RR&R 01 Real (9 page)
Boo! Boo-hooo!” the crowd starts shouting, and it’s all after Remy sustained another hit in his upper torso. I wince when Butcher follows with a straight punch to Remy’s lips. His head swings, and I see drops of blood splatter at his feet, and hear myself say “no” again, softly. He straightens once more and regains his position, licking the blood up from a cut part of his lip. But I don’t understand why he’s letting down his guard.
It seems like he’s not covering, and even Coach and Riley are scowling in puzzlement from the corner of the ring as they watch the fight continue, Remington landing his punches always excellently, but strangely allowing Butcher too much access into his upper thoracic region. I’m confused and anxious for it to finish, and all I know is that every punch the awful man is landing on him I can actually
feel
inside me like a knife cut in the gut.
No
!” The scream is torn out of me.
A ragged breath of relief leaves me when he jumps back up and wipes blood from his lips, but his eyes flick in my direction, and he takes another punch that swings him back to bounce against the chord.
him
take a pounding that makes me feel as helpless as I did when I cracked my knee, and could no longer do anything about it. This passivity is just not me. I’m being eaten with the sheer need either to go up there and hit that fucking fat man too, or just flee here. Fight-or-flight. But instead I just
sit
here, and it’s awful.
Yeah.
REMY, REMY, REMY!”
I start, and my head shoots back up in surprise as my eyes fly back to the ring. Fat Man is being removed with aid from the ring medics, and it strikes me with the fact that Remington seems to have broken his ribs.
But my guy is no longer in the ring.
And he might have a broken rib too.
My god, what in the hell just happened?
As quickly as I can get through the crowd, I head backstage, my heart still bonkers and my body still aching for an outlet. I find Lupe heatedly arguing with Riley about how “the bastard is playing with fire,” and when they both notice me, Coach turns away from me and Riley jabs a finger and signals “upstairs,” then he flips out the key to Remy’s suite from his back jeans pocket to me. I take it and head to the hotel, which is thankfully just around the corner.
I find Remington sitting in the bench at the foot of his bed, his spiky dark hair as beautifully rumpled as always, his breath still slightly uneven, and a wave of relief washes through me when he raises his head and his lazy smile, the one that shows only one dimple, appears.
Like the fight?” he asks, his voice rough with dehydration.
One sleek black eyebrow sweeps upward, then he drains the last of a Gatorade and sends it spinning empty across the floor. “Are you worried about him, or me?”
Him, because he’s the one who won’t be able to stand tomorrow.” I meant that tongue-in-cheek, but although he grunts, he doesn’t smile.
And suddenly every pore in my body becomes aware of this.
My hands feel slightly unsteady and I seize some salve and kneel between his legs to put it on the cut part of his lips. It’s not bleeding anymore, but it cracked right on the fleshy middle of his lower lip. Time fades away as I press my finger in there, his eyes hooded as he watches me.
You,” I whisper. “I worry about you.”
Scowling at my own thoughts, I cover up the salve tin, but remain on my knees, debating if I just start on his legs now that I’m here.
I messed my right shoulder, Brooke.”
Are you going to come fix it?”
“
Of course. Someone has to.” On my feet, I head over to kneel on the end of his bed and grab his shoulders. I’m no longer surprised at the way every cell in my body hones in on the feeling of this man’s body connected, through my hands, with mine. I just close my eyes and allow myself to enjoy it for a moment as I try to loosen him up, but the tension in his body is more unrelenting than ever. I prod deeper into his right shoulder and whisper, “That ugly bastard landed a pretty hard one here. He landed
a lot
of hard ones. Does it hurt?”
“
No.”
He sits perfectly still as he lets me work in some oil into his skin, and when I peek at his dark profile, I notice his eyes are tightly shut. “Does it hurt?” I murmur.
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, as angry as I’ve ever seen this gentle man look. His choirboy features seem sharper and not so angelic today, and even his curls look more pronounced. “What. The.
Hell
?” he repeats.
Coach’s in a snit,” Riley adds as he follows inside, and even easy-breezy Riley is scowling today. “What we all want to know is: why the fuck are you letting your ass get kicked?”
Yes or no, you let him get in on purpose?” Riley shoots him a sinister glare.
Do you need to get laid?” Pete demands, signaling at him. “
Do
you?”
As I go down the hall, I hear Pete again. “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.”
me
?
“
You bet all your money on yourself this year, remember that episode?” Pete adds. “Now you need to defeat Scorpion at the final
no matter what
. And this includes her, dude.”
You pay us to prevent this shit, Remy,” Pete counters, but that only makes Remington lower his voice even more.
“
I’ve got it. Under. Control.”
What are those guys yelling about?” Diane asks as she arranges her presentation, scowling sweetly at her baby turkey when it refuses to look pretty on the plate she chose.
“
Remy got hit tonight,” I say. Because that’s what it had been about. Wasn’t it?
I swear that man has the reddest self-destruct button I’ve ever seen…”
Remington’s icy blue eyes blaze fiercely into me, and I can feel his frustration all the way to where I’m standing. It circles around him like black whirlwind, and suddenly he seems on edge and more than a little threatening.
You need to eat, Remy,” Diane says chidingly from the corner.
A shiver runs through me.
I don’t like that my name on his lips hits all the right notes.
Like a romance movie.
Scowling at my reaction, I glance at his chest and wonder whether anything except putting him in a tub of ice is a good idea. But somehow I feel testing his limits even more today is not an option. “How do you feel?” I ask, and narrowly study him.
I feel like running.” His eyes peer intently into me. “Do
you
?”
A very. Big. Deal.
me
-time. Thinking time. Centering time. But I nod. I think he really needs it, and I’ve been needing this for hours. “Let me grab my sneakers and put on my brace.”
So what happened to Pete and Riley?”
“
Out looking for whores.”
“
For you?”
I’m truly disappointed I’ve lost stamina, for half hour into the pace we set, my lungs are straining and I’m seriously sweating despite the cool nightly breeze. I halt and put my hands on my knees, waving for him to continue. “Go on, I’m just gonna catch my breath, I’m getting a cramp.”
He stops with me and bounces on his calves so his body doesn’t cool down, then he withdraws an electrolyte gel pack from his sweatshirt’s center pocket. He extends it to me, and he gets so close that I get a whiff of him. Of soap and sweat and Remington Tate. My head swims a little. Maybe the cramp I thought I was getting in my ovaries might not be a cramp at all, but just my insides almost convulsing every time his shoulder brushes accidentally against mine.
He eases back and keeps on thrusting the air as he watches me open the gel pack at the corner and slide it into my tongue.
The blood pumps wildly in my veins, and there’s something insanely intimate about the way his blue eyes watch me lick the juice off an electrolyte packet that had belonged to him.
He stops bouncing. Breathing hard. “Any left?” he asks.
