Real(2)
He smiles and backs off as the crowd keeps screaming, and he climbs up into the ring, leaving me blinking after him. It takes the woman next to me about a full minute of shaking and hyperventilating to get out, “Omigod, omigod, omigodgodgodgod, his elbow brushed me, his elbow brushed me!” “RIPTIDE, PEOPLE!” the announcer screams.
My knees go soft, and I drop to my seat, weightless as whipped cream, clasping my hands together to keep them from shaking. My brain is so melted I can’t even think past the point where he swung down from the ring and whispered close to my ear, in his terribly sexy voice, that he was sending someone for me. Just remembering it makes my toes curl. Melanie is speechlessly gaping, and Pandora and Kyle stare at me like I’m some holy being who just brought a wild animal to his knees.
“What the hell did he say?” Kyle mouths. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Melanie says, squealing and hugging me. “Brooke, that guy is hot for you.”
The woman beside me touches my shoulder with a trembling hand. “Do you know him?”
I shake my head, not even knowing how to answer. All I know is that from yesterday to now, there hasn’t been a second when I haven’t thought about him. All I know is that I hate and love the way he makes me feel, and the way he looks at me fills me with wanting.
“Miss Dumas,” a voice says, and I snap my head up to the two men in black standing between me and the ring. Both are tall and slim; one is blond and the other has curly brown hair. “I’m Pete, Mr. Tate’s PA,” Brown Curls says. “And that’s Riley. He’s the coach’s second. If you’ll follow us, please, Mr. Tate wants a word with you in his hotel room.” At first, I can’t even register who Mr. Tate is. Then understanding dawns, and a red-hot bolt of lightning streaks through me. He wants you in his hotel room. Do you want him? Do you want to do this? A part of me is already doing him ten ways until Sunday in my mind while another part of me won’t move from this stupid chair.
“Your friends can come with us,” the blond man adds in an easy voice, and he signals to the stunned trio.
I’m relieved. I think. Sheesh, I don’t even know what I feel.
“Brooke, come on, it’s Remington Tate!” Melanie hauls me up by force and urges me to follow the men, and my mind starts racing at full speed, because I don’t know what I’m going to do when I see him. My heart is pumping adrenaline like crazy as we’re led out of the Underground, to the hotel across the street, then up the elevator to the “P.”
A spike of nervousness ripples through me as the elevator pings at the top floor, and I feel exactly the way I used to when I competed. It’s been a rollercoaster ride just imagining this man’s body inside mine, and I’m suddenly close to the peak where it could be a reality. My stomach clenches from the thought of how exhilarating the downhill could be. One-night stand, here I come…
“Please tell me you’re not going to do this guy,” Kyle tells me, his face scrunched in worry as the doors roll open. “This is not you, Brooke. You’re far more responsible than this.”
Am I? Am I really?
Because tonight I feel crazy. Crazy with lust and adrenaline and two sexy dimples. “I’m just going to talk to him,” I tell my friend, but even I’m not sure of what I’m doing.
We follow the two men into the first part of the enormous suite. “Your friends can wait here,” Riley says, motioning to the gigantic black granite bar. “Please help yourselves to a drink.” As my friends flock to the shiny new bottles of alcohol, an unmistakable squeal escapes Melanie, and Pete motions me to follow him. We cross the suite and go into the master bedroom, and I spot him sitting at the bench at the foot of the bed. His hair is wet, and he holds a gel pack to his jaw. The visual of such a primal male nursing a wound after he repeatedly broke man after man with his fists is somehow fabulously sexy to me.
Two Asian women kneel on the bed behind him, each of them rubbing a shoulder. A white towel is draped around his hips, and rivulets of water still cling to his skin. Three empty bottles of Gatorade have been tossed on the floor, and he has another in his hand. He slaps the gel pack on the table and downs the last of the Gatorade. Blue as his eyes, the liquid drains in one swig, then he tosses it aside.
I’m mesmerized as his ripped muscles clench and relax under the women’s fingers. I know massage is normal after intense exercise, but what I don’t know, and can’t understand, is the way watching him get one affects me.
I know the human form. I revere it. It was my church for six years, when I decided a new career for me was in order, when I realized I wouldn’t be sprinting again. And now, my fingers itch at my sides with wanting to probe his body, push and release, get deep into every muscle.