
She doesn’t react for a moment.
I’m so hungry for more of our kissing sessions that I crush her against me and trace my nose with the shell of her ear.
“When I take you, you’ll be mine,” I promise her, trailing my thumb along her jaw as I gently kiss her earlobe. “You need to be certain.” Her gaze latches onto mine as I warn her, “I want you to know me first, and then, I want you to let me know if you still want me to take you.”
“But I already know I want you,” she protests.
I watch her mouth as it moves, telling me she wants me, and the thought of her not knowing what she’s talking about feels like a wrench in my chest. Slowly, I stroke my hand down her bare arm, my voice thick and tormented. “Brooke, I need you to know who I am. What I am.”
“You’ve had tons of women without this requisite,” she says pleadingly.
I engulf her ass in my hands and drag her deeper into my lap, memorizing the way she looks right now as I look into her eyes and will her to understand me.
“This is my requisite with
you
.”
Her eyes darken with pain, and she leans close to me and whispers, “We still can’t keep this up, Remy. Not when your championship is on the line. So you either come get me tonight to make love to me, or you leave me alone so we can both rest.”