Real(12)

Remington pulls me up from where we’d worked on his back on the floor, his blue eyes sparkling as he clenches my fingers a second longer than I expected. “No standing on me yet?” It takes me a moment to remember our conversation from the plane, and I smirk. “Not yet. But don’t worry. If you keep working out like this, we’ll get there before you know it.”



He laughs, and drapes a towel around his neck as he heads to the showers, and hours later I’ve figured that he must have fallen dead asleep after the exertion he put himself through. I, on the other hand, lay awake, sleepless. I’ve already squeezed my triceps three times since our arrival and have determined I’m not fat, and even then, I still wonder what hmm means.

I think about the plane and his hands on my triceps and his blue eyes on my face and the way his gaze rakes me when I walk over to stretch him. I think of the way he’s teased me and amused himself with me these past three days, and I just don’t understand why all that makes me squirm inside and feel hot little chills all around me. My adrenals are going to be shot if this keeps up.



I try to think of something else, but my legs are restless under the sheets, and the need to go out and run eats at me. I wish I could sprint my heart out, feel those endorphins instead of these odd little pings in my nerves that gnaw me raw, this strange need that blooms up inside me when I see Remington Tate. Even when I denied it to Melanie, I was so sure he’d wanted me that first night in Seattle, I just don’t know what happened that I got hired instead.

But it’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? A job.

Except that the price to pay for my new job is a little bit of sexual torture. Big deal. I’ll just block him out better tomorrow. With that new resolution, I grab my iPod from the nightstand and turn on my music and force myself to listen to any songs except the ones he’s played to me.





Running



“Remy! Call out Remy already! REMINGTOOOOON!”



The group of women on the seats behind me are screaming their throats off.

So you can understand how it is really, really hard to block out the man when everyone around me is clamoring for him, especially when my body is alive with adrenaline for the fight that’s about to start.

It’s a deliciously familiar feeling, actually, the one that simmers in me as I sit among the spectators at the Atlanta Underground, waiting for Remington to come out to the ring. I feel like I’m the one competing, and my body is perfectly ready. My blood rushes hot and liquid inside me, my adrenals pump me full of the right hormones, and my mind seems as clear as newly scrubbed crystal. My legs are motionless under my seat, and so are my hands, but this is merely a ruse. The stillness of preparation. Where outward, all is calm, and inward, there’s a fire roaring. This is the one minute where everything goes quiet and gathers inward, so that when it’s time to explode outward, it will be with concentrated precision that your energy unleashes in a perfectly planned burst. Even now, I remember my perfect crouching position at the starting blocks, the way all my senses seemed to hone in on the one sound of the starting shot, where everything—and I mean everything—zaps awake on that sound, and you go from standstill to running your heart out in a fraction of a second.



Now it seems that all I’m waiting to listen to is his name being announced, and when I finally hear “REMINGTON TATE, RIIIIIPTIDE!” there’s a new rush sweeping through me, and yet there’s nowhere for me to run, there’s no relief to what’s coursing in my body, only this incredibly powerful ache being fed by the very same hormones my body keeps outputting, which I have no way of stopping. I rise from my seat like the entire roomful of people do, but that’s all I can do as I watch him take on the stage in the way only he knows how to do. The crowd gets instantly high on him, and I’m lightheaded too. There he is, a woman’s living, breathing fantasy, doing his slow, cocky turn, spiky black hair, darkly tanned chest, dimpled smile—killer smile—all in the package of Remington Tate. He’s perfection itself, and a new surge of hormones sweeps through me as I do what the rest of the crowd does and take in his visual, so blatantly on display in those low riding boxing shorts and so strikingly sexy, he becomes the center of my attention.



The center. Of my. World. Ever since I stopped competing, I’ve gained body fat and am now at a healthy eighteen percent. I’m curvier than I ever used to be, with a little extra lift in my butt, and nice padding to my breasts. But I have never been more aware of my body and all its inner and outer parts than when I interact with this one man. I just don’t even know if I can ever get used to it. Can ever make him stop doing this to me. Can ever let myself “own” the fact that—yes, this man drives my body out of control.