I laugh. “That’ll never happen.” I clutch her tight and pull her face back. “I’ll kiss you anyway.”
I buzz her lips and she licks me softly, like I lick her, and I growl and suckle her tongue. I love her so much. She’s given me love in ways no one in my life ever has. I had never known someone could love me until she loved me. So alien it is to me, I wasn’t even sure why she spent nights stroking my head and I’d wake up to find her sleepy but still running her little hands all over me. I know how she defends me when I can’t. I know how strong she is. As strong as I need her to be.
“I’m going to rain kisses all over you,” she whispers.
I growl softly and nod. When she speaks, I listen because her words are my sweetest music. When she tells me her stories, about her friends. Her words have always done stuff to me—and her touch . . .
The knots inside me tighten as she drags her teeth up my jaw, up to my temple, and I squeeze my eyes shut and inhale heavily through my nostrils while my body responds fiercely to her caresses.
My muscles tense; my heart picks up, and I want to sink inside her and feel her warmth and her love, her understanding and her acceptance. Making love to her makes me feel whole and perfect, like I was made to provide and protect and mate with this woman. My woman.
She just came back to me.
I’ve been hurting like a motherfucker for over a month, wanting nothing but my Brooke.
I want her to know that she’s mine. That I’m going to protect her and that I’m going to be there for her. That I love her. That it doesn’t matter to me anything except she’s here and she’s not leaving me again because I won’t allow it. Not a single part of me will allow it.
No. I’m the one who wants to feel that she’s mine.
That she’ll never leave me.
That she will love me and touch my face and my hair in the way she touches me and everything inside me goes still and focuses on that single tender touch, the point of contact of my body with hers.
I rub my thumb over her tears and lick them one by one as they keep coming, my brain shooting a thousand words in my head. Female. Beautiful. Mine. I want to say it all but instead I don’t say anything and roll her over and cover her. I tug on her earlobe, and her sobs have turned to whimpers as I ease inside her. She slides her arms up my chest and curls her fingers on my shoulders, and I grab her br**sts and squeeze them gently like she likes, then I kiss each tip with only my lips.
She arches her spine and mews when I add my teeth on the tips, and a shudder rocks her body when I swipe the little, hard points with my tongue.
She twists her neck aside when I twirl my tongue up her skin, and she opens her throat to me. I bite close to her pulse point, and she gasps and grabs my hair to lock me in place. She moves her body under mine, keeping my face to her neck. My every muscle is coiled for release. My body is used to pain, I’ve trained it to embrace it, but this is soul deep and I hurt with it.
I lick the spot on her neck where I just bit, and she claws her nails along the bunched up muscles on my back. “Remington . . .”
A desperate plea is in her voice. I grasp her h*ps and thrust harder as I sink my teeth into her and suck her skin.
Mine.
If I’d even known she existed before, I would have hunted her.
I would have caught and conquered her.
Mine mine mine.
I scrape her gently with my teeth and then suck again. A bubbling sound leaves her and she tightens her hold on my head. I smooth my tongue out to caress the spot in case it stings, and then I take it up again, sucking so it leaves a mark, so that she will feel it, feel me on her skin tomorrow. She shudders. I delve my hand to rub her beautiful little cl*t as I mark her.
I’m going to mark her in every way I can. I want her to wear the clothes I give her, the food I get her, I want her to wear my ring, my body on hers, I want her to wear my name.
Mine.
She’s going to be mine.
In every way possible.
PRESENT
SEATTLE
The church is small, hot, and, now, packed with attendees.
Up front, flowers line up against the wall beneath a massive cross that seems to watch over the churchgoers.
The last time I’d looked at a cross, it had been held over my head while I was tied and furious in my bed. Not for a moment had I stopped squirming. I was bleeding from the binds they’d used to strap me in various places. I don’t remember that directly. But I do remember waking up from a hypnosis session to be told exactly what I described, and what I said. Did it matter? No. Do I wonder about it? No. It’s as inconsequential as a dream.
