I kiss the back of her hand. “All right.”
BROOKE WAS MISSING her friend, so I decided to bring her up from Seattle. With some reluctance, I agreed she could go with Pete to pick up Melanie at the airport.
“Remy, you’re so good,” Brooke said, sloppy kisses all over my jaw, making me laugh. Yesterday I caught her and her best friend laughing, and Brooke made love to me all night. I’ve never been so connected to anyone in my life.
When I handed her one of the sedatives Pete and Riley use—because I want her to know how to put me down if she needs to—she wouldn’t so much as look at it.
“No, Remy, don’t ask this of me.”
“It’s just to make sure I don’t hurt you.”
“You’d never hurt me.”
I get hot just thinking about the ways she keeps on trying to protect me. I’m f**king sure she knows I’m her mate. If we were in other times, and I couldn’t hunt for a day, I know damn well she could hunt for both of us.
Coach yells from the corner, “Too slow, Riptide, too damn slow. Hit it!”
I glance at the hard bag and punch. Whack. Whack. Concentrating on hitting. It comes from your core, and as long as you direct it properly, there’s no f**king way there won’t be power in that punch. I work my core more than anything. Everything I do works it, even jump rope.
I spend all day at the gym, and when I get to my sparring partner, I see Brooke and Melanie at the door. My chest swells with happiness and proprietariness. She signals that they’re leaving, and I pull off my headgear and smile.
I get a rush making her happy. I turn back to my partner and focus. My life had never felt so right. So good. I’ve never felt so accepted or so f**king understood.
That night, Pete summons me to discuss my finances. Brooke is having dinner with Melanie. I glance at my phone but get no text from her.
We’re at the hotel bar.
A woman walks up. “You have amazing eyes.”
I ignore her and turn back to Pete, drilling him: “At what time did she say she’d be back? . . . You sure Riley’s getting her? . . . Why the f**k are they taking so long?”
“Riley texted they’re on their way back,” Pete tells me after like the tenth question, and he sends me up to my room.
I’m withdrawing into myself. I’m restless. My gut feels tight and I don’t trust when I feel this. I grab my headphones and sit down, tapping my foot. I listen to Chevelle’s “The Red.”
When she finally comes in, my chest tightens. Her cheeks are pale, but her eyes well with emotion when she sees me. I don’t know why my gut tightens.
She jumps on my lap, pries off my headphones, and slips them over her head. She frowns at the song. Yeah, she hates those rock songs, and I need to kiss away that frown. I kiss her nose, cradle her jaw, and rub her lips with my thumb. She jumps, drops the headphones onto the desk, and runs to the bedroom.
My gut tightens again, and I sit there, turning off my headphones, restless. I can feel the darkness teasing into me. I’m trying to calm myself. She’s here. She’s back. She’s all right.
I watch her return. Something in her eyes that I can’t pinpoint is feeding my monster ten times over.
“Remy, would you hold me for a bit?”
I study her, confused about what I feel. Then I realize she looks anxious and in need. “Come here.” I shove my chair back and extend my arm, and she wiggles against me as I engulf her. I chuckle softly, instantly calmed in a way that only happens when I touch her.
“You missed me?” I cup her smooth cheeks and tip her head to me.
“Yes,” she gasps.
I gather her to me and set my smile to hers. We stop smiling as the heat crashes through me.
My fingers outline her br**sts, my mouth on her jaw, then I’m at the back of her ear, inhaling her, growling softly when her scent fills me. Winding me up and relaxing me. “Remy . . .” I hear the need in my name as she pushes my T-shirt up my shoulders.
I grab it in my fist and toss it aside, then strip her down to her skin, then yank her down to me again, my covered erection grinding in between her thighs. She strokes my chest and kisses every part she can.
“I missed you so much,” she says, running her lips over my jaw, grabbing my hair as she presses close to me.
I engulf her in my arms and stroke her back, then seize her face. “I missed you too.” I set a kiss on her sweet lips, and her nose, and her forehead.
She trembles, pressing so close. I want to open up and let her in any way I can. “But I missed your voice. Your hands. Your mouth . . . being with you . . . watching you . . . touching you . . . smelling you . . .” She takes my lips more desperately.
