“Coach isn’t happy with your form and Riley thinks I can help,” she tells me, watching me hit.
And I keep hitting because I’m f**king mad at her.
She belongs with me.
I want to make out with her and make her as addicted to me as anyone can be addicted to anything, and maybe when she knows the truth about me, she won’t leave.
“Remy?” she prods.
I shift my body so she doesn’t keep distracting me and keep my eyes on the ball, making it fly as I hit it madly.
“Will you let me stretch you?”
Shifting even more, I keep slamming both my fists into the belly of the bag and notice she drops an elastic band to the ground before she reaches out to me.
“Are you going to answer me, Remy?”
Her hand makes contact with my back, and a jolt runs through me. Stiffening, I drop my head and angrily wonder if Pete feels a jolt when she touches him too, then I whip around and toss my boxing gloves to the ground.
“Do you like him?” I demand.
She just looks at me blankly, so I reach out and put my taped hand on the exact spot Pete touched on her arm. “Do you like it when he touches you?”
Please say no to me.
Please say no.
There’s no word for the way she’s tormenting me. I’m trying to protect her from me. I’m trying to protect myself . . . from what could be the biggest disaster of my life.
“You have no right to me,” she says in breathless anger.
My hold tightens on her, and I growl under my breath, “You gave me rights when you came on my thigh.”
“I’m still not yours,” she shoots back at me, her cheeks red. “Maybe you’re afraid I’m too much of a woman for you?”
“I asked you a question, and I want an answer. Do you f**king like it when other men touch you?” I demand, my temper rising.
“No, you jerkwad, I like it when you touch me!” she cries.
This appeases me.
It appeases me so much, the ice in my gut immediately morphs into lava. Dipping my thumb into the crease of her elbow, I gruffly ask, “How much do you like my touch?”
“More than I want to.”
She’s furious, but I know why she is.
Because we’re f**king killing each other being apart, and I want to end it. “Do you like it enough to let me feel you in bed tonight?” I prod.
“I like it enough to let you make love to me.”
“No. Not make love.” Fuck, she not only makes my c**k hard, she makes life hard, period. “Just touching. In bed. Tonight. You and me. I want to make you come again.”
She surveys me in silence, and for a moment I feel her consider my proposal.
I have never before in my life seen a woman come like she comes for me.
Because she’s mine—and she’s as stubborn as they come. Fuck!
“Look, I don’t know what you’re waiting for, but I won’t be your plaything,” she says as she starts to pull herself free of me.
Grabbing her close, my voice is thick with frustration. “You’re not a game. But I need to do this my way. My way.” Before I can help myself, I bury my nose in her neck and scent her, my tongue sliding out to lick a wet path to her ear. A low groan rumbles up my chest before I seize her chin and force her to meet my gaze, silently willing her to understand. “I’m taking it slow for you. Not me.”
She shakes her head as if she doesn’t believe me. “This is growing old. Let’s just stretch you.” She walks to my back, and right now all her touch does is remind me what I want and she won’t f**king give me.
I jerk free and glower. “Don’t f**king bother. Go stretch Pete.” I wipe the sweat off my chest with a nearby towel, then ignore my boxing gloves and take up hitting the speed bag with my knuckles.
Whack, whack, whack.
“He doesn’t want me,” I hear her tell Riley as she stomps away.
I clamp my jaw and hit the bag harder.
THE AUSTIN CROWD loves me a thousand times more than my parents ever did. It’s my city. Where I should’ve been raised. Where I hear people yelling my name, telling me they love me.
But it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like home. Not even the ring feels like home anymore. I feel f**king homeless lately. I walk around with a hole in my chest, and no matter how hard I punch, how much I train, it won’t go away.
Banners wave all over the arena. Women scream my name. Yet all I want is for Brooke Dumas to scream it. But she never does.
I take down my last opponent with a solid KO, and the screaming that follows is deafening.