Her family is here. Her friends.
A cross. The circle.
Never cared much for praying, but for my son and my wife’s safety, I pray.
From the door of the church behind me, I hear “Gah!” and I twist around and see him. Racer.
He obviously saw me, and his two chubby arms are flailing in the air and his dimple is aimed my way. Josephine shows him a toy, and he is immediately attracted to its bright red color. He grabs it and sticks it in his mouth. And my heart starts whacking when I see the closed doors behind them.
After all we’ve been through, my wife is finally here to marry me.
“Dude, I’m going to get sentimental.”
“Shut it,” I whisper.
Murmurs surround us as the choir sets up. We discussed this for weeks. We didn’t want a wedding march.
But, at the end of the day, Brooke actually did. She’d frowned as we stepped out of the shower and used her towel to dry her hair first, “Now that I think about it, it’s the only time in our lives we’ll hear that song. I’m only ever marrying you.”
I dragged my towel over my chest, then I hooked it around her waist, using it to pull her against me. “What do you want? Tell me what you want so I can give it to you?”
She flattened her br**sts to my diaphragm as I spread the towel to engulf us both. “I want a tiny little church where it’s almost just us,” she whispered, kissing my Adam’s apple and then reaching up to caress my dimples. “And I want the march, the white dress, white roses, and you. Every second after our vows, I want to be with you.”
I seized her chin and tipped her head back farther, my lips curling. “Then your wish,” I whispered, kissing her lips, “is mine to grant.”
PAST
PHOENIX
We’re hopping from location to location for the new season, and while Pete and I check us into our Phoenix hotel, something makes my hackles rise. I turn around to spot Brooke across the lobby, heatedly arguing with Riley, who’s heatedly arguing back.
“Hey.” I reach them in five steps and immediately grab Riley by the collar. “What the f**k are you doing?” I demand.
Scowling, he pulls free and signals at Brooke, who’s scowling back at him. “I was trying to explain to Brooke, here, that things weren’t as happy when she was away.”
I don’t know what Riley’s arguing about, but I do know this: I don’t like the look on Brooke’s face. I don’t like the way her lips look downturned at the corners, and I let the ass**le know it. “It’s done with. You got that?” I angrily push my finger into his sternum until he stumbles back. “You got that?” I demand.
“Yeah, I got that,” he grumbles.
Good. I curl my fingers around the back of Brooke’s neck and I guide her into the elevator and then into our suite.
We head inside and she goes straight to the window, and I survey her round little ass. That ass is mine. “You like the room, little firecracker?” I wrap her in my arms I press into her body. “Want to hit the running trail when it gets dark?”
I play with her neck with my lips, when she turns around.
“Did you f**k other women?”
She looks at me with a new somber gleam in her eyes, and I stare back like a f**king idiot, not understanding what the f**k is going on.
“I realize I have no right to ask you.” She surveys me, and I survey her. “We broke up, right? It was the end of it. But . . . did you?”
It dawns on me that she’s jealous.
My little firecracker. Jealous.
Of me.
“It matters to you?” I ask her, smirking as my chest crams with all the shit only she makes me feel. “If I slept with anyone?”
She grabs a couch pillow and hurtles it into my chest, eyes flashing. “What do you think, you f**king jerk?”
Grabbing the pillow, I toss it aside, smiling in amusement. “Tell me how much it matters,” I croon, dodging another pillow and loving her cheeks this pink and pretty.
“Tell me!” she screams.
“Why?” I demand. She’s backing away, but I’m coming right after her. “You left me, little firecracker. You left me with a sweet letter telling me, very nicely, to go f**k myself and to have a nice life.”
“No! I left you with a letter that told you I loved you! Something you hadn’t told me until I came back to you and begged you to tell me.”
“You’re so f**king cute like this. Come here.” I pull her into my arms but she struggles to pull free.
“Remington. You’re laughing at me!” she cries wretchedly.
“I said come here,” I say, gathering her closer, and I’m f**king dying to kiss her senseless.