“Remington, are you listening to me?” Pete asks.
Remington growls my name softly, low and deep, in the way he does when he f**ks. “Good morning, Brooke Dumas.” My tummy clenches in response to that, and with the soft kiss he sets on my ear, my knees going buttery, because he always does this to me, and as Pete’s voice repeats what he just said, I start stepping away, but Remington won’t let me.
He kicks the chair farther out and drops down, hauling me with him. Then he shifts me to one of his thighs so he can grab his sports drink from the table and finally looks at Pete, his voice low but firm. “Double our scouts and follow theirs.”
His fingers trace down my back as he downs the bottle, and Pete is left scratching and shaking his head in complete confusion.
“Rem . . . dude . . . the f**king bastard cheated to win, and he knows he’s going to lose as long as you’re fighting this season. He’s spying on us now, and he’s going to do his best to sabotage you this year. He’s going to try to screw with your head. Provoke the shit out of you!”
I’m barely wrapping my head around the topic, but whatever it is, “provoking” Remington is not a good idea. He’s got a temper, usually. He’s hardheaded and insistent and stubborn, but especially, he is Bipolar 1, and you don’t want to rouse his black side unless you’re prepared to deal with more than two hundred pounds of reckless that doesn’t sleep.
I like my more than two hundred pounds of reckless, but his reckless still worries me even if he doesn’t seem in the slightest perturbed by Pete’s warnings.
Instead of answering his PA, he turns to me and threads his fingers at the hair on my nape. “Do you want breakfast?” he asks me.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I lean over and drop my voice to spare Pete. “You mean aside from the one that walked out of my bed?” He pinches my nose and now leans to me. “Business called your breakfast out of bed today.”
“I actually feel strangely hungover this morning, I’m not hungry at all.”
“Hungover from what? My mouth?” he asks, his eyes dancing.
I look at his mouth and it is so full and perfect. The way he uses it is perfect. Every measured word he speaks is perfect. Sexy bastard. Of course he gives me hangovers, the kind I’d never met until him.
“You know,” Pete interjects, “I’d feel less concerned about him and what he plans to do if he didn’t know your Kryptonite now.” He nods at me.
“He’s not even getting near my Kryptonite. I’ll break him first.” The quiet conviction with which he says this makes gooseflesh jump on my arms, and I think I’m a little nauseous.
Last season’s final match is my worst nightmare.
“Yet I can totally envision him finding ways to reach out to your Kryptonite already,” Pete says. “Finding ways to push your red button, get you all bothered and reckless.”
Remington turns to me, then he shoves my hair aside and tips my head back to study me, like he knows I can barely hear that man’s name—much less hear them talk about it.
The Black Scorpion is my own personal Voldemort. That ass**le hurt my sister, then me. And worst of all, he hurt Remington. At that season final. He hurt him because of me. God, I fantasize killing the bastard.
“He’s gonna tease you, torment you . . .” Pete continues in an ominous tone.
Remy watches me in silence, his chest bare, his neck tanned and strong, and when he turns his attention back to Pete, his voice is more somber.
“Pete, he hasn’t even made a play, and you’re losing your shit,” he tells him.
“’Cause I’m the one left to fix things when you lose it.” Pete smoothes a hand down his black tie. “This season could get downright nasty. We want you strong and prepared, dude. We need to head to the airport in a half hour, tops, but I warn you, Phoenix might not be as calm as we anticipated.”
“I’ll keep it together. Just double our scouts,” Remington says, serious now, then he takes one last swig of his sports drink and sets the empty bottle aside.
“All right, let me call in some more. . . .” I watch Pete head over to the kitchen and punch his cell phone pad.
Now Remington’s voice deepens as he gives me his undivided attention. “You overslept,” he murmurs, cupping my face as he smiles down at me. “Wore you out last night?”
His voice oozes all kinds of sex and tenderness. As I nod, I feel myself go warm inside. “I hear sex gods do that,” I tease.
He laughs softly and strokes my lips with his thumb. “That’s right. You ready to go?”
I nip his thumb and smile as I nod.
“I missed you in bed this morning,” I whisper.
“God, me too. I need to be the first thing those pretty eyes see every morning.”
He presses me to him and buries his face in my hair, and all the tension from hearing the word “Scorpion” and the nausea leaves me when I smell him. I tuck my nose into his chest and inhale him as he inhales me, and the room falls, and the world falls, and in this moment nothing matters. Nothing matters but him, his arms around me and my arms around him. I think a part of him still can’t believe I’m in his arms again, because he’s squeezing me so tight I can hardly breathe, but I don’t want to breathe. I’m so affected by his scent, the feel of his powerful arms around me, when just two months ago I’d stupidly given up on him, I can barely take it.
“I love you,” I whisper, and when he doesn’t respond, I open my eyes and shiver when I see his fierce gaze trained on me. He rubs my bottom lip with his thumb again, then tucks me back into his chest as if I’m precious. He lowers his head, his lips to my ear: “You’re mine now.”
THREE
FLYING TO ARIZONA
The private jet is Remington’s biggest toy.
The team always takes the first section of seats at the front of the plane, while Remington and I like the bench in the back, which is closest to the enormous wood-paneled bar and flat-screen TV, even though we rarely use either.
There’s excitement in the air today as we board. The season is officially on—and after a taste of Remington’s fight last night, the team is pumped. Pete and Riley even bumped fists with the pilots as soon as we jumped out of the Escalade.
“Things are so much better with you here,” Diane tells me as she settles in her plush, better-than-first-class seat. “I get so excited seeing you two together again.”
“I have to say,” Coach Lupe jumps in, and honestly, since the man is a grumpy-fest all week round, it’s almost odd to see that smile on his bald head, “you motivate my guy more than anything I’ve ever seen. I’m not only glad you’re back, but I secretly prayed for it, and I’m a goddamned atheist.”
I laugh and shake my head as I keep heading down the aisle, and before I can reach the back, Pete seems to have boarded and calls to me, “Brooke, did you see our new Boss suits?” he asks.
Frowning, I swing around to look at Pete, and see that Riley is also already on board. Pete grins at me and smoothes a hand down his black tie as I scrutinize his appearance, and Riley grins and spreads out his arms as though to let me have a good look. I had no idea their suits were new.
They are basically all these guys wear, and today, like every day, they are both ready to be cast in Men in Black XII—or whichever it’s up to by this point.