We’re in the back of the plane the next day, our iPods in hand, my eyes devouring her and her eyes brazenly devouring me back.
“Put a song on for me,” I tell her.
Last night was a revelation. Maybe she’s more ready for me than I’d previously thought. Fuck, I can’t even think that without my hormones shooting crazy in me. As she ducks her head to choose my song, I want to brush her hair back and take her mouth, to tell her with that kiss she will be mine.
I’m playing her Survivor’s “High on You” and I’m fiercely impatient to find out what she plays me now. Another girl song? One that teases me with hints that she’s all right without a man?
I hand her my iPod and take hers in my hand, then I slip on my headphones and listen to her selection: Journey’s “Any Way You Want It.”
My lips curve in an amused smile, but holy hell, the lyrics work me up. I lift my eyes to hers, then I examine her pink marshmallow mouth. She’s telling me I can get anything I want?
Including that beautiful fucking mouth?
What about those gorgeous tits? Those legs around me?
She licks her lips anxiously as she watches me listen, and the lust hits me so bad, my cock fills up and throbs until it feels like lead.
She says something, then laughs, but the music plays in my ears and I have no idea what she’s talking about, or to who. I dip my head closer. I’m not used to subtlety. And I need to know if this means what I think it means. What I want it to. My willpower is shredded into pieces so tiny that I can’t even believe I can sit here without dragging her into my lap, plunging my fingers in her hair, and working my tongue across hers. But what this song is saying to me just gets my lion roaring and I’m starting to wonder if I can hold him back.
“Play me another one,” I command.
She hesitates, her face flushed and her eyes liquid, and I have never been more aware of my hands, the palms of my hands, my fingers, and where I want them to be. She then plays me a song by a woman who’s begging to be made love to.
As the song plays to me, I make love to Brooke in my head. I move over her, inside her, in my head. She grips me with her arms, and I grip her hips and sit her down on me, and she moves with me, opening her mouth when I lick her lips, her tongue.
Now, I lean closer and dip my head to her own, and she leans back on the seat as if alarmed, her pulse fluttering in her throat. No, little firecracker, get back here with me. Don’t fizzle out now.
Sliding my hand around her small waist, I bring her closer, then I press my lips into her ear. My cock pulses in my jeans. My heart kicks into my rib cage and it is feeding my groin. I lean back and play “Iris” to her, then I pull off both our headphones and come closer to kiss her ear again.
“Do you want me?” I ask her, my voice guttural with need.
She nods against me, and my control snaps. I clench my hands on her hips and keep her against me. God, she wants me. I knew she did. I knew it. Something in my brain snaps, and I inhale the scent at her neck, where it’s always so powerfully sweet. I’m going to make her mine tonight. Suddenly, there’s nothing stopping me. Nothing.
Fuck me being black.
Fuck everything but Brooke.
My hunger is a raging monster as I tug her earlobe with my teeth and lick the shell of her ear, delighting in making love to that little ear with my tongue. The blood rushes through me, hot and heady. I can’t stop tasting and nuzzling her. She’s fallen still in the seat, against, and almost beneath, me, and I can feel her every shudder as I work my lips on her skin. All I can think of is the songs she played me . . . how they spoke to me . . . I can get anything I want, any way I want it, and she wants me to make love to her. She’s mine. I am meant to provide and to take what she gives. I won’t deny her any longer. I won’t deny myself.
We arrive at the hotel and I book her into the two-bedroom Presidential Suite.
“You sure about this?” Pete asks.
I nod and glance at Brooke, her eyes slightly widening when I hand her a keycard from my set.
My thumb brushes her, and her eyes clasp mine, questioning. I look back and hope she reads me, willing her to know what I want tonight. If she’s not ready, I hope to hell she’ll say something now.
But she doesn’t. She takes the keycard and smiles, her smile radiant and shy, and she brushes back my thumb with hers. That, right there, was no fucking accident. Not the way she smiles, or touches me, or looks at me with a kind of bring it look that sets me on fire.
My brain starts running a mile a minute as we go upstairs to wait for our suitcases.
“What a pretty view,” she says when we enter the living room. The door shuts behind me. We’re alone. I’m suddenly doing her on the couch. The dining table. The floor. I’m tearing off her clothes. I’m sinking my cock in her and my teeth in her skin . . . my lips are on her neck and all I smell is her.
But, no, there she stands, looking outside.
Brooke Dumas.
The only woman I want.
I’m bursting the zipper of my jeans. I’ve had groupies in my rooms, naked, sliding their hands up my abs and my chest. Nothing hits me like seeing Brooke in my room, in her bouncy ponytail, looking excited and . . . happy.