“Our victor of the night, Remingtoooooooon Tate, your RIPTIDE!” the announcer yells.
Sweat drips down my chest, my body hot with exertion. My arm raised in victory, I glance at her to see if she’s watching. She is.
My lips curl into a smile as I point a finger at her, and I watch as a line of people start heading in her direction. Holding her gaze with an even wider smile, I point at a girl coming toward her with my red rose. Brooke’s gold eyes widen in disbelief, and my chest swells with happiness as she’s soon crowded by my fans, handing her roses.
She looks stunned, grasping each rose with an expression of consternation.
On our way back to the house, she’s trembling in her seat. I’m wound up too. There’s no way in hell she’ll be able to deny my kisses tonight.
“You were awesome, Rem!” Pete bursts out inside the car. “Man, what a great night.”
“Great fight, son,” Coach adds, his voice deep with pride. “Never broke form. Never dropped guard. Even Brooke felt the love tonight, huh, Brooke?”
Silence.
Brooke is completely silent, not looking at me, her lap filled with roses. My roses. And yet she won’t look at me.
“You totally killed it,” Riley continues.
I’ve stopped listening to the guys. The only thing I hear now is the silence coming from where Brooke sits, tense across the seat from me, with an armful of roses and completely f**king ignoring me. Frustration eats at me. Don’t all women like roses? She’s clenching her jaw and won’t even look at me, and I’m so f**king confused I want to pull my hair out.
My blood boils in my veins as I stalk into my room and step into the shower, open the cold water, and stand there, closing my eyes and reliving the way she stood there, watching the roses come at her. She’d looked surprised. But had she looked excited? Had she looked happy? This just isn’t playing out the way I’d planned. I’d planned to have her in my f**king bed tonight. Where I wanted to watch her look at me the way she does while I rammed into her panties and made her come a couple of times and gasp, Remington . . .
I’m still simmering in frustration and have just stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel when I hear the door of my bedroom slam shut.
Suddenly my senses heighten. Every pore in my body buzzes with the knowledge she’s near.
And there she is. Brooke f**king Dumas.
I drop the towel.
She’s standing inside my bedroom and looking straight at me—even after the cold shower, my c**k jumps to attention.
Her gaze drops, and her face flushes red as she stomps forward with gold eyes that flash with anger and hurt. She strikes my chest repeatedly, and the pain in her voice reaches into even deeper, more vulnerable places inside me.
“Why haven’t you touched me? Why don’t you f**king take me? Am I too fat? Too plain? Do you just delight in f**king torturing me senseless or are you just plain damn mean? For your information, I’ve wanted to have sex with you since the day I went into your stupid hotel room and got hired instead!”
I react instinctively and yank her up against me while pinning her arms down. “Why’d you want to have sex with me?” I angrily demand. “To have a f**king adventure? What was I supposed to be? Your one-night f**king stand? I’m every woman’s adventure, damn you, and I don’t want to be yours. I want to be your f**king real. You get that? If I f**k you, I want you to belong to me. To be mine. I want you to give yourself to me—not f**king Riptide!”
“I won’t ever be yours if you don’t take me,” she shoots back at me. “Take me! You son of a bitch, can’t you see how much I want you?”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“Then tell me! You think I’ll leave if you tell me whatever it is you don’t want me to know?”
“I don’t think it, I know it.” I grab her face, my insides roiling painfully as I look into her hungry, frustrated gold eyes. “You’ll leave me the second it gets too steep, and you’ll leave me with nothing—when I want you like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. You’re all I think about, dream about. I get high and low and it’s all about you now, it’s not even about me anymore. I can’t sleep, can’t think, can’t concentrate worth shit anymore, and it’s all because I want to be the f**king ‘one’ for you, and as soon as you realize what I am, all I’ll be is a f**king mistake!”
“How can you be a mistake? Have you seen you? Have you seen what you do to me? You had me at hello, you f**king ass**le! You make me want you until it hurts and then you won’t do shit!”