I try to slow down, but her mouth tastes amazing, and I need to remind myself that she is mine, mine, so I unbutton her and strip her bare as quickly as I can.
I draw her back to my lap when she’s naked.
My whole body clenches when I feel her pu**y nestling my erection. She seems undone.
She slides between my thighs and I yank my sweatpants partway down my h*ps until my hardness pops free, and her fingers are all over me, rubbing, squeezing, caressing.
“I want to kiss you here. . . .” Brooke’s voice shakes with desire as she looks into my lust-tightened face, into eyes that I can barely keep open from the want. “I want to drown in you, Remington. I want your taste . . . in me. . . .”
She takes me in her mouth. Ecstasy burns through me as a sound rumbles up my throat. I need this so bad I rock my hips, slowly, up to her mouth, giving her what she wants and taking what I need. Her tongue runs all over me and her eyes are halfway down as she watches me, and I watch her back, amazed, undone . . . losing myself in her, praying she can rescue me from the dark already starting within me, the high of being manic.
I FEEL LIKE a million f**king bucks.
Who the hell wants to sleep? I feel like climbing a mountain with Brooke on my back, taking her to the top, then flying down on a damn f**king parachute.
I prowl the kitchen and peer into the cupboards. I not only feel like a million bucks, my body feels like a million bucks. My f**king c**k feels like a million f**king bucks and I want to give them all to Brooke Dumas.
I stick a granola into my mouth, orange juice, a spoonful of peanut butter. I pound in some more so Brooke can rest, but I am so f**king wired and so f**king hard just knowing she’s in my bed. . . .
I want to feed her and then f**k her and then feed her and then f**k her again and make her feel like a million bucks too, all in that order.
I start with the food and bring a huge bowl of cherries and granola to our room.
She’s there, lying in bed with the sheets at her waist, her tits pressed into the mattress. Fuck I want those tits squished against me.
Setting the food aside, I jump on the bed, and as I run my hands all over her satin skin, I growl, “You look especially good, Brooke Dumas. Good, and warm, and wet, and I wouldn’t mind having you on my breakfast platter.”
Nudging my face in between the mattress and her chest, I drag my tongue up between her br**sts, then lick her collarbone, and her sweet taste seeps into me and drives me wild. “All that’s missing is a cherry on top, but I’m sure we have some.”
I grab a cherry and rub it against her clit.
Groaning with a half smile, she rolls to her back, her legs spread open, her pu**y all wet and mine, her eyes all melted for me.
“Who’s your man?” I kiss her, rubbing the cherry around her clit. “Who’s your man, baby?”
“You,” she moans.
“Who do you love?” I prod as I roll her cl*t under the pad of my thumb and ease my middle finger into her pu**y. She stares up at me with half-mast gold eyes, liquid with wanting.
“You drive me crazy, Remy,” she whispers as she wraps her fingers around my c**k and pulls me closer.
“If that’s a lie, I’m going to make it true,” I think it fair to warn her.
I grab her h*ps and shove myself in between her thighs to rub my c**k against her sex. I bend down the length of her body because I want to eat her. Lick up from her tiny toes, up the arch of her foot, her delicious calf, her precious knee—where I will linger and give it some love—then up her lean, toned thigh, up to her sweet pu**y—which I hope will be soaked like a raining heaven by the time I get there.
Getting down to business, I go forward and nibble my way up the inside of her thigh. She starts laughing and kicks me on the shoulder, but I catch her leg to still it.
“Remy! That tickles.” She’s laughing, trying to pry her leg off my grip.
I c**k a brow and run my finger up the arch of her foot, then up the inside of her leg. “This?”
She laughs and kicks again, twisting to get free.
So I swiftly change plans, grasping her wrists and pinning them above her head as I spread my big body over hers. I know she loves it when I hold her down. She can’t move unless I let her, and her eyes are darkening and she’s panting softly beneath me.
“Remy . . .” she says, sobering, her gold eyes both playful and caring as she looks up at me. “Are you speedy?”
I smile wickedly and drag a finger along the inside of her arm. “What do you think, little girl?”
“I think you’re very speedy.” She tugs free and runs her fingers over my hair as she looks into my eyes. My, probably, black eyes.