She’s happy because she’s with you.
My heart kicks. I curl my hands into my palms and watch her peer nervously out the window, her teeth digging into her lower lip.
I have a fight tonight.
I can’t wait for her to watch me win.
Then . . . watch me make love to her.
Heart pounding hard inside me, I walk to her, tip her head and angle it, so her ear is tilted to my mouth. I lean and lick it, earlobe up to the shell, then I dip my tongue into the crevice and tell her, “I hope you’re ready for me. I sure as hell am ready for you.”
♥ ♥ ♥
“COME HERE, MR. Fucking Miami!” A few guys swing me up on their shoulders and carry me into the Presidential Suite after the fight, and my restless eyes scan the room for my dark-haired goddess.
“Remy! Remyyyy!” they yell as they launch and catch me.
Some days, my fists just have their own will.
Today is one of those days.
Miami fucking loves me for kicking the shit out of every poor motherfucker put in my way.
Lightning courses through my veins.
Hell, if I lifted my hands and pushed out the heel of my palms, I’m sure I’d be shooting out spiderwebs.
“That’s right, who’s the man?” I shout, slamming my fists to my chest. I got Brooke, I’m the fucking champion! People crowd the suite, and when I finally spot my woman, my eyes lock to her. She stands there watching me, her breasts rising and falling, making me drool. Her eyes shine and her smile lights up her entire face, and the hunger rips through me like talons. Holy god, I want her. “Brooke.”
I hop down and call her over with the slow crook of one finger, and she starts over. My heart pounds with each of her steps and I swear she can’t reach me soon enough, so I meet her halfway, and the moment she’s close enough to touch, I lift her in my arms, spin her around, and crush her lips under mine.
My blood sizzles as her small body melts into my bigger one, her mouth soft and as hungry as mine.
“Go fuck that pussy!” I hear some dipshit yell. I pull free, immediately pissed off. I don’t like anyone talking about her like that. I don’t like anyone even near her. I pull her closer and into her ear whisper, “You’re mine tonight.”
Her moan makes me close my eyes, and I cup her face and take her mouth again. I can’t resist her anymore, she’s got my willpower in shreds. I take it slowly, knowing we’re being watched, but telling her the same thing over and over: “Tonight you’re mine.”
I want her now. I want everyone to leave us.
“Remy, I want you, take me!” someone shouts.
Brooke’s eyes widen, and I want to tell her the only woman I’m taking from now on is her. Instead I stroke her face with my thumbs and kiss her again. I can’t stop. She gets me high and I’ve been buzzed all day since I signed her into the room with me. She’s warm and presses into me, her mouth hungry, killing me.
“Take her to your room, Tate!”
I hold her closer and tuck a strand of loose hair behind her, then I kiss the bare curve between her neck and collarbone, nuzzling near her ear, hearing myself murmur, “Mine. Tonight.”
“So are you.” With a tenderness no one ever uses on me, Brooke cups my jaw and holds my gaze, and then I’m grabbed from behind and swung in the air.
“Remy, Remy . . .” the guys chant.
When they drop me, I head to the bar to pour some tequila shots, and a woman signals for me to come get a shot glass from between her tits. I go over, but instead of complying I grab the nearest man there and ram his face into her boobs. Then burst out laughing and return to my Brooke.
Our eyes lock. I’m going crazy and hard and I’m feeling a little “speedy”—hell, I tell myself it’s the buzz. I’ve been waiting for this, wanting this, since I saw her at the first Seattle fight, looking at me like I was some sort of god and devil at the same time.
“Come here,” I whisper, and set the glass and limes down. I suck one lime edge between my lips and bend my head to pass it to her. She opens her mouth and sucks, then I draw it away and stick out my tongue. I groan with her as we linger, but eventually hand her the forgotten shot glass.
She tosses back the liquid and I hand her the lime. When she sticks it in her mouth, I duck my head to suck the juice. She moans when I tug the lime away and replace it between her lips with my tongue.
Desire roars through me.
The empty shot glasses crash to the ground as I grab her lovely ass, lift her up, sit her down on the console, wedge between her pretty thighs, and thrust my tongue into her mouth with vengeance.
She pulls me closer as I push closer, burning inside. “You smell so good. . . .” My erection aches so bad I grind it heatedly against her so she knows what she does to me, what I’m going to give her tonight. “I want you now. I can’t wait to get rid of these people. How do you like it, Brooke? Hard? Fast?”
“Any way you want it.” Shit—I remember the song she played me on the plane, teasing me, delighting and torturing me, and my underwear is near bursting.
“Wait here, little firecracker,” I say, going for more shots.
We take more shots, and I can tell she likes it. She’s smiling at me, looking at me, at my mouth, as we kiss each other between rounds. Once again they grab me and shoot me up, and I laugh as they shout, “Who’s the man? Who’s the man?”
“You bet your asses it’s me, motherfuckers!”
Dropping me down by the bar, they push an enormous glass of beer toward me, then yell and thump their fists on the bar top as they chant, “Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton! Rem-ing-ton!”
“Cool down, guys,” Pete says as he approaches us.
“Who the fuck is this nerd?” one dipshit says, but I grab the dude and slam him up against the wall, scowling.
“He’s my bro, you toad. Show some fucking respect,” I snarl.
“Calm down, dude, I was only asking!”
Forcing my fingers to let go, I drop him to the ground and go back to the tequila, starting to get annoyed. Brooke waits for me, and these fucking people keep stopping me. By the time I head back around to where I left her, she’s gone.
My stomach sinks as I scan the crowd and no dark-haired goddess is waiting for me to devour her mouth again. Glowering, I stalk to where Pete stands. “Where the fuck is Brooke?”
Puzzlement crosses his face. “What do you mean? She was just here.”
Shoving the shots into his hands, I stalk down the hall and start pushing doors open. A couple is fucking on the bed of the spare bedroom. The master bedroom is empty. She’s not among the crowd. I check by the elevators and then angrily push back through the entire crowd, and Brooke. Is. Gone.
I see red. A mix of pure anger shoots through me and I grab a pillow from one of the couches and tear it open. Cotton balls explode from the tear, and I do the same with the next, and the next. Because of course she’s fucking gone! Fucking gone fucking gone fucking gone gone gone GONE GONE GONE GONE!
Soon people are screaming in panic as I grab whatever object is near me and send it crashing to the ground. “Rem! Rem!” Pete’s voice pleads through the screams, but I don’t listen. I want to kill something. I want to break something. I want to break my own fucking head against the wall!
I grab Pete by the jacket and he wiggles out of his sleeves to escape me, then he pulls off his tie and tosses it aside as if he thinks I’ll choke him next. He slowly reapproaches me, hunching like he’s approaching a rabid animal, and I hear him speaking things, but I don’t hear anything except the roaring in my ears and my own yells. “What the fuck did you tell her about me? Where the shitfuck is she?”
I grab the closest glass bottle I can find and send it crashing into the wall. More screams. Nervous laughter.
Riley is busy ushering people out of the open suite doors when a familiar voice joins from the direction of the hall.
“Out, out, out!”
I swing around. Brooke. There she is, cheeks flushed and looking concerned. Heat and relief flash through my body and I realize I have something in my hands. I toss it behind me and hear a shattering sound, then clench my fingers as I start for her. Holy god, my Brooke. I need my hands on her, I need my body in hers, my tongue on hers.
Pete grabs my arm and pulls me back with wild, pained eyes. “See, dude? She signed a contract, remember? You don’t need to destroy the hotel, man.”
My knees feel weak from the sheer insane relief I feel.
My Brooke my Brooke my Brooke is here.
As I charge for her, Pete sticks me in the neck and I feel a prick and a burn of liquid pushed into my skin. The roiling energy inside me halts and dies, my feet slow, and my vision fogs and tunnels on her. Fuck! Fuck no! No no NO!
My brain sputters one last stream of panic that she, Brooke Dumas, who looks at me like I’m a god, is watching this. My head hangs and it’s all black. Black like me. And now she will know. She will know. And she. Will. Leave.
The despair hits me so hard, I want to die right here, right now. I try to lift myself but can’t, and Pete, with his diminutive power, is struggling to prop me up against the nearest wall. The frustration I feel, and the pain that comes when all my hopes shatter over Brooke and me, is indescribable. If this whole building sat on top of me it wouldn’t even compare.
Pete maneuvers one of my arms around him, and Riley comes to drape my other arm around the back of his neck. My feet drag, and I’m burning with the shame and humiliation of not being able to pull free and stand upright on my own. Me. I’ve fought like a madman to show her I’m strong and there could be no better protector for her than me. Now I’m a pitiful mass of muscles and bones, slumping into the guys, but the last of my adrenaline, coupled with all the panic in me, still forces me to speak.
“Don’t let her see.”
“We won’t, Rem.”
I want to lift my head to try to make sure that what she’s seeing is hopefully not me, but I can’t move. It takes the energy it would take me to move a mountain just to strain out the rest of what I need to. “Just don’t let her see.”
“Yeah, man, got it,” Pete assures.
They drag me into the room and start mumbling about me maybe getting strangled in my clothes and they strip me and plop me on the bed. My mind is already tormenting me. If she saw, she’s going to leave. She will fucking leave. She’s mine, but I can’t have her. She’s fucking mine and I can’t tell her that she is, I can’t take what I want, I can’t do anything but lie here and try to stay awake, so that if she leaves, I can stop her.
“There you go, big man.”
“Don’t let her see,” I groan.
Pete grunts and so does Riley as they try centering me on the bed. “She’s all right, she won’t see anything, Rem. Hang tight, we’ll get someone to come and make you feel good,” Riley tells me.
I bury my face in my arm and know it’s not possible. I’ll never feel good.
Brooke saw me. I saw her face for a moment. I saw her wide, scared eyes, fuck me.
I hear the door close quietly after them as the blackness claims me. It’s a familiar place I’ve been in a thousand times. Sometimes I sink to it willingly, but today I ache in all the places inside me that Brooke Dumas touches with her smiles, and all I can think of is clawing my way out of here to stop her from leaving me.
♥ ♥ ♥
THE SOUND OF clapping wakes me. The sheets rustle at my side, and this is something I don’t understand because I sure as hell am not moving. “Get your lazy asses out of bed, guys, and let’s try hitting the gym,” Riley says from the threshold.
Gym, I tell myself, even when today is one of the days when I don’t give a shit. My body feels about as flexible as a building, but I make the effort to push up on my arms—
And stop short, squinting when I spot Brooke lying next to me.
She jumps to a sit when she sees me, and all the cobwebs in my mind clear in a fucking second as I take her in.
She’s sitting like a fantasy in my bed. No. More than a fantasy. She’s fucking unreal. Gut-wrenching, ball-twisting, chest-punching beautiful. Her dark hair tumbling down her shoulders, her lips pink, her eyelids heavy and sleepy. She’s breathing fast as if she’s got on her fight-or-flight from the mere sight of me, and she wears a Disneyland T-shirt that looks so fucking old it’s screaming at me to tear it off her. The sun touches her skin and reveals a trio of freckles on her temple that I’d never seen before, and if I weren’t so sedated, I’d be tracing them with my fingers while I latched my fucking mouth onto hers.
Struggling within myself, I watch as she takes a deep breath and eases off the bed like she can’t get out of here fast enough. My heart gives a wild, helpless kick as I watch her cross the room and close the door behind her. Fuck.
As I stand to go after her, a wave of dizziness hits me, and I plop back down on the bed with a groan. A wave of grief hits me and I roll flat to my stomach. I slide back into bed and curl my hands into fists like I always do when I can’t assimilate what I’m feeling. My muscles feel leaden and I can barely move from where I dropped. That fucking sedative Pete gives me is meant for a damn rhino and I still can’t unwind my hands. I want them in her hair, at her hips, splayed over her juicy, little bottom.
I groan again. I’m naked. Hard as marble. I don’t even have the energy to jack off, and my balls are in fucking misery.
Sometime later Pete comes in. “How are you doing, Rem?”
“Why was Brooke in my fucking bed?” I demand into the crook of my arm.
“He talks,” Pete croons laughingly at me. “Our boy is doing well then.”
“Where is she now?” I growl, twisting my head with a glare.
“I let her take the day off and relax some.”
“You let her see me like this, dipshit,” I growl, smashing my palm as hard as I can manage into his shoulder, which still jerks him aside.
“Ouch! Watch that, you’re still you, you know! And the entire fucking city saw you like this.” He sighs as he paces to the window. “She signed a contract, dude. She’s not leaving you if she sees you like this or not.” He spins around and levels me a somber stare. “Look, I promise you I won’t let her leave until her term is over and you guys have sorted whatever it is you want to sort out between you.”
The thought of her leaving fills me with anxiety. “What did she see last night?” I push up on my arms.
“She saw you in your famous Destructor mode.”
God, I hate myself. Groaning, I bury my face in the pillow.
“We hired some girls for you last night, Rem,” Pete tells me, like I give a shit.
I roll over to my back with a grunt, cross my arm over my face, and fold it over my eyes. The sun bothers me. Pete bothers me. My fucking life bothers me.
“But Brooke wouldn’t let those hookers in,” Pete adds.
It takes my sedated brain like a whole fucking minute to process what he’s telling me. Then it takes another minute for me to tame the urge to chase after her.
“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